Classic Audiobook Collection - The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence ~ Full Audiobook [drama]

Episode Date: January 3, 2023

The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence audiobook. Genre: drama 'There is no mistake about it, Alvina was a lost girl. She was cut off from everything she belonged to.' In this most under-valued of his novels, Lawrence once again presents us with a young woman hemmed in by her middle-class upbringing and (like Ursula Brangwen in The Rainbow) longing for escape. Alvina Houghton's plight, however, is given a rather comic and even picaresque treatment. Losing first her mother, a perpetual invalid, and later her cross-dressing father, a woefully ineffectual small-scale entrepreneur, Alvina feels doomed to merge with the tribe of eternal spinsters who surround her in the dreary mining community of Woodhouse. Into this drab environment enter the Natcha-Kee-Tawara: a polyglot, poly-amorous troupe of travelling players united, on- and off-stage, in a fantasy of Native American nomadism. Enter Ciccio, the surly dark-eyed horseman. The Italian's potent and threatening physicality overwhelms Alvina and soon will propel her into - what? Perdition, or the paradoxical freedom of a girl who 'like(s) being lost'? For ad-free listening try our premium subscription Chapters (Approximate) (00:00:00) Chapter 01 (00:53:15) Chapter 02 (01:14:15) Chapter 03 (01:46:55) Chapter 04 (02:23:57) Chapter 05 (03:00:34) Chapter 06 (03:34:42) Chapter 07 (04:15:10) Chapter 08 (04:55:40) Chapter 09 (05:38:01) Chapter 10 (06:20:47) Chapter 11 (06:55:21) Chapter 12 (07:24:26) Chapter 13 (08:15:55) Chapter 14 (09:07:40) Chapter 15 (09:48:44) Chapter 16 (10:30:30) Chapter 17 (11:10:27) Chapter 18 (11:44:23) Chapter 19 (12:11:43) Chapter 20 (12:35:53) Chapter 21 (13:33:15) Chapter 22 (13:56:36) Chapter 23 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. Chapter 1. The Decline of Manchester House Take a mining town that like Woodhouse with a population of 10,000 people and three generations behind it. This space of three generations argues a certain well-established society. The old county has fled from the site of so much disemboweled coal to flourish on mineral rights in regions still idyllic. remains one great and inaccessible magnate, the local coal owner, three generations old, and clambering on the bottom step of the county, kicking off the mass below. Rule him out. A well-established society in Woodhouse, full of fine shades,

ranging from the dark of coal dust to grit of stonemason and sawdust of timber merchant, through the luster of lard and butter and meat, to the perfume of the caverns, chemist and the disinfectant of the doctor. On to the serene gold tarnish of bank managers, cashiers for the firm, clergymen and such like, as far as the automobile refulgence of the general manager of all the collieries. Here the Neplu Uttar. The general manager lives in the shrubberid seclusion of the so-called manner. The genuine hall, abandoned by the county, has been taken over as offices by the firm. Here we are then. A vast substratum of colliers, a thick sprinkling of tradespeople intermingled with small employers of labour,

and diversified by elementary schoolmasters and non-conformist clergy. A higher layer of bank managers, rich millers and well-to-do iron masters. Episcopal clergy and the managers of colliers, then the rich and sticky cherry of the local coal-owner glistening over all. Such the complicated social system of a small industrial town in the Midlands of England in this year of grace, 1920. But let us go back a little, such it was in the last calm year of plenty, 1913. A calm year of plenty. But one chronic and dreary malady, that of the odd women. Why, in the name of all prosperity, should every class but the lowest in such a society hang, overburdened with dead sea-fruit of odd women unmarried unmarriageable women called old maids why is it that every tradesman every schoolmaster every bank manager and every clergyman produces one two three or more old maids

do the middle classes particularly the lower middle classes give birth to more girls than boys or do the lower middle-class men assiduously climb up or down in marriage thus leaving their true partners stranded, or a middle-class women very squeamish in their choice of husbands. However it be, it is a tragedy, or perhaps it is not. Perhaps these unmarried women of the middle classes are the famous, sexless workers of our anti-industrial society, of which we hear so much. Perhaps all they lack is an occupation, in short, a job, but perhaps we might hear their own opinion before we lay the law down. In Woodhouse there was a terrible crop of old maid among the knobs, the tradespeople and the clergy. The whole town of women, Collier's wives and all, held its breath as it saw a chance of one of these daughters of comfort and woe getting off.

They flocked to the well-to-do weddings with an intoxication of relief. For let class jealousy be what it may, a woman hates to see another woman left stale on the shelf without a chance. They all wanted the middle-class girls to find husbands. Everyone wanted it, including the girls themselves. Hence the dismalness. Now James Houghton had only one child, his daughter Alvina. Surely Alvina Huffton. But let us retreat to the early 80s when Alvina was a baby,

or even further back to the parmy days of James Huffton. In his parmy days, James Huffton was Crem de la Crem of Woodhound. House Society. The House of Huffton had always been well to do, tradespeople, we must admit, but after a few generations of affluence, tradespeople acquire a distinct cachet. Now James Huffton, at the age of 28, inherited a splendid business in Manchester goods in Woodhouse. He was a tall, thin, elegant young man with side whiskers, genuinely refined, somewhat in the bulwer style. He had a taste for elegant conversation and elegant literature and elegant Christianity. A tall, thin, brittle young man, rather fluttering in his manner, full of facile ideas, and with a beautiful speaking voice,

most beautiful. With all, of course, a tradesman, he courted a small dark woman, older than himself, daughter of a Derbyshire. He expected to get at least £10,000 with her, in which he was disappointed for he only got 800. Being of a romantic commercial nature, he never forgave her, but always treated her with the most elegant courtesy. To see him peel and prepare an apple for her was an exquisite sight, but that peeled and quartered apple was her portion. This elegant Adam of commerce gave Eve her own back, nicely cored, and had no more to do with her. Meanwhile, Alvina was born. Before all this, however, before his marriage, James Horace was Horton had built Manchester House. It was a vast square building, vast that is for Woodhouse,

standing on the main street and high road of the small but growing town. The lower front consisted of two fine shops, one for Manchester goods, one for silk and woolens. This was James Huffton's commercial poem. For James Huffton was a dreamer and something of a poet, commercial, be it understood. He liked the novels of George MacDonald and the fantasies of that all. He liked the novels, extremely. He wove one continual fantasy for himself, a fantasy of commerce. He dreamed of silks and poplins, luscious in texture and of unforeseen exquisiteness. He dreamed of carriages of the county, arrested before his windows, of exquisite women, ruffling, charmed, entranced to his counter. And charming, entrancing, he served them his lovely fabrics, which only he and they could suffice.

appreciate. His fame spread until Alexandra, Princess of Wales and Elizabeth, Empress of Austria, the two best-dressed women in Europe, floated down from heaven to the shop in Woodhouse, and sallied forth to show what could be done by purchasing from James Huffton. We cannot say why James Houghton failed to become the Liberty or the Snellgrove of his day. Perhaps he had too much imagination. Be that as it may, In those early days when he brought his wife to her new home, his window on the Manchester side was a foam and a may blossom of muslins and prints. His window on the London side was an autumn evening of silks and rich fabrics.

What wife could fail to be dazzled! But she, poor darling from her stone hall in stony Derbyshire, was a little bit repulsed by the man's dancing in front of his stock, like David before the ark. The home to which he brought her was a little bit of. monument. In the great bedroom over the shop he had his furniture built, built of solid mahogany, oh, too, too solid. No doubt he hopped or skipped himself with satisfaction into the monstrous matrimonial bed. It could only be mounted by means of a stool and chair, but the poor,

secluded little woman, older than he, must have climbed up with a heavy heart, to lie and face the gloomy bastile of mahogany, the great cupboard opposite, or to turn wearily sideways to the great Chivalm mirror, which performed a perpetual and hideous bow before her grace. Such furniture! It could never be removed from the room. The little child was born in the second year, and then James Huffton decamped to a small, half-furnished bedroom at the other end of the house,

where he slept on a rough board and played the anchorite for the rest of his days. His wife was left alone with her baby and the built-in, furniture. She developed heart disease as a result of nervous repressions. But, like a butterfly, James fluttered over his fabrics. He was a tyrant to his shop girls. No French Marquis in a Dickens novel could have been more elegant and raffiné and heartless. The girls detested him, and yet his curious refinement and enthusiasm bore them away. They submitted to him. The shop attracted much curiosity, but the poor Poor-spirited woodhouse people were weak buyers. They wearied James Huffton with their demands for

common zephyrs, for red flannel which they would scallop with black worsted, for black alpaccas and bombazines and marinos. He fluffed out his silk-stripe muslins, his India cotton prints, but the native shied off as if he had offered them the poisoned robes of Heraclis. There was a sale. These sales contributed a good deal to Mrs. Huffton's nervous heart disease. They brought the first signs of wear and tear into the face of James Huffton. At first, of course, he merely marked down, with discretion, his less expensive stock of Prince and Muslin's nuns veiling and Muslin de Lange, with a few fancy braiding and trimmings in Guamp or bronze to enliven the affair, and Woodhouse bought cautiously. After the sale, however,

James Huffton felt himself at liberty to plunge into an orgy of new stock. He flitted, with a tense look on his face to Manchester. After which huge bundles, bales and boxes arrived in Woodhouse and were dumped on the pavement of the shop. Friday evening came, and with it a revelation in Huffton's window, the first Pekes, the first strangely woven and honeycomb toilet covers and bed quilts, the first frill caps and aprons for maid servants, A Wonder in White. That was how James advertised it. A Wonder in White. Who knows but that he had been reading Wilkie Collins' famous novel. As the nine days of the Wonder in White passed and receded, James disappeared in the direction of London. A few Fridays later, he came out with his winter touch. Weird and wonderful winter coats, for ladies. Everything James handled was for ladies. He scorned the coarser sex. Weird and wonderful winter coats. For ladies. Everything James handled was for ladies. He scorned the coarser sex.

Weird and wonderful winter coats for ladies Of thick black pockmarked cloth Stored and flourished their bare fur cuffs in the background While tippets, bowers, muffs and winter fancies Coquetted in front of the window space Friday night crowds gathered outside The gas lamps shone their brightest James Huffton hovered in the background

Like an author on his first night in the theatre The result was a sensation. Ten villages stared and crushed round the plate glass. It was a sensation, but what a sensation! In the breasts of the crowd, wonder, admiration, fear and ridicule. Let us stress the word fear. The inhabitants of Woodhouse were afraid, lest James Huffton should impose his standards upon them.

His goods were in excellent taste, but his customers were in as bad taste as possible. They stood outside and pointed, giggled and jeered. Poor James, like an author on his first night, saw his work fall more than flat. But still he believed in his own excellence, and quite justly. What he failed to perceive was that the crowd hated excellence. Woodhouse wanted a gently graduated progress in mediocrity,

a mediocrity so stale and flat that it It fell outside the imagination of any sensitive mortal. Woodhouse wanted a series of vulgar little thrills as one tawdry mediocrity was imported from Nottingham or Birmingham to take the place of some tawdry mediocrity which Nottingham and Birmingham had already discarded. That Woodhouse, as a very condition of its own being, hated any approach to originality or real taste, this James Huffton could never learn.

He thought he had not been clever enough, when he had been far, far too clever already. He always thought that Dame Fortune was a capricious and fastidious Dame, a sort of Elizabeth of Austria or Alexandra Princess of Wales, elegant beyond his grasp, whereas Dame Fortune, even in London or Vienna, let alone in Woodhouse, was a vulgar woman of the middle and lower middle class, ready to put her heavy foot on anything that was not vulgar, machine-made and appropriate to the herd. When he saw his delicate originalities,

as well as his faint flourishes of draper's fantasy, squashed flat under the calm and solid foot of vulgar dame fortune, he fell into fits of depression bordering on mysticism, and talked to his wife in a vague way of higher influences, and the angel Israfel. She, poor lady, was thoroughly scared by Israffel, and completely unhooked by the vagaries of James. At last, we hurry down the slopes of James' misfortunes.

The real days of Huffton's great sales began. Huffton's great bargain events were really events. After some years of hanging on, he let go splendidly. He marked down his prints, his chintzes, his dimmities, and his veilings with a grand and lavish hand. bang went his blue pencil through 3 and 11 and nobly he subscribed 1 shilling and 3 farthings

prices fell like nuts a lofty 1 and 11 rolled down to 6 3 1 and 6 magically shrank into 4pence 3 farthings whilst goods solid prints expose themselves at 3 pardt's 3 farthings per yard Now this was really an opportunity Moreover, the goods, having become a little stale during their years of ineffectuality, were beginning to approximate to the public taste.

And besides, goods sound stuff it was, no matter what the pattern. And so the little woodhouse girls went to school in petties and drawers made of material which James had destined for fair summer dresses. Peties and drawers of which the little woodhouse girls were ashamed for all that. for if they should chance to turn up their little skirts be sure they would raise a chorus among their companions yeah ah you've got your huffton's threepney draws on all this time james huffton walked on air he still saw the pha mongana snatching his fabrics round her lovely form and pointing him to wealth untold true he became also superintendent of the sunday school but whether this was an act of vanity or whether it was an attention to to establish an Entente Cordial with higher powers, who shall judge. Meanwhile his wife became more and more an invalid. The little Alvina was a pretty, growing child.

Woodhouse was really impressed by the sight of Mrs. Huffton, small, pale and withheld, taking a walk with her dainty little girl, so fresh in an ermine tippet and a muff. Mrs. Huffton in a shiny black bears fur, the child in the white and spotted ermine, passing silent and shadowy down the street, made an impression which the people did not forget. But Mrs. Huffton had pains at her heart.

If during her walk she saw two little boys having a scrimmage, she had to run to them with pence and entreaty, leaving them dumbfounded, whilst she leaned blue at the lips against the wall. If she saw a carter crack his whip over the ears of the horse as the horse laboured up hill, she had to cover her eyes and avert her face, and all her strength left her. So she stayed more and more in her room, and the child was given to the charge of a governess. Miss Frost was a handsome, vigorous young woman of about thirty years of age, with grey white hair and gold-rimmed spectacles. The white hair was not at all tragical.

It was a family trait. Miss Frost mattered more than anyone else to Valvina Huffton, during the first long 25 years of the girl's life. The governess was a strong, generous woman, a musician by nature. She had a sweet voice and sang in the choir of the chapel and took the first class of girls in the Sunday school of which James Huffton was superintendent. She disliked and rather despised James Huffton, saw in him elements of a hypocrite,

detested his airy and gracious selfishness, his lack of human feeling, and most of all his fairy fantasy. As James went further into life, he became a dreamer. Sad indeed that he died before the days of Freud. He enjoyed the most wonderful and fairy-like dreams, which he could describe perfectly in charming, delicate language. At such times his beautifully modulated voice all but sang. His grey eyes gleamed fiercely under his bushy, hairy eyebrows,

His pale face with its side whiskers had a strange lures. His long, thin hands fluttered occasionally. He had become meagre in figure. His skimpy but genteel coat would be buttoned over his breast as he recounted his dream adventures. Adventures that were half Edgar Allan Poe, half Anderson, with touches of Vartec and Lord Byron and George MacDonald, perhaps more than a touch of the last.

Ladies were always struck by these accounts. but Miss Frost never felt so strongly moved to impatience as when she was within hearing. For twenty years, she and James Huffton treated each other with a courteous distance. Sometimes she broke into open impatience with him. Sometimes he answered her tartly, Indeed, indeed, oh indeed, well, I'm sorry to find it so, as if the injury consisted in her finding it so. Then he would flit away to the Conservative Club.

with a fleet, light, hurried step, as if pressed by fate. At the club he played chess, at which he was excellent, and conversed. Then he flitted back at half-past twelve to dinner. The whole morale of the house rested immediately on Miss Frost. She saw her line in the first year. She must defend the little Alvina, whom she loved as her own, and the nervous, petulant, heart-stricken woman, the mother, from the vagaries of James. Not that James had any vices. He did not drink or smoke, was abstemious and clean as an anchorite,

and never lowered his fine tone, but still the two unprotected ones must be sheltered from him. Miss Frost imperceptibly took into her hands the reins of the domestic government. Her rule was quiet, strong and generous. She was not seeking her own way. She was steering the poor domestic ship of Manchester House, illuminating its, dark rooms with her own sure, radiant presence. Her silver-white hair, and her pale, heavy, reposeful face seemed to give off a certain radiance. She seemed to give weight, ballast, and repose to the staggering and bewildered home. She controlled the maid and suggested the meals, meals which James ate without knowing what he ate. She brought in flowers and books, and very

rarely a visitor. Visitors were out of place in the dark somberness of Manchester House. Her flowers charmed the petulant invalid. Her books, she sometimes discussed with the airy James, after which discussions she was invariably filled with exasperation and impatience, whilst James invariably retired to the shop and was heard raising his musical voice, which the workgirls hated, to one or other of the work girls. James certainly had an irritating way of speaking of a book. He talked of incidents and effects and suggestions, as if the whole thing had just been a sensational aesthetic attribute to himself. Not a grain of human feeling in the man, said Miss Frost, flushing pink with exasperation. She herself invariably took the human line.

Meanwhile, the shops began to take on a hopeless and frowsy look. After ten years' sales, spring sails, summer sales, autumn sales, winter sales. James began to give up the drapery dream. He himself could not bear any more to put the heavy, pock-holed black cloth coat with wild bear-cuffs and collar onto the stand. He had marked it down from five guineas to one guinea, and then, oh, ignoble day, to ten and six. He nearly kissed the gypsy woman with a basket of tin saucepan lids when at last, she bought it for five shillings at the end of one of his winter sales. But even she, in spite of the bitter, sleety day, would not put the coat on in the shop. She carried it over her arm down to the miner's arms, and later, with a shock that really hurt him, James, peeping, bird-like out of his

shop door, saw her sitting, driving a dirty rag and bone cart with a green-white, mouldy pony, and flourishing her arms like some wild and hairy decorated squaw. For the long bare fur, wet with sleet, seemed like a chevaux-de-frise of long porcupine quills round her forearms and her neck. Yet such good, such wonderful material! James eyed it for one moment, then fled like a rabbit to the stove in his back regions.

The higher powers did not seem to fulfil the terms of treaty which James hoped for. He began to back out from the Entente. The Sunday school was a great trial to him. Instead of being carried away by his grace and eloquence, the nasty louts of colliery boys and girls openly banged their feet and made deafening noises when he tried to speak. He said many acid and withering things as he stood there on the rostrum. But what is the good of saying acid things to those little fiends and gallbladders, the colliery children? The situation was saying, by Miss Frost's sweeping together all the big girls under her surveillance, and by her organising that the tall and handsome blacksmith, who taught the lower boys,

should extend his influence over the upper boys. His influence was more than effectual. It consisted in gripping any recalcitrant boy just above the knee, and jesting with him in a jocular manner in the dialect. The blacksmith's hand was all a blacksmith's hand need be, and his dialect was as broad as could be wished. Between the grip and the whole, the homely idiom no boy could endure without squealing. So the Sunday school paid more attention to James, whose prayers were beautiful. But then one of the boys, a protege of Miss Frost, having been left for half an hour in the obscure room with Mrs. Huffton, gave away the secret of the blacksmith's grip,

which secret so haunted the poor lady that it marked a stage in the increase of her malady, and made Sunday afternoon a nightmare to her. And then James Huffton resented something in the coarse, scotch manner of the minister of that day, so that the superintendency of the Sunday school came to an end. At the same time, Solomon had to divide his baby, that is, he let the London side of his shop to W. H. Johnson, the tailor and haberdasher, a parvenu little fellow whose English would not bear analysis. Bitter as it was it had to be. Carpenters and joiners appeared, and the premises were completely severed. From her room, the shadows at the back the invalid heard the hammering and soaring and suffered. W. H. Johnson came out

with a spick and span window and had his wife, a shrewd, quiet woman, and his daughter, a handsome, loud girl, to help him on Friday evenings. Men flocked in, even women, buying their husbands a sixpence halfpenny tie. They could have bought a tie for four-three from James Huffton, but no, they would rather give sixpence halfpenny for W.H. Johnson's fresh but rubbishy stuff. And James, who had tried to rise to another successful sale, saw the streams pass into the other doorway, and heard the heavy feet on the hollow boards of the other shop. His shop no more. After this cut at his pride and integrity, he lay in retirement for a while, mystically inclined. Probably he would have come to Swedenborg, had to.

not his clipped wings spread for a new flight. He hit upon the brilliant idea of working up his derelict fabrics into ready-maids, not men's clothes, oh no, women's, or rather, ladies. Ladies tailoring, said the new announcement. James Huffton was happy once more, a zig-zag wooden stairway was rigged up in the high back of Manchester House. In the great lofts, sewing machines of various patterns and movements were installed. A manageress was advertised for, and work girls were hired. So a new phase of life started. At half-past six in the morning there was a clatter of feet and of girls' excited tongs along the backyard and up the wooden stairway outside the back wall. The poor invalid heard every clack and every vibration. She could never get over her nervous

apprehension of an invasion. Every morning alike she felt an invasion of some enemy was breaking in on her, and all day long the low, steady rumble of sewing machines overhead seemed like the low drumming of a bombardment upon her weak heart. To make matters worse, James Huffton decided that he must have his sewing machines driven by some extra-human force. He installed another plant of machinery, acetylene or some such contrivance, which was intended to drive all the little machines from one big belt. Hence, a further throbbing and shaking in the upper regions truly terrible to endure. But fortunately, or unfortunately, the acetylene plant was not a success.

Girls got their thumbs pierced, and sewing machines absolutely refused to stop sewing once they had started, and absolutely refused to start once they had been stopped, so that after a while one loft was reserved for disused and rusty, but expensive engines. Dame Fortune, who had refused to be taken by fine fabrics and fancy trimmings, was just as reluctant to be captured by ready-maids. Again the good dame was thoroughly lower middle class. James Huffton designed robes. Now robes were the mode. Perhaps it was Alexandra, Princess of Wales, who gave glory to the slim, glove-fitting princess robe. Be that as it may, James Huffton designed robes. His workgirls,

a race even more callous than shop girls, proclaimed the fact that James tried on his own inventions upon his own elegant, thin person, before the privacy of his own Cheval mirror. And even if he did, why not? Miss Frost, hearing this legend, looked sideways at the enthusiast. Let us remark in time that Miss Frost had already ceased to draw any maintenance from James Huffton. Far from it, She herself contributed to the upkeep of the domestic hearth and board. She had fully decided never to leave her two charges. She knew that a governess was an impossible item in Manchester House, as things went. And so she trudged the country, giving music lessons to the daughters of tradesmen and of colliers,

who boasted pianofortes. She even taught heavy-handed but dauntless colliers, who were seized with a passion to play. Miles, she trudged on her round from virgins. village to village, a white-haired woman with a long, quick stride, a strong figure and a quick handsome smile when once her face awoke behind her gold-rimmed glasses. Like many short-sighted people, she had a certain intent look of one who goes her own way. The miners knew her, and entertained the highest respect and admiration for her. As they streamed in a grimy stream home from pit, they diverged like some magic dark river from off the pavement into the horseway

to give her room as she approached. And the men who knew her well enough to salute her by calling her name, Miss Frost, giving it the proper intonation of salute were fussy men indeed. She's a lady if ever there was one, they said, and they meant it. Hearing her name, poor Miss Frost would flash a smile and a nod from behind her spectacles. But whose blackface she smiled to she never or rarely knew. If she did chance to get an inkling, then gladly she called in reply, Mr. Lamb or Mr. Caledale. In her way she was a proud woman, for she was regarded with cordial respect, touched with veneration, by at least a thousand colliers, and by perhaps as many collier's wives, that is something for any woman. Miss Frost charged fifteen shillings for thirteen weeks lessons,

two lessons a week, and at that she was considered rather dear. She was supposed to be making money. What money she made went chiefly to support the Huffton household. In the meanwhile she drilled Alvina thoroughly in theory and pianoforte practice, for Alvina was naturally musical, and besides this she imparted to the girl the elements of a young lady's education, including the drawing of flowers in watercolour and the translation of a Lamareteen poem. Now incredible as it may seem, fate through another prop to the falling house of Huffton, in the person of the manageress of the workgirls, Miss Pinnagar. James Huffton complained of fortune, yet to what other man would fortune have sent two such

women as Miss Frost and Miss Pinnagar gratis? Yet there they were, and doubtful if James was ever grateful for their presence. If Miss Frost saved them from heaven knows what domestic debacle and horror, Miss Pinnigar saved him from the workhouse. Let us not mince matters. For a dozen years Miss Frost supported the heart-stricken, nervous invalid. Clarice Huffton, for more than twenty years she cherished, tended and protected the young Alvina, shielding the child alike from a neurotic mother and a father such as James.

For nearly twenty years she saw that food was set on the table, and clean sheets were spread on the beds, and all the time remained virtually in the position of an outsider without one grain of established authority. And then to find Miss Pinnigar, in her way Miss Pinnigar was very different from Miss Frost. She was a rather short, stout, mouse-coloured, creepy kind of woman,

with a high colour in her cheeks and done close hair like a cap. It was evident she was not a lady. Her grandma was not without reproach. She had pale grey eyes, and a padding step and a soft voice and almost purplish cheeks. Mrs. Huffton, Miss Frost and Alvina did not like her. They suffered her unwillingly.

But from the first she had a curious ascendancy over James Huffton. One would have expected his aesthetic eye to be offended, but no doubt it was her voice, her soft, near, sure voice, which seemed almost like a secret touch upon her hearer. Now many of her hearers disliked being secretly. touched, as if it were beneath their clothing. Miss Frost abhorred it, so did Mrs. Huffton. Miss Frost's voice was clear and straight as a bell-note, open as the day. Yet Alvina, though in loyalty she adhered to her beloved Miss Frost, did not really mind the quiet, suggestive power

of Miss Pinnigar. For Miss Pinnigar was not vulgarly insinuating. On the contrary, the things she said were rather clumsy and downright. It was only that she seemed to weigh what she said, secretly, before she said it, and then she approached as if she would slip it into her hearer's consciousness without his being aware of it. She seemed to slide her speeches unnoticed into one's ears, so that one accepted them without the slightest challenge. That was just her manner of approach. In her own way, she was as loyal and unselfish as Miss Frost. There are such poles of opposition between honesty and loyalties. Miss Pinnigar had the second class of girls in the Sunday school, and she took second subservient place in Manchester House.

By force of nature, Miss Frost took first place. Only when Miss Pinnigar spoke to Mr. Huffton, nay, the very way she addressed herself to him. What do you think, Mr. Huffton? Then there seemed to be assumed an immediacy of correspondence between the two, and an unquestioned priority in their unison, his and hers, which was a cruel thorn in Miss Frost's outspoken breast. This sort of secret intimacy and secret exulting in having really the chief power was most repugnant to the white-haired woman.

Not that there was in fact any secrecy or any form of unwarranted correspondence between James Huffton and Miss Pinnigar, far from it. Each of them would have found any suggestion of such a possibility repulsive in the extreme. It was simply an implicit correspondence between their two psyches, an immediacy of understanding which preceded all expression, tacit, wireless. Miss Pinnigar lived in, so that the household consisted of the invalid, who mostly sat in her black dress with a white-laced collar, fastened by a twisted gold brooch,

in her own dim room, doing nothing, nervous and heart-suffering. Then James, and the thin young Alvina, who adhered to her beloved Miss Frost, and then these two strange women. Miss Pinnigar never lifted up her voice in house, household affairs. She seemed, by her silence, to admit her own inadequacy in culture and intellect, when topics of interest were being discussed, only coming out now and then with defiant platitudes

and truisms, for almost defiantly she took the commonplace, vulgarian point of view, yet after everything she would turn, with her quiet, triumphant assurance to James Huffton and start on some point of business, soft, assured, ascendant. The others shut their ears. Now Miss Pinnigar had to get her footing slowly. She had to let James run the gamut of his creations. Each Friday night new wonders, robes and ladies' suits, the phrase was very new, garnished the window of Huffton's shop.

