The Lost Girl Part 48

"And if there is nothing, what do you intend?" said Madame.

"I don't know," said Alvina brightly.

"And if there is something?"

"I don't know either. But I thought, if you would let me play for you, I could keep myself for some time with my own money. You said perhaps I might be with the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras. I wish you would let me."

Madame bent her head so that nothing showed but the bright black folds of her hair. Then she looked up, with a slow, subtle, rather jeering smile.

"Ciccio didn't come to see you, hein?"

"No," said Alvina. "Yet he promised."

Again Madame smiled sardonically.

"Do you call it a promise?" she said. "You are easy to be satisfied with a word. A hundred pounds? No more?"

"A hundred and twenty--"

"Where is it?"

"In my bag at the station--in notes. And I've got a little here--"

Alvina opened her purse, and took out some little gold and silver.

"At the station!" exclaimed Madame, smiling grimly. "Then perhaps you have nothing."

"Oh, I think it's quite safe, don't you--?"

"Yes--maybe--since it is England. And you think a hundred and twenty pounds is enough?"

"What for?"

"To satisfy Ciccio."

"I wasn't thinking of him," cried Alvina.

"No?" said Madame ironically. "I can propose it to him. Wait one moment." She went to the door and called Ciccio.

He entered, looking not very good-tempered.

"Be so good, my dear," said Madame to him, "to go to the station and fetch Miss Houghton's little bag. You have got the ticket, have you?" Alvina handed the luggage ticket to Madame. "Midland Railway,"

said Madame. "And, Ciccio, you are listening--? Mind! There is a hundred and twenty pounds of Miss Houghton's money in the bag. You hear? Mind it is not lost."

"It's all I have," said Alvina.

"For the time, for the time--till the will is proved, it is all the cash she has. So mind doubly. You hear?"

"All right," said Ciccio.

"Tell him what sort of a bag, Miss Houghton," said Madame.

Alvina told him. He ducked and went. Madame listened for his final departure. Then she nodded sagely at Alvina.

"Take off your hat and coat, my dear. Soon we will have tea--when Cic' returns. Let him think, let him think what he likes. So much money is certain, perhaps there will be more. Let him think. It will make all the difference that there is so much cash--yes, so much--"

"But would it _really_ make a difference to him?" cried Alvina.

"Oh my dear!" exclaimed Madame. "Why should it not? We are on earth, where we must eat. We are not in Paradise. If it were a thousand pounds, then he would want very badly to marry you. But a hundred and twenty is better than a blow to the eye, eh? Why sure!"

"It's dreadful, though--!" said Alvina.

"Oh la-la! Dreadful! If it was Max, who is sentimental, then no, the money is nothing. But all the others--why, you see, they are men, and they know which side to b.u.t.ter their bread. Men are like cats, my dear, they don't like their bread without b.u.t.ter. Why should they? Nor do I, nor do I."

"Can I help with the darning?" said Alvina.

"Hein? I shall give you Ciccio's socks, yes? He pushes holes in the toes--you see?" Madame poked two fingers through the hole in the toe of a red-and-black sock, and smiled a little maliciously at Alvina.

"I don't mind which sock I darn," she said.

"No? You don't? Well then, I give you another. But if you like I will speak to him--"

"What to say?" asked Alvina.

"To say that you have so much money, and hope to have more. And that you like him--Yes? Am I right? You like him very much?--hein? Is it so?"

"And then what?" said Alvina.

"That he should tell me if he should like to marry you also--quite simply. What? Yes?"

"No," said Alvina. "Don't say anything--not yet."

"He? Not yet? Not yet. All right, not yet then. You will see--"

Alvina sat darning the sock and smiling at her own shamelessness.

The point that amused her most of all was the fact that she was not by any means sure she wanted to marry him. There was Madame spinning her web like a plump prolific black spider. There was Ciccio, the unrestful fly. And there was herself, who didn't know in the least what she was doing. There sat two of them, Madame and herself, darning socks in a stuffy little bedroom with a gas fire, as if they had been born to it. And after all, Woodhouse wasn't fifty miles away.

Madame went downstairs to get tea ready. Wherever she was, she superintended the cooking and the preparation of meals for her young men, scrupulous and quick. She called Alvina downstairs. Ciccio came in with the bag.

"See, my dear, that your money is safe," said Madame.

Alvina unfastened her bag and counted the crisp white notes.

"And now," said Madame, "I shall lock it in my little bank, yes, where it will be safe. And I shall give you a receipt, which the young men will witness."

The party sat down to tea, in the stuffy sitting-room.

"Now, boys," said Madame, "what do you say? Shall Miss Houghton join the Natcha-Kee-Tawaras? Shall she be our pianist?"

The eyes of the four young men rested on Alvina. Max, as being the responsible party, looked business-like. Louis was tender, Geoffrey round-eyed and inquisitive, Ciccio furtive.