"I'm afraid it is," he said. "Yes. Popular taste is a mysterious thing. How do you feel, now? Do you feel they appreciate your work as much as they did?"

Madame watched him with her black eyes.

"No," she replied. "They don't. The pictures are driving us away.

Perhaps we shall last for ten years more. And after that, we are finished."

"You think so," said Mr. May, looking serious.

"I am sure," she said, nodding sagely.

"But why is it?" said Mr. May, angry and petulant.

"Why is it? I don't know. I don't know. The pictures are cheap, and they are easy, and they cost the audience nothing, no feeling of the heart, no appreciation of the spirit, cost them nothing of these.

And so they like them, and they don't like us, because they must _feel_ the things we do, from the heart, and appreciate them from the spirit. There!"

"And they don't want to appreciate and to feel?" said Mr. May.

"No. They don't want. They want it all through the eye, and finished--so! Just curiosity, impertinent curiosity. That's all. In all countries, the same. And so--in ten years' time--no more Kishwegin at all."

"No. Then what future have you?" said Mr. May gloomily.

"I may be dead--who knows. If not, I shall have my little apartment in Lausanne, or in Bellizona, and I shall be a bourgeoise once more, and the good Catholic which I am."

"Which I am also," said Mr. May.

"So! Are you? An American Catholic?"

"Well--English--Irish--American."

"So!"

Mr. May never felt more gloomy in his life than he did that day.

Where, finally, was he to rest his troubled head?

There was not all peace in the Natcha-Kee-Tawara group either. For Thursday, there was to be a change of program--"Kishwegin's Wedding--" (with the white prisoner, be if said)--was to take the place of the previous scene. Max of course was the director of the rehearsal. Madame would not come near the theatre when she herself was not to be acting.

Though very quiet and un.o.btrusive as a rule, Max could suddenly a.s.sume an air of _hauteur_ and overbearing which was really very annoying. Geoffrey always fumed under it. But Ciccio it put into unholy, ungovernable tempers. For Max, suddenly, would reveal his contempt of the Eyetalian, as he called Ciccio, using the c.o.c.kney word.

"Bah! quelle tete de veau," said Max, suddenly contemptuous and angry because Ciccio, who really was slow at taking in the things said to him, had once more failed to understand.

"Comment?" queried Ciccio, in his slow, derisive way.

"_Comment_!" sneered Max, in echo. "_What?_ _What?_ Why what _did_ I say? Calf's-head I said. Pig's-head, if that seems more suitable to you."

"To whom? To me or to you?" said Ciccio, sidling up.

"To you, lout of an Italian."

Max's colour was up, he held himself erect, his brown hair seemed to rise erect from his forehead, his blue eyes glared fierce.

"That is to say, to me, from an uncivilized German pig, ah? ah?"

All this in French. Alvina, as she sat at the piano, saw Max tall and blanched with anger; Ciccio with his neck stuck out, oblivious and convulsed with rage, stretching his neck at Max. All were in ordinary dress, but without coats, acting in their shirt-sleeves.

Ciccio was clutching a property knife.

"Now! None of that! None of that!" said Mr. May, peremptory. But Ciccio, stretching forward taut and immobile with rage, was quite unconscious. His hand was fast on his stage knife.

"A dirty Eyetalian," said Max, in English, turning to Mr. May. "They understand nothing."

But the last word was smothered in Ciccio's spring and stab. Max half started on to his guard, received the blow on his collar-bone, near the pommel of the shoulder, reeled round on top of Mr. May, whilst Ciccio sprang like a cat down from the stage and bounded across the theatre and out of the door, leaving the knife rattling on the boards behind him. Max recovered and sprang like a demon, white with rage, straight out into the theatre after him.

"Stop--stop--!" cried Mr. May.

"Halte, Max! Max, Max, attends!" cried Louis and Geoffrey, as Louis sprang down after his friend. Thud went the boards again, with the spring of a man.

Alvina, who had been seated waiting at the piano below, started up and overturned her chair as Ciccio rushed past her. Now Max, white, with set blue eyes, was upon her.

"Don't--!" she cried, lifting her hand to stop his progress. He saw her, swerved, and hesitated, turned to leap over the seats and avoid her, when Louis caught him and flung his arms round him.

"Max--attends, ami! Laisse le partir. Max, tu sais que je t'aime. Tu le sais, ami. Tu le sais. Laisse le partir."

Max and Louis wrestled together in the gangway, Max looking down with hate on his friend. But Louis was determined also, he wrestled as fiercely as Max, and at last the latter began to yield. He was panting and beside himself. Louis still held him by the hand and by the arm.

"Let him go, brother, he isn't worth it. What does he understand, Max, dear brother, what does he understand? These fellows from the south, they are half children, half animal. They don't know what they are doing. Has he hurt you, dear friend? Has he hurt you? It was a dummy knife, but it was a heavy blow--the dog of an Italian.

Let us see."

So gradually Max was brought to stand still. From under the edge of his waistcoat, on the shoulder, the blood was already staining the shirt.

"Are you cut, brother, brother?" said Louis. "Let us see."

Max now moved his arm with pain. They took off his waistcoat and pushed back his shirt. A nasty blackening wound, with the skin broken.

"If the bone isn't broken!" said Louis anxiously. "If the bone isn't broken! Lift thy arm, frere--lift. It hurts you--so--. No--no--it is not broken--no--the bone is not broken."

"There is no bone broken, I know," said Max.

"The animal. He hasn't done _that_, at least."

"Where do you imagine he's gone?" asked Mr. May.

The foreigners shrugged their shoulders, and paid no heed. There was no more rehearsal.

"We had best go home and speak to Madame," said Mr. May, who was very frightened for his evening performance.

They locked up the Endeavour. Alvina was thinking of Ciccio. He was gone in his shirt sleeves. She had taken his jacket and hat from the dressing-room at the back, and carried them under her rain-coat, which she had on her arm.

Madame was in a state of perturbation. She had heard some one come in at the back, and go upstairs, and go out again. Mrs. Rollings had told her it was the Italian, who had come in in his shirt-sleeves and gone out in his black coat and black hat, taking his bicycle, without saying a word. Poor Madame! She was struggling into her shoes, she had her hat on, when the others arrived.

"What is it?" she cried.