It was one of the sights of the place, Huffton's window on Friday night. Young or old, no individual, certainly no female, left Woodhouse, without spending and excited and usually hilarious, minutes on the pavement under the window. Muffled shrieks of young damsels who had just got their first view. Guff-aurs of sympathetic youths continued giggling and expostulation and, hey, but what price the umbrella skirt, my girl? And you'd like to marry me in that, my boy, what? Not half. Or else, hey, nah, if you'd see me in that, you'd have fallen in love

me at first sight, shouldn't you? With a probable answer, I should have fallen over. myself making haste to get away, loud guffaw's. All this was the regular Friday nights entertainment in Woodhouse. James Huffton's shop was regarded as a weekly comic issue. His P.K. costumes with glass buttons and sort of steel-trimming collars and cuffs were immortal. But why, once more, drag it out? Miss Pinnigar served in the shop on Friday nights. She stood by her man. Sometimes when the shrieks grew loudish, she came to the shop door and looked with her pale grey eyes at the ridiculous mob of lasses in tamashantas and youths half buried in caps and she imposed a silence they edged away meanwhile miss pinnigars pursued the

sober and even tenor of her own way whilst james lashed out to use the local phrase in robes and suits miss pinnigar steadily ground away producing strong indestructible shirts and singlets for the colliers, sound, serviceable aprons for the collier's wives, good print dresses for servants, and so on. She executed no flights of fancy. She had her goods made to suit her people. And so, underneath the thome and throff of James' creative adventure flowed a slow but steady stream of output and income. The women of Woodhouse came at last to depend on Miss Pinnigar. Growing lads in the pit reduced their garments to shreds with amazing, expedition. I'll go to Miss Pinnigar for thy shirts this time, my lad, said the harassed

mothers, and see if they'll stand thee. It was almost like a threat, but it served Manchester House. James bought very little stock in these days, just remnants and pieces for his immortal robes. It was Miss Pinnigar who saw the travellers and ordered the unions and calicoes and grey flannel. James hovered round and said the last word, of course, but what was his last word but an echo of Miss Pinnigar's penultimate. He was not interested in unions and twills. His own stock remained on hand. Time, like a slow whirlpool, churned it over into sight and out of sight, like a mass of dead seaweed in a backwash. There was a regular series of sales fortnightly. The display of creations fell off. The new entertainment was the Friday night's sale. James would attack some portion of his

stock, make a wild jumble of it, spend a delirious Wednesday and Thursday marking down, and then open on Friday afternoon. In the evening there was a crush. A good Moiree underscurt for one and eleven three was not to be neglected, and a handsome string-laced colorette for six-three would iron out and be worth at least three and six. That was how it went. It would nearly all of it iron out into something really nice, poor James crumpled stock. His fine, semi-transparent face flushed pink. His eyes flashed as he took in the sixpences and handed back knots of tape or packets of pins for the notorious farthings. What matter if the farthing change had originally cost him a halfpenny? His shop was crowded with women peeping and pawing and turning

things over and commenting in loud, unfeeling tones, but there were still many comic items. Once, for example, he suddenly heaped up piles of hats, trimmed and untrimmed, the weirdest, sauciest, most screaming shapes. Woodhouse enjoyed itself that night. And all the time, in her quiet, polite, think-the-more fashion, Miss Pinnigar waited on the people, showing them considerable forbearance and just a tinge of contempt. She became very tired those evenings. Her hair, under its invisible hairnet, became flatter, her cheeks hung down purplish and mottled but while james stood she stood the people did not like her yet she influenced them and the stock slowly wilted withered some was scrapped the shop seemed to have digested some of its indigestable contents James accumulated sixpences in a miserly fashion.

Luckily for her workgirls, Miss Pinnigar took her own orders and received payments for her own productions. Some of her regular customers paid her a shilling a week, or less, but it made a small, steady income. She reserved her own modest share, paid the expenses of her department, and left the residue to James. James had accumulated sixpences and made a little space in his shop.

He had desisted from creations. Time now for a new flight. He decided it was better to be a manufacturer than a tradesman. His shop, already only half its original size, was again too big. It might be split once more. Rents had risen in Woodhouse. Why not cut off another shop from his premises? No sooner said than done. In came the architect, with whom he had played many a game of chess. best said the architect take off one good-sized shop rather than half the premises james would be left a little cramped a little tight with only one-third of his present space but as we age we dwindle more hammering and alterations and james found himself cooped in a long long narrow shop very dark at the back with a high oblong window and a door that came in at a pinched corner next door to him was a cheerful new grocer of the cheap and florid type. The new grocer whistled just like the ivy and shouted boisterously to his shop boy. In his doorway protruding on James's sensitive vision was a pyramid of sixpence half-bony tins of salmon, red shiny tins with pink-harved salmon's depicted, and another yellow pyramid of fourpence-halfpenny

tins of pineapple. Bacon dangled in pale rolls almost over James's doorway, while straw and paper, redolent of cheese, lard and stale eggs, filtered through the threshold. This was coming down in the world with a vengeance. But what James lost downstairs he tried to recover upstairs. Heaven knows what he would have done but for Miss Pinnigar. She kept her own workrooms against him, with a soft, heavy, silent, tenacity that would have beaten stronger men than James. But his strength lay in his pliability.

He rummaged in the empty lofts, and among the discarded machinery. He rigged up the engines afresh, bought two new machines, and started an elastic department, making elastic for garters and for hat chins. He was immensely proud of his first cards of elastic, and saw Dame fortune this time fast in his yielding hands.

But, becoming used to disillusionment, he almost welcomed it. Within six months he realised that every inch of elastic it cost him exactly 60% more than he could sell it for, and so he scrapped his new department. Luckily, he sold one machine, and even gained two pounds on it. After this he made one last effort. This was hosiery webbing, which could be cut up and made into as yet unheard-of garments. Miss Pinnagar kept her thumb on this enterprise, so that it was not much more than abortive, and then James left her alone. Meanwhile, the shop slowly churned

oddments. Every Thursday afternoon James sorted out tangles of bits and bobs, antique garments and occasional finds. With these he trimmed his window, so that it looked like a historical museum, rather soiled and scrappy. Indoors he made baskets of assortments, three-pony, six-pony, nine-pony, and shilling baskets, rather like a bran pie in which everything was a plum. And then, on Friday evening, thin and alert, he hovered behind the counter. His coat shabbily buttoned over his narrow chest, his face agitated. He had shaved his side-whiskers, so that they only grew becomingly as low as his ears. His rather large grey moustache was brushed off his mouth. His hair, gone very thin, was brushed frail and floating over his baldness. But still a gentleman,

still courteous, with a charming voice he suggested the possibility of a pad of greener. He was a green parrot's tail feathers, or of a few yards of pink pearl trimming, or of old chenille fringe. The women would pinch the thick, exquisite old chenille fringe, delicate and faded, curious to feel its softness, but they wouldn't give threepence for it. Tapes, ribbons, braids, buttons, feathers, jabots, bustles, appliquets, fringes, jet trimmings, bugle trimmings, bundles of old coloured machine lace, many bundles of strange cord in all colours for old-fashioned braid patterning, ribbons with HMS Birkenhead for boy's sailor caps. Everything that nobody wanted did the women turn over and over till they chanced on a find. And James quick eyes watched the slow surge of his flotsam, as the pot

boiled but did not boil away. Wonderful that he did not think of the days when these bits and bobs were new treasures, but he did not. And as he sighed, Miss Pinnigar quietly took orders for shirts, disgust and agreed, made measurements and received installments. The shop was now only opened on Friday afternoons and evenings, so every day, twice a day, James was seen dithering, bareheaded and hastily down the street, as if pressed by fate, to the Conservative Club, and twice a day he was seen as hastily returning to his meals. He was becoming an old man. He was becoming an old man. man. His daughter was a young woman, but in his own mind he was just the same, and his daughter was a little child, his wife a young invalid whom he must charm by some few delicate attentions,

such as the peeled apple. At the club he got into more mischief. He met men who wanted to extend a brickfield down by the railway. The brickfield was called Klondike. James had now a new direction to run in, downhill towards Bagthorpe, to Klondike. Big penny-dazes grew in tufts on the brink of the yellow clay at Klondike. Yellow eggs and bacon spread their midsummer mats of flour. James came home with clay smeared all over him, discoursing brilliantly on grit and paste and presses and kilns and stamps. He carried home a rough and pinkish brick and gloated over it.

It was a hard brick. It was a non-porous brick. It was an ugly brick. Painfully heavy and parched-looking. This time he was sure, Dame fortune would rise like Persephone out of the earth. He was all the more sure because other men of the town were in with him at this venture, sound, moneyed grocers and plumbers. They were all going to become rich.

Klondike lasted a year and a half and was not so bad for in the end, all things considered, James had lost not more than five percent of his money. In fact, all things considered he was about square. and yet he felt Klondike as the greatest blow of all. Miss Pinnigar would have aided and abetted him in another scheme if it would but have cheered him. Even Miss Frost was nice with him, but to no purpose. In the year after Klondike he became an old man.

He seemed to have lost all his feathers. He acquired a plucked, tottering look. Yet he roused up after a cold strike. Throttle Hapney put new life into him. During a cold strike, the miners themselves, began digging in the fields, just near the houses, for the surface coal. They found a plentiful seam of drossy, yellowish coal behind the Methodist New Connection Chapel. The seam was opened in the side of a bank, and approached by a foot-rill, a sloping shaft down which the men walked.

When the strike was over, two or three miners still remained working the soft drossy coal, which they sold for eight and sixpence a ton, or sixpence a hundredweight. But a mining-comers, Populations scorned such dirt, as they call it. James Huffington, however, was seized with a desire to work the Connection Meadow seam, as he called it. He gathered two minor partners. He trotted endlessly up to the field. He talked, as he had never talked before, with innumerable colliers. Everybody he met, he stopped, to talk Connection Meadow.

And so at last he sank a shaft, 60 feet deep, rigged up a corrugated iron engine house with a winding-eastern air. engine and lowered his men one at a time down the shaft in a big bucket. The whole affair was rickety, amateurish and twopenny. The name Connection Meadow was forgotten within three months. Everybody knew the place as Throttle-Hapney. What? said a collier to his wife. Have we got no call? You better get a bit from Throttle-Hapney. Neer replied the wife, I'm sure I shan't. I'm sure I shan't burn that muck and smother myself with white ash. It was in the early throttle-haapney days that Mrs. Houghton died. James Huffton cried and put a black band on his Sunday silk hat, but he was too feverishly busy at throttle-hapney, selling his hundred weights of

ash-pit fodder, as the natives called it, to realise anything else. He had three men and two boys working his pit, besides a superannuated old man driving the winding engine, and in spite of all jeering, he flourished. Shabby old coal-carts rambled up behind the the new connection and filled from the pit bank. The coal improved a little in quality. It was cheap and it was handy. James could sell at last 50 or 60 tonnes a week, for the stuff was easy getting. And now at last he was actually handling money. He saw millions ahead. This went on for more than a year. A year after the death of Mrs. Huffton, Miss Frost became ill and suddenly died. Again James Huffton cried and trembled. But it was throfton.

Houghtle Hapney that made him tremble. He trembled in all his limbs at the touch of success. He saw himself making noble provision for his only daughter. But alas, it is wearying to repeat the same thing over and over. First the board of trade began to make difficulties. Then there was a fault in the seam. Then the roof of Throttle Hapney was so loose and soft James could not afford timber to hold it up. In short, when his daughter Alvina was about 27 years old, Throttle Hapney closed down. There was a sale of poor machinery,

and James Huffton came home to the dark, gloomy house to Miss Pinnigar and Alvina. It was a pinched, dreary house. James seemed down for the last time, but Miss Pinnigar persuaded him to take the shop again on Friday evening. For the rest, faded and peaked, he hurried shadowily down to the club.

End of Chapter 1. Chapter 2 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. The Rise of Alvina Huffton The heroine of this story is Alvina Huffton. If we leave her out of the first chapter of her own story, it is because, during the first 25 years of her life, she really was left out of count,

or so overshadowed as to be negligible. She and her mother were the phantom passengers in the ship of James Huffton's fortunes. In Manchester House, every voice lowered its tone, and so from the first Alvina spoke with a quiet, refined, almost convent voice. She was a thin child with delicate limbs and face and wide, grey-blue, ironic eyes.

Even as a small girl, she had that odd ironic tilt of the eyelids, which gave her a look as if she were hanging back in mockery. If she were, she was quite, quite unaware of it, for under Miss Frost's care she received no education in irony or mockery. Miss Frost was straightforward, good-humoured, and a little earnest. Consequently, Alvina, or Vena, as she was called, understood only the explicit mode of good-humoured straightforwardness. It was doubtful which shadow was greater over the child, that of Manchester house, gloomy and a little sinister, or that of Miss Frost, benevolent and protective.

sufficient that the girl herself worshipped Miss Frost or believed she did. Alvina never went to school. She had her lessons from her beloved governess. She worked at the piano. She took her walks, and for social life she went to the congregational chapel, and to the functions connected with the chapel. While she was little, she went to Sunday school twice and to chapel once on Sundays. Then occasionally there was a magic lantern or a penny reading to which,

Miss Frost accompanied her. As she grew older, she entered the choir at Chapel. She attended Christian Endeavour and PSA and the Literary Society on Monday evenings. Chapel provided her with a whole social activity, in the course of which she met certain groups of people, made certain friends, found opportunity for strolls into the country and jaunts to the local entertainments. Over and above this, every Thursday evening she went to the subscription library to change the week's supply of books, and there again she met friends and acquaintances. It is hard to overestimate the value of church or chapel, but particularly chapel, as a social institution in places like Woodhouse. The congregational chapel provided Alvina with a whole outer life, lacking which

she would have been poor indeed. She was not particularly. religious by inclination. Perhaps her father's beautiful prayers put her off. So she neither questioned nor accepted, but just let be. She grew up a slim girl, rather distinguished in appearance, with a slender face, a fine, slightly arched nose and beautiful grey blue eyes over which the lids tilted with a very odd sardonic tilt. The sardonic quality was, however, quite in abeyance. She was ladylike, not vehement at all. In the street her walk had a delicate, lingering motion, her face looked still. In conversation she had rather a quick, hurried manner, with intervals of well-bred repose and attention. Her voice was like her father's, flexible and curiously attractive.

Sometimes, however, she would have fits of boisterous hilarity, not quite natural, with a strange note, half pathetic, half jeering. Her father tended to a supercilious sneering tone. In Vina it came out in mad bursts of hilarious jeering. This made Miss Frost uneasy. She would watch the girl's strange face that could take on a gargoyle look. She would see the eyes rolling strangely under sardonic eyelids, and then Miss Frost would feel that never, never had she known anything so utterly alien and incomprehensible and unsympathetic as her own beloved Vina. For twenty years the strong protective governess reared and tended her lamb, her dove, only to see the lamb open a wolf's mouth,

to hear the dove utter the wild cackle of a door or a magpie, a strange sound of derision. At such times Miss Frost's heart went cold within her, she dared not realise, and she chid and checked her ward, restored her to the usual impulsive affectionate demureness. Then she dismissed the whole matter. It was just an accident,

laboration on the girl's part from her own true nature. Miss Frost taught Alvina thoroughly the qualities of her own true nature, and Alvina believed what she was taught. She remained for twenty years the demure, refined creature of her governess's desire. But there was an odd, derisive look at the back of her eyes, a look of old knowledge and deliberate derision. She herself was unconscious of it, but it was there,

and this it was, perhaps, that scared away the young men. Alvina reached the age of 23, and it looked as if she were destined to join the ranks of the old maids, so many of whom found cold comfort in the chapel, for she had no suitors. True, there were extraordinarily few young men of her class, for whatever her condition she had certain breeding and in her. inherent culture in Woodhouse. The young men of the same social standing as herself were in some

curious way outsiders to her. Knowing nothing, yet her ancient sapience went deep, deeper than Woodhouse could fathom. The young men did not like her for it. They did not like the tilt of her eyelids. Miss Frost, with anxious foreseeing, persuaded the girl to take over some pupils to teach them the piano. The work was distasteful to Alvina. She was not a good teacher. She persevered in an offhand way, somewhat indifferent, albeit dutiful. When she was 23 years old, Alvina met a man called Graham. He was an Australian who had been in Edinburgh taking his medical degree. Before going back to Australia, he came to spend some months practising with old Dr. Fordham in Woodhouse, Dr. Fordham being in some way connected with his mother.

Alexander Graham called to see Mrs. Huffton. Mrs. Huffton did not like him, she said he was creepy. He was a man of medium height, dark in colouring, with very dark eyes, and a body which seemed to move inside his clothing. He was amiable and polite, laughed often, showing his teeth. It was his teeth which Miss Frost could not stand. She seemed to see a strong, mouthful of cruel, compact teeth. She declared he had dark blood in his veins, that he was not a man to be trusted,

and that never, never would he make any woman's life happy. Yet in spite of all, Alvina was attracted by him. The two would stay together in the parlour, laughing and talking by the hour. What they could find to talk about was a mystery. Yet there they were, laughing and chatting, with a running, insinuating sound through it all, which made Miss Frost pace up and down, unable to bear herself. The man was always running in when Miss Frost was out. He contrived to meet Alvina in the evening,

to take a walk with her. He went a long walk with her one night and wanted to make love to her, but her upbringing was too strong for her. Oh no, she said, we are only friends. He knew her upbringing was too strong for him also. We're more than friends, he said, we're more than friends.

I don't think so, she said. Yes, we are, he insisted, trying to put his arm round her waist. Oh, don't, she cried. Let us go home. And then he burst out with wild and thick protestations of love, which thrilled her and repelled her slightly. Anyhow, I must tell Miss Frost, she said.

Yes, yes, he answered. Yes, yes, let us be engaged at once. As they passed under the lamps he saw her face, lifted, the eyes shining, the delicate nostrils dilated, as of one who sense battle and laughs to herself. She seemed to laugh with a certain proud, sinister recklessness. His hands trembled with desire. So they were engaged. He bought her a ring, an emerald set in tiny diamonds. Miss Frost looked grave and silent, but would not openly deny her approval. You like him, don't you? You don't dislike him? Alvin.

Shea insisted, "'I don't dislike him,' replied Miss Frost's. "'How can I? He's a perfect stranger to me.' And with this Alvina subtly contented herself. Her father treated the young man with suave attention, punctuated by fits of jerky hostility and jealousy. Her mother merely sighed and took Sal Volatil. To tell the truth, Alvina herself was a little repelled by the man's love-making. She found him fascinating, but a trifle repulsive.

and she was not sure whether she hated the repulsive element or whether she rather gloried in it. She kept her look of arch, half-derisive recklessness, which was so unbearably painful to Miss Frost, and so exciting to the dark little man. It was a strange look in a refined, really virgin girl, oddly sinister, and her voice had a curious, bronze-like resonance that acted straight on the nerves of her hearers, unpleasantly on most English nerves, but like fire on the different susceptibilities of the young man, the darky, as people called him. But after all, he had only six weeks in England before sailing to Sydney. He suggested that he and Alvina should marry before he sailed. Miss Frost would not hear of it. He must see his people first, she said. So the time passed, and he sailed.

Alvina missed him, missed the extreme excitement of him, rather than the extreme excitement of him, rather than the human being he was. Miss Frost set to work to regain her influence over her ward, to remove that arch, reckless, almost lewd look from the girl's face. It was a question of heart against sensuality. Miss Frost tried and tried to wake again the girl's loving heart, which loving heart was certainly knocked occupied by that man. It was a hard task, an anxious, bitter task Miss Frost had set herself. But at last she succeeded. Alvina seemed to thaw. The hard shining of her eyes softened again

to a sort of demureness and tenderness. The influence of the man was revoked. The girl was left uninhabited, empty and uneasy. She was due to follow her Alexander in three months' time to Sydney, came letters from him en route, and then a cablegram from Australia.

He had arrived. Alvina should have been preparing her trousseau to follow, but owing to her change of heart she lingered indecisive do you love him dear said miss frost with emphasis knitting her thick passionate earnest eyebrows do you love him sufficiently that's the point the way miss frost put the question implied that alvina did not and could not love him because miss frost could not alvina lifted her large blue eyes confused half tender towards her governess half shy shyly with unconscious derision. I don't really know, she said, laughing hurriedly. I don't really. Miss Frost scrutinised her and replied with a meaningful,

Well? To Miss Frost it was clear as daylight, to Alvina not so. In her periods of lucidity, when she saw as clear as daylight also, she certainly did not love the little man. She felt him a terrible outsider, and inferior to tell the truth. She wondered how he could have the slightest attraction for her. In fact, she could not understand it at all.

She was as free of him as if he had never existed. The square green emerald on her finger was almost nonsensical. She was quite, quite sure of herself. And then, most irritating, a complete vault-fass in her feelings. The clear as daylight mood disappeared, as daylight is bound to disappear. She found herself in a night where the little man loomed large, terribly large, potent and magical, while Miss Frost had dwindled to nothingness. At such times she wished with all her force that she could travel like a cablegram to Australia.

She felt it was the only way. She felt the dark, passionate receptivity of Alexander overwhelmed her, enveloped her even from the antipodes. She felt herself going distract. She felt she was going out of her mind, but she could not act. Her mother and Miss Frost were fixed in one line. Her father said, "'Well, of course you'll do as you think best.

There's a great risk in going so far, a great risk. You would be entirely unprotected.' "'I don't mind being unprotected,' said Alvina perversely, "'because you don't understand what it means,' said her father. He looked at her quickly. Perhaps he understood her better than the others. "'Personally,' said Miss Pinnigar, speaking of Alexander, "'I don't care for him, but everyone has their own taste.'

"'Alvina felt she was being overborn, and that she was letting herself be overborn. "'She was half relieved. She seemed to nestle into the well-known surety of Woodhouse. "'The other unknown had frightened her. "'Miss Frost now took a definite line. "'I feel you don't love him, dear. "'I'm almost sure you don't.' So now you have to choose. Your mother dreads your going.

She dreads it. I'm certain you would never see her again. She says she can't bear it. She can't bear the thought of you out there with Alexander. It makes her shudder. She suffers dreadfully, you know. So you will have to choose, dear. You will have to choose for the best.

Alvina was made stubborn by pressure. She herself had come fully to believe that she did not love him. She was quite sure she did not love him. but out of a certain perversity she wanted to go. Came his letter from Sydney, and one from his parents to her and one to her parents. All seemed straightforward, not very cordial, but sufficiently.

Over Alexander's letter, Miss Frost shed bitter tears. To her it seemed so shallow and heartless, with terms of endearment stuck in like exclamation marks. He seemed to have no thought, no feeling for the girl herself. All he wanted was to hurry her out there. He did not even mention the grief of her parting from her English parents and friends, not a word, just a rush to get her out there, winding up with, and now, dear, I shall not be myself till I see you here in Sydney. You're ever-loving, Alexander. A selfish, sensual creature who would forget the dear little Vena in three months

if she did not turn up, and who would neglect her in six months if she did. Probably Miss Frost was right. Alvina knew the tears she was costing all round. She went upstairs and looked at his photograph, his dark and impertinent muzzle. Who was he, after all? She did not know him. With cold eyes she looked at him and found him repugnant. She went across to her governess's room and found Miss Frost in a strange mood of

trepidation. Don't trust me, dear, don't trust what I say, poor Miss Frost ejaculated hurriedly, even wildly. Don't notice what I have said. Act for yourself, dear. Act for yourself entirely. I'm sure I am wrong in trying to influence you. I know I am wrong. It is wrong and foolish of me. Act just for yourself, dear. The rest doesn't matter. The rest doesn't matter. The rest doesn't matter. Don't take any notice of what I have said. I know I am wrong. For the first time in her life, Alvina saw her beloved governess flustered, the beautiful white hair looking a little draggled,

the grey, near-sighted eyes, so deep and kind behind the gold-rimmed glasses, now distracted and scared. Alvina immediately burst into tears and flung herself into the arms of Miss Frost. Miss Frost also cried as if her heart would break, catching her indrawn breath with a strange sound of anguish, forlornness, the terrible crying of a woman with a loving heart, whose heart has never been able to relax. Alvina was hushed. In a second she became the elder of the two.

The terrible poignancy of the woman of 52, who now at last had broken down, silence the girl of 23, and roused all her passionate tenderness. The terrible, sound of, never now, never now, it is too late, which seemed to ring in the curious, indrawn cries of the elder woman, filled the girl with a deep wisdom. She knew the same would ring in her mother's dying cry. Married or unmarried, it was the same, the same anguish, realized in all its pain after the age of fifty, the loss in never having been able to relax, to submit. Alvina felt very strong and rich in the fact of her youth. For her it was not too late.

For Miss Frost, it was forever too late. I don't want to go, dear, said Alvina to the elder woman. I know I don't care for him. He is nothing to me. Miss Frost became gradually silent and turned aside her face. After this, there was a hush in the house. Alvina announced her intention of breaking off her engagement. her mother kissed her and cried and said with the selfishness of an invalid,

I couldn't have parted with you, I couldn't, whilst the father said, I think you are wise, Vena, I have thought a lot about it. So Alvina packed up his ring and his letters and little presents and posted them over the seas. She was relieved, really, as if she had escaped some very trying ordeal. For some days she went about happily, in pure relief. She loved everybody. She was charming and sunny and gentle with everybody, particularly with Miss Frost, whom she loved with a deep, tender, rather sore love. Poor Miss Frost seemed to have lost a part of her confidence, to have taken on a new wistfulness, a new silence and remoteness. It was as if she found her busy contact with life a strain now. Perhaps she was getting old. Perhaps her proud heart had given way.

Alvina had kept a little photograph of the man. She would often go and look at it. Love, no, it was not love. It was something more primitive still. It was curiosity, deep, radical, burning curiosity. How she looked and looked at his dark, impertinent seeming face. A flicker of derision came into her eyes, yet still she looked. In the same manner she would look into the faces of the young,

men of Woodhouse, but she never found there what she found in her photograph. They all seemed like blank sheets of paper in comparison. There was a curious, pale, surface look in the faces of the young men of Woodhouse, or, if there was some underneath suggestive power, it was a little abject or humiliating, inferior, common. They were all either blank or common. End of, chapter two. read by Tony Foster Chapter 3 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence This Librevox recording is in the public domain. The Maternity Nurse

Of course Alvina made everybody pay for her mood of submission and sweetness. In a month's time she was quite intolerable. I can't stay here all my life, she declared, stretching her eyes in a way that irritated the other inmates of Manchester House extremely. I know I can't. I can't bear it. I simply can't bear it, and there's an end of it. I can't. I can't. I tell you I can't bear it. I'm buried alive. I simply bury it alive, and it's more than I can stand. It is, really. There was an odd clang, like a taunt in her voice. She was trying them all. "'But what do you want, dear?' asked Miss Frost,

knitting her dark brows in agitation. "'I want to go away,' said Alvina bluntly. Miss Frost gave a slight gesture with her right hand of helpless impatience. It was so characteristic that Alvina almost laughed. But where do you want to go? I don't know. I don't care, said Alvina, anywhere if I can get out of Woodhouse. Do you wish you'd gone to Australia, put in Miss Pinnigar? No, I don't wish I'd gone to Australia, retorted Alvina with a rude laugh. Australia isn't the only other place beside Woodhouse.

Miss Pinnigar was naturally offended, but the curious insolence which sometimes came out in the girl was inherited direct from her father. You see, dear, said Miss Frost, agitated. If you knew what you wanted, it would be easier to see the way. I want to be a nurse, wrapped out Alvina. Miss Frost stood still, with the stillness of a middle age to disapproving woman and looked at her charge. She believed that Alvina was just speaking at random, yet, she dared not check her in her present mood. Alvina was indeed speaking at random. She'd never thought of being a nurse. The idea had never entered her head. If it had, she would certainly never have entertained it. But she had heard Alexander speak of nurse this and sister that, and so she had wrapped out her declaration. And having wrapped it out, she prepared herself to stick to it. Nothing like leaping

before you look. A nurse, repeated Miss Frost. But do you feel yourself? fitted to be a nurse. Do you think you could bear it? Yes, I'm sure I could, retorted Alvina. I want to be a maternity nurse. She looked strangely, even outrageously, at her governess. I want to be a maternity nurse. Then I shouldn't have to attend operations, and she laughed quickly. Miss Frost's right hand beat like a wounded bird. It was reminiscent of the way she beat time, insistently when she was giving music lessons, sitting close beside her pupils at the piano. Now it beat without time or reason. Alvina smiled brightly and cruelly. "'Whatever put such an idea into your head, Vina?' asked poor Miss Frost.

"'I don't know,' said Alvina, still more archly and brightly. "'Of course you don't mean it, dear,' said Miss Frost, quailing. "'Yes, I do. Why should I say it if I don't?' Miss Frost would have done anything to escape the arch, bright, cruel eyes of her charge. Then we must think about it, she said, numbly, and she went away. Alvina floated off to her room and sat by the window looking down on the street. The bright arch look was still on her face, but her heart was sore. She wanted to cry and fling herself on the breast of her darling, but she couldn't.

No, for her life she couldn't. Some little devil sat in her breast and kept her smiling archly. Somewhat to her amazement, he sat steadily on for days and days. Every minute she expected him to go, every minute she expected to break down, to burst into tears and tenderness and reconciliation, but no, she did not break down. She persisted. They all waited for the old loving Vena to be herself again.

But the new and recalcitrant Vina still shone hard. She found a copy of The Lancet and saw an advertisement of her home in Islington, where maternity nurses would be fully trained and equipped in six months' time. The fee was sixty guineas. Alvina declared her intention of departing to this training home. She had £200 of her own bequeathed by her grandfather. In Manchester House they were all horrified, not moved with grief this time, but shocked. It seemed such a repulsive and indelicate step to take, which it was, and which, in her curious perverseness, Alvina must have intended it to be.

Mrs. Huffton assumed a remote air of silence, as if she did not hear any more, did not belong. She lapsed far away. She was really very weak. Miss Pinnigar said, Well, really, she wants to do it, why, she might as well try. And, as often with Miss Pinnigar, this speech. seemed to contain a veiled threat. A maternity nurse, said James Huffton. A maternity nurse?

