The Lost Girl Part 36

"Come off?"

"He!"

"Hurt?"

"Nothing."

"Max is all right."

"Merde!"

"Come on, come back with me."

"Nay." Ciccio shook his head.

"Madame's crying. Wants thee to come back."

Ciccio shook his head.

"Come on, Cic'--" said Geoffrey.

Ciccio shook his head.

"Never?" said Geoffrey.

"Basta--had enough," said Ciccio, with an invisible grimace.

"Come for a bit, and we'll clear together."

Ciccio again shook his head.

"What, is it adieu?"

Ciccio did not speak.

"Don't go, comrade," said Geoffrey.

"Faut," said Ciccio, slightly derisive.

"Eh alors! I'd like to come with thee. What?"

"Where?"

"Doesn't matter. Thou'rt going to Italy?"

"Who knows!--seems so."

"I'd like to go back."

"Eh alors!" Ciccio half veered round.

"Wait for me a few days," said Geoffrey.

"Where?"

"See you tomorrow in Knarborough. Go to Mrs. Pym's, 6 Hampden Street. Gittiventi is there. Right, eh?"

"I'll think about it."

"Eleven o'clock, eh?"

"I'll think about it."

"Friends ever--Ciccio--eh?" Geoffrey held out his hand.

Ciccio slowly took it. The two men leaned to each other and kissed farewell, on either cheek.

"Tomorrow, Cic'--"

"Au revoir, Gigi."

Ciccio dropped on to his bicycle and was gone in a breath. Geoffrey waited a moment for a tram which was rus.h.i.+ng brilliantly up to him in the rain. Then he mounted and rode in the opposite direction. He went straight down to Lumley, and Madame had to remain on tenterhooks till ten o'clock.

She heard the news, and said:

"Tomorrow I go to fetch him." And with this she went to bed.

In the morning she was up betimes, sending a note to Alvina. Alvina appeared at nine o'clock.

"You will come with me?" said Madame. "Come. Together we will go to Knarborough and bring back the naughty Ciccio. Come with me, because I haven't all my strength. Yes, you will? Good! Good! Let us tell the young men, and we will go now, on the tram-car."

"But I am not properly dressed," said Alvina.

"Who will see?" said Madame. "Come, let us go."

They told Geoffrey they would meet him at the corner of Hampden Street at five minutes to eleven.

"You see," said Madame to Alvina, "they are very funny, these young men, particularly Italians. You must never let them think you have caught them. Perhaps he will not let us see him--who knows? Perhaps he will go off to Italy all the same."

They sat in the b.u.mping tram-car, a long and wearying journey. And then they tramped the dreary, hideous streets of the manufacturing town. At the corner of the street they waited for Geoffrey, who rode up muddily on his bicycle.

"Ask Ciccio to come out to us, and we will go and drink coffee at the Geisha Restaurant--or tea or something," said Madame.

Again the two women waited wearily at the street-end. At last Geoffrey returned, shaking his head.

"He won't come?" cried Madame.

"No."