"Will you?" she repeated.

But his eyes had already begun to glimmer their consent. He turned aside his face, as if unwilling to give a straight answer.

"Yes," he said.

"Play something to me," she cried.

He lifted his face to her, and shook his head slightly.

"Yes do," she said, looking down on him.

And he bent his head to the mandoline, and suddenly began to sing a Neapolitan song, in a faint, compressed head-voice, looking up at her again as his lips moved, looking straight into her face with a curious mocking caress as the muted _voix blanche_ came through his lips at her, amid the louder quavering of the mandoline. The sound penetrated her like a thread of fire, hurting, but delicious, the high thread of his voice. She could see the Adam's apple move in his throat, his brows tilted as he looked along his lashes at her all the time. Here was the strange sphinx singing again, and herself between its paws! She seemed almost to melt into his power.

Madame intervened to save her.

"What, serenade before breakfast! You have strong stomachs, I say.

Eggs and ham are more the question, hein? Come, you smell them, don't you?"

A flicker of contempt and derision went over Ciccio's face as he broke off and looked aside.

"I prefer the serenade," said Alvina. "I've had ham and eggs before."

"You do, hein? Well--always, you won't. And now you must eat the ham and eggs, however. Yes? Isn't it so?"

Ciccio rose to his feet, and looked at Alvina: as he would have looked at Gigi, had Gigi been there. His eyes said unspeakable things about Madame. Alvina flashed a laugh, suddenly. And a good-humoured, half-mocking smile came over his face too.

They turned to follow Madame into the house. And as Alvina went before him, she felt his fingers stroke the nape of her neck, and pa.s.s in a soft touch right down her back. She started as if some unseen creature had stroked her with its paw, and she glanced swiftly round, to see the face of Ciccio mischievous behind her shoulder.

"Now I think," said Madame, "that today we all take the same train.

We go by the Great Central as far as the junction, together. Then you, Allaye, go on to Knarborough, and we leave you until tomorrow.

And now there is not much time."

"I am going to Woodhouse," said Ciccio in French.

"You also! By the train, or the bicycle?"

"Train," said Ciccio.

"Waste so much money?"

Ciccio raised his shoulders slightly.

When breakfast was over, and Alvina had gone to her room, Geoffrey went out into the back yard, where the bicycles stood.

"Cic'," he said. "I should like to go with thee to Woodhouse. Come on bicycle with me."

Ciccio shook his head.

"I'm going in train with _her_," he said.

Geoffrey darkened with his heavy anger.

"I would like to see how it is, there, _chez elle_," he said.

"Ask _her_," said Ciccio.

Geoffrey watched him suddenly.

"Thou forsakest me," he said. "I would like to see it, there."

"Ask _her_," repeated Ciccio. "Then come on bicycle."

"You're content to leave me," muttered Geoffrey.

Ciccio touched his friend on his broad cheek, and smiled at him with affection.

"I don't leave thee, Gigi. I asked thy advice. You said, Go. But come. Go and ask her, and then come. Come on bicycle, eh? Ask her!

Go on! Go and ask her."

Alvina was surprised to hear a tap at her door, and Gigi's voice, in his strong foreign accent:

"Mees Houghton, I carry your bag."

She opened her door in surprise. She was all ready.

"There it is," she said, smiling at him.

But he confronted her like a powerful ox, full of dangerous force.

Her smile had rea.s.sured him.

"Na, Allaye," he said, "tell me something."

"What?" laughed Alvina.

"Can I come to Woodhouse?"

"When?"

"Today. Can I come on bicycle, to tea, eh? At your house with you and Ciccio? Eh?"

He was smiling with a thick, doubtful, half sullen smile.

"Do!" said Alvina.

He looked at her with his large, dark-blue eyes.

"Really, eh?" he said, holding out his large hand.