What exactly do you mean by a maternity nurse? A trained midwife, said Miss Pinnigar curtly. That's it, isn't it? It is, as far as I can see. A trained midwife. Yes, of course, said Alvina brightly. But, stammered James Huffton, pushing his spectacles up onto his forehead

and making his long fleece of painfully thin hair and cover his baldness. I can't understand that any young girl of any upbringing, any upbringing whatever, should want to choose such an occupation. I can't understand it, can't you? said Alvina brightly. Oh well, if she does, said Miss Pinnigar, cryptically. Miss Frost said very little, but she had serious confidential talks with Dr. to Fordham. Dr. Fordham didn't approve. Certainly he didn't, but neither did he see any greater harm in it. At that time it was rather the thing for young ladies to enter the nursing profession,

if their hopes had been blighted or checked in another direction. And so, inquiries were made. Enquiries were made. The upshot was that Alvina was to go to Islington for her six-months training. There was a great bustle preparing her nursing outfit. Instead of a trousseau, nurse's uniforms in fine blue and white stripe with great white aprons instead of a wreath of orange blossom a rather chic nurse's bonnet of blue silk and for a trailing veil a blue silk fall well and good alvina expected to become frightened as the time drew near but no she wasn't a bit frightened miss frost watched her narrowly would there not be a return of the old tender sensitive shrinking Vina, the exquisitely sensitive and nervous, loving girl. No, astounding as it may seem, there was no return of such a creature. Alvina remained bright and ready. The half-hilarious clang remained in her voice, taunting. She kissed them all goodbye, brightly and sprightlylyly, and off

she said. She wasn't nervous. She came to St. Pancras, she got her cab, she drove off to her destination, and as she drove, she looked out of the window. Horrid, vast, stony, dilapidated, crumbly-stuck-oed streets and squares of Islington, grey, greyer by far than Woodhouse, and interminable. How exceedingly sordid and disgusting! But instead of being repelled and heartbroken, Alvina enjoyed it. She felt her trunk rumble on top of the cab, and still she looked out on the ghastly dilapidated, flat facades of Islington, and still she smiled brightly, as if there were some charm in it all. Perhaps for her there was a charm in it all. Perhaps it acted like a tonic on the little devil in her breast. Perhaps if she had seen tufts of snowdrops, it was February,

and yew hedges and cottage windows, she would have broken down. As it was, she just enjoyed it. She enjoyed glimping in through uncurtained windows into sordid rooms where human beings moved as if sordidly unaware. She enjoyed the smell of a toasted bloater, rather burnt, so common, so indescribably common. And she detested bloaters because of the hairy feel of the spines in her mouth. But to smell them like this, to know that she was in the region of penny beefsteaks gave her a perverse pleasure. The cab stopped at a yellow house at the corner of a square where some shabby bare trees were flecked with bits of blown paper. Bits of paper and refuse cluttered inside the round railings of each tree. She went up some dirty yellowish steps and rang the patience bell

because she knew she ought not to ring the tradesmen's. A servant, not exactly dirty but unattractive, let her into a hall painted a dull drab and floored with cocoa-money, matting, otherwise bare. Then up bare stairs to a room where a stout, pale, common woman with two warts on her face was drinking tea. It was three o'clock. This was the matron. The matron soon deposited her in a bedroom not very small but bare and hard and dusty seeming, and there left her. Alvina sat down on her chair, looked at her box opposite, looked round the uninviting room and smile to herself. Then she rose and went to the window, a very dirty window, looking down into a

sort of well of an area, with other wells ranging along, and straight opposite, like a reflection, another solid range of back premises, with iron stairways and horrid little doors and washing, and little WCs, and people creeping up and down like vermin. Alvina shivered a little, but still smiled. Then slowly she began to take off her hat. She put it down on the drab-painted chest of drawers. Presently the servant came in with a tray, set it down, lit a naked gasjet which roared faintly, and drew down a crackly dark green blind,

which showed a tendency to fly back again alertly to the ceiling. Thank you, said Alvina, and the girl departed. Then Miss Huffton drank her black tea and ate her berkeley, bread and margarine. Surely enough books have been written about heroines in similar circumstances. There is no need to go into the details of Alvina's six months in Islington. The food was objectionable, yet Alvina got fat on it. The air was filthy, and yet never had her colour been so warm and fresh, her skin so soft. Her companions were almost without exception vulgar and coarse, yet never had she got on so well with women of her

own age or older than herself. She was ready with a laugh and a word, and though she was unable to venture on indecencies herself, yet she had an amazing faculty for looking, knowing, and indecent beyond words, rolling her eyes and pitching her eyebrows in a certain way. Oh, it was quite sufficient for her companions. And yet, if they had ever actually demanded a dirty story or a really open indecency from her, she would have been flawed. But she enjoyed it. Amazing how she enjoyed it. She did not care how revolting and indecent these nurses were. She put on a look as if she were in with it all, and it all passed off as easy as winking. She swung her haunches and arched her eyes with the best of them, and they behaved as if she were exactly one of themselves.

And yet, with the curious cold tact of women, they left her alone, one and all, in private, just ignored. her. It is truly incredible how Alvina became blooming and bouncing at this time. Nothing shocked her, nothing upset her. She was always ready with her hard nurse's laugh and her nurse's quips. No one was better than she at double entendre. No one could better give the nurse's leer. She had it all in a fortnight, and never once did she feel anything but exhilarated and in full swing. It seemed to her she had not a moment's time to brood or reflect about things. She was too much in the swing. Every moment, in the swing, living or active in full swing.

When she got into bed she went to sleep. When she awoke it was morning and she got up. As soon as she was up and dressed she had somebody to answer, somebody to say, something to do. Time passed like an express train, and she seemed to have known no other life than this. not far away was a lying-in hospital a dreadful place it was there she had to go write off and help with cases there she had to attend lectures and demonstrations there she met the doctors and students well a pretty lot they were one way and another when she had put on flesh and become pink and bouncing she was just their sort just their very ticket her voice had the right twang her eyes the right roll her haunches the right swing she seemed altogether just the ticket and yet she wasn't it would be useless to say she was not shocked she was profoundly and awefully shocked her whole state was perhaps largely the result of shock a sort of play-acting based on hysteria but the dreadful things she saw in the lying-in hospital and afterwards went deep and finished her youth and her tutelage for ever how many infernoes deeper than miss frost could ever know did she not travel

the inferno of the human animal the human organism in its convulsions the human social beast in its abjection and its degradation for in her latter half she had to visit the slum cases and such cases a woman lying on a bare filthy floor a few old coats thrown over her and vermin crawling everywhere in spite of sanitary inspectors but what did the woman the sufferer herself care she ground her teeth and saw her teeth and screamed and yelled with pains. In her calm periods she lay stupid and indifferent, or she cursed a little. But abject, stupid indifference was the bottom of it all. Abject, brutal indifference to everything. Yes, everything. Just a piece of female functioning. No more. Alvina was supposed to receive a certain fee for these cases she attended in their homes. A small proportion of her fee she kept for herself, the rest she handed over to the home. That was the agreement.

She received her grudged fee callously, threatened, and exacted it when it was not forthcoming. Ha! If they didn't have to pay you at all, these slum people, they would treat you with more contempt than if you were one of themselves. It was one of the hardest lessons Alvina had to learn, to bully these people, in their own hovels, into some sort of obedience to her commands. and some sort of respect for her presence. She had to fight tooth and nail for this end, and in a week she was as hard and callous to them as they to her. And so her work was well done. She did not hate them.

There they were. They had a certain life, and you had to take them at their own worth in their own way. What else? If one should be gentle, one was gentle. The difficulty did not lie there. The difficulty lay in being sufficiently rough and hard. that was the trouble. It cost a great struggle to be hard and callous enough. Glad she would have been to be allowed to treat them quietly and gently, with consideration.

But, pah, it was not their line. They wanted to be callous, and if you were not callous to match, they made a fool of you and prevented your doing your work. Was Alvina her own real self all this time? The mighty question arises upon us. What is one's own real self? It certainly is, is not what we think we are and ought to be. Alvina had been bred to think of herself as a delicate, tender, chaste creature, with unselfish inclinations and a pure high mind. Well, so she was, in the more or less exhausted part of herself. But high-mindedness had really come to an end with James Huffton, had really reached the point, not only of pathetic, but of dry and anti-human,

repulsive quixotry. In Alvina, high-mindedness was already stretched beyond the breaking point. Being a woman of some flexibility of temper, wrought through generations to a fine, pliant hardness, she flew back. She went right back on high-mindedness. Did she thereby betray it? We think not. If we turn over the head of the penny and look at the tail, we don't thereby deny or betray the head. We do but adjust it to its own heart. We do but adjust it to its own compliment, and so with high-mindedness. It is but one side of the medal, the crowned reverse. On the obverse, the three legs still go kicking the soft-footed spin of the universe, the dolphin flirts, and the crab leers. So Alvina spun her medal, and her medal came down tails.

Heads or tails, heads for generations, then tales. See the poetic justice. Now Alvina decided to accept the decision of her fate, or rather being sufficiently a woman, she didn't decide anything. She was her own fate. She went through her training experiences like another being. She was not herself, said everybody. When she came home to Woodhouse at Easter, in her bonnet and cloak, everybody was simply knocked out. Imagine that this frail, pallid, diffident girl, so ladylike, was now a rather fat, warm-coloured young woman, strapping and strong-looking, and with a certain bounce. Imagine her mother's startled, almost expiring. Why, Vina dear! Vina laughed. She knew how they were all feeling. At least it agrees with your health, said her father, sarcastically, to which Miss Pinnigar

answered, well, that's a good deal. But Miss Frost said nothing the first day, only the second day, breakfast, as Alvina ate rather rapidly and rather well, the white-haired woman said quietly, with a tinge of cold contempt, "'How changed you are, dear?' "'Am I?' laughed Alvina. Oh, not really.' And she gave the arch look with her eyes which made Miss Frost shudder. Inwardly Miss Frost shuddered and abstained from questioning. Alvina was always speaking of the doctors, Dr. Young and Dr. Headley and Dr. James. She spoke of theatres and music halls with these young men and the jolly good time she had with them, and her blue-grey eyes seemed to have become harder and greyer, lighter somehow. In her wistfulness

and her tender pathos, Alvina's eyes would deepen their blue, so beautiful. And now in her floridity they were bright and arch and light grey. The deep, tender, flowery blue was gone forever. They were luminous and crystalline, like the eyes of a changeling. Miss Frost shuddered and abstained from question. She wanted, she needed, to ask of her charge, Alvina, have you betrayed yourself with any of these young men? But coldly her heart abstained from asking, or even from seriously thinking.

She left the matter untouched for the moment. She was already too much shocked. Certainly Alvina represented the young doctors as very nice, but rather fast young fellows. My word, you have to have your wits about you with them. Imagine such a speech from a girl tenderly nurtured, a speech uttered in her own home, and accompanied by a florid laugh, which would lead a chaste, generous woman like Miss Frost to imagine—well, she merely abstained from imagining anything. She had that strength of mind. She never for one moment

attempted to answer the question to herself as to whether Alvina had betrayed herself with any of these young doctors or not. The question remained stated, but completely unlawful. unanswered, coldly awaiting its answer. Only when Miss Frost kissed Alvina goodbye at the station, tears came to her eyes, and she said, hurriedly, in a low voice, "'Remember we are all praying for you, dear.' "'No, don't do that!' cried Alvina, involuntarily, without knowing what she said. And then the train moved out, and she saw her darling standing there on the station, the pale, well-modelled face looking out from behind the gold-rimmed spectrable. wistfully, the strong, rather stout figure standing very still and unchangeable, under its coat and skirt of dark purple,

the white hair glistening under the folded dark hat. Alvina threw herself down on the seat of her carriage. She loved her darling, she would love her through eternity. She knew she was right, amply and beautifully right, her darling, her beloved Miss Frost, eternally and gloom. And yet, and yet, it was a right which was fulfilled. There were other rights. There was another side to the medal, purity and high-mindedness, the beautiful but unbearable tyranny. The beautiful, unbearable tyranny of Miss Frost! It was time now for Miss Frost to die. It was time for that perfected flower to be gathered to immortality, a lovely immortal, but an obstruction to other, purple and carmine blossoms which were in bud on the stem.

A lovely adelvice, but time it was gathered into eternity. Black purple and red anemones were due, real Adonis blood, and strange individual orchids, spotted and fantastic. Time for Miss Frost to die. She, Alvina, who loved her as no one else would ever love her, with that love which goes to the core of the universe, knew that it was time for her darling to be folded. Oh, so gently and softly into immortality. Mortality was busy with the day after her day. It was time for Miss Frost to die. As Alvina sat motionless in the train,

running from Woodhouse to Tibbshellf, it decided itself in her. She was glad to be back in Islington, among all the horrors of her confinement cases. The doctors she knew hailed her. On the whole, these young men had not any too deep respect for the nurses as a whole. Why drag in respect? Human functions were too obviously established to make any great fuss about. And so the doctors put their arms around Alvina's waist because she was plump, and they kissed her face because the skin was soft, and she laughed and squirmed a little, so that they felt all the more her warmth and softness under their arms pressure. "'It's no use, you know,' she said, laughing, rather breathless, but looking into their eyes with a curious, definite look of unchangeable resistance.

This only piqued them. What's no use, they asked. She shook her head slightly. It isn't any use you're behaving like that with me, she said, with the same challenging definiteness, finality, a flat negative. Who are you telling, they said. For she did not at all forbid them to behave like that, not in the least.

She almost encouraged them. She laughed and arched her eyes. and flirted, but her backbone became only the stronger and firmer. Soft and supple as she was, her backbone never yielded for an instant. It could not. She had to confess that she liked the young doctors. They were alert, their faces were clean and bright-looking. She liked the sort of intimacy with them, when they kissed her and wrestled with her in the empty laboratories or corridors, often in the intervals of most critical and appalling cases. She liked their arm around her waist, the kisses as she reached back her face, straining away, the sometimes desperate struggles.

They took unpardonable liberties. They pinched her haunches and attacked her in unheard-of ways. Sometimes her blood really came up in the fight, and she felt as if, with her hands, she could tear any man, any male creature, limb from limb. A superhuman, voltaic force filled her. For a moment she surged in massive, inhuman, female strength. The men always wilted, and invariably when they wilted, she touched them with a sudden gentle touch, pitying, so that she always remained friends with them. When her curious Amazonic power left her again, and she was just a mere woman, she made shy eyes at them once more, and treated them with the inevitable female to male homage. The men liked her, they cocked their

eyes at her when she was not looking and wondered at her. They wondered over her. They had been beaten by her, every one of them, but they did not openly know it. They looked at her as if she were woman itself, some creature not quite personal. What they noticed, all of them, was the way her brown hair looped over her ears. There was something chaste and noble and warlike about it. The remote quality which hung about her in the midst of her intimacies and her frequencies, nothing high or lofty, but something given to the store. struggle, and as yet invincible in the struggle, made them seek her out. They felt safe with her.

They knew she would not let them down. She would not intrigue into marriage or try to make use of them in any way. She didn't care about them. And so, because of her isolate self-sufficiency in the fray, her wild, overweening backbone, they were ready to attend on her and serve her. Headley in particular hoped he might overcome her. He was a well-built fellow with a well-built fellow with with sandy hair and a pugnacious face. The battle spirit was really roused in him, and he heartily liked the woman. If he could have overcome her,

he would have been mad to marry her. With him she summoned up all her metal. She had never to be off her guard for a single minute. The treacherous suddenness of his attack, for he was treachery itself, had to be met by the voltaic suddenness of her resistance and counter-attack. It was nothing less than magical,

the way the soft, slumbering body of the woman could leap in one jet into terrible, overwhelming, voltaic force, something strange and massive, at the first treacherous touch of the man's determined hand. His strength was so different from hers, quick, muscular, lambent, but hers was deep and heaving, like the strange heaving of an earthquake, or the heave of a bull as it rises from earth. and by sheer non-human power, electric and paralysing, she could overcome the brawny red-headed fellow. It was nearly a match for her, but she did not like him. The two were enemies and good acquaintances. They were more or less matched, but as he found himself continually foiled, he became sulky, like a bear with a sore head, and then she avoided him. She really liked young and James much better.

James was a quick, slender, dark-haired fellow, a gentleman who was always trying to catch her out with his quickness. She liked his fine, slim limbs and his exaggerated generosity. He would ask her out to ridiculously expensive suppers and send her sweets and flowers, fabulously re-surchase. He was always immaculately well-dressed. Of course, as a lady and a nurse, he said to her, you are two sorts of women in one. but she was not impressed by his wisdom. She was most strongly inclined to Young. He was a plump young man of middle height,

with those blue eyes of a little boy which are so knowing, particularly of a woman's secrets. It is a strange thing that these childish men have such a deep, half-perverse knowledge of the other sex. Young was certainly innocent as far as Axe went, yet his hair was going thin at the crown already. He also played with her. her, being a doctor, and she a nurse who encouraged it. He too touched her and kissed her,

and did not rouse her to contest. For his touch and his kiss had that nearness of a little boys, which nearly melted her. She could almost have succumbed to him. If it had not been that with him there was no question of succumbing. She would have had to take him between her hands and caress and cajole him like a cherub into a fall. And though she would have liked to do so, Yet that inflexible stiffness of her backbone prevented her. She could not do as she liked. There was an inflexible fate within her, which shaped her ends. Sometimes she wondered to herself, over her own virginity.

Was it worth much, after all, behaving as she did? Did she care about it anyhow? Didn't she rather despise it? To sin in thought was as bad as to sin in act. If the thought was the same as the act, how much more was her behaviour equivalent to a whole committal. She wished she were wholly committed. She wished she had gone the whole length.

But sophistry and wishing did her no good. There she was, still isolate. And still there was that in her which would preserve her intact, sophistry and deliberate intention notwithstanding. Her time was up. She was returning to Woodhouse, virgin as she had left it. In a measure she felt herself beat. Why? Who knows? But so it was. She felt herself beaten, condemned to go back to what she was before.

Fate had been too strong for her and her desires. Fate which was not an external association of forces, but which was integral in her own nature. Her own inscrutable nature was her fate, sore against her will. It was August when she came home, in her nurse's uniform. She was beaten by fate as far as chastity and virginity went, but she came home with high material hopes. Here was James Huffton's own daughter. She had an affluent future ahead of her. A fully qualified maternity nurse, she was going to bring all the babies of the district easily and triumphantly into the world. She was going to charge the regulation fee of two guineas a case, and even on a modest estimate of ten babies a month, she would have twenty guineas. For well-to-do mothers, she would charge

from three to five guineas. At this calculation, she would make an easy 300 a year, without slaving either. She would be independent. She could laugh everyone in the face. She bounced back into Woodhouse to make her fortune. End up, chapter three, read by Tony Foster. Chapter 4 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Two women die. It goes without saying that Alvina Huffden did not make her fortune as a maternity nurse. Being her father's daughter, we might almost expect that she did not make a penny, but she did, just a few pence. She had exactly four cases, and then no more. The reason is obvious. Who in Woodhouse was going to afford a two-guinea nurse for a confinement,

and who was going to engage Alvina Huffden, even if they were ready to. to stretch their purse strings. After all, they all knew her as Miss Huffton, with a stress on the miss, and they could not conceive of her as Nurse Huffton. Besides, there seemed something positively indecent in technically engaging one who was so much part of themselves. They all preferred either a simple midwife or a nurse procured out of the unknown by the doctor. If Alvina wanted to make her fortune, or even her living, she should have gone to a strange town. She was so advised by everyone she knew, but she never for one moment reflected on the advice. She had become a maternity nurse in order to practice in Woodhouse, just as James

Huffton had purchased his elegances to sell in Woodhouse. And father and daughter alike calmly expected Woodhouse demand to rise to their supply, so both alike were defeated in their expectations. For a little while, Alvina flaunted about in her nurse's uniform. Then she left it off. And as she left it off, she lost her bounce, her colour, and her flesh. Gradually she shrank back to the old, slim, reticent pallor, with eyes a little too large for her face. And now it seemed her face was a little too long, a little gaunt, and in her civilian clothes she seemed a little dowdy, shabby. And altogether she looked older, she looked more than her age, which was only twenty-four years. Here was the old Alvina come back,

rather battered and deteriorated, apparently. There was even a tiny touch of the trollops in her dowdiness, so the shrewd-eyed collier wives decided. But she was a lady still, and unbeaten. Undeniably she was a lady. And that was rather irritating to the well-to-do and florid daughter of W.H. Johnson next door but one. Undeniably a lady and undeniably unmastered. This last was irritating to the good-natured but easy-coming,

young men in the chapel choir, where she resumed her seat. These young men had the good nature of dogs that wag their tails and expect to be patted, and Alvina did not pat them. To be sure, a pat from such a shabbily, black-kid-gloved hand would not have been so flattering. She need not imagine it. The way she hung back and looked at them, the young men, as knowing as if she were a prostitute, and yet, with the well-bred indifference of a lady, well, it was almost offensive. As a matter of fact, Alvina was detached for the time being from her interest in young men. Manchester House had settled down on her like a doom. There was the quartered shop, through which one had to worm one's encumbered way in the gloom,

unless one likes to go miles round a back street to the yard entry. There was James Huffton, faintly powdered with coal dust, flitting back and forth in a fever of nervous frenzy to throttle Hapney, so carried away that he never saw his daughter at all the first time he came in after her return, and when she reminded him of her presence with her, "'Hello, father!' He merely glanced hurriedly at her, as if vexed with her interruption, and said, "'Well, Alvina, you're back, you're back to find us busy,

and he went off into his ecstasy again.' Mrs. Huffton was now very weak and so nervous in her weakness that she could not bear the slightest sound. Her greatest horror was lest her husband should come into the room. On his entry she became blue at the lips immediately, so he had to hurry out again. At last he stayed away, only hurriedly asking each time he came into the house, How is Mrs. Huffden?

Ha! Then off into interrupted throttle haepney ecstasy once more. When Alvina went up to her mother's room on her return, all the poor invalid could do was to tremble into tears and cry faintly, child you look dreadful it isn't you this from the pathetic little figure in the bed had struck alvina like a blow why not mother she asked but for her mother she had to remove her nurse's uniform and at the same time she had to constitute herself nurse miss frost and a woman who came in and the servant had been nursing the invalid between them miss frost was worn and rather heavy her old buoyancy and brightness was gone she had become irritable or also. She was very glad that Alvina had returned to take this responsibility of nursing off her

shoulders, for her wonderful energy had ebbed and oozed away. Alvina said nothing, but settled down to her task. She was quiet and technical with her mother. The two loved one another, with a curious, impersonal love which had not a single word to exchange, an almost after-death love. In these days Mrs. Huffington never talked, unless to fret a little. So Alvina sat for many hours in the lofty, somber bedroom, looking out silently on the street, or hurriedly rising to attend the sick woman. For continually came the fretful murmur, Vina! To sit still, who knows the long discipline of it, nowadays as our mothers and grandmothers knew. To sit still for days, months and years, perforce to sit still with some dignity of tranquil bearing.

Alvina was old-fashioned. She had the old womanly faculty for sitting quiet and collected, not indeed for a lifetime, but for long spells together. And so it was during these months nursing her mother. She attended constantly on the invalid. She did a good deal of work about the house. She took her walks and occupied her place in the choir on Sunday mornings. and yet, from August to January, she seemed to be seated in her chair in the bedroom,

sometimes reading, but mostly quite still, her hands quietly in her lap, her mind subdued by musing. She did not even think, not even remember. Even such activity would have made her presence too disturbing in the room. She sat quite still, with all her activities in abeyance, except that strange will to passivity, which was by no means a relaxation, but a severe, deep, soul discipline. For the moment there was a sense of prosperity, or probable prosperity in the house, and there was an abundance of throttle haepney coal. It was dirty, ashy stuff. The lower bars of the great were constantly blanked in with white powdery ash, which it was fatal to try to poke away.

for if you poked and poked you raised white cumulus clouds of ash, and you were left at last with a few darkening and sulphurous embers. But even so, by continuous application, you could keep the room moderately warm, without feeling you were consuming the house's meat and drink in the grate, which was one blessing. The days, the months darkened past, and Alvina returned to her old thinness and pallor. Her forearms were thin, they rested very still in her her lap. There was a lady-like stillness about them as she took her walk in her lingering yet watchful fashion. She saw everything, yet she passed without attracting any attention. Early in the year her mother died. Her father came and wept, self-conscious tears.

Miss Frost cried a little, painfully, and Alvina cried also. She did not quite know why or wherefore, her poor mother. Alvina had the old-fashioned wisdom. to let be and not to think. After all, it was not for her to reconstruct her parents' lives. She came after them. Her day was not their day. Their life was not hers. Returning up-channel to rediscover their course was quite another matter from flowing downstream into the unknown, as they had done thirty years before. This supercilious and impertinent exploration of the generation gone by by the present generation is nothing to our credit. As a matter of fact, no generation repeats the mistakes of the generation ahead any more than any river repeats its course.

So the young need not be so proud of their superiority over the old. The young generation glibly makes its own mistakes, and how detestable these new mistakes are, why only the future will be able to tell us. But be sure they are quite as detestable, quite as full of lies and hypocrisy as any of the mistakes of our parents. is no such thing as absolute wisdom. Wisdom has reference only to the past. The future remains forever in an infinite field for mistakes. You can't know beforehand.

So Alvina refrained from pondering on her mother's life and fate. Whatever the fate of the mother, the fate of the daughter will be otherwise. That is organically inevitable. The business of the daughter is with her own fate, not with her mother's. Miss Frost, however, meditated bitterly on the fate of the poor dead woman. Bitterly, she brooded on the lot of woman. Here was Clarice Huffton, married, and a mother, and dead. What a life!

Who was responsible? James Huffton. What ought James Huffton to have done differently? Everything. In short, he should have been somebody else and not himself, which is the reductio ad absurdum of idealism. The universe should be something else and not what it is, so the nonsense of idealistic conclusion.

The cat should not catch the mouse, the mouse should not nibble holes in the tablecloth, and so on, and so on, in the house that Jack built. But Miss Frost sat by the dead in grief and despair. This was the end of another woman's life. Such an end. Poor Clarice, guilty James. Yet why?

Why was James more guilty than Christ? Clarice. It's the only aim and end of a man's life to make some woman or parcel of women happy. Why? Why should anybody expect to be made happy and develop heart disease if she isn't? Surely Clarice's heart disease was a more emphatic sign of obstinate self-importance than ever James shop windows were. She expected to be made happy. Every woman in Europe and America expects it. On her own head then, if she is made unhappy, for her expectation is arrogant and impertinent. The be-all and end-all of life doesn't lie in feminine happiness, or in any happiness. Happiness is a sort of soap tablet. He won't be happy till he gets it, and when he's got it, the precious baby, it'll cost him his eyes and his stomach.

Could anything be more puerile than a mankind howling, because it isn't happy, like a baby in the bath? poor claris however was dead and if she had developed heart disease because she wasn't happy well she had died of her own heart disease poor thing wherein lies every moral that mankind can wish to draw miss frost wept in anguish and saw nothing but another woman betrayed to sorrow and a slow death sorrow and a slow death because a man had married her miss frost wept also for herself for her own sorrow and slow death sorrow and slow death because a man had not married her wretched man what is he to do with these exigent and never to be satisfied women our mother's pined because our fathers drank and were rakes our wives pined because we are virtuous but inadequate Who is this Sphinx? This woman? Where is the Oedipus that will solve her riddle of happiness, and then strangle her, only to marry his own mother? In the months that followed her mother's death, Alvina went on the same, in abeyance. She took over the housekeeping, and received one or two overflow pupils from Miss Frost, young girls to whom she gave lessons in the dark drawing-room of

Manchester House. She was busy, chiefly with housekeeping. There seemed a great deal to to put in order after her mother's death. She sorted all her mother's clothes, expensive, old-fashioned clothes, hardly worn. What was to be done with them? She gave them away, without consulting anybody. She kept a few private things. She inherited a few pieces of jewelry. Remarkable how little trace her mother left, hardly a trace. She decided to move into the big, monumental bedroom in front of the house. She liked space. She liked the windows. She was strictly mistress, too. So she took her place.

Her mother's little sitting-room was cold and disused. Then Alvina went through all the linen. There was still abundance, and it was all sound. James had had such large ideas of setting up house in the beginning, and now he begrudged the household expenses, begrudged the very soap and candles, and even would have liked to introduce margarine instead of butter. This last degradation the women refused,

but James was above food. The old Alvina seemed completely herself again. She was quiet, dutiful, affectionate. She appealed in her old, childish way to Miss Frost, and Miss Frost called her dear, with all the old protective gentleness. But there was a difference. Underneath her appearance of appeal,

Alvina was almost coldly independent. She did what she thought she would. The old manner of intimacy persisted between her and her darling, and perhaps neither of them knew that the intimacy itself had gone. But it had. There was no spontaneous interchange between them. It was a kind of deadlock. Each knew the great love she felt for the other,

but now it was a love static, inoperative. The warm flow did not run any more. Yet each would have died for the other, would have done anything to spare the other hurt. Miss Frost was becoming tired, dragged-looking. She would sink in. into a chair as if she wished never to rise again, never to make the effort. And Alvina quickly would attend on her, bring her tea and take away her music,

try to make everything smooth. And continually the young woman exhorted the elder to work less, to give up her pupils. But Miss Frost answered quickly, nervously, "'When I don't work, I shan't live.' "'But why?' came the long query from Alvina, and in her expostulation there was a touch of mock for such a creed. Miss Frost did not answer. Her face took on a greyish tinge. In these days, Alvina struck up an odd friendship with Miss Pinnigar, after so many years of opposition. She felt

herself more in sympathy with Miss Pinnigar. It was so easy to get on with her, she left so much unsaid. What was left unsaid mattered, more to Alvina now than anything that was expressed. She began to hate outspokenness and direct speaking forth of the whole mind. It nauseated her. She wanted tacit admission of difference, not open, whole-hearted communication. And Miss Pinnigar made this admission all along. She never made you feel for an instant that she was one with you. She was never even near. She kept quietly on her own ground and left you on yours. And across the space came her quiet commonplaces, but fraught with space. With Miss Frost all was openness, explicit and downright. Not that Miss Frost trespassed. She was far more well-bred than Miss Pinnigar,

but her very breeding had that Protestant, northern quality, which assumes that we have all the same high standards, really, and all the same divine nature intrinsically. It is a fine assumption, but willy-nilly, it sickened Alvina at this time. She preferred Miss Pinnigar, and admired Miss Pinnigar's humble wisdom with a new admiration. The two were talking of Dr. Hedley, who, they read in the newspaper, had disgraced himself finally. I suppose, said Miss Pinnigar, it takes his sort to make all sorts. Such bits of homely wisdom were like relief from cramp and pain to Alvina. It takes his sort to make all sorts.

