He lifted his shoulders.
"I haven't brought him," he said, watching her.
"Why did you show him the telegram?"
"It was Mrs. Tuke took it."
"Why did you give it her?"
"It was she who gave it me, in her room. She kept it in her room
till I came and took it."
"All right," said Alvina. "Go back to the Tukes." And she began
again to brush her hair.
Ciccio watched her with narrowing eyes.
"What you mean?" he said. "I shan't go, Allaye. You come with me."
"Ha!" she sniffed scornfully. "I shall go where I like."
But slowly he shook his head.
"You'll come, Allaye," he said. "You come with me, with Ciccio."
She shuddered at the soft, plaintive entreaty.
"How can I go with you? How can I depend on you at all?"
Again he shook his head. His eyes had a curious yellow fire,
beseeching, plaintive, with a demon quality of yearning compulsion.
"Yes, you come with me, Allaye. You come with me, to Italy. You
don't go to that other man. He is too old, not healthy. You come
with me to Italy. Why do you send a telegram?"
Alvina sat down and covered her face, trembling.
"I can't! I can't! I can't!" she moaned. "I can't do it."
"Yes, you come with me. I have money. You come with me, to my place
in the mountains, to my uncle's house. Fine house, you like it. Come
with me, Allaye."
She could not look at him.
"Why do you want me?" she said.
"Why I want you?" He gave a curious laugh, almost of ridicule. "I
don't know that. You ask me another, eh?"
She was silent, sitting looking downwards.
"I can't, I think," she said abstractedly, looking up at him.
He smiled, a fine, subtle smile, like a demon's, but inexpressibly
gentle. He made her shiver as if she was mesmerized. And he was
reaching forward to her as a snake reaches, nor could she recoil.
"You come, Allaye," he said softly, with his foreign intonation.
"You come. You come to Italy with me. Yes?" He put his hand on her,
and she started as if she had been struck. But his hands, with the
soft, powerful clasp, only closed her faster.
"Yes?" he said. "Yes? All right, eh? All right!"--he had a strange
mesmeric power over her, as if he possessed the sensual secrets, and
she was to be subjected.
"I can't," she moaned, trying to struggle. But she was powerless.
Dark and insidious he was: he had no regard for her. How could a
man's movements be so soft and gentle, and yet so inhumanly
regardless! He had no regard for her. Why didn't she revolt? Why
couldn't she? She was as if bewitched. She couldn't fight against
her bewitchment. Why? Because he seemed to her beautiful, so
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