It took her sort too, and it took her father's sort, as well as her mothers and Miss Frosts. It took every sort to make all sorts. Why have standards and a regulation pattern? Why have a human criterion? There's the point. Why, in the name of all the free heavens, have human criteria? Why?

Simply for bullying and narrowness. Alvina felt at her ease with Miss Pinnigar. The two women talked away to one another, in their quiet moments, and slipped apart like conspirators. When Miss Frost came in, as if there was something to be ashamed of. If there was, heaven knows what it might have been, for their talk was ordinary enough. But Alvina liked to be with Miss Pinnagar in the kitchen. Miss Pinnigar wasn't competent and masterful like Miss Frost.

She was ordinary and uninspired, with quiet, unobserved movements. But she was deep, and there was some secret satisfaction in her very quality of secrecy. So the days and weeks and months slipped. by, and Alvina was hidden like a mole in the dark chambers of Manchester house, busy with cooking and cleaning and arranging, getting the house in her own order, and attending to her pupils. She took her walk in the afternoon. Once, and only once, she went to throttle Hapney, and seized with sudden curiosity, insisted on being wound down in the iron bucket to the little work-ins underneath. Everything was quite tidy in the short gangways down below, timbered and in sound order.

The miners were competent enough, but water dripped dismally in places, and there was a stale feeling in the air. Her father accompanied her, pointed her to the seam of yellow-flect coal, the shale and the bind, the direction of the trend. He had already an airy-fairy kind of knowledge of the whole affair, and seemed like some not quite trustworthy country. injurer who had conjured it all up by sleight of hand in the background the miners stood grey and ghostly in the candle-light and seemed to listen sardonically one of them facile in his subordinate way as james in his authoritative kept chiming in ay that's the road it goes miss huffin yes you'll seat through veer bellies down a bit's loose no you don't get th pudding stonesy this bit it's not deep enough eh they come down on your plum as if the roof had laid its egg on you ay it runs a bit thin down here six inches you see the bed's soft it's a sort of clay bind it's not clunch such as you get deeper oh it's easy working you don't have to knock your guts out there's no need for shots miss huffin

We bring it down, you see, here. And he stooped, pointing to a shallow, shelving excavation which he was making under the coal. The working was low, you must stoop all the time. The roof and the timbered sides of the way seemed to press on you. It was as if she were in her tomb forever, like the dead and everlasting Egyptians. She was frightened, but fascinated. The collier kept on talking to her, stretching his bare, grey, black, hairy arm across her vision and pointing with his knotted hand. The thick, wicked tallow candles guttered and smelled.

There was a thickness in the air, a sense of dark, fluid presence in the thick atmosphere. The dark, fluid, viscous voice of the collier, making a broad, vowled, clapping sound in her ear. He seemed to linger near her as if he knew, as if he knew what. Something forever unknowable and inadmissible, something that belonged to. purely to the underground, to the slaves who work underground, knowledge humiliated, subjected, but ponderous and inevitable. And still his voice went on, clapping in her ear, and still his presence edged near her and seemed to impinge on her, a smallish, semi-grotesque, grey obscure figure with a naked, brandished forearm, not human, a creature of the subterranean world, melted out

like a bat fluid. She felt herself melting out also to become a mere vocal ghost, a presence in the thick atmosphere. Her lungs felt thick and slow. Her mind dissolved. She felt she could cling like a bat in the long swoon of the crannied underworld darkness. Kling like a bat and sway forever swooning in the draughts of the darkness. When she was up on the earth again she blinked and appeared at the world in amazement. What a pretty luminous place it was, carved in substantial luminosity. What a strange and lovely place, bubbling, iridescent golden on the surface of the underworld. Iridescent golden, could anything be more fascinating? Like lovely glancing surface on fluid pitch. But a velvet surface, a velvet surface of golden light, velvet pile of gold and pale

luminosity and strange beautiful elevations of houses and trees and depressions of fields and roads, all golden and floating, like atmospheric mageolica. Never had the common ugliness of Woodhouse seemed so entrancing. She thought she had never seen such beauty, a lovely luminous majolica, living and palpitating, the glossy, svelte world surface, the exquisite face of all the darkness. It was like a vision. Perhaps gnomes and subterranean workers enslaved in the era of light see with such eyes. Perhaps that is why they are absolutely blind to conventional ugliness. For truly nothing could be more hideous than Woodhouse, as the miners had built it and disposed it. And yet, the very cabbage stumps and rotten fences of the gardens,

the very backyards, were instinct with magic. as they seemed with the bubbling up of the underdarkness, bubbling up of majorica weight and luminosity, quite ignorant of the sky, heavy and satisfying. Slaves of the underworld! She watched the swing of the grey colliers along the pavement with a new fascination, hypnotised by a new vision. Slaves, the underground trolls and ironworkers, magic, mischievous and enslaved of the ancient stories. but tall, the miners seemed to her to loom tall and grey in their enslaved magic, slaves who would cause the superimposed day order to fall, not because individually they wanted to,

but because collectively something bubbled up in them. The force of darkness which had no master and no control, it would bubble and stir in them as earthquakes stir the earth. It would be simply disastrous because it had no master. There was no dark master in the world. The pure-isle world went on crying out for a new Jesus, another saviour from the sky, another heavenly Superman. When what was wanted was a dark master from the underworld. So they streamed past her, home from work, grey from head to foot, distorted in shape, cramped, with curious faces that came out pallid from under their dirt. Their walk was heavy

footed and slurring, their bearing stiff and grotesque. A stream they were, yet they seemed to her to loom like strange, valid figures of fairy law, unrealised, and as yet unexperienced. The miners, the ironworkers, those who fashion the stuff of the underworld. As it always comes to its children, the nostalgia of the repulsive, heavy-footed Midlands came over her again, even whilst he was there in the midst, the curious, dark, inexplicable and yet insatiable craving, as if for an earthquake, to feel the earth heave and shudder and shatter the world from beneath, to go down in the debauchre. And so in spite of everything, poverty, dowdiness, obscurity and nothingness, she was content to stay in abeyance at home for the time. True, she was filled with the same old, slow,

dreadful craving of the Midlands, a craving insatiable and inexplicable. But the very craving kept her still, for at this time she did not translate it into a desire or need for love. At the back of her mind somewhere was the fixed idea, the fixed intention of finding love, a man. But as yet, at this period, the idea was in abeyance, it did not act. The craving that possessed her as it possesses everybody, in a greater or less degree, in those parts, sustain her darkly and unconsciously. A hot summer waned into autumn, the long, bewildering days drew in, the transient nights, only a few breaths of shadow between noon and noon, deepened and strengthened. A restlessness came over everybody. There was another short strike among the miners. James Huffton, like an excited

beetle scurried to and fro, feeling he was making his fortune. Never had Woodhouse been so thronged on Fridays with purchasers and money-spenders. The place seemed surcharged with life. Autumn lasted beautiful till end of October, and then suddenly cold rain, endless cold rain, and darkness heavy, wet, ponderous. Through the wind and rain it was a toil to move. Poor Miss Frost, who had seemed almost to blossom again, and then, and darkness, heavy, wet, ponderous. Through the wind and rain, it was a toil to move. Poor Miss Frost, who had seemed almost to blossom again in the long hot days, regaining a free cheerfulness that amounted almost to liveliness, and who even caused a sort of scandal by her intimacy with a rather handsome but common stranger,

an insurance agent who had come into the place with a good, unused, tenor voice, now she wilted again. She had given the rather florid young man tea in her room, and had laboured away at his fine metallic voice, correcting him and teaching him and laughing with him and spending really a remarkable number of hours alone with him in her room in Woodhouse for she had given up tramping the country

and had hired a music room in a quiet street where she gave her lessons. And the young man had hung round and had never wanted to go away. They would prolong their tete-a-tete and their singing on till ten o'clock at night and Miss Frost would return to Manchester house flushed and handsome and a little shy,

while the young man, who was common, took on a new boldness in the streets. He had urban hair, high colouring, and a rather challenging bearing. He took on a new boldness. His own estimate of himself rose considerably with Miss Frost and his trained voice to justify him. He was a little insolent and condescending to the natives,

who disliked him. For their lives they could not imagine what Miss Frost, could find in him. They began even to dislike her, and a pretty scandal was started about the pair in the pleasant room where Miss Frost had her piano, her books, and her flowers. The scandal was as unjust as most scandals are. Yet truly, all that summer and autumn, Miss Frost had a new and slightly aggressive cheerfulness and humour, and Manchester House saw little of her comparatively. And then, at the end of September, the young man was removed by his insurance company to another district, and at the end of October, set in the most abominable and unbearable weather, deluges of rain and

north winds, cutting the tender summer-unfolded people to pieces. Miss Frost wilted at once. A silence came over her. She shuddered when she had to leave the fire. She went in the morning to her room and stayed there all the day in a hot, close atmosphere, shuddering when her pupils brought the outside weather with them to her. She was always subject to bronchitis. In November she had a bad bronchitis cold. Then suddenly one morning she could not get up. Alvina went in and found her semi-conscious. The girl was almost mad. She flew to the rescue. She dispatched her father instantly for the doctor. She heaped the sticks in the bedroom grate and made a bright fire. She brought hot milk and brandy.

Thank you, dear. Thank you. It's a bronchial cold, whispered Miss Frost hurriedly, trying to sip the milk. She could not. She didn't want it. I've sent for the doctor, said Alvina, in her cool voice, wherein, nonetheless, they rang the old hesitancy of sheer love. Miss Frost lifted her eyes. There's no need, she said, and she smiled winsomely at Alvina. It was pneumonia. useless to talk of the distracted anguish of alvena during the next two days she was so swift and sensitive in her nursing she seemed to have second sight she talked to nobody in her silence her soul was alone with the soul of her darling the long semi-consciousness and the tearing pain of pneumonia the anguished sickness but sometimes the grey eyes would open and smile with delicate winsomeness at alvena and alvena smiled by back with a cheery, answering winsomeness. But that cost something. On the evening of the second day,

Miss Frost got her hand from under the bedclothes and laid it on Alvina's hand. Alvina leaned down to her. Everything is for you, my love, whispered Miss Frost, looking with strange eyes on Alvinas face. Don't talk, Miss Frost, moaned Alvina. Everything is for you, murmured the sick woman, "'except!' "'And she enumerated some tiny legacies "'which showed her generous, thoughtful nature. "'Yes, I shall remember,' said Alvina, "'be on tears now.'

"'Miss Frost smiled with her old bright, wonderful look "'that had a touch of queenliness in it. "'Kiss me, dear,' she whispered. "'Alvina kissed her, "'and could not suppress the whimpering "'of her too much grief. "'The night passed slowly. Sometimes the grey eyes of the sick woman rested, dark, dilated, haggard on Alvina's face,

with a heavy, almost accusing look, sinister. Then they closed again. And sometimes they looked pathetic, with a mute, stricken appeal. Then again they closed, only to open again, tense with pain. Alvina wiped her blood-flamed lips. In the morning she died, lay there. there haggard, death smeared, with her lovely white hair smeared also and disorderly. She who had been so beautiful and clean always.

Alvina knew death, which is untellable. She knew that her darling carried away a portion of her own soul into death. But she was alone, and the agony of being alone, the agony of grief, passionate, passionate grief for her darling who was torn into death, the agony of self. The agony of self-reproach, regret, the agony of remembrance, the agony of the looks of the dying woman, winsome and sinisterly accusing and pathetically despairingly appealing, probe after probe of mortal agony, which throughout eternity would never lose its power to pierce to the quick. Alvina seemed to keep strangely calm and aloof all the days after the death,

Only when she was alone she suffered, till she felt her heart really broke. I shall never feel anything anymore, she said, in her abrupt way to Miss Frost's friend, another woman of over fifty. "'Nonsense, child,' expostulated Mrs. Lawson, gently. "'I shan't. I shall never have a heart to feel anything anymore,' said Alvina, with a strange, distraught roll of the eyes.

"'Not like this, child, but you'll feel other things.' I haven't the heart, persisted Alvina. Not yet, said Miss Lawson gently. You can't expect, but time, time brings back. Oh well, but I don't believe it, said Alvina. People thought her rather hard, to one of her gossips, Miss Pinnigar confessed. I thought she'd have felt it more. She cared more for her than she did for her home mother,

and her mother knew it. Mrs. Huffington complained bitterly sometimes, that she had no love. They were everything to one another, Miss Frost and Alvina. I should have thought she'd have felt it more. But you never know. A good thing if she doesn't really. Miss Pinnigar herself did not care one little bit that Miss Frost was dead.

She did not feel herself implicated. The nearest relatives came down and everything was settled. The will was found, just a brief line on a piece of note-paper, expressing a wish that Alvina should have everything. Alvina herself told the verbal requests. All was quietly fulfilled. As it might well be, but there was nothing to leave,

just £63 in the bank, no more, than the clothes, piano, books and music. Miss Frost's brother had these latter, at his own request, the books and music and the piano. Alvina inherited the few simple trinkets and about £45 in money. "'Poor Miss Frost!' cried Mrs. Lawson, weeping rather bitterly. "'She saved nothing for herself.

"'You can see why she never wanted to grow old, so that she couldn't work. "'You can see—' "'It's a shame. "'It's a shame. "'One of the best women that ever trod earth!' "'Manchester House settled down to its deeper silence, its darker gloom. "'Miss Frost was irreparably gone. "'With her, the reality went out of the house.

It seemed to be silently waiting to disappear, and Alvina and Miss Pinnigar might move about and talk in vain. They could never remove the sense of waiting to finish. It was all just waiting to finish. And the three, James and Alvina and Miss Pinnigar, waited lingering through the months for the house to come to an end. With Miss Frost its spirit passed away. It was no more. Dark, empty feeling. It seemed all the time like a house just before a sale. End of. Chapter 4. Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 5, Part 1 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.

The Bow. Throttle Hapney worked fitfully through the winter and in the spring broke down. By this time James Huffton had a pathetic, childish look which touched the hearts of Alvina and Miss Pinnigar. began to treat him with a certain feminine indulgence as he fluttered round, agitated and bewildered. He was like a bird that has flown into a room and is exhausted, enfeebled by its attempts to fly through the false freedom of the window-glass. Sometimes he would sit moping in a corner with his head under his wing. But Miss Pinnigar chased him forth like the stealthy cat she was,

chased him up to the workroom to consider some detail of work, chased him into the shop to turn over the old debris of the stock. At one time he showed the alarming symptom of brooding over his wife's death. Miss Pinnigar was thoroughly scared. But she was not invented. It was left to Alvina to suggest, why doesn't father let the shop and some of the house? Let the shop. Let the last inch of frontage on the street. James thought of it. Let the shop. Permit the name of Huthden to disappear from the list of tradesmen, withdraw, disappear, become a nameless nobody, occupying obscure premises. He thought about it, and thinking about it, became so indignant at the thought that he pulled his scattered energies together within his frail frame, and then he came out with the most original of all

his schemes. Manchester House was to be fitted up as a boarding-house for the better classes, and was to make a fortune catering for the needs of these gentry, who had now nowhere to go. Yes, Manchester House should be fitted up as a sort of quiet family hotel for the better classes. The shop should be turned into an elegant hall entrance, carpeted, with a hall porter and a wide plate-glass door, round-arched, in the round-arch of which the words Manchester House should appear large and distinguished, making an art also, whilst underneath, more refined and smaller, should show the words

private hotel. James was to be proprietor and secretary, keeping the books and attending to correspondence. Miss Pinnigar was to be manageress, superintending the servants and directing the house, whilst Alvina was to occupy the equivocal position of hostess. She was to shake hands with the guests, She was to play the piano, and she was to nurse the sick. For in the prospectus, James would include, trained nurse always on the premises. Why? cried Miss Pinnigar, for once brutally and angrily hostile to him, you'll make it sound like a private lunatic asylum.

Will you explain why? answered James tartly. For himself, he was enraptured with the scheme. He began to tot up ideas and expenses. There would be the handsome entrance and hall. There would be an extension of the kitchen and scullery. There would be an installing of new hot water and sanitary arrangements. There would be a light lift arrangement from the kitchen. There would be a handsome glazed balcony or lodgier or terrace on the first floor at the back,

over the whole length of the backyard. This lodgier would give a wonderful outlook to the south-west and the west. In the immediate foreground, to be sure, would be the yard of the livery stables and the rather slummy dwellings of the colliers sloping downhill. But these could be easily overlooked, for the eye would instinctively wander across the green and shallow valley to the long upslope opposite, showing the manor set in its clump of trees

and farms and haystacks pleasantly dotted, and moderately far off coal mines with twinkling headstocks and narrow railway lines crossing the arable fields and heaps of burning slag. The balcony or covered, said Terrace, James settled down at last to the word terrace, was to be one of the features of the house, the feature. It was to be fitted up as a sort of elegant lounging restaurant. Elegant teas at two and six per head and elegant suppers at five shillings without wine were to be

served here. As a teetotler and a man of ascetic views, James, in his first shallow moments before he thought about it, assumed that his house should be entirely non-alcoholic. A temperament. "'Already he winced. We all know what a provincial temperance hotel is. Besides, there is magic in the sound of wine. "'Wines served!' The legend attracted him immensely. As a teetotler, it had a mysterious, hypnotic influence. "'He must have wines. He knew nothing about them. But Alfred Swain, from the liquor vaults, would put him in the running in five minutes. It was most curious to see Miss Pinnigar turtle up at the mention of this scheme. When first it was disclosed to her,

her colour came up like a turkeys in a flush of indignant anger. It's ridiculous. It's just ridiculous, she blurted, bridling and ducking her head and turning aside like an indignant turkey. Ridiculous? Why? Will you explain why? retorted James, turtling also. It's absolutely ridiculous, she repeated.

Unable to do more than splutter. Well, we'll see, said James, rising to superiority. And again he began to dart, absorbedly about, like a bird building a nest. Miss Pinnigar watched him with a sort of sullen fury. She went to the shop door to peep out after him. She saw him slip into the liquor vaults, and she came back to announce to Alvina, "'He's taken to drink!' said Alvina. "'That's what it is,' said Miss Pinnigar, vindictively,

"'Drink!' Alvina sank down and laughed till she was weak. "'It all seemed really too funny to her. Too funny.' "'I can't see what it is to laugh at,' said Miss Pinnigar. "'Discraceful! It's disgraceful!' "'But I'm not going to stop to be made a fool of. "'I shall be no manageress, I tell you. "'It's absolutely ridiculous. "'Who does he think will come to the place?

"'He's out of his mind, and it's drink. "'That's what it is. "'Going into the liquor vaults at ten o'clock in the morning. That's where he gets his ideas, out of whiskey or brandy, but he's not going to make a fool of me. Oh, dear, sighed Alvina, laughing herself into composure and a little weariness. I know it's perfectly ridiculous.

We shall have to stop him. I've said all I can say, blurted Miss Pinnigar. As soon as James came into a meal, the two women attacked him. But father, said Alvina, there'll be nobody to come. Plenty of people, plenty. of people, said her father. Look at the Shakespeare's head in Nabra. Nabra! Is this Nabra? Bloted Miss Pinnigar. Where are the businessmen here? Where are the foreigners coming here for business? Where's our lace trade and our stocking trade? There are businessmen, said James, and there are ladies.

Who, retorted Miss Pinnigar, is going to give half a crown for a tea? They expect tea and bread and butter for fourpence and cake for sixpence, and apricots for pineapple, for ninepence and ham and tong for a shilling, and fried ham and eggs and jam and cake, and as much as they can eat for one and two. If they expect a knife and fork tea for a shilling, what are you going to give them for half a crown? I know what I shall offer, said James, and we may make it two shillings.' Through his mind flitted the idea of one and eleven's haepney, but he rejected it. You don't realise that I'm catering for a higher class of custom, "'But there isn't any higher class in Woodhouse, father,' said Alvina, unable to restrain a laugh. "'If you create a supply, you create a demand,' he retorted.

"'But how can you create a supply of better class people?' asked Alvina mockingly. James took on his refined, abstracted look, as if he were preoccupied on higher planes. It was the look of an obstinate little boy who poses on the side of the angels, or so the women saw it. Miss Pinnigar was prepared to combat him now by sheer weight of opposition. She would pitch her dead negative will obstinately against him. She would not speak to him,

she would not observe his presence. She was stone deaf and stone blind. There was no James. This nettled him, and she miscalculated him. He merely took another circuit, and rose another flight higher on the spiral of his spiritual egotism. He believed himself finely and sacredly in the right, that he was frustrated by lower beings, above whom it was his duty to rise, to saw. So he sawed to serene heights, and his private

hotel seemed a celestial injunction, an erection on a higher plane. He saw the architect, and then, with his plans and schemes, he saw the builder and contractor. The builder gave an estimate of six or seven hundred, but James had better see the plumber and fitter who was going to install the new hot water and sanitary system. James was a little dashed. He had calculated much less. Having only a few hundred pounds in possession after Throttle Hapney, he was prepared to mortgage Manchester House if he could keep in hand a sufficient sum of money for the running of his establishment for a year. He knew he would have to sacrifice Miss Pinnigar's workroom. He knew, and he feared Miss Pinnigar's violent and unmitigated hostility.

Still, his obstinate spirit rose. He was quite prepared to risk everything on this last throw. Miss Alsop, daughter of the builder, called to see Alvina. The Alsop's were great chapel people, and Cassie Olsop was one of the old maids. She was thin and nipped and wistful looking, about 42 years old. In private she was tyrannously exacting with the servants, and spiteful, rather mean with her motherless nieces. But in public she had this nipped, wistful look. Alvina was surprised by this visit. When she found Miss Alsop at the back door, all her inherent hostility awoke. Oh, is it you, Miss Alsop? Will you come in? They sat in the middle room, the common living room of the house. I called, said Miss Alsop.

coming to the point at once, and speaking in her Sunday school teacher voice, to ask you if you know about this private hotel scheme of your father's? Yes, said Alvina. Oh, you do? Well, we wondered. Mr. Huffton came to father about the building alterations yesterday. They'll be awfully expensive. Will they, said Alvina, making big, mocking eyes.

Yes, very. What do you think of the scheme? "'I—well,' Alvina hesitated, then broke into a laugh, "'to tell the truth I haven't thought much about it at all. "'Well, I think you should,' said Miss Alsop severely. "'Father's sure it won't pay, and it will cost. "'I don't know how much. "'It is bound to be a dead loss, and your father's getting on.

"'You'll be left stranded in the world without a penny to bless yourself with. "'I think it's an awful outlook for you. "'Do you? said Alvina. Here she was, with a bang, planked upon the shelf among the old maids. Oh, I do, sincerely. I should do all I could to prevent him if I were you.

Miss Alsop took her departure. Alvina felt herself jolted in her mood. An old maid along with Cassie Alsop, and James Huffton fooling about with the last bit of money, mortgaging Manchester house up to the hilt. Alvina sank in a kind of, weary mortification, in which her peculiar obstinacy persisted devilishly and spitefully. "'Oh, well, so be it,' said her spirit vindictively.

"'Let the meagre, mean, despicable fate fulfil itself.' Her old anger against her father arose again. Arthur Whittam, the plumber, came in with James Huffton to examine the house. Arthur Whitton was also one of the chapelmen, as had been his common, interfering, uneducated father before him. The father had left each of his sons a fair little sum of money, which Arthur, the eldest, had already increased tenfold. He was sly and slow and uneducated also, and spoke with a broad accent, but he was not bad looking, a tight fellow with big blue eyes, who aspired to keep his aches in the right place, and would have been a gentleman

if he could. Against her usual habit, Alvina joined the plumber and her father in the scullery. Arthur Whittam saluted her with some respect. She liked his blue eyes and tight figure. He was keen and sly in business, very watchful and slow to commit himself. Now he poked and peered and crept under the sink. Alvina watched him half disappear. She handed him a candle, and she laughed to herself, seeing his tight, well-shaped hand-hawkins. protruding from under the sink like the wrong end of a dog from a kennel. He was keen after money was Arthur, and bossy, creeping slyly after his own self-importance and power. He wanted power, and he would creep quietly after it till he got it, as much as he was

capable of. His H's were a barbed wire fence and entanglement, preventing his unlimited progress. He emerged from under the sink, and they went to the kitchen and afterwards upstairs. Alvina followed them persistently, but a little aloof and silent. When the tour of inspection was over, she said, innocently, "'Won't it cost a great deal?' Arthur Whittam slowly shook his head. Then he looked at her. She smiled rather archly into his eyes.

"'It won't be done for nothing,' he said, looking at her again. "'We can go into that later,' said James, leading off the plumber. "'Good morning, Miss Huffton,' said Arthur Whittam. "'Good morning, Mr. Whitton,' replied Alvind. Vina brightly. But she lingered in the background, and as Arthur Whitton was going, she heard him say, "'Well, I'll work it out, Mr. Huffton. I'll work it out and let you know tonight. I'll get the figures by tonight.' The younger man's tone was a little offhand, just a little supercilious with her father, she thought. James's star was setting. In the afternoon, directly after dinner, Alvina went

out. She entered the shop where sheets of lead and tins of paint and putty stood about, varied by sheets of glass and fancy paper. Lottie Wittam, Arthur's wife, appeared. She was a woman of 35, a bit of a shrew, with social ambitions and no children. "'Is Mr. Wittam in?' said Alvina. Mrs. Wittam eyed her. "'I'll see,' she answered, and she left the shop. presently Arthur entered in his shirt sleeves, rather attractive looking. "'I don't know what you'll think of me and what I've come for,' said Alvina, with hurried amiability. Arthur lifted his blue eyes to her, and Mrs. Whittam appeared in the background, in the inner doorway. "'Why, what is it?' said Arthur, stolidly.

"'Make it as dear as you can, for father,' said Alvina, laughing nervously. Arthur's blue eyes rested on her face. Mrs. Whittam advanced into the shop. Why, what's that for? asked Lottie Wittam shrewdly. Alvina turned to the woman. Don't say anything, she said. But we don't want Father to go on with this scheme.

It's bound to fail. And Miss Pinnigar and I can't have anything to do with it anyway. I shall go away. It's bound to fail, said Arthur Whittam stolidly. And Father has no money, I'm sure, said Alvina. Lottie Wittam eyed the thin, nervous face of Alvina. For some reason she liked her. And of course Alvina was considered a lady in Woodhouse. That was what it had come to. With James's declining fortunes, she was merely considered a lady. The consideration was no longer

indisputable. "'Shall you come in a minute?' said Lottie Wittam, lifting the flap of the counter. It was a rare and bold stroke on Mrs. Whittam's part. Alvina's immediate instinct was to refuse, but she liked Arthur Whittam in his shirt sleeves. Well, I must be back in a minute, she said, as she entered the embrasure of the counter. She felt as if she were really venturing on new ground. She was led into the new drawing room, done in peacock and bronze brocade furniture, with gilt and brass and white walls.

This was the Wittam's new house, and Lottie was proud of it. The two women had a short, confidential chast. at. Arthur lingered in the doorway a while, then went away. Alvina did not really like Lottie Wittam, yet the other woman was sharp and shrewd in the uptake, and for some reason she fancied Alvina, so she was invited to tea at Manchester House. After this, so many difficulties rose up in James Huffton's way that he was worried almost out of his life. His two women left him alone. Outside difficulties multiplied on him till he abandoned his scheme. He was simply driven, and out of it by untoward circumstances. Lottie Wittam came to tea and was shown over Manchester House.

She had no opinion at all of Manchester House, wouldn't hang a cat in such a gloomy hole. Still, she was rather impressed by the sense of superiority. Oh, my goodness, she exclaimed, as she stood in Alvina's bedroom and looked at the enormous furniture, the lofty table land of the bed. Oh, my goodness, I wouldn't sleep in that. for a trifle by myself. Aren't you frightened out of your life? Even if I had Arthur at one side of me, I should be frightened on the other side. I shouldn't know what to do. Do you sleep here by yourself? Yes, said Alvina, laughing. I haven't gotten Arthur, even for one side. Oh, my word, you'd want a

husband on both sides in that bed, said Lottie Wittam. Alvina was asked back to tea on Wednesday afternoon, closing day. Arthur was there to tea. very ill at ease and feeling as if his hands were swollen. Alvina got on better with his wife, who watched closely to learn from her guest the secret of repose. The indefinable repose and inevitability of a lady, even of a lady who is nervous and agitated. This was the problem which occupied Lottie's shrewd and active, but lower-class mind. She even did not resent Alvina's laughing attempts to draw out the clumsy Arthur, because Alvina was a lady. and her tactics must be studied. Alvina really liked Arthur, and thought a good deal about him.

Heaven knows why. He and Lottie were quite happy together, and he was absorbed in his petty ambitions. In his limited way, he was invincibly ambitious. He would end by making a sufficient fortune, and by being a town councillor and a J.P. But beyond Woodhouse he did not exist. Why then should Valvina be attracted by him, perhaps because of his closeness and his secret determinedness. When she met him in the street she would stop him, though he was always busy, and make him exchange a few words with her, and when she had tea at his house she would try to rouse his attention. But though he looked at her, steadily, with his blue eyes from under his long lashes, still she knew he looked at her objectively. He never conceived any connection with her whatsoever.

It was Lottie who had a scheming mind. In the family of three brothers there was one, not black sheep, but white. There was one who was climbing out to be a gentleman. This was Albert, the second brother. He had been a schoolteacher in Woodhouse, had gone out to South Africa, and occupied a post in a sort of grammar school in one of the cities of Cape Colony. He had accumulated some money to add to his patrimony. Now he was in England, at Oxford, where he would take his belated degree. When he had got his degree, he would return to South Africa to become head of his school at 700 a year. Albert was 32 years old and unmarried. Lottie was determined he should take back to the Cape a suitable wife, presumably Alvina. He spent his vacations in Woodhouse,

and he was only in his first year at Oxford. Well now, what could be more suitable? A young man at Oxford, a young lady in Woodhouse. Lottie told Alvina all about him, and Alvina was quite excited to meet him. She imagined him a taller, more fascinating, educated Arthur. For the fear of being an old maid, the fear of her own virginity was really gaining on Alvina. There was a terrible sombre futility, nothingness, in Manchester House. She was twenty-six years old. Her life was utterly barren now Miss Frost had gone. She was shabby and penniless, a mere household drudge, for James begrudged even a girl to help in the kitchen. She was looking faded and worn.

Panic, the terrible and deadly panic which overcome so many unmarried women at about the age of 30, was beginning to overcome her. She would not care about marriage, even if she had a lover. But some sort of terror haunted her to the search of a lover. She would become loose, she would become a prostitute, she said to herself, rather than die off like Cassie Alsop and the rest, wither slowly and ignominiously and hideously on the tree, she would rather kill herself.

But it needs a certain natural gift to become a loose woman or a prostitute. If you haven't got the qualities which attract loose men, what are you to do? Supposing it isn't in your nature to attract loose and promiscuous men. Why, then, you can't be a prostitute if you try your head off, nor even a loose woman. Since willing won't do it, it requires a second party to come to an agreement. Therefore, all Alvinas desperate and profligate schemes and ideas fell to naught before the inexorable in her nature. And the inexorable in her nature was highly exclusive and selective, an inevitable negation of looseness or prostitution. Hence men were afraid of her, of her power, once they had committed themselves.

She would involve and lead a man on. She would destroy him rather than not get of him what she wanted. And what she wanted was something serious and risky. Not mere marriage, oh dear no, but a profound and dangerous interrelationship. As well ask the paddlers in the small surf of passion to plunge themselves into the heaving gulf of mid-ocean. With their trousers turned up to their knees it was enough for them to wet their toes in the dangerous sea. They were having nothing to do with such desperate nereids as Alvina. She had cast her mind on Arthur, truly ridiculous, but there was something compact and energetic and willful about him that she magnified tenfold, and so obtained imaginatively an attractive lover. She brooded her

days shabbily away in Manchester House, busy with housework drudgery. Since the collapse of throttle haepney, James Huffton had become so stingy that it was like an inflammation in him. A silver sixpence had a pale and celestial radiance which he could not forego, a nebulous whiteness which made him feel he had heaven in his hold. How then could he let it go? Even a brown penny seemed alive and pulsing with mysterious blood, potent, magical. He loved the flock of his busy pennies in the shop, as if they had been divine, bees, bringing him sustenance from the infinite. But the pennies he saw dribbling away in household

expenses troubled him acutely, as if they were live things leaving his fold. It was a constant struggle to get from him enough money for necessities. And so the household diet became meager in the extreme. The coal was eeked out inch by inch, and when Alvina must have her boots mended, she must draw on her own little stock of money. But James Huffington, had the impudence to make her an allowance of two shillings a week. She was very angry. Yet her anger was of that dangerous, half-ironical sort which wears away its subject and has no outward effect. A feeling of half-bitter mockery kept her going. In the ponderous, rather sordid nullity of Manchester House, she became shadowy and absorbed, absorbed in nothing in particular, yet absorbed.

She was always more or less busy. and certainly there was always something to be done, whether she did it or not. The shop was opened once a week on Friday evenings. James Huffton prowled round the warehouses in Narborough and picked up job lots of stuff, with which he replenished his shabby window. But his heart was not in the business. Mere tenacity made him hover on with it. In midsummer Albert Whittam came to Woodhouse, and Alvina was invited to tea.

She was very much excited. All the time imagining Albert a taller, finer Arthur, she had abstained from actually fixing her mind upon this latter little man. Picture her disappointment when she found Albert quite unattractive. He was tall and thin and brittle, with a pale, rather dry, flattish face, and with curious pale eyes. His impression was one of uncanny flatness, something like a lemon saw. Curiously flat and fish-like he was, one might have been. one might have imagined his backbone to be spread like the backbone of a soul or a place. His teeth were sound, but rather large and yellowish and flat, a most curious person.

He spoke in a slightly mouthing way, not well-bred in spite of Oxford. There was a distinct woodhouse twang. He would never be a gentleman if he lived forever. Yet he was not ordinary. Really an odd fish, quite interesting, if one could get over the feeling that one was looking at him through the glass wall of an aquarium, that most horrifying of all boundaries between two worlds. In an aquarium, fish seemed to come smiling broadly to the doorway, and there to stand talking to one in a mouthing fashion, awful to behold. For one hears no sound

from all their mouthing and staring conversation. Now although Albert Wittam had a good strong voice which rang like water among rocks in her ear, still she seemed never to hear a word he was saying. He smiled down at her and fixed her and swayed his head and said quite original things, really, but he was a genuine odd fish, and yet she seemed to hear no sound, no word from him, nothing came to her. Perhaps as a matter of fact, fish do actually pronounce streams of watery words, to which we, with our aerial resonant ears, are death forever. The odd thing was that this odd fish seemed from the very first to imagine she had accepted him as a follower, and he was quite prepared to follow. Nay, from the very first moment he was

smiling on her with a sort of complacent delight, compassionate, one might almost say, as if there was a full understanding between them. If only she could have got into the right state of mind, she would really rather have liked him. He smiled at her and said really interesting things between his big teeth. There was something rather nice about him, but, we must repeat, it was as if the glass wall of an aquarium divided them. Alvina looked at Arthur. Arthur was short and dark-haired and nicely coloured.

But now his brother was there, he too seemed to have a dumb, aqueous silence, fish-like and aloof about him. He seemed to swim like a fish in his own little element. Strange it all was, like Alice in Wonderland. Alvina understood now Lottie's strange sort of thinness, a haggard, sinewy, sea-weedy look. The poor thing was all the time swimming for her life. For Alvina it was a most curious tea-party. She listened and smiled and made vague answers to Albert, who leaned his broad, thin, brittle shoulders towards her. Lottie seemed rather shadowily to preside, but it was Arthur who came out into communication,

and now, uttering his rather broad-mouthed speeches, she seemed to hear him in a quieter, subtler edition of his father. His father had been a little, terrifically loud voice, hard-skinned man, amazingly uneducated, and amazingly bullying, who had tyrannized for many years over the Sunday school children during morning service. He had been an odd-looking creature with round grey whiskers. To Alvina, always a creature, never a man, an atrocious leprechaun from under the chapel floor, and how he used to dig the children in the back with his horrible iron thumb

if the poor things happened to whisper or nod in chapel. These were his children, most curious chips of the old block, who ever would have believed she would have been taking tea with them. why don't you have a bicycle and go out on it arthur was saying but i can't ride said alvina you'd learn in a couple of lessons there's nothing in riding a bicycle i don't believe i ever should laughed alvina you don't mean to say you're nervous said arthur rudely and sneeringly i am she persisted you needn't be nervous with me smiled albert broadly with his odd genuine gallantry i'll hold you on but i haven't got a bicycle said alveena feeling she was slowly colouring to a deep, uneasy blush. You can have mine to learn on, said Lottie. Albert will look after it.

There's your chance, said Arthur rudely. Take it while you've got it. Now Alvina did not want to learn to ride a bicycle. The two Miss Carlin's, two more old maids, had made themselves ridiculous forever by becoming twin cycle fiends. And the horrible, energetic strain of peddling a bicycle over miles and miles of highway did not attract Alvina at all.

She was completely indifferent to sightseeing and scouring about. She liked taking a walk in her lingering indifferent fashion, but rushing about in any way was hateful to her, and then to be taught to ride a bicycle by Albert Wittam. Her very soul stood still. Yes, said Albert, beaming down at her from his strange pale eyes. Come on, when will you have your first lesson?

"'Oh!' cried Alvina in confusion. "'I can't promise. I haven't time, really.' "'Time!' exclaimed Arthur rudely. "'But what do you do with yourself all day?' "'I have to keep house,' she said, looking at him archly. "'House! You can put a chain round its neck and tie it up,' he retorted. Albert laughed, showing all his teeth. "'I'm sure you find plenty to do, with everything on your hands,' said Lottie to Alvina.

I do, said Alvina. By evening, I'm quite tired, though you mayn't believe it since you say I do nothing, she added, laughing confusedly to Arthur. But he, hard-headed little fortune maker, replied, you have a girl to help you, don't you? Albert, however, was beaming at her sympathetically. You have too much to do indoors, he said. It would do you good to get a bit of exercise out of doors. Come down to the coach road tomorrow afternoon, and let me give you a lesson. Go on. Now the coach road was a level drive between beautiful, park-like grass stretches down in the valley. It was a delightful place for learning to ride a bicycle, but open, in full view of all the world. Alvina would have died of shame.

She began to laugh nervously and hurriedly at the very thought. No, I can't. I really can't. Thanks awfully, she said. Can't you really, said Albert. Oh well, we'll say another day, shall we? "'When I feel I can,' she said. "'Yes, when you feel like it,' replied Albert. "'That's more it,' said Arthur. "'It's not the time. It's the nervousness.'

Again Albert beamed at her sympathetically and said, "'Oh, I'll hold you. You needn't be afraid.' "'But I'm not afraid,' she said. "'You won't say you are,' interposed Arthur. "'Women's faults mustn't be owned up to.' Alvina was beginning to feel quite dazed. their mechanical, overbearing way was something she was unaccustomed to.

It was like the jaws of a pair of insentient iron pincers. She rose, saying she must go. Albert rose also, and reached for his straw hat with its coloured band. "'I'll stroll up with you if you don't mind,' he said, and he took his place at her side along the Narborough Road, where everybody turned to look, for, of course, he had a sort of fame in Woodhouse.

She went with him laughing and chatting, but she did not feel at all comfortable. He seemed so pleased, only he was not pleased with her. He was pleased with himself on her account, inordinately pleased with himself. In his world, as in a fishes, there was but his own swimming self, and if he chanced to have something swimming alongside and doing him credit, why, so much the more complacently he smiled. He walked stiff and erect, with his head pressed brother back, so that he always seemed to be advancing from the head and shoulders, in a flat kind of advance, horizontal.

He did not seem to be walking with his whole body. His manner was oddly gallant, with a gallantry that completely missed the individual in the woman, circled round her and flew home, gratified to his own hive. The way he raised his hat, the way he inclined and smiled flatly, even rather excitedly as he talked, was all a little discomforting and comical.

He left her at the shop door, saying, I shall see you again, I hope. Oh, yes, she replied, rattling the door anxiously, for it was locked. She heard her father's step at last tripping down the shop. Good evening, Mr. Huffden, said Albert, suavely, and with a certain confidence, as James peered out. Oh, good evening, said James,

letting Alvina pass and shutting the door in Albert's face. Who was that? he asked her sharply. Albert Whittam, she replied. What has he got to do with you? said James shrewishly. Nothing, I hope. End of, Chapter 5, Part 1.

Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 5, Part 2 Of the Lost Girl, by D.H. Lawrence. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. She fled into the obscurity of Manchester House, out of the grey summer evening. The Wittams threw her off her pivot and made her feel she was not herself.

She felt she didn't know, she couldn't feel, she was just scattered and decentralised, and she was rather afraid of the Wittam brothers. She might be their victim. She intended to avoid them. The following day she saw Albert in his Norfolk jacket and flannel trousers and his straw hat, strolling past several times

and looking in through the shop door and up at the upper windows. but she hid herself thoroughly. When she went out, it was by the back way, so she avoided him. But on Sunday evening, there he sat, rather stiff and brittle, in the old Wittam's pew.

His head pressed a little back, so that his face and neck seemed slightly flattened. He wore very low, turned-down, starched collars that showed all his neck, and he kept looking up at her during the service. She sat in the choir loft, gazing up at her with apparently lovelorn eyes and a faint, intimate smile, the sort of ju-s-saint-sue look of a private swain.

Arthur also occasionally cast a judicious eye on her, as if she were a chimney that needed repairing, and he must estimate the cost and whether it was worth it. Sure enough, as she came out through the narrow choir gate into Narborough Road, there was Albert, stepping forward like a policeman, and saluting her, smiling down on her. I don't know if I'm presuming, he said, in a mock deferential way,

that showed he didn't imagine he could presume. Oh, not at all, said Alvina airily. He smiled with assurance. You haven't got any engagement, then, for this evening, he said. No, she replied simply. We might take a walk, what do you think, he said, glancing down the road in either direction. What, after all, was she to think? All the girls were pairing off with the boys for,

the afterchapel stroll and spoon. I don't mind, she said, but I can't go far. I've got to be in at nine. Which way shall we go, he said. He steered off, turned downhill through the common gardens, and proposed to take her the not very original walk up Flint's Lane, and along the railway line, the colliery railway, that is, then back up the Marlpool Road, a sort of circle. She agreed. They did not find a great deal to talk about.

She questioned him about his plans and about the Cape. But save for bare outlines which he gave readily enough, he was rather close. What do you do on Sunday nights as a rule? he asked her. Oh, I have a walk with Lucy Granger or I go down to Hallam's or go home, she answered. You don't go walks with the fellows, then. Father would never have it, she replied. What will he say now? he asked, with self-satisfaction. Goodness knows, she laughed.

"'Goodness usually does,' he answered archly. "'When they came to the rather stumbling railway, he said, "'Won't you take my arm?' offering her the said member. "'Oh, I'm all right,' she said. "'Thanks.' "'Go on,' he said, pressing a little nearer to her and offering his arm. "'There's nothing against it, is there?' "'Oh, it's not that,' she said.

"'And feeling in a false position, she took his arm rather unwillingly. "'He drew a little nearer to her and walked with a slight prance.' "'We get on better, don't we?' he said, giving her hand the tiniest squeeze with his arm against his side. "'Much,' she replied, with a laugh. Then he lowered his voice oddly. "'It's many a day since I was on this railroad,' he said. "'Is this one of your old walks?' she asked, malicious. "'Yes, I've been it once or twice, with girls that are all married now.'

"'Didn't you want to marry?' she asked. "'Oh, I don't know. I may have done, but it never came off somehow. I've sometimes thought it would never come off. Why? I don't know exactly. It didn't seem to, you know. Perhaps neither of us was properly inclined. I should think so, she said.

And yet, he admitted slyly, I should like to marry. To this she did not answer. Shouldn't you, he continued. When I meet the right man, she laughed. That's it, he said. There, that's just it. And you haven't met him?

His voice seemed smiling with a sort of triumph, as if he had caught her out. Well, once I thought I had, when I was engaged to Alexander. But you found you were mistaken, he insisted. No, mother was so ill at the time. There's always something to consider, he said. She kept on wondering what she should do if he wanted to kiss her. The mere incongruity of such a desire on his part formed a problem. Luckily, for this evening he formulated no desire, but left her in the shop door soon after nine with the request. I shall see you in a week, shan't I? I'm not sure. I can't promise now, she said hurriedly. Good night. What she felt chiefly about him was a decentralised perplexity, very much akin to

no feeling at all. Who do you think took me for a walk, Miss Pinnigar? she said, laughing to her confidant. I can't imagine, replied Miss Pinnigar, eyeing her. You never would imagine, said I. Alvina. Albert Wittam. Albert Wittam! exclaimed Miss Pinnigar, standing quite motionless. It may well take your breath away, said Alvina. No, it's not that, hurriedly expostulated, Miss Pinnagar. Well, I declare, and then on a new note, well, he's very eligible, I think.

Most eligible, replied Alvina. Yes, he is, insisted Miss Pinnagar. I think it's very good. What's very good? asked Alvina. Miss Pinnigar hesitated. She looked at Alvina. She reconsidered. Of course he's not the man I should have imagined for you, but you think he'll do, said Alvina. Why not? said Miss Pinnigar. Why shouldn't he do, if you like him? Ah, cried Alvina, sinking on the sofa with a laugh. That's it.

Of course you couldn't have anything to do with him if you don't care for him, pronounced Miss Pinnigar. Albert continued to hang around. He did not make any direct attack for a few days. Suddenly one evening he appeared at the back door with a bunch of white stocks in his hand. His face lit up with a sudden, odd smile when she opened the door, a broad, pale, gleaming, remarkable smile. Lottie wanted to know if you'd come to tea tomorrow, he said straight out, looking at her with the pale light in his eyes that smiled palely right into her eyes, but did not see her at all. He was waiting on the doorstep to come in.

Will you come in? said Alvina. Father is in. Yes, I don't mind, he said, pleased. He mounted the steps, still holding his bunch of white stocks. James Huffton screwed round in his chair and peered over his spectacles to see who was coming. Father, said Alvina, you know Mr. Whittam, don't you? James Huffton half rose.

He still peered over his glasses at the intruder. "'Well, I do by sight, how'd you do?' he held out his frail hand. Albert held back, with the flowers in his own hand, and, giving his broad, pleased, pale, gleaming smile from father to daughter, he said, "'What am I to do with these? Will you accept, then, Miss Huffton?' He stared at her with shining, pallid, smiling eyes. "'Are they for me?' she said, with false brightness. "'Thank you.'

James Huffton looked over the top of his spectacles. searchingly at the flowers, as if they had been a bunch of white and sharp-toothed ferrets. Then he looked as suspiciously at the hand which Albert at last extended to him. He shook it slightly and said, Take a seat. I'm afraid I'm disturbing you in your reading, said Albert, still having the drawn, excited smile on his face. Well, said James Huffton, the light is fading.

Alvina came in with the flowers in a jar. She set them on the table. "'Haven't they a lovely scent?' she said. "'Do you think so?' he replied, again with the excited smile. There was a pause. Albert, rather embarrassed, reached forward, saying, "'May I see what you're reading?' And he turned over the book.

"'Tommy and Griselle? Oh, yes. What do you think of it?' "'Well,' said James, "'I am only in the beginning.' "'I think it's interesting myself,' said Albert, "'as a study of a man who can't get away from himself. "'You meet a lot of people like that.

What I wonder is why they find it such a drawback. Find what a drawback? asked James. Not being able to get away from themselves. That self-consciousness, it hampers them and interferes with their power of action. Now I wonder why self-consciousness should hinder a man in his action. Why does it cause misgiving? I think I'm self-conscious, but I don't think I have so many misgivings. I don't see that they're necessary.

Certainly I think Tommy is a weak character. "'I believe he is a despicable character,' said James. "'No, I don't know so much about that,' said Albert. "'I shouldn't say weak exactly. "'He's only weak in one direction. "'No, what I wonder is why he feels guilty. "'If you feel self-conscious, there's no need to feel guilty about it, is there?' "'He stared with his strange, smiling stare at James.'

"'I shouldn't say so,' replied James. "'But if a man never knows his own mind, "'he certainly can't be much of a man.' "'I don't see much of a man.' "'I don't see a man.' see it, replied Albert. What's the matter is that he feels guilty for not knowing his own mind? That's the unnecessary part, the guilty feeling. Albert seemed insistent on this point, which had no particular interest for James. Where we've got to make a change, said Albert,

is in the feeling that other people have a right to tell us what we ought to feel and do. Nobody knows what another man ought to feel. Every man has his own special feelings and his own right to them. That's where it is with education. You ought not to want all your children to feel alike. The natures are all different, and so they should all feel different, about practically everything. There would be no end to the confusion, said James. There needn't be any confusion to speak of. You agree to a number of rules and conventions and laws for social purposes, but in private you feel just as you do feel, without occasion for trying to feel something else. I don't know, said James, There are certain feelings common to humanity, such as love and honour and truth.

Would you call them feelings, said Albert? I should say what is common is the idea. The idea is common to humanity, once you've put it into words, but the feeling varies with every man. The same idea represents a different kind of feeling in every different individual. It seems to me that's what we've got to recognise if we're going to do anything with education. We don't want to produce mass feelings. Don't you agree?

Poor James was too bewildered to know whether to agree or not to agree. Shall we have a light, Alvina? he said to his daughter. Alvina lit the incandescent gas jet that hung in the middle of the room. The hard white light showed her somewhat haggard looking as she reached up to it, but Albert watched her, smiling abstractedly. It seemed as if his words came off him without affecting him at all. He did not think about what he was feeling, and he did not feel what he was thinking about, and therefore she hardly heard what he said,

yet she believed he was clever. It was evident Albert was quite blissfully happy in his own way, sitting there at the end of the sofa not far from the fire and talking animatedly. The uncomfortable thing was that though he talked in the direction of his interlocutor, he did not speak to him, merely said his words towards him. James, however, was such an airy feather, himself, he did not remark this, but only felt a little self-important at sustaining such a subtle conversation with a man from Oxford. Alvina, who never expected to be interested in clever conversations, after a long experience of her father, found her expectation justified again. She was not interested. The man was quite nicely dressed, in the regulation tweed jacket and

flannel trousers and brown shoes. He was even rather smart. judging from his yellow socks and yellow and brown tie. Miss Pinnigar eyed him with approval when she came in. Good evening, she said, just a trifle condescendingly as she shook hands. How do you find Woodhouse after being away so long? Her way of speaking was so quiet, as if she hardly spoke aloud. Well, he answered, I find it the same in many ways. You wouldn't like to settle here again?

I don't think I should. It feels a little cramped, you know, after a new country. but it has its attractions. Here he smiled meaningful. Yes, said Miss Pinnigar, I suppose the old connections count for something. They do, or decidedly they do. There's no associations like the old ones.

He smiled flatly as he looked towards Alvina. You find it so, do you? returned Miss Pinnigar. You don't find that the new connections make up for the old? Not altogether they don't. There's something missing. Again he looked towards Alvina, but she did not answer his look.

Well, said Miss Pinnigar, I'm glad we still count for something, in spite of the greater attractions. How long have you in England? Another year, just a year. This time next year I expect I shall be sailing back to the Cape. He smiled as if in anticipation, yet it was hard to believe that it mattered to him,

or that anything mattered. And is Oxford agreeable to you, she asked. Oh, yes, I keep myself busy. What are your subjects? asked James, English in history, but I do mental science for my own interest. Alvina had taken up a piece of sewing. She sat under the light, brooding a little. What had all this to do with her? The man talked on and beamed in her direction, and she felt a little important, but moved or touched, not the least in the world. She wondered if anyone would ask him to supper. Bread and cheese and current loaf and water

was all that offered. No one asked him, and at last he rose. Show Mr. Whittam out through the shop, Alvina, said Miss Pinnigar. Alvina piloted the man through the long, dark, encumbered way of the shop. At the door he said, you've never said that whether you're coming to tea on Thursday. I don't think I can, said Alvina. He seemed rather taken aback. Why, he said, what stops you? I've so much to do. He smiled slowly and satirically. Won't it keep? he said. No, really, I can't come on Thursday. Thank you so much. Good night. She gave him her hand and

turned quickly into the shop, closing the door. He remained standing in the porch, staring at the closed door. Then, lifting his lip, he turned away. Well, said Miss Pinnigar decidedly, as Alvina re-entered, you can say what you like, but I think he's very pleasant, very pleasant. extremely intelligent, said James Huffton, shifting in his chair. I was awfully bored, said Alvina. They both looked at her, irritated. After this she really did what she could to avoid him. When she saw him sauntering down the street in all his leisure,

her sort of anger possessed her. On Sunday she slipped down from the choir into the chapel and out through the main entrance, whilst he awaited her at the small exit. and by good luck when he called one evening in the week she was out she returned down the yard and there through the uncurtained window she saw him sitting awaiting her without a thought she turned on her heel and fled away she did not come in till he had gone how late you are said miss pinnigar mr whitton was here till ten minutes ago yes laughed alvina i came down the yard and saw him so i went back till he'd gone miss pinnigar looked at her in displeasure "'I suppose you know your own mind,' she said. "'How do you explain such behaviour?' said her father, pettishly. "'I didn't want to meet him,' she said.

The next evening was Saturday. Alvina had inherited Miss Frost's task of attending to the chapel flowers once a quarter. She had been round the gardens of her friends, and gathered the scarlet and hot yellow and purple flowers of August, asters, redstocks, tall Japanese sunflowers, koreopsis, geraniums. With these in her basket she slipped out towards evening to the chapel. She knew Mr. Caledine, the caretaker, would not lock up till she had been. The moment she got inside the chapel, it was a big, airy, pleasant building. She heard hammering from the organ loft and saw the flicker of a candle. Some workmen busy before Sunday. She shut the

bay's door behind her and hurried across to the vestry for vases, then out to the tap for water. All was warm and still. It was full early evening. The yellow light streamed through the side windows. The big stained glass window at the end was deep and full of glowing colour, in which the yellows and reds were richest. Above in the organ loft the hammering continued. She arranged her flowers in many vases, till the communion table was like,

the window, a tangle of strong yellow and crimson and purple and bronze green. She tried to keep the effect light and kaleidoscopic, an interplay of tossed pieces of strong, hot colour, vibrating and lightly intermingled. It was very gorgeous for a communion table, but the day of white lilies was over. Suddenly there was a terrific crash and bang and tumble up in the organ loft, followed by a cursing. "'Are you hurt?' called Alvina. Looking up into the space, the candle had disappeared. But there was no reply. Feeling curious, she went out of the chapel to the stairs in the side porch

and ran up to the organ. She went round the side, and there she saw a man in his shirt-sleeves, sitting crouched in the obscurity on the floor between the organ and the wall of the back, while a collapsed pair of steps lay between her and him. It was too dark to see who it was. That rotten pair of steps came down with me, said the infuriated voice of Arthur Whittam, and about broke my leg.

Alvina advanced towards him, picking her way over the steps. He was sitting, nursing his leg. Is it bad, she asked, stooping towards him. In the shadow he lifted up his face. It was pale, and his eyes were savage with anger. Her face was near his. It is bad, he said, furious because of the shock. The shock had thrown him off his balance.

Let me see, she said. He removed his hands from clasping his shin, some distance above the ankle. She put her fingers over the bone, over his stocking, to feel if there was any fracture. Immediately her fingers were wet with blood. Then he did a curious thing. With both his hands he pressed her hand down over his wounded leg, pressed it with all his might, as if her hand were a plaster. For some moments he sat, he sat, pressed.

pressing her hand over his broken shin, completely oblivious, as some people are when they have had a shock and a hurt, intense on one point of consciousness only, and for the rest, unconscious. Then he began to come to himself. The pain modified itself. He could not bear the sudden, acute hurt to his shin. That was one of his sensitive, unbearable parts. The bone isn't broken, she said professionally, but you better get the stocking out of it. Without a thought he pulled his trouser leg higher and rolled down his stocking, extremely gingerly and sick with pain. Can you show a light, he said.

She found the candle, and she knew where matches always rested on a little ledge of the organ. So she brought him a light whilst he examined his broken shin. The blood was flowing, but not so much. It was a nasty cut bruise, swelling and looking very painful. He sat looking at it absorbedly, bent over it in the can. candlelight. It's not so very bad when the pain goes off, she said, noticing the black hairs of his shin. We'd better tie it up. Have you got a handkerchief? It's in my jacket, he said. She looked round for his jacket. He annoyed her a little by being completely oblivious of her. She got his

handkerchief and wiped her fingers on it. Then of her own kerchief she made a pad for the wound. Shall I tie it up then, she said. But he did not answer. He sat still nursing his lap. He was leg, looking at his hurt, while the blood slowly trickled down the wet hairs towards his ankle. There was nothing to do but wait for him. "'Shall I tie it up, then?' she repeated at length, a little impatient, so he put his leg a little forward. She looked at the wound and wiped it a little. Then she folded the pad of her own handkerchief and laid it over the hurt. And again he did the same thing. He took her hand as if it were a plaster and applied it to his wound,

pressing it cautiously but firmly down. She was rather angry. He took no notice of her at all, and she, waiting, seemed to go into a dream, asleep. Her arm trembled a little, stretched out and fixed. She seemed to lose count, under the firm compression he imposed on her. It was as if the pressure on her hand pressed her into oblivion. Tie it up, he said briskly, and she, obedient, began to tie the bandage, with numb fingers. He seemed to have taken the use out of her. When she had finished, he scrambled to his feet, looked at the organ which he was repairing, and looked at the collapsed pair of steps. A rotten pair of things to have to put a man's life in danger, he said, towards the steps. Then stubbornly he rigged them up again and stared again at his interrupted job.

"'You won't go on, will you?' she asked. "'It's got to be done. Sunday to-morrow,' he said. if you'd hold them steps a minute. There isn't more than a minute's fixing to do. It's all done but fixing. Hadn't you better leave it, she said. Would you mind holding the steps so that they don't let me down again, he said. Then he took the candle and hobbled, stubbornly and angrily up again, with spanner and hammer. For some minutes he worked, tapping and readjusting, whilst she held the rickety steps and stared at him from below, the shapeless bulk of his trousers. The strange the difference, she could not help thinking it, between the vulnerable, hairy, and somehow childish leg of the real man, and the shapeless form of these workmen's trousers. The colonel, the man himself, seemed so tender, the covering so stiff and insentient. And was he not going to speak to her? Not one human word of recognition? Men are the most curious and unreal creatures. After all, he had made use of her. Think how he had pressed her hand gently but firmly down, down over his bruise,

how he had taken the virtue out of her, till she felt all weak and dim. And after that was he going to relapse into his tough and ugly workman's hide and treat her as if she were a pair of steps, which might let him down or hold him up, as might be. As she stood, clinging to the steps, she felt weak and a little hysterical. She wanted to summon her strength, to have her own business, to have her own back from him. After all, he had taken the virtue from her. He might have the grace to say thank you, and treat her as if she were a human being. At last he left off tinkering and looked round. Have you finished? she said, yes, he answered crossly. And taking the candle, he began to clamber down.

When he got to the bottom, he crouched over his leg and felt the bandage. That gives you what for, he said, as if it were her fault. Is the bandage holding, she said. said. I think so, he answered churlishly. Aren't you going to make sure, she said. Oh, it's all right, he said, turning aside and taking up his tools. I'll make my way home. So will I, she answered. She took the candle and went a little in front. He hurried into his coat and gathered his tools, anxious to get away.

She faced him, holding the candle. Look at my hand, she said, holding it out. It was smeared with blood, as was the cuff of her dress, a black and white striped cotton dress. Is it hurt, he said? No, but look at it. Look here. She showed the bloodstains on her dress.

It'll wash it out, he said, frightened of her. Yes, so it will. But for the present it's there. Don't you think you ought to thank me? He recoiled a little. Yes, he said, I'm very much obliged. You ought to be more than that, she said. He did not answer, but looked her up and down.

"'We'll be going down,' he said. "'Wistle have folks talking.' Suddenly she began to laugh. It seemed so comical. "'What a position!' The candle shook as she laughed. What a man, answering her like a little automaton. Seriously, quite seriously, he said it to her.

"'We'll have folks talking!' She laughed in a breathless, hurried way as they tramped downstairs. At the bottom of the stairs, Caledine, the caretaker met them. He was a tall, thin man with a black moustache, about fifty years old. "'Have you done for tonight, all of you?' he said, grinning in echo to Alvina's still fluttering laughter. "'That's a nice rotten pair of steps you've got up there for a death-trap,' said Arthur angrily. "'Come down on top of me, and I'm lucky I haven't got my leg broken.

"'It is near enough.' "'Come down with you, did they?' said Caledine good-humidly. "'I never knowed him come down with me.' "'You ought to, then. my legs as near broke as it can be. What, have you hurt yourself? I should think I have. Look here.

And he began to pull up his trouser leg, but Alvina had given the candle to Caledine and fled. She had a last view of Arthur stooping over his precious leg, while Caledine stooped his length and held down the candle. When she got home she took off her dress and washed herself hard, and washed the stained sleeve thoroughly, thoroughly, and threw away the wash water and rinsed the wash bowls with fresh water scrupulously. Then she dressed herself in her black dress once more, did her hair, and went downstairs.

But she could not sew, and she could not settle down. It was Saturday evening, and her father had opened the shop. Miss Pinnigar had gone to Narborough. She would be back at nine o'clock. Alvina set about to make a mock woodcock, or a mock something or other, with cheese and an egg and bits of toast. Her eyes were dilated and as if amused, mocking. Her face quivered a little with irony that was not all enjoyable. I'm glad you've come, said Alvina, as Miss Pinnigar entered. The supper's just done. I'll ask father if he'll close the shop.

Of course James would not close the shop, though he was merely wasting light. He nipped in to eat his supper and started out again with a mouthful the moment he heard the ping of the bell. He kept his customers chatting as long as he could. His love for conversation had degenerated into a spasmodic passion for chatter. Alvina looked across at Miss Pinnigar as the two sat at the meager supper table. Her eyes were dilated and arched with a mocking, almost satanic look. I've made up my mind about Albert Wittam, said Alvina. Miss Pinnigar looked at her.

Which way? she asked, demurely, but a little sharp. It's all off. said Alvina, breaking into a nervous laugh. Why? What has happened? Nothing has happened. I can't stand him. Why? Suddenly, said Miss Pinnigar. It's not sudden, laughed Alvina. Not at all. I can't stand him. I never could. And I won't try. There, isn't that plain? And she went off into her hurried laugh, partly at herself, partly at Arthur, partly at Albert, partly at Miss Pinnigar.

"'Oh, well, if you're so sure,' said Miss Pinnigar, rather bitingly. "'I am, quite sure,' said Alvina. "'I'm quite certain. "'Cockshore people are often most mistaken,' said Miss Pinnigar. "'I'd rather have my own mistakes than somebody else's rights,' said Alvina. "'Then don't expect anybody to pay for your mistakes,' said Miss Pinnigar. "'It would be all the same if I did,' said Alvina. "'When she lay in bed she stared at the light of the street.

on the wall. She was thinking busily, but heaven knows what she was thinking. She had sharpened the edge of her temper. She was waiting till tomorrow. She was waiting till she saw Albert Whittam. She wanted to finish off with him. She was keen to cut clean through any correspondence with him. She stared for many hours at the light of the street lamp, and there was a narrowed look in her eyes. The next day she did not go to morning service, but stayed at home to cook the dinner. In the evening, sat in her place in the choir. In the Wittam's pew sat Lottie and Albert, no Arthur. Albert kept glancing up. Alvina could not bear the sight of him. She simply could not bear the sight of him. Yet in her low, sweet voice, she sang the alto to the hymns, right to the Vesper. Lord, keep us safe this night,

secure from all our fears, may angels guard us while we sleep till morning light appears. As she sang her and as the soft and emotional harmony of the Vesper swelled luxuriously through the chapel. She was peeping over her folded hands at Lottie's hat. She could not bear Lottie's hats. There was something aggressive and vulgar about them, and she simply detested the look of the back of Albert's head as he too stooped to the Vesper prayer. It looked mean and rather common.

She remembered Arthur had the same look, bending to prayer. There, why had she not seen it before? That petty, vulgar little look! How could she have thought twice of Arthur? She had made a fool of herself, as usual. Him and his little leg! She grimaced round the chapel, waiting for people to bob up their heads and take their departure.

At the gate Albert was waiting for her. He came forward, lifting his hat with a smiling and familiar. Good evening! Good evening, she murmured. "'It's ages since I've seen you,' he said, "'and I've looked out for you everywhere.' "'It was raining a little.' She put up her umbrella.

"'You'll take a little stole? "'The rain isn't much,' she said. "'No, thank you,' she said. "'I must go home.' "'Why, what's your hurry? "'Walk as far as Beeby Bridge. "'Go on.' "'No, thank you.'

"'How's that? "'What makes you refuse? "'I don't want to.' "'He paused and looked down at her. "'The cold and supercilious look of anger a little spiteful came into his face. Do you mean because of the rain, he said? No, I hope you don't mind, but I don't want to take any more walks.

I don't mean anything by them. Oh, as for that, he said, taking the words out of her mouth. Why should you mean anything by them? He smiled down on her. She looked him straight in the face. But I'd rather not take any more walks. Thank you. None at all, she said, looking him full in the eyes.

"'You wouldn't,' he replied, stiffening. "'Yes, I'm quite sure,' she said. "'As sure as all that are you?' he said, with a sneering grimace. He stood eyeing her insolently up and down. "'Good-night,' she said. His sneering made her furious, putting her umbrella between him and her, she walked off. "'Good-night, then,' he replied, unseen by her, but his voice was sneering and impotent.

She went home quivering, but her soul was burning with satisfaction. She had shaken them off. Later she wondered if she had been unkind to him, but it was done and done forever. Vogue la Galler End of Chapter 5, Part 2. Read by Tony Foster Chapter 6, Part 1 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain.

Huffton's last endeavour The trouble with her ship was that it would not sail. It rode waterlogged in the rotting port of home. All very well to have wild, reckless moods of irony and independence if you have to pay for them by withering dustily on the shelf. Alvina fell again into humility and fear. she began to show symptoms of her mother's heart trouble. For day followed day, month followed month.

Season after season went by, and she grubbed away like a housemaid in Manchester house. She hurried round doing the shopping. She sang in the choir on Sundays. She attended the various chapel events. She went out to visit friends and laughed and talked and played games. But all the time, what was there actually in her life? Not much.

she was withering towards old-maiddom already in her twenty-eighth year she spent her days grubbing in the house whilst her father became an elderly frail man still too lively in mind and spirit miss pinnigar began to grow grey and elderly too money became scarcer and scarcer there was a black day ahead when her father would die and the home be broken up and she would have to tackle life as a worker There lay the only alternative, in work. She might slave her days away teaching the piano, as Miss Frost had done. She might find a subordinate post as nurse. She might sit in the cash desk of some shop. Some work of some sort would be found for her, and she would sink into the routine of her job, as did so many women grow old and die, chattering and fluttering. She would have what is called her independence, but, seriously faced with that treasure and without the option of refusing it, strange how hideous she found it. Work! A job! More even than she rebelled against the

Wittams did she rebel against her job? Albert Witton was distasteful to her, or rather he was not exactly distasteful, he was chiefly incongruous. She could never get over the feeling that he was mouthing and smiling at her through the glass wall of an aquarium, he being on the watery side. Whether she would ever be able to take his strange and dishuman element, who knows? Anyway, it would be some sort of an adventure, better than a job. She rebelled with all her backbone against the word job. Even the substitutes, employment, or work, were detestable, unbearable. Emphatically, she did not want to work for a wage. It was too humiliating. Could anything be more in for a dig than the performing of a

set of special actions day in, day out, for a lifetime, in order to receive some shillings every seventh day, shameful, a condition of shame. The most vulgar, sordid and humiliating of all forms of slavery, so mechanical. Far better be a slave outright, in contact with all the whims and impulses of a human being than serve some mechanical routine of modern work. He trembled with anger, impotence and fear. For months the thought of Albert was a torment to her. She might have married him. He would have been strange, a strange fish. But were it not better to take the strange leap over into his element than to condemn oneself to the routine of a job? He would have been curious and dishuman, but after all it would have been an experience. In a way she liked him. There was something

odd and integral about him, which she liked. He was not a liar. In his own line, he was honest and direct. Then he would take her to South Africa, a whole new milieu, and perhaps she would have children. She shivered a little. No, not his children. He seemed so curiously cold-blooded. And yet, why not? Why not his curious, pale, half-cold-blooded children like little fishes of her own? Why not? Everything was possible, and even desirable, once one could see the strangeness of it. Once she could plunge through the wall of the aquarium. Once she could kiss him.

Therefore Miss Pinnigar's quiet harping on the string was unbearable. I can't understand that you disliked Mr. Whittam so much, said Miss Pinnigar. We can never understand those things, said Alvina. I can't understand why I dislike tapioca and arrowroot, but I do. That's different, so. said Miss Pinnigar shortly. It's no more easy to understand, said Alvina. Because there's no need to understand it, said Miss Pinnigar.

And is there need to understand the other? Certainly. I can see nothing wrong with him, said Miss Pinnigar. Alvina went away in silence. This was in the first months after she had given Albert his dismissal. He was at Oxford again, would not return to Woodhouse till Christmas. Between her and the Woodhouse Wittams, there was a decisive. coldness. They never looked at her now, nor she at them. Nonetheless, as Christmas drew near, Alvina worked up her feelings. Perhaps she would be reconciled to him. She would slip across and

smile to him. She would take the plunge, once and for all, and kiss him, and marry him, and bear the little half-fishes his children. She worked herself into quite a fever of anticipation. But when she saw him the first evening, sitting stiff and staring flatly and flatly and of him in chapel, staring away from everything in the world at, Heaven knows what, just as fishes stare. Then his dishumanness came over her again like an arrest, and rested all her flights of fancy. He stared flatly in front of him,

and flatly set a wall of oblivion between him and her. She trembled and let be. After Christmas, however, she had nothing at all to think forward to, and it was then she seemed to shrink, she seemed positively to shrink. You never spoke to Mr. Whittam, Miss Pennegar asked. He never spoke to me, replied Alvina. He raised his hat to me.

You ought to have married him, Miss Pinnigar, said Alvina. It would have been right for you, and she laughed rather mockingly. There is no need to make provision for me, said Miss Pinnagar. And after this, she was a long time before she forgave Alvina and was really friendly again. Perhaps she would never have forgiven her if she had not found her weepenberg. rather bitterly in her mother's abandoned sitting-room. Now so far, the story of Alvina is commonplace enough. It is more or less the story of thousands of girls.

They all find work. It is the ordinary solution of everything. And if we were dealing with an ordinary girl, we should have to carry on mildly and dully down the long years of employment, or, at the best, marriage with some dull schoolteacher or office clerk. But we protest that Alvina is a little. not ordinary. Ordinary people, ordinary fates. But extraordinary people, extraordinary fates, or else no fate at all. The all-to-one pattern modern system is too much for most extraordinary

individuals. It just kills them off or throws them disused aside. There have been enough stories about ordinary people. I should think the Duke of Clarence must even have found Mormsey nauseating when he choked and went purple and was really asphyxiated in a butt of it. And ordinary people are no mormsie, just ordinary tap water, and we have been drenched and deluged and so nearly drowned in perpetual floods of ordinariness, that tap water tends to become a really hateful fluid to us. We loathe its out-of-the-tap tastelessness. We detest ordinary people.

We are in peril of our lives from them, and in peril of our lives. from them, and in peril of our souls, too, for they would damn us one and all to the ordinary. Every individual should, by nature, have his extraordinary points. But nowadays you may look for them with a microscope. They are so worn down by the regular machine friction of our average and mechanical days. There was no hope for Alvina in the ordinary. If help came, it would have to come from the extraordinary. Hence the extreme peril of her case. Hence the bitter fear and humiliation she felt as she drudged Shabbily on in Manchester House, hiding herself as much as possible from public view.

Men can suck the heady juice of exalted self-importance from the bitter weed of failure. Failures are usually the most conceited of men, even as was James Huffden. But to a woman, failure is another matter. For her it means failure to live, failure to establish her own life on the face of the earth, and this is humiliating, the ultimate humiliation. And so the slow years crept round, and the completed coil of each one was a further, heavy, strangling noose. Alvina had passed her 26th, 27th, 28th, and even her 29th year. She was in her 30th. It ought to be a laughing matter, but,

it isn't. Ah, I'm 20, 8. 20. I'm still through the life

dance I. Yider. Everyone will me kissin. Me that's life so

willsussing. Ah, oh, 30, every, meadchen, meadchen, I'm,

in the soap, she's gray hachen? Ah, how we're going the yearchen.

Ach, Jon-G-Sy. Ah, Oh, 40 And not I'm ever No,

Fintzich In the Gere Fleckon Ah, That must In Spiegel Steck

Ah, Oh, She 50 Ah, She's 50 And No, Never

Will me Shall I Mendens Sire I Sire Furen? Then

He's The Alter Puts Sich She is Fift-S, She is Fift-S.

true enough in alvena's pigtail of soft brown the grey hairs were already showing true enough she still preferred to be thought of as a girl and the slow-footed years so heavy in passing were so imperceptibly numerous in their accumulation But we are not going to follow our song to its fatal and dreary conclusion. Presumably the ordinary old-made heroine nowadays is destined to die in her fifties. She's not allowed to be the long liver of the bygone novels. Let the song suffice her. James Huffton had still another kick in him. He had one last scheme up his sleeve. Looking out on a changing world, it was the popular novelties which had the last fascination for him.

The skating rink, like another Sheribdis, had all but entangled him in its swirl as he pushed painfully off from the rocks of Throttle-Hapney. But he had a skate, and for almost three years had lain obscurely in port, like a frail and finished bark, selling the last of his bits and bobs, and making little splashes in warehouse oddments. Miss Pinnagar thought he had really gone quiet. But alas, at that degenerated and shabby, down-at-heel-clothes, he met another tempter, a plump man who had been in the music hall line as a sort of agent. This man had catered for the little shows of little towns. He had been in America, out west, doing shows there. He had trailed his way back to England, where he had left his wife

and daughter, but he did not resume his family life. Wherever he was, his wife was a hundred miles away. Now he found himself more or less stranded in Woodhouse. He had nearly fixed himself up with a music hall in the potteries as manager. He had all but got such another place at Hickley, in Derbyshire. He had forced his way through the industrial and mining townlets, prospecting for any sort of music hall or show from which he could get a picking. And now, in very low water, he found himself at Woodhouse. Woodhouse had a cinema already, a famous empire run-up by Jordan, the sly builder and decorator who had got on so surprisingly. In James' younger days, Jordan was an obscure and illiterate nobody, and now he had a motor-car, and looked at the tottering James with sardonic contempt from under his heavy, heavy-lid dark eyes.

He was rather stout, frail in health, but silent and insuperable was A.W. Jordan. "'I missed a chance there,' said James, fluttering. "'I missed a rare chance there. "'I ought to have been first with a cinema.' "'He admitted as much to Mr. May, "'the stranger who was looking for some sort of managing job. "'Mr May, who also was plump and who could hold his tongue, "'but whose pink, fat face and light blue eyes

"'had a loud look for all that. "'Put the speech in his pipe and smoked it. "'Not that he smoked a pipe, always cigarettes, "'but he seized on James's admission as something to be made the most of. Now Mr May's mind, though quick, was pedestrian, not winged, he had come to Woodhouse not to look at Jordan's empire, but at the temporary wooden structure that stood in the old cattle market,

Wright's cinematograph and variety theatre. Wrights was not a superior show like the Woodhouse Empire, yet it was always packed with colliers and workglasses. But unfortunately there was no chance of Mr May's getting a finger in the cattle market pie. Wright's was a family affair, Mr. and Mrs. Wright, and her son and two daughters with their husbands,

a tight old lock-up family concern. Yet it was the kind of show that appealed to Mr. May, pictures between the turns. The cinematograph was but an item in the programme, amidst the more thrilling incidents to Mr. May, of conjurers, popular songs, five-minute farces, performing birds, and comics. Mr. May was sure.

too human to believe that a show should consist entirely of the dithering eye-ache of a film. He was becoming really depressed by his failure to find any opening. He had his family to keep, and though his honesty was of the variety sort, he had a heavy conscience in the direction of his wife and daughter. Having been so long in America, he had acquired American qualities, one of which was this heavy sort of private innocence, coupled with complacent and natural unscrupulousness in matters of business. A man of some odd sensitiveness in material things, he liked to have his clothes neat and spick, his linen immaculate, his face clean-saved like a cherub, but alas his clothes were now old-fashioned, so that their rather expensive smartness was

detrimental to his chances, in spite of their scrupulous look of having come almost new out of the band-box that morning. His rather small felt hats still, still, curved jauntily over his full pink face. But his eyes looked lugubrious, as if he felt he had not deserved so much bad luck, and there were bilious lines beneath them. So Mr. May, in his room in the moon and stars, which was the best inn in Woodhouse, he must have a good hotel. Lugubriously considered his position. Woodhouse offered little or nothing. He must go to Alfredon, and would he find anything there? Ah, where, where in this hateful world was their refuge for a man saddled with responsibilities, who wanted to do his best and was given no opportunity. Mr May had

travelled in his Pullman car and gone straight to the best hotel in the town, like any other American with money in America. He had done it smart too, and now in this grubby, penny-picking England he saw his boots being worn down at the heel and was afraid of being stranded without cash, even for a railway ticket. If he had to clear out without paying his hotel bill, well, that was the world's fault. He had to live,

but he must perforce keep enough in hand for a ticket to Birmingham. He always said his wife was in London, and he always walked down to Lumley to post his letters. He was full of evasions. So again he walked down to Lumley to post his letters. letters, and he looked at Lumley, and he found it a damn god-forsaken hell of a hole. It was a long straggle of a dusty road down in the valley, with a pale grey dust and spatter from the pottery, and big chimneys, bellying forth black smoke right by the road.

Then there was a short crossway, up which he saw the iron foundry, a black and rusty place. A little further on was the railway junction, and beyond that, more houses stretching to Hathersedge, where the stocking factories were busy. Compared with Lumley, Woodhouse, whose church could be seen sticking up proudly and vulgarly on an eminence above trees and meadow slopes was an idyllic heaven.

Mr May turned into the Derby Hotel to have a small whiskey, and of course he entered into conversation. You seem somewhat quiet at Lumley, he said, in his odd, refined showman's voice, have you nothing at all in the way of amusement? They all go up to Woodhouse, else to Hathesedge.

But couldn't you support some place of your own, some rival to Wright's variety? Aye, Appen, if somebody started it. And so it was that James was inoculated with the idea of starting a cinema on the virgin soil of Lumley. To the women he said not a word, but on the very first morning

that Mr May broached the subject he became a new man. He fluttered like a boy. He fluttered as if he had just grown wings. Let us go down. said Mr. May, and look at a sight. You pledge yourself to nothing. You don't compromise yourself. You merely have a sight in your mind. And so it came to pass that next morning, this oddly assorted couple went down to Lumley together. James was very shabby in his black coat and dark grey trousers

and his cheap grey cap. He bent forward as he walked, and still nipped along hurriedly as if pursued by fate. His face was thin and still handsome. Odd that his cheap cap by incongruity made him look more a gentleman, but it did. As he walked he glanced alertly, hither and thither, and saluted everybody. By his side, somewhat tight and tubby, with his chest out and his head back, went to the prim figure of Mr. May, reminding one of a consequential bird of the smaller species. His plumbago grey suit fitted exactly, save that it was perhaps a little tight. The jacket and waistcoat were bound with silk braid of exactly the same shade as the cloth.

His soft collar, immaculately fresh, had a dark stripe like his shirt. His boots were black, with grey swayed uppers, but a little down at heel. His dark grey hat was jaunty. Altogether he looked very spruce, though a little behind the fashions,

very pink-faced, though his blue eyes were bilious beneath, very much on the spot, although the spot was the wrong one. They discoursed amiably as they went, James bending forward, Mr. May bending back. Mr. May took the refined Man of the World tone. Of course, he said, he used the two words very often,

and pronounced the second, rather mincingly, to rhyme with sauce. Of course, said Mr. May, it's a disgusting place. Disgusting! I never was in a worse in all the course of my travels. But then, that isn't the point. He spread his plump hands from his immaculate shirt-cuffs. No, it isn't. "'Decidedly it isn't. That's beside the point altogether. "'What we want,' began James,

"'is an audience, of course, and we have it. "'Virgin soil. "'Yes, decidedly. Untouched, an unspoiled market.' "'An unspoiled market,' reiterated Mr. May, "'in full confirmation, though with a faint flicker of a smile. "'How very fortunate for us!' "'Propperly handled,' said James. properly handled why yes of course why shouldn't we handle it properly oh we shall manage that we shall manage that came the quick slightly husky voice of james of course we shall why bless my life if we can't manage an audience in lumley what can we do

"'We have a guide in the matter of their taste,' said James. "'We can see what rights are doing, and Jordans, "'and we can go to Hathes, and Naborah and Alfredon, "'beforehand, that is. "'Why, certainly, if you think it's necessary, I'll do all that for you. "'And I'll interview the managers and the performers themselves, "'as if I were a journalist, don't you see? "'I've done a fair amount of journalism,

"'and nothing easier than to get cards from various newspapers.' "'Yes, that's a good suggestion,' said James, as if you were going to write an account in the newspapers. Excellent. And so simple. You pick up just all the information you require. Decidedly, decidedly, said James. And so behold our two heroes, sniffing round the sordid backs and wasted meadows and marshy places of Lumley. They found one barren patch where two caravans were standing. A woman was peeling potatoes, sitting on the bottom step of her caravan. A half-cast girl came. came up with a large pale blue enameled jug of water.

In the background were two booths covered up with coloured canvas. Hammering was heard inside. Good morning, said Mr. May, stopping before the woman. It isn't fair time, is it? No, it's no fair, said the woman. I see. You're just on your own. Getting on all right? Fair, said the woman.

Only fair. Sorry. Good morning. Mr. May's quick eye, roving round, had seen a new. negro stoop from under the canvas that covered one booth. The negro was thin and looked young, but rather frail, and limped. His face was very like that of the young negro in Wotto's drawing, pathetic, wistful, north-bidden. In an instant Mr. May had taken all in. The man was the woman's husband. They were acclimatized in these regions. The booth where he had been hammering was a hoopla. The other would be a coconut shy. Feeling the instant American

and dislike for the presence of a negro, Mr May moved off with James. They found out that the woman was a Lumley woman, that she had two children, that the Negro was a most quiet and respectable chap, but that the family kept to itself and didn't mix up with Lumley. I should think so, said Mr. May, a little disgusted even at the suggestion. Then he proceeded to find out how long they had stood on this ground, three months, how long they would remain, only another week, then there were moving. moving off to Alfredon Fair.

Who was the owner of the pitch? Mr. Bowes, the butcher. Ah! And what was the ground used for? Oh, it was building land, but the foundation wasn't very good. The very thing! Aren't we fortunate?

cried Mr. May, perking up the moment they were in the street. But this cheerfulness and brisk perkiness was a great strain on him. He missed his eleven o'clock whiskey terribly, terribly, his pick-me-up. And he dared not confess it to Jane, who he knew was TT. So he dragged his weary and hollow way up to Woodhouse and sank with a long,

oh, of nervous exhaustion in the private bar of the moon and stars. He wrinkled his short nose. The smell of the place was distasteful to him, the disgusting beer that the colliers drank. Oh, he was so tired. He sank back with his whiskey and stared blankly, dismally in front of him. beneath his eyes he looked more bilious still. He felt thoroughly out of luck and petulant. Nonetheless, he sallied out with all his old bright perkinsness the next time he had to meet James. He hadn't yet broached the question of costs.

When would he be able to get an advance from James? He must hurry the matter forward. He brushed his crisp, curly brown hair carefully before the mirror. How grey he was at the temples! No wonder, dear me, with the matter, such a life. He was in his shirt-sleeves. His waistcoat, with its grey satin back, fitted him tightly. He had filled out, but he hadn't developed a corporation, not at all. He looked at himself sideways and feared dismally he was thinner. He was one of those men who carry themselves

in a birdy fashion, so that their tail sticks out a little behind, jauntily. How wonderfully the satin of his waistcoat had worn! He looked at his shirt-cuffs. they were going. Luckily, when he had had the shirts made, he had secured enough material for the renewing of cuffs and neckbands. He put on his coat, from which he had flicked the faintest suspicion of dust, and again settled himself to go out and meet James on the question of an advance. He simply must have an advance. He didn't get it that day, nonetheless. The next morning he was ringing for his tea at six o'clock, and before ten he had already flitted to Lumley and back. He had already had a word with Mr. Bose about that pitch,

and, overcoming all his repugnance, a word with the quiet, frail, sad, negro about Alfredton Fair, and the chance of buying some sort of collapsible building for his cinematograph. With all this news he met James, not at the shabby club, but in the deserted reading-room of the so-called Artisans' Hall, where never an artisan entered, but only men of James's class. Here they took the chessboard and pretended to start a game, but their conversation was rapid and secretive. Mr. May disclosed all his discoveries, and then he said, tentatively,

hadn't we better think about the financial part now? If we're going to look around for an erection, curious that he always called it an erection, we shall have to know what we are going to spend. Yes, yes, well, said James vaguely, nervously giving a glan, a glance at Mr. May, whilst Mr. May obstructedly fingered his black night. You see, at the moment, said Mr. May, I have no funds that I can represent in cash. I have no doubt a little later. If we need it, I can find a few hundreds. Many things are due, numbers of things, but it is so difficult to collect one's dues, particularly from America.

He lifted his blue eyes to James Huffton. Of course we can delay for some time until I get my supplies, or I can act just as your manager. You can employ me.' He watched James's face. James looked down at the chessboard. He was fluttering with excitement. He did not want a partner. He wanted to be in this all by himself. He hated partners. You will agree to be a manager at a fixed salary, said James, hurriedly and huskily. his fine fingers slowly rubbing each other along the sides. Why, yes, willingly, if you'll give me the option of becoming your partner

upon terms of mutual agreement later on? James did not quite like this. What terms are you thinking of, he asked. Well, it doesn't matter for the moment. Suppose for the moment I enter an engagement as your manager at a salary. Let us say of what do you think? So much a week, said James. James pointedly.

And we'd better make it monthly. The two men looked at one another. With a month's notice, on either hand, continued Mr. May. How much, said James, avaricious? Mr. May studied his own nicely kept hands. Well, I don't see how I can do it under twenty pounds a month. Of course, it's ridiculously low. In America, I never accepted less than $300 a month,

and that was my poorest and lowest. but of course England's not America, more is the pity. But James was shaking his head in a vibrating movement. Impossible, he replied shrewdly. Impossible! Twenty pounds a month! Impossible! I couldn't do it.

I couldn't think of it. Their name of figure. Say what you can think of, retorted Mr. May, rather annoyed by this shrewd, shaking head of a doddering provincial, and by his own sudden collapse into mean subordination. nation. I can't make it more than ten pounds a month, said James sharply. What? screamed Mr. May. What am I to live on? What is my wife to live on? I've got to make it pay, said James. If I've got to make it pay, I must keep down expenses at the

beginning. No, on the contrary, you must be prepared to spend something at the beginning. If you go in pinch and scrape fashion in the beginning, you'll get nowhere at all. Ten pounds a month. "'Why, it's impossible. Ten pounds a month. But how am I to live?' James's head still vibrated in a negative fashion, and the two men came to no agreement that morning. Mr. May went home, more sick and weary than ever, and took his whiskey more biliously. But James was lit with the light of battle. Poor Mr. May had to gather together his wits and his sprightliness for his next meeting. He had decided he must make a percentage in other ways.

He schemed in all known ways. He would accept the ten pounds, but really did you ever hear of anything so ridiculous in your life? Ten pounds! Dirty old screw! Dirty, screwing old woman! He would accept the ten pounds, but he would get his own back.

He flitted down once more to the negro to ask him of a certain wooden showhouse, with section sides and roof, an old travelling theatre which stood closed on Selverhay Common and might probably be sold. He pressed across once more to Mr. Bose. He wrote various letters and drew up certain notes, and the next morning, by eight o'clock he was on his way to Selvahey, walking, poor man, the long and uninteresting seven miles on his small and rather tight-shod feet, through country that had been once beautiful, but was now scrubbed all over with mining villages,

on and on up heavy hills and down others, asking his way from uncouth clowns, till at last he came to the common, which wasn't a common at all, but a sort of village, more depressing than usual, naked, high, exposed to heaven and to full barren view. There he saw the theatre booth. It was old and sordid looking, painted, dark red and dishevelled, with narrow, tattered announcements. The grass was growing high up the wooden side. If only it wasn't rotten. He crouched and probed and pierced with his penknife, till a country policeman in a high helmet like a jug saw him, got off his bicycle, and came stealthily across the grass, wheeling the same bicycle,

and startled poor Mr. May almost into apoplexy by demanding behind him, in a loud voice, What are you after? Mr. May rose up with flushed face and swollen neck veins, holding his penknife in his hand. Oh, he said, "'Good morning!' he settled his waistcoat and glanced over the tall, lanky constable and the glittering bicycle. "'I was taking a look at this old erection, with a view to buying it. "'I'm afraid it's going rotten from the bottom.' "'Shouldn't wonder,' said the policeman, suspiciously, watching Mr. May shut the pocket-knife. "'I'm afraid that makes it useless for my purpose,' said Mr. May.

"'The policeman did not deign to answer. "'Could you tell me where I can find out about it anyway?' Mr. May used his most affable man-of-the-world manner. But the policeman continued to stare him up and down, as if he was some marvellous specimen unknown on the normal, honest earth. "'What, find out?' said the constable. "'About being able to buy it?' said Mr. May, a little testily. It was with great difficulty he preserved his man-to-man openness and brightness.

"'They aren't here,' said the constable. "'Oh, indeed, where are they?' "'And who are they?' "'The policeman eyed him more suspiciously than ever. "'Cowlard's their name, "'and they live in Offerton when they aren't travelling.' "'Cowlard, thank you,' Mr. May took out his pocketbook. "'C-O-W-L-A-R-D, is that right?

"'And the address, please?' "'Really, and how do you get there?' "'You can walk, or go by train.' "'Oh, there is a station.' "'Station?' "'The policeman looked at him, as if he were either a criminal or a fool. Yes, there is a station there?

Aye, biggest next to Chesterfield. Suddenly it dawned on Mr. May. Oh, he said, you mean Alphriton? Alphriton, yes. The policeman was now convinced the man was a wrongan, but fortunately he was not a pushing constable. He did not want to rise in the police scale, thought himself safest at the bottom.

And which is the way to the station here? asked Mr. May. Do you want Pinksn or Bullill? Pinsen or Bullill? There's two, said the policeman. For Selva Hay? Asked Mr. May. Yes, them's the two. And which is the best?

Depends what trains is running. Sometimes you have to wait an hour or two. You don't know the trains. Do you... There's one eighth afternoon, but I don't know if it'd be gone by the time you get down. To where? Bullill?

Oh, Bullill. Well, perhaps I'll try. could you tell me the way? When, after an hour's painful walk, Mr May came to Bullwell Station and found there was no train till six in the evening, he felt he was earning every penny he would ever get from Mr. Huffton. The first intelligence which Miss Pinnigar and Alvina gathered

of the coming adventure was given them when James announced that he had let the shop to Marsden, the grocer next door. Marsden had agreed to take over James's premises at the same rent as that of the premises he already occupied, and moreover to do all alterations and put in all fixtures himself. This was a grand scoop for James, not a penny was it going to cost him, and the rent was clear profit.

But when? cried Miss Pinnigar. He takes possession on the 1st of October. Well, it's a good idea. The shop isn't worthwhile, said Miss Pinnigar. Certainly it isn't, said James, rubbing his hands, a sign that he was rarely excited and pleased. And you'll just retire and live quietly, said Miss Pinnigar. I shall see, said James. And with those fatal words, he wafted away to find Mr. May. James was now nearly seventy years old, yet he nipped about like a leaf in the wind, only it was a frail leaf. Father's got something going, said Alvina in a warning voice. I believe he has, said Miss Pinnigar, pensively. I wonder what it is now.

I can't imagine, laughed Alvina, but I'll bet it's something awful, else he'd have told us. Yes, said Miss Pinnigar slowly. Most likely he would. I wonder what it can be. I haven't an idea, said Alvina. Both women were so retired, they had heard nothing of James's little trips down to Lumley, so they watched like cats for their man's return at dinner time. Miss Pinnigar saw him coming along, talking excitedly to Mr May, who, all in grey, with his chest percolily stuck out like a robin, was looking rather pinker than usual. Having come to an agreement, he had ventured on whiskey and soda in honour, and James had actually taken a glass of port. Alvina! Miss Pinnigar called discreetly down the shop. Alvina, quick!

Alvina flew down to peep round the corner of the shop window. There stood the two men. Mr. May like a perky, pink-faced grey bird standing cocking his head in attention to James Huffton, and occasionally catching James by the lapel of his coat, in a vain desire to get a word in. Whilst James' head nodded, and his face simply wagged with excited speech, as he skipped from foot to foot and shifted round his listener. "'Whoever can that common-looking man be?' said Miss Pinnigar, her heart going down to her boots. "'I can't imagine,' said Alvina, laughing at the comic site.

"'Don't you think he's dreadful?' said the poor elderly woman. "'Perfectly impossible! Did you ever see such a pink face?' "'And the braid-binding,' said Miss Pinnagher in indignation. "'Father might almost have sold him the suit,' said Alvina. "'Let us hope he hasn't sold your father, that's all,' said Miss Pinnigar. The two men had moved a few steps further towards home, and the women prepared to flee indoors. Of course it was frightfully wrong to be standing, peeping in the High Street at all, but who could consider the proprieties now?

They've stopped again, said Miss Pinnigar, recalling Alvina. The two men were having a few more excited words, their voices just audible. I do wonder who he can be, murmured Miss Pinnigar, miserably. In the theatrical line, I'm sure. "'Sure,' declared Alvina. "'Do you think so?' said Miss Pinnigar. "'Can't be. Can't be.' "'It couldn't be anything else, don't you think?

"'Oh, I can't believe it. I can't.' But now Mr. May had laid his detaining hand on James's arm, and now he was shaking his employer by the hand. And now James, in his cheap little cap, was smiling a formal farewell. And Mr. May, with a graceful wave of his grey-sweighed, gloved hand, was turning back to the moon and stars, strutting, whilst James was running home on tiptoe in his natural hurry.

Alvina hastily retreated, but Miss Pinnigar stood it out. James started as he nipped into the shop entrance, and found her confronting him. Oh, Miss Pinnigar, he said, and made a slip by her. Who was that man? she asked sharply, as if James were a child whom she could endure no more. Hey, I beg your pardon? said James. starting back, who was that man?

Eh, which man? James was a little deaf and a little husky. The man, Miss Pinnigar turned to the door. There, that man! End of, Chapter 6, Part 1. Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 6, Part 2 Of the Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence.

This Librevox recording is in the public domain. James also came to the... the door and peered out as if he expected to see a sight. The sight of Mr. May's tight and perky back, the jaunty little hat and the grey-swayed hands retreating quite surprised him. He was angry at being introduced to the sight. Oh, he said, that's my manager, and he turned hastily down the shop, asking for his dinner. Miss Pinnagar stood for some moments in pure oblivion in the shop entrance. Her consciousness left her. When she recovered, she felt she was on the brink of hysteria and collapse. But she hardened herself once more, though the effort

cost her a year of her life. She had never collapsed. She had never fallen into hysteria. She gathered herself together, though bent a little as from a blow, and, closing the shop door, followed James to the living room, like the inevitable. He was eating his dinner and seemed oblivious of her entry. There was a smell of Irish stew. What manager, said Miss Pinnigar, short, silent, and inevitable in the doorway. But James was in one of his abstractions, his trances. What manager? persisted Miss Pinnagher. But he still bent unknowing over his plate and gobbled his Irish stew. Mr. Hofton, said Miss Pinnigar, in a sudden changed voice. She had gone a livid yellow colour, and she gave a queer, sharp little wrap on the table with her hand.

James started. He looked up bewildered, as one startled out of sleep. "'Eh?' he said gaping. "'Eh?' he said Miss Pinnigard. "'What manager—' "'Manager? Hey? Manager? What manager?' She advanced a little nearer, menacing in her black dress. James shrank. "'What manager?' he re-eastern. echoed, my manager, the manager of my cinema. Miss Pinnigar looked at him and looked at him and did not speak. In that moment all the anger which was due to him from all womanhood was silently discharged at him like a black bolt of silent electricity. But Miss Pinnigar, the engine of Roth, felt she would burst.

Cinema! Cinema! Do you mean to tell me? But she was really suffocated. The vessels of her heart and breast were bursting. She had to lean her hand on the table. It was a terrible moment. She looked ghastly and terrible, with her mask-like face and her stony eyes and her bluish lips. Some fearful thunderbolt seemed to fall. James withered and was still. There was silence for minutes, a suspension. And in those minutes she finished with him. She finished with him forever. When she had sufficiently recovered, she went to her chair. and sat down before her plate, and in a while she began to eat, as if she were alone. Poor Alvina, for whom this had been a dreadful and uncalled-for moment, had looked from one to another,

and had also dropped her head to her plate. James, too, with bent head, had forgotten to eat. Miss Pinnagar ate very slowly, alone. "'Don't you want your dinner, Alvina?' she said at length. "'Not as much as I did,' said Alvina. "'Why not?' said miss pinnagar she sounded short almost like miss frost oddly like miss frost alvina took up her fork and began to eat automatically i always think said miss pinnagar irish stew is more tasty with a bit of swede in it so do i really said alvina but swedes aren't come yet oh didn't we have some on tuesday no they were yellow turnips they weren't swedes well then yellow turnip i like a little yellow turnip "'Sernip,' said Miss Pinnagar.

"'I might have put some in, if I'd known,' said Alvina. "'Yes, we will another time,' said Miss Pinnagar. "'Not another word about the cinema, not another breath. "'As soon as James had eaten his plum-tart, he ran away. "'What can he have been doing?' said Alvina, when he had gone. "'Bying a cinema show, and that man we saw is his manager. "'It's quite simple. "'But what are we going to do with a cinema show?' said Alvina.

it's what is he going to do it doesn't concern me it's no concern of mine i shall not lend him anything i shall not think about it it'll be the same to me as if there were no cinema which is all i have to say announced miss pinnigar but he's gone and done it said alveena then let him go through with it it's no affair of mine after all your father's affairs don't concern me it would be impertinent of me to introduce myself into them they don't concern me very much said alvina you're different you're his daughter he's no connection of mine i'm glad to say i pity your mother oh but he was always alike said alveena that's where it is said miss there was something fatal about her feelings once they had gone cold they would never warm up again as well to try to warm up a frozen mouse it only putrifies but poor miss pinnagar after this looked older and seemed to get a little round-backed and the things she said reminded Alvina so often of Miss Frost. James fluttered into conversation with his daughter the next evening, after Miss Pinnigar had retired. "'I told you I'd bought her cinematograph building,' said James.

"'We are negotiating for the machinery now, the dynamo and so on.' "'But where is it to be?' asked Alvina. "'Down at Lumley. I'll take you and show you the site tomorrow. The building, it is a frame-section travelling theatre, will arrive on Thursday, next Thursday. "'But who is in with you, father?' "'I'm quite alone, quite alone,' said James Huffton. "'I have found an excellent manager, who knows the whole business thoroughly.

"'Mr. May. Very nice, man. Very nice man.' "'Rather short and dressed in grey?' "'Yes, and I have been thinking, "'if Miss Pinnigar will take the cash and issue tickets, "'if she will take over the ticket office, "'and you will play the piano. "'And if Mr. May learns the control of the machine, "'he's having lessons now,

"'And if I am the indoors attendant, "'we shan't need any more staff. "'Miss Pinnigar won't take the cash, father. "'Why not? Why not?' "'I can't say why not, "'but she won't do anything, "'and if I were you, I wouldn't ask her.' "'There was a pause.

"'Oh, well,' said James Huffy, "'she isn't indispensable.' "'And Alvina was to play the piano. "'Here was a blow for her. "'She hurried off to her bedroom "'to laugh and cry at once. She just saw herself at that piano, banging off the merry widow waltz, and, in tender moments, the rosary. Time after time, the rosary.

While the pictures flickered and the audience gave shouts, and some grubby boy called, Chotlet, penny a bar, chocolate, penny a bar, chadlet, penny a bar! Away she banged at another tune. What a sight for the gods! She burst out laughing. and at the same time she thought of her mother and Miss Frost, and she cried as if her heart would break. And then all kinds of comic and incongruous tunes came into her head. She imagined herself dressing up with most priceless variations.

Linga Longa Lucy, for example. She began to spin imaginary harmonies and variations in her head upon the theme of Linger Longer Lucy. Linger Lunger Lucy, Linger Lunga Lou. How I love to linger longer, linger longer, you. Listen while I sing, love, promise you'll be true, And linger, longer, longer, linger, linger, longer loo. All the tunes that used to make Miss Frost so angry. All the dream waltzes and maiden's prayers, and the awful songs.

For in Spoonie Oonie Island is that anyone cares for me, In Spoonie Oonie Island, why surely there ought to be. Poor Miss Frost! Alvina imagined her. leading a chorus of collier louts in a bad atmosphere of woodbines and oranges during the intervals when the pictures had collapsed how'd you like to spoon with me how do you like to spoon with me why rather underneath the oak tree nice and shady calling me your tootsie wootsie lady how'd you like to hug and squeeze just try me dandal me upon your knee calling me your little lovey-dovey-dovey how'd you like to hug and squeeze just try me dandle me upon your knee calling me your little lovey-dovey How'd you like to spoon with me? Oh, go on. Alvina worked herself into quite a fever with her imaginings.

In the morning, she told Miss Pinnigar. Yes, said Miss Pinnigar. You see me issuing tickets, don't you? Yes, well, I'm afraid he'll have to do that part himself. And you're going to play the piano? It's a disgrace. It's a disgrace. It's a mercy, Miss Frost and your mother are dead.

He's lost every bit of it. of shame, every bit, if he ever had any, which I doubt very much. Well, all I can say, I'm glad I'm not concerned, and I'm sorry for you, being his daughter, I'm heart sorry for you, I am. Well, well, no sense of shame, no sense of shame. And Miss Pinnigar, padded out of the room. Alvina walked down to Lumley and was shown the sight and was introduced to Mr. May. He bowed to her in his best American fashion, and tried to her. treated her with admirable American deference. Don't you think, he said to her, it's an admirable scheme.

Wonderful, she replied. Of course, he said. The erection will be a merely temporary one. Of course, it won't be anything to look at, just an old wooden travelling theatre, but then all we need is to make a start. And you are going to work the film, she asked. Yes, he said with pride. I spend every evening with the operator at Marsh's in

Narborough. Very interesting, I find it. Very interesting indeed. And you are going to play the piano, he said, perking his head on one side and looking at her archly. So father says, she answered. But what do you say? queried Mr. May. I suppose I don't have any say. Oh, but surely. Surely you won't do it if you don't wish to. That would never do. Can't we hire some young fellow? And he turn to Mr. Huffton with a note of query. Alvina can play as well as anybody in Woodhouse, said James. We mustn't add to our expenses, and wages in particular. But surely Miss Huffton will have her wage?

The labourer is worthy of his hire, surely, even of her hire, to put it in the feminine, and for the same wage you could get some unimportant fellow with strong wrists. I'm afraid it will tire Miss Huffton to death. I don't think so, said James. I don't think so. Many of the turns she will not need to accompany. Well, if it comes to that, said Mr. May, I can accompany some of them myself, when I'm not operating the film. I'm not an expert pianist, but I can play a little, you know, and he trilled his fingers up and down an imaginary keyboard in front of Alvina, cocking his eye at her,

smiling a little archly. I'm sure, he continued, I can accompany anything except a man juggling dinner plates, and then I'd be afraid of making him drop the plates. But songs? Oh, songs! Con molto espressione! And again he trilled the imaginary keyboard, and smiled his rather fat cheeks at Alvina. She began to like him. There was something a little dainty about him when you knew him better, really rather fastidious, a showman, true enough, blatant too, but fastidiously so. He came fairly frequently to Manchester House after this. Miss Pinnagar was rather stiff with him and he did not like her, but he was very happy sitting, chatting Tate-a-Tate with Alvina. "'Where is your wife?' said Alvina to him.

"'My wife! Oh, don't speak of her,' he said comically. "'She's in London.' "'Why not speak of her?' asked Alvina. "'Oh, every reason for not speaking of her. "'We don't get on at all well, she and I.' "'What a pity,' said Alvina. "'But what are you to do?' he laughed comically. "'Then he became grave.'

"'No,' he said. "'She's an impossible person.' "'I see,' said Alvina. "'I'm sure you don't see,' said Mr. May. "'Don't—' "'And here he laid his hand on Alvina's arm. "'Don't run away with the idea that she's immoral. "'You'd never make her greater mistake.

"'Oh, dear me, no. "'Morality is her strongest point. "'Live on three lettuce leaves "'and give the rest of the char, that's her. oh dreadful times we had in those first years we only lived together for three years but dear me how awful it was why there was no pleasing the woman she wouldn't eat if i said to her what shall we have for supper grace as sure as anything she'd answer oh i shall take a bath when i go to bed that will be my supper she was one of these advanced vegetarian women don't you know how extraordinary said alveena Extraordinary. I should think so. Extraordinary hard lines on me. And she wouldn't let me eat either. She followed me to the kitchen in a fury while I cooked for myself. Why, imagine. I prepared a dish of champignon. Oh, most beautiful champignon. Beautiful. And I put them on the stove to fry in butter. Beautiful young champignon. I'm hanged if she didn't go into the kitchen while my back was turned. and pour a pint of old carrot water into the pan.

I was furious. Imagine. Beautiful fresh young champignon. Fresh mushrooms, said Alvina. Mushrooms. Most beautiful thing in the world. Oh, don't you think so? And he rolled his eyes oddly to heaven.

They are good, said Alvina. I should say so. And swamped, swamped with her dirty old carrot water. Oh, I was so angry. and all she could say was, well, I didn't want to waste it. Didn't want to waste her old carrot water, and so ruined my champignon. Can you imagine such a person? It must have been trying.

I should think it was. I lost weight. I lost, I don't know how many pounds, the first year I was married to that woman. She hated me to eat. Why, one of her great accusations against me at the last was when she said, I've looked round the larder. said to me, and seen it was quite empty, and I thought to myself, now he can't cook a supper. And then you did. There, what do you think of that? The spite of it. And then you did.

What did she expect you to live on? asked Alvina. Nibble a lettuce leaf with her and drink water from the tap, and then elevate myself with a burn at shore pamphlet. That was the sort of woman she was. All it gave me was gas in the stomach. So overbearing, said Alvina. Oh, he turned his eyes to heaven and spread his hands. I didn't believe my senses. I didn't know such people existed. And her friends, oh, the dreadful friends she had, these Fabians. Oh, the eugenics. They wanted to examine my private morals for eugenic reasons. Oh, you can't imagine such a state. worse than the Spanish Inquisition. And I stood it for three years.

How I stood it, I don't know. Now don't you see her? Never. I never let her know where I am. But I support her, of course. And your daughter? Oh, she's the dearest child in the world. I saw her at her friends when I came back from America.

A dearest little thing in the world. But of course, suspicious of me, treats me as if she didn't know me. what a pity oh unbearable he spread his plump manicured hands on one finger of which was a green intaglio ring how old is your daughter fourteen what's her name jama she was born in rome where i was managing for miss maud callum the donseurs curious the intimacy mr may established with alvena at once but it was all purely verbal descriptive he made no physical advances on the contrary he was like a dove-gray disconsolate bird pecking the crumbs of alvena's sympathy and cocking his eye all the time to watch that she did not advance one step towards him if he had seen the least sign of coming onness in her he would have fluttered off in a great dither nothing horrified him more than a woman who was coming on towards him. It horrified him. It exasperated him. It made him hate the whole tribe of women, horrific, two-legged cats without whiskers. If he had been a bird, his innate horror of a cat would have been such. He liked the angel, and particularly the angel mother in woman. Oh, that he

worshipped, but coming on us! So he never wanted to be seen out of doors with Alvina. If he met her in the street he bowed and passed on, bowed very deep and reverential, indeed, but passed on, with his little back a little more strutty and assertive than ever. Decidedly he turned his back on her in public. But Miss Pinnigar, a regular, old, grey, dangerous sheep-us, eyed him from the corner of her pale eye as he turned to tail. So unmanly, she murmured, in his dress, in his way, in everything, so unmanly. if i was you alvina she said i shouldn't see so much of mr may in the drawing-room people will talk i should almost feel flattered laughed alvina what do you mean snapped miss pinnigar

none the less mr may was dependable in matters of business he was up at half-past five in the morning and by seven was well on his way he sailed like a stiff little ship before a steady breeze hither and thither out of woodhouse and back again and across from side side, sharp and snappy he was, on the spot. He'd trust himself up when he was angry or displeased, and sharp, snip-snap came his words, rather like scissors. But how is it, he attacked Arthur Whittam, that the gas isn't connected with the main yet. It was to be ready yesterday. We've had to wait for the fixings for them brackets, said Arthur. Had to wait for fixings? But didn't you know a fortnight ago that you'd want the fixings? I thought we should, we should, should have some as would do. Oh, you thought so. Kind of you to think so. And have you just thought about those that are coming, or have you made sure? Arthur looked at him sullenly. He hated him,

but Mr. May's sharp touch was not to be foiled. I hope you'll go further than thinking, said Mr. May. Thinking seems such a slow process. And when do you expect the fittings? Tomorrow. What? Another day, another day still? But your strange. indifference to time in your line of business. Oh, tomorrow. Imagine it. Two days late already, and then tomorrow. Well, I hope by tomorrow you mean Wednesday and not tomorrow's tomorrow, or some other absurd and fanciful date that you've just thought about. But now do have the thing finished by tomorrow. Here he laid his hand cajoling on Arthur's arm. You promise me it will all be ready by tomorrow, don't you?

"'Yes, I'll do it if anybody could do it. "'Don't say it if anybody could do it. "'Say it shall be done. "'It shall if I can possibly manage it. "'Oh, very well then. "'Mind you manage it, and thank you very much. "'I shall be most obliged if it is done.' "'Arthur was annoyed that he was kept to the scratch.

"'And so, early in October, the place was ready, "'and Woodhouse was plastered with placards "'announcing Huffton's pleasure palace. Poor Mr. May could not but see an irony in the palace part of the phrase. We can guarantee the pleasure, he said, but personally, I feel I can't take the responsibility for the palace. But James, to use the vulgar expression, was in his eye-holes.

Oh, father's in his eye-holes, said Alvina to Mr. May. Oh, said Mr. May, puzzled and concerned. But it merely meant that James was having the time of his life. He was drawing out announcements. First was a batch of vermilion strips with the mystic script in black letters, Huffden's Picture Palace, underneath which, quite small,

opens at Lumley on October the 7th at 6.30pm. Everywhere you went, these vermilion and black bars sprang from the wall at you. Then there were other notices, in delicate pale blue and pale red, like a genuine theatre notice, giving full programmes. And beneath these,

A broad letter notice announced in green letters on a yellow ground, final and ultimate clearance sale at Huffdens, Norborough Road, on Friday, September the 30th. Come and buy without price. James was in his eye-holes. He collected all his odds and ends from every corner of Manchester House. He sorted them in heaps, and marked the heaps in his own mind, and then he let go. He pasted up notices all over the window and all over the shop. "'Take what you want and pay what you like.'

He and Miss Pinnigar kept shop. The women flocked in. They turned things over. It nearly killed James to take the prices they offered, but take them he did. But he exacted that they should buy one article at a time. "'One piece at a time, if you don't mind,' he said, when they came up with their three-a-penny handfuls.

It was not till later in the evening that he relaxed this rule. Well, by eleven o'clock he had cleared out a good deal. really a very great deal, and many women had bought what they didn't want at their own figure. Feverish but content, James shut the shop for the last time. Next day, by eleven, he had removed all his belongings. The door that connected the house with the shop was screwed up fast. The grocer strolled in and looked round his bare extension, took the key from James, and immediately set his boy to paste a new notice in the window,

tearing down all James's announcement. poor James had to run round, down Narborough Road and down Wellington Street, as far as the livery stable, then down long, narrow passages, before he could get into his own house from his own shop. But he did not mind. Every hour brought the first performance of his pleasure palace nearer. He was satisfied with Mr May. He had to admit that he was satisfied with Mr. May. The palace stood firm at last. Oh, it was so rickety when it arrived, and it gregory. glowed with a new coat all over of dark red paint, like ox blood. It was titivated up with a touch of lavender and yellow round the door,

and round the decorated wooden eaving. It had a new wooden slope up to the doors, and inside a new wooden floor, with red velvet seats in front, before the curtain, and old chapel pews behind. The Collier youths recognised the pews. Hey, these ears the pews out of the old primitive chapel. "'Sorry, ah, we come to hearth Parson.' "'Theme for endless jokes,

"'and the pleasure palace was christened in some lucky stroke, "'Huffton's Endeavour, "'a reference to that particular chapel effort "'called the Christian Endeavour, "'where Alvina and Miss Pinnigar both figured. "'We're art off, sorry, lovely. "'Huffton's Endeavour? Aye, Rotten. "'So, when one laconic young Collier accosted another,

"'but we anticipate. "'Mr May had worked hard, to get a programme for the first week. His pictures were The Human Bird, which turned out to be a skiing film from Norway, purely descriptive. The pancake, a humorous film, and then his grand serial, The Silent Grip. And then, for turns, his first item was Miss Poppy Treherne, a lady in innumerable petticoats, who could whirl herself into anything you like, from an arum lily in green stockings, to a rainbow and a Catherine wheel, and a cup and saucer, marvelous was Miss Poppy Treherne.

The next turn was the Baxter brothers, who ran up and down each other's backs and up and down each other's front, and stood on each other's heads and on their own heads, and perched for a moment on each other's shoulders, as if each of them was a flight of stairs with a landing, and the three of them were three flights, three stories up, the top flight continually running down and becoming the bottom flight, while the middle flight collapsed and became a horizontal corridor.

Alvina had to open the performance by playing an overture called Welcome All, a ridiculous piece. She was excited and unhappy. On the Monday morning there was a rehearsal, Mr May conducting. She played Welcome All and then took the thumbed sheets which Miss Paupe Treherne carried with her. Miss Pappy was rather exacting. As she whirled her skirt she kept saying, A little faster, please, a little slower, in a rather haughty, official voice that was somewhat muffled by the swim of her drapery. "'Can you give it expression?' she cried, as she got the arum lily in full blow,

and there was a sound of real ecstasy in her tones. But why should she have called, "'Stronger! Stronger!' as she came into being as a cup and saucer, Alvina could not imagine, unless Miss Poppy was fancying herself a strong cup of tea. However, she subsided into her mere self, panted frantically, and then, in a hoarse voice, demanded if she was in the bare front of the show. She scorned to count welcome all. Mr. May said yes, she was the first item. Whereupon she began to raise a dust, Mr. Huffton said, hurriedly in supposing,

that he meant to make a little opening speech. Miss Poppy eyed him as if he were a cuckoo-cloc, and she had to wait till he'd finished cuckooing. Then she said, That's not every night. There's six nights to a week. James was properly snubbed. It ended by Mr. May metamorphising himself into a pug-dog.

He said he had got to get to the night. the costume in his bag, and doing a lump of sugar scene with one of the Baxter brothers as a brief first item. Miss Poppy's professional virginity was thus saved from outrage. At the back of the stage there was a half a yard of curtain screening the two dressing rooms, ladies and gents. In her spare time, Alvina sat in the ladies' dressing-room, or in its lower doorway, for there was not room right inside. She watched the ladies making up. She gave some slight assistance. She saw the men's feet in their shabby pumps on the other side of the curtain, and she heard the men's gruff voices. Often a slangy conversation was carried on through the curtain, for most of the turns were acquainted with each other,

very affable before each other's faces, very sniffy behind each other's backs. Poor Alvina was in a state of bewilderment. She was extremely nice, oh, much too nice, with the female turns. They treated her with a sort of off-hand friendliness, and they snubbed and patronised. her and were a little spiteful with her because Mr May treated her with attention and deference. She felt bewildered, a little excited, and as if she was not herself. The first evening actually came. Her father had produced a pink creptiticean blouse and a back comb massed with brilliance,

both of which she refused to wear. She stuck to her black blouse and black shirt and her simple hairdressing. Mr. May said, Of course! She wasn't intended to attract a time. attention to herself? Miss Pinnigar actually walked down the hill with her and began to cry when she saw the ox-blood red erection with its gas flares in front. It was the first time she had seen it. She went on with Alvina to the little stage door at the back, and up the steps into the scrap of

dressing-room, but she fled out again from the sight of Miss Poppy in her yellow hair and green knickers with green lace frills. Poor Miss Pinnigar! She stood outside on the trodden grass behind the band of hope and really cried. Luckily she had put a veil on. She went valiantly round to the front entrance and climbed the steps. The crowd was just coming. There was James's face, peeping inside the little ticket window. One, he said, officially, pushing out the ticket, and then he recognised her. Oh, he said, you're not going to pay? Yes I am, she said, and she left her fourpence, and James's coppery, grimy fingers scooped it in, as the youth behind Miss Pinnigar shoved her forward. Halfway down, Fourpenny, said the man at the door,

poking her in the direction of Mr May, who wanted to put her in the red velvet. But she marched down one of the pews and took her seat. The place was crowded with a whooping, whistling, excited audience. The curtain was down. James had let it out to his fellow tradesmen, and it represented a patchwork of local adverts. There was a fat porker and a fat pork pie, and the pig was saying, you all know where to find me, inside the crust at Frank Churchill's Narborough Road, Woodhouse. Roundabout the name of W. H. Johnson floated a bowler hat, a collar and necktie, a pair of braces and an umbrella, and so on and so on. It all made you feel very homely, but Miss Pinnigar was sadly hot and squeezed in her pew. Time came, and the colliers began to drum their feet. It was exactly the excited, crowded audience,

Mr May wanted. He darted out to drive James round in front of the curtain, but James, fascinated by raking in the money so fast, could not be shifted from the paybox, and the two men nearly had a fight. At last Mr. May was seen shoeing James like a scuffled chicken, down the side gangway and onto the stage. James before the illuminated curtain of local adverts, bowing and beginning and not making a single word audible. The crowd quieted itself. The eloquence flowed on. The crowd was sick of James and began to shuffle. "'Come down! Come down!' hissed Mr. May, frantically from in front. But James did not move. He would flow on all night. Mr. May waved excitedly at Alvina, who sat obscurely at the piano and darted onto the stage. He raised his voice and drowned James. James ceased to wave his penny

blackened hands, Alvina struck up welcome all, as loudly and emphatically as she could. And all the time Miss Pinnigar sat like a sphinx, like a sphinx. What she thought she did not know herself, but stolidly she stared at James, and anxiously she glanced sideways at the pounding Alvina. She knew Alvina had to pound until she received the cue that Mr May was fitted in his pug-dog costume. A twitch of the curtain, Alvair, Alvina wound up her final flourish. The curtain rose and, Well, really, said Miss Pinnigar out loud.

There was Mr. May as a pug dog, begging, too lifelike and too impossible. The audience shouted. Alvina sat with her hands in her lap. The pug was a great success. Curtain, a few bars of Torridor, and then Miss Poppy's sheets of music, soft music.

Miss Poppy was on the ground under a green scarf. and so the accumulating dilation onto the whirling climax of the perfect arum lily. Sudden curtain and a yell of ecstasy from the colliers. Of all blossoms the arum-the-arum lily is most mystical and portentous. Now a crash and rumble from alvena's piano. This is the storm from whence the rainbow emerges. Up goes the curtain, Miss poppy twirling till her skirts lift as in a breeze, rise up and become a rainbow above her now darkened legs. The footlights are all but extinguished. Miss Poppy is all but extinguished also. The rainbow is not so moving as the Aram Lily, but the Catherine wheel, done at the last

moment on one leg and then an amazing leap into the air backwards, again brings down the house. Miss Poppy herself sets all store on her cup and saucer, but the audience, vulgar as ever, cannot quite see it. And so, Alvina slips away with Miss Poppy's music sheets, while Mr. May sits down like a professional at the piano and makes things fly for the up and downstairs Baxter brothers. Meanwhile, Alvina's pale face hovering like a ghost in the side darkness, as it were under the stage. The lamps go out, gurglings and kissings, and then the dither on the screen, the human bird, in awful, shivery letters. It's not a very very very. good machine and Mr. May is not a very good operator. Audience distinctly critical. Lights up.

An, chocolate, penny a bar, chocolate, penny a bar, even as in Alvinas dream, and then the pancake. So the first half over, lights up for the interval. Miss Pinnigar sighed and folded her hands. She looked neither to right nor to left. In spite of herself, in spite of outraged shame and decency, she was excited. but she felt such excitement was not wholesome. In vain the boy most pertinently yelled, Chotlet! at her. She looked neither to right nor left. But when she saw Alvina nodding to her,

with a quick smile from the side gangway under the stage, she almost burst into tears. It was too much for her, all at once. And Alvina looked almost indecently excited. As she slipped across in front of the audience, to the piano, to play the seductive dream waltz, She looked almost fussy, like her father. James, needless to say, flitted and hurried, hither and thither,

around the audience and the stage, like a wagtail on the brink of a pool. The second half consisted of a comic drama, acted by two Baxter brothers, disguised as women, and Miss Poppy disguised as a man, with a couple of locals thrown in to do the guardsmen and the count. This went very well. The winding up was the first instalment of The Silent Gros, grip. When lights went up and Alvina solemnly struck, God save our gracious king, the audience was on

its feet and not very quiet, evidently hissing with excitement like donuts in the pan, even when the pan is taken off the fire. Mr. Huffton thanked them for their courtesy and attention and hoped, and nobody took the slightest notice. Miss Pinnigar stayed last, waiting for Alvina, and Alvina, in her excitement, waited for Mr. May and her father. Mr. May fairly pranced into the empty hall. Well, he said, shutting both his fists and flourishing them in Miss Pinnigar's face. How did it go? I think it went very well, she said. Very well. I should think so indeed. It went like a house on fire. What, didn't it? And he laughed a high, excited little laugh. James was counting pennies for his life, in the cash place, and dropping them into a Gladstone bag.

The others had to wait for him. At last he locked his bag. "'Well?' said Mr. May. "'Don well?' "'Ferly well,' said James, huskily, excited. "'Fairly well.' "'Only fairly! Oh!'

And Mr. May suddenly picked up the bag. James turned as if he would snatch it from him. "'Well, feel that for fairly well!' said Mr May, handing the bag to Alvina. "'Goodness!' she cried, handing it to Miss Pinnigar. "'Would you believe it?' said Miss Pinnigar, relinquishing it to James, but she spoke coldly, aloof. Mr. May turned off the gas at the metre,

came talking through the darkness of the empty theatre, picking his way with a flashlight. "'Cé le premier pacique-coute,' he said, in a sort of American French, as he locked the doors and put the key in his pocket. James tripped silently alongside, bowed under the weight of his Gladstone bag of pennies. "'How much have we taken, father?' said Alvina gaily. "'I haven't counted,' he snapped.

When he got home he hurried upstairs to his bare chamber. He swept his table clear, and then, in an expert fashion, he seized handfuls of coin and piled them in little columns on his board. There was an army of fat pennies, a dozen to a column, along the back, rows and rows of fat, brown, rank and file. In front of these rows of slim halfpence, like an advance guard, and then commanding all a stout column of half-crowns, a few stoutish and important florin figures, like generals and kernels, then quite a file of shillings, like so many captains,

and a little cloud of silvery lieutenant sixpences. Right at the end, like a frail drummer-boy, a thin stick of threepenny pieces. There they all were, burly dragoons of stout pennies, heavy and holding their ground, with a screen of half-penny light infantry, officered by the immovable half-crown general, who in his turn was flanked by all his staff

of florin kernels and shilling captains, from whom lightly moved the nimble six-pony lieutenants, all ignoring the one frail joey of the three-pennie, bits. Time after time, James ran his almighty eye over his army. He loved them. He loved to feel that his table was pressed down, that it groaned under their weight. He loved to see the pence, like innumerable pillars of cloud, standing waiting to lead on into wildernesses of unopened resource, while the silver, as pillars of light should guide the way down the long night of fortune. Their weight sank. Their weight sensually into his muscle and gave him gratification. The dark redness of bronze, like full-bodied

fleas, seemed alive and pulsing. The silver was magic as if winged. End of Chapter 6, Part 2. Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 7, Part 1 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public Maine. Natchaki Towara. Mr. May and Alvina became almost inseparable, and Woodhouse buzzed with scandal. Woodhouse could not believe that Mr. May was absolutely final in his horror of any sort of coming onness in a woman.

It could not believe that he was only so fond of Alvina because she was like a sister to him, poor, lonely, harassed soul that he was, a pure sister who really hadn't anybody. for although mr may was rather fond in an epicurean way of his own body yet other people's bodies rather made him shudder so that his grand utterance on alvina was he's not physical she's mental he even explained to her one day how it was in his naive fashion there are two kinds of friendships he said physical and mental the physical is a thing of the moment of course you quite like the individual You remain quite nice with them and so on to keep the thing as decent as possible. It is quite decent, so long as you keep it so. But it is a thing of the moment, which you know it may last a week or two or a month or two. But you know from the beginning it is going to end, quite finally, quite soon.

You take it for what it is. But it's so different with the mental friendships. They are lasting. They are eternal. If anything human, he said human, ever is eternal, ever can be eternal. He pressed his hands together in an odd cherubic manner. He was quite sincere, if man ever can be quite sincere. Alvina was quite content to be one of his mental and eternal friends, or rather friendships, since she existed in abstractu as far as he was concerned. for she did not find him at all physically moving.

Physically he was not there. He was oddly an absentee, but his naivete roused the serpent's tooth of her bitter irony. And your wife? she said to him. Oh, my wife! dreadful thought! There I made the great mistake of trying to find the two in one person. And didn't I fall between two stools? Oh dear, didn't I?

Oh, I fell between the two stools beautifully, beautifully. And then she nearly set the stools on top of me. I thought I should never get up again. When I was physical, she was mental. Bernard Shaw and cold baths for supper. And when I was mental, she was physical and threw her arms round my neck. In the morning, mark you. Always in the morning when I was on the alert for business.

Yes, invariably. What do you think of it? Could the devil himself have invented anything more trying? Oh, dear me, don't mention it. Oh, what a time I had. Wonder I'm alive. Yes, really? Although you smile. Alvina did more than smile. She laughed outright, and yet she remained good friends with the odd little man. He bought himself a new smart overcoat that fitted his figure and a new velour hat. and she even noticed one day when he was curling himself up cozily on the sofa that he had pale blue silk underwear and purple silk suspenders. She wondered where he got them and how he afforded them, but there they were. James seemed for the time being wrapped in his undertaking, particularly in the takings part of it. He seemed for the time being contented, or nearly so, nearly so.

certainly there was money coming in. But then he had to pay off all he had borrowed to buy his erections and its furnishings, and a bulk of pennies sublimated into a very small pound-shillingham penn's account at the bank. The endeavour was successful. Yes, it was successful, but not overwhelmingly so. On wet nights, Woodhouse did not care to trail down to Lumley, and then Lumley was one of those depressed, negative spots on the face of the earth, which have no pull at all. In that region of sharp hills with fine hillbrows and shallow, rather dreary canal valleys, it was the places on the hillbrows, like Woodhouse and Hathasedge and Rapton, which flourished, while the dreary places down along the canals existed only for workplaces, not for life and pleasure. It was just like James

to have planted his endeavour down in the stagnant dust and rust of pottery and foundries where no illusion could bloom. He had dreamed of crowded houses every night and of raised prices, but there was no probability of his being able to raise his prices. He had to figure lower than the Woodhouse Empire. He was second-rate from the start. His hope now lay in the tramway which was being built from Narborough, away through the country, a black country indeed through Woodhouse and Lumley and Hathasedge to Rapton. When once this tramway system was working, he would have a supply of youths and lasses always on tap, as it were. So he spread his rainbow wings towards the future and began to say,

When we've got the trams, I shall buy a new machine and finer lenses, and I shall extend my premises. Mr May did not talk business to Alvina. He was terribly secretive with respect to business, but he said to her once in the early year following their opening, "'Well, how do you think we're doing, Miss Huffden?' "'We're not doing any better than we did at first, I think,' she said. "'No,' he answered. "'No, that's true. That's perfectly true.

But why? They seem to like the programmes.' "'I think they do,' said Alvina. "'I think they like them when they're there.' "'But isn't it funny? they don't seem to want to come to them. I know they always talk as if we were second-rate, and they only come because they can't get to the empire or up to Hathasedge.

We're a stop-cap. I know we are. Mr. May looked down in the mouth. He cocked his blue eyes at her, miserable and frightened. Failure began to frighten him abjectly. Why do you think that is, he said. I don't believe they like the turns, she said. But look how they applaud them!

"'Look how pleased they are. "'I know. I know they like them once they're here, and they see them, "'but they don't come again. "'They crowd the empire, and the empire is only pictures now, "'and it's much cheaper to run.' "'He watched her dismally. "'I can't believe they want nothing but pictures. "'I can't believe they want everything in the flat,' he said,

"'coaxing and miserable. "'He himself was not interested in the film. "'His interest was still still. the human interest in living performers and their living feats. Why, he continued, they are ever so much more excited after a good turn than after any film. I know they are, said Alvina, but I don't believe they want to be excited in that way. In what way? asked Mr. May plaintively. By the things which the artists do.

I believe they're jealous. "'Oh, nonsense!' exploded Mr. May, starting as if he had been shot. Then he laid his hand on her arm. "'But forgive my rudeness. I don't mean it, of course. But do you mean to say that these collier louts and factory girls are jealous of the things the Artis do because they could never do them themselves?' "'I'm sure they are,' said Alvina. "'But I can't believe it,' said Mr. May, pouting up his mouth and smiling

at her, as if she were a whimsical child. What a low opinion you have of human nature. Have I? laughed Alvina. I've never reckoned it up. But I'm sure that these common people here are jealous. If anybody does anything or has anything, they can't have themselves. I can't believe it, protested Mr. May. Could they be so silly?

And then why aren't they jealous of the extraordinary things which are done on the film? Because they don't see the flesh and blood people. I'm sure that's it. The film is only pictures, like pictures in the daily mirror, and pictures don't have any feelings apart from their own feelings. I mean the feelings of the people who watch them. Pictures don't have any life except in the people who watch them, and that's why they like them, because they make them feel that they are everything. The pictures make the colliers and glasses feel that they themselves are everything, but how? They identify themselves, with the heroes and heroines on the screen?

Yes, they take it all to themselves, and there isn't anything except themselves. I know it's like that. It's because they can spread themselves over a film, and they can't over a living performer. They're up against the performer himself, and they hate it. Mr. May watched her long and dismally. I can't believe people are like that.

Saying people, he said. Why, to me, the whole... joy is in the living personality, the curious personality of the artiste. That's what I enjoy so much. I know, but that's where you're different from them. But am I? Yes, you're not as up to the mark as they are. Not up to the mark. What do you mean? Do you mean they are more intelligent? No, but they're more modern. You like things which aren't yourself, but they don't. They hate to admire anything that they can't take to themselves. They hate anything that isn't themselves,

and that's why they like pictures. It's all themselves to them, all the time. He's still puzzled. You know I don't follow you, he said, a little mocking, as if she were making a fool of herself. Because you don't know them. You don't know the common people. You don't know how conceited they are.

He watched her a long time. "'And you think we ought to cut out the variety and give nothing but pictures. "'Like the empire,' he said. "'I believe it takes best,' she said. "'And cost less,' he answered. "'But then it's so dull. "'Oh, my word, it's so dull. "'I don't think I could bear it.'

"'And our pictures aren't good enough,' she said. "'We should have to get a new machine and pay for the expensive films. Our pictures do shake, and our films are rather ragged. But then, surely, they're good enough, he said. That was how matters stood. The endeavour paid its way, and made just a margin of profit, no more. Spring went on to summer, and then there was a very shadowy margin of profit. But James was not at all daunted.

He was waiting now for the trams, and building up hopes, since he could not build in bricks and mortar. The navvies were busy and truth. along the Narborough Road and down Lumley Hill. Alvina became quite used to them. As she went down the hill, soon after six o'clock in the evening, she met them trooping home, and some of them she liked. There was an outlawed look about them as they swung along the pavement, some of them, and there was a certain lurking set of the head which rather frightened her because it fascinated her. There was one tall young fellow with a red face and fair hair who looked at as if he had fronted the seas and the Arctic Sun. He looked at her. They knew each other quite well

in passing, and he would glance at perky Mr. May. Alvina tried to fathom what the young fellow's look meant. She wondered what he thought of Mr. May. She was surprised to hear Mr. May's opinion of the Navi. "'He's a handsome young man now!' exclaimed her companion one evening as the navvies passed, and all three turned round, to find all three turning round. Alvina laughed and made eyes. At that moment she would cheerfully have gone along with the navvy. She was getting so tired of Mr May's quiet prance. On the whole, Alvina enjoyed the cinema and the life it brought her. She accepted it, and she became somewhat vulgarised in her bearing. She was declaise. She had lost her class altogether. The other daughters of respectable tradesmen avoided her now,

or spoke to her only from a distance. She was supposed to be carrying on with Mr. May. Alvina did not care. She rather liked it. She liked being de classé. She liked feeling an outsider. At last she seemed to stand on her own ground. She laughed to herself as she went back and forth from Woodhouse to Lumley, between Manchester House and the Pleasure Palace. She laughed when she saw her father's theatre notices plastered about. She laughed when she saw his thrilling announcements in the Woodhouse Weekly. She laughed when she knew that all the Woodhouse youths recognised her and looked on her as one of their inferior entertainers.

She was off the map and she liked it. For, after all, she got a good deal of fun out of it. There was not only the continual activity, there were the artists. Every week she met a new set of stars, three or four as a rule. She rehearsed with them on Monday afternoons, and she saw them every evening and twice a week at matinees. James now gave two performances each evening, and he always had some audience,

so that Alvina had opportunity to come into contact with all the odd people of the inferior stage. She found they were very much of a time, type, a little frowsy, a little fleabin as a rule, indifferent to ordinary morality, and philosophical, even if irritable. They were often very irritable, and they had always a certain fund of callous philosophy. Alvina did not like them, you were not supposed really to get deeply emotional over them, but she found it amusing to see them all and know them all. It was so different from Woodhouse, where everything was priced and ticketed. The

These people were nomads. They didn't care a straw who you were or who you weren't. They had a most irritable, professional vanity, and that was all. It was most odd to watch them. They weren't very squeamish. If the young gentleman liked to peep round the curtain when the young lady was in her knickers, oh well, she rather roundly told them off, perhaps, but nobody minded. The fact that ladies wore knickers and black silk stockings thrilled nobody, any more than grease paint or false mustaches thrilled. It was all part of the stocking trade. As for immorality, well, what did it amount to? Not a great deal. Most of the men cared far more about a drop of whiskey than about any more carnal vice, and most of the girls were good pals with each other, men were only there to act with.

even if the act was a private love farce of an improper description, what's the odds? You couldn't get excited about it, not as a rule. Mr May usually took rooms for the artists in a house down in Lumley. When one particular was coming, he would go to a rather better class widow in Woodhouse. He never let Alvina take any part in the making of these arrangements, except with the widow in Woodhouse, who had long ago been a servant at Manchester House, and even now came in to do cleaning. Odd, eccentric people they were, these entertainers.

Most of them had a streak of imagination, and most of them drank. Most of them were middle-aged. Most of them had an abstracted manner. In ordinary life they seemed left aside somehow. Odd, extraneous creatures, often a little depressed, feeling life slip away from them. The cinema was killing them. Alvina had quite a serious flirtation with a man who played a flute and piccolo.

He was about fifty years old, still handsome and growing stout. When sober he was completely reserved. When rather drunk, he talked charmingly and amusingly. Oh, most charmingly. Alvina quite loved him, but alas, how he drank! But what a charm he had! He went and she saw him no more. The usual rather rather.

American-looking, clean-shaven, slightly pasty young man, left Alvina quite cold, though he had an amiable and truly chivalrous gallantry. He was quite likable, but so unattractive. Alvina was more fascinated by the odd fish, like the lady who did marvellous things with six ferrets, or the Jap who was tattooed all over, and had the most amazing, strong wrists, so that he could throw down any collier with one turn of the hand. Queer cuts these, but just a little beyond her. She watched them rather from a distance. She wished she could jump across the distance,

particularly with the Jap, who was almost quite naked, but clothed with the most exquisite tattooing. Never would she forget the eagle that flew with terrible spread wings between his shoulders, or the strange mazy pattern that netted the roundness of his buttocks. He was not very large, but nicely shaped, and with no hair on his smooth, tattooed body. He was almost blue in colour.

That is, his tattooing was blue, with pickings of brilliant vermilion, as for instance round the nipples, and in a strange red serpent's jaws over the navel. A serpent went round his loins and haunches. He told her how many times he had had blood poisoning during the process of his tattooing. He was a queer, black-eyed creature, with a look of silence and toad-like lewdness. He frightened her, but when he was dressed in common clothes and was just a cheap, shoddy-looking European jap, he was more frightening still. For his face, he was not tattooed above a certain ring low on his neck, was yellow and flat, and basking with one eye open, like some age-old serpent. She felt he was smiling horribly all the time,

lewd, unthinkable. A strange sight he was in Woodhouse on a sunny morning, a shabby-looking bit of riff-raff of the east, rather down at the heel, who could have imagined the terrible eagle of his shoulders, the serpent of his loins, his supple, magic skin. The summer passed again and autumn.

Winter was a better time for James Huffton. The trams, moreover, would begin to run in January. He wanted to arrange a good programme for the week when the trams started. A long time ahead, Mr. May prepared it. The one item was the Natchakitawara troop. The Natchikitawara troop consisted of five persons, Madame Roshard and four young men. They were a strictly red Indian troop. But one of the young men, the German Swiss, was a famous yodler, and another, the French Swiss, was a good comic with a French accent. whilst Madame and the German did a screaming two-person farce.

Their great turn, of course, was the Natchikikitawara Red Indian scene. The Natchikikirahs were due in the third week in January, arriving from the potteries on the Sunday evening. When Alvina came in from chapel that Sunday evening, she found her widow, Mrs. Rowlings, seated in the living room, talking with James, who had an anxious look. Since opening the pleasure palace, James was less than, regular at chapel, and moreover he was getting old and shaky, and Sunday was the one evening

he might spend in peace. Add that on this particular black Sunday night it was sleeting, dismally outside, and James had already a bit of a cough, and we shall see that he did right to stay at home. Mrs. Rowling sat nursing a bottle. She was to go to the chemist for some cough cure, because Madame had got a bad cold. The chemist was gone to chapel. The chemist was gone to chapel. He wouldn't open till eight. Madame and the four young men had arrived at about six. Madame said Mrs. Rowlings was a little fat woman, and she was complaining all the time that she had got a cold on her chest, laying her hand on her chest, and trying her breathing and going to see if she could breathe properly. She, Mrs. Rowlings, had suggested that Madame should

put her feet in hot mustard and water, but Madame said she must have been. have something to clear her chest. The four young men were four nice civil young fellows. They evidently liked Madame. Madame had insisted on cooking the chops for the young men. She herself had eaten one, but she laid her hand on her chest when she swallowed. One of the young men had gone out to get her some brandy, and he had come back with half a dozen large bottles of bass as well. Mr. Huffton was very much concerned over Madame's cold. He asked the same questions again and again. again to try and make sure how bad it was. But Mrs. Rowlings didn't seem quite to know.

James wrinkled his brow. Supposing Madame could not take her part, he was most anxious. Do you think you might go across with Mrs. Rowlings and see how this woman is, Alvina, he said to his daughter. I should think you'll never turn Alvina out on such a night, said Miss Pinnigar, and besides it isn't right. Where is Mr. May? It's his business to go. oh returned alvena i don't mind going wait a minute i'll see if we haven't got some of those pastilles for burning if it's very bad i can make one of those plasters mother used and she ran upstairs she was curious to see what madame and her four young men were like With Mrs. Rowling she called at the chemist's back door, and then they hurried through the sleet to the widow's dwelling. It was not far. As they went up the entry they heard the sound of voices, but in the kitchen all was quiet. The voices came from the front room. Mrs. Rowlings tapped.

Come in, said a rather sharp voice. Alvina entered on the widow's heels. I brought you the cough stuff, said the widow, and Miss Huffman's come as well to see how you was. Four young men were sitting round the table in their shirt-sleeves with bottles of bass. There was much cigarette smoke. By the fire, which was burning brightly, sat a plump, pale woman with dark bright eyes and finely drawn eyebrows. She might be any age between forty and fifty. There were grey threads in her tidy black hair. She was neatly dressed in a well-made black dress with a small lace collar.

There was a slight look of self-commiseration on her face. She had a cigarette between her drooped fingers. She rose as if with difficulty and held out her plump hand, on which four or five rings showed. She had dropped the cigarette unnoticed into the hearth. "'How do you do?' she said. "'I didn't catch your name.' Madam's voice was a little plaintive and plangent now,

like a bronze reed, mournfully vibrating. "'Alvina Huffton,' said Alvina. daughter of him has owns the theatre where you're going to act interpose the widow oh yes yes i see miss hofton i didn't know how it was said hofton yes miss hofton i've got a bad cold on my chest laying her plump hand with the rings on her plump bosom but let me introduce you to my young men a wave of the plump hand whose forefinger was very slightly cigarette-stained to the table. The four young men had risen and stood looking at Alvina and Madame. The room was small, rather bare, with horsehair and white crochet antimacassas and a linoleum floor. The table also was covered with a brightly patterned American oilcloth, shiny but clean. A naked gas jet hung over it. For furniture there were just chairs, armchairs, table and a horsehair antimacassad sofa. yet the little room seemed very full full of people young men with smart waistcoats and ties but without coats that is max said madame i shall tell you only their names and not their family names because that is easier for you

In the meantime Max had bowed. He was a tall Swiss with almond eyes and a flattish face and a rather stiff ramrod figure. And that is Louis. Louis bowed gracefully. He was a Swiss Frenchman, moderately tall, with prominent cheekbones and a wing of glossy black hair falling on his temple. And that is Geoffroix. Geoffrey, Geoffrey made his bow, a broad-shouldered, watchful, taciturned man from Alpine France. And that is Francesco, a franc, Francesco gave a faint curl of his lip, half-smile as he saluted her involuntarily in a military fashion. He was dark, rather tall and loose, with yellow, tawny eyes. He was an Italian from the south. Madame gave another look at him. He doesn't like his English name of Frank. You will see he pulls a face. No, he doesn't like it. We call him Ciccio also.

But Chichot was dropping his head sheepishly, with the same faint smile on his face, half grimace and stooping to his chair, wanting to sit down. "'These are my family of young men,' said Madame. "'We are drawn from three races, though only Chichito is not of our mountains. "'Will you please to sit down?' They all took their chairs. There was a pause. My young men drink a little beer after their horrible journey.

As a rule, I do not like them to drink, but tonight they have a little beer. I do not take any myself, because I am afraid of inflaming myself. She laid her hand on her breast and took long, uneasy breaths. I feel it. I feel it here. She patted her breast. It makes me afraid for tomorrow. Will you perhaps take a glass of beer? Chicho, ask for another glass.

Chicho at the end of the table did not rise, but look at the end of the table, did not rise, looked round at Alvina, as if he presumed there would be no need for him to move. The odd, supercilious curl of the lip persisted. Madame glared at him, but he turned the handsome side of his cheek towards her, with the faintest flicker of a sneer. "'No, thank you, I never take beer,' said Alvina hurriedly. "'No, never! Oh!' Madame folded her hands, but her black eyes still darted venom at Chichot.

The rest of the young men fingered the, their glasses and put their cigarettes to their lips and blew the smoke down their noses uncomfortably. Madame closed her eyes and leaned back a moment. Then her face looked transparent and pallid. There were dark rings under her eyes. The beautifully brushed hair shone dark like black glass above her ears. She was obviously unwell. The young men looked at her and muttered to one another. I'm afraid your cold is rather bad, said Alvina. Will you let me take your temperature? Madame started and looked frightened. Oh, I don't think you should trouble to do that, she said.

Max, the tall, highly coloured Swiss, turned to her, saying, Yes, you must have your temperature taken. Then we shall know, shan't we? I had 105 when we were in Redruth. Alvina had taken the thermometer from her pocket. Chichot, meanwhile, muttered something in French. Evidently something rude meant for Max. What shall I do?

if I can't work tomorrow, moaned madame, seeing Alvina hold up the thermometer towards the light. Max, what shall we do? He would stay in bed and we must do the white prisoner scene, said Max, rather staccato and official. Chichio curled his lip and put his head aside. Alvina went across to Madame with the thermometer. Madame lifted her plump hand and fended off Alvina while she made her last declaration. Never, never have I missed my work, for a single day, for ten years. Never. If I am going to lie abandoned, I had better die at once. Lie abandoned, said Max, you know you won't do no such thing. What are you talking about? Take the thermometer, said Geoffrey, roughly, but with feeling.

Tomorrow, see, you will be well, quite certain, said Louis. Madam mournfully shook her head, opened her mouth and sat back with closed eyes, and the stump of the thermometer comically protruding from a corner of her lips. Meanwhile Alvina took her plump white wrist and felt her pulse. We can practice, began Geoffrey. Sh, said Max, holding up his finger and looking anxiously at Alvina and Madame, who still leaned back with the stump of the thermometer jauntily perking up from her pursed mouth, while her face was rather ghastly.

Max and Louis watched anxiously. Jeffrey sat blowing the smoke down his nose, while Cichito callously lit another cigarette, striking a match on his boot heel and puffing from under the tip of his rather long nose. Then he took the cigarette from his mouth, turned his head, slowly spat on the floor, and rubbed his foot on his spit. Max flapped his eyelids and looked all disdain, murmuring something about "'Ains schmuchis' Italienisch's Volk, whilst Louis, refusing either to see or to hear, framed the word chien on his lips.

Then Quicker's lightning both turned their attention again to Madame. Her temperature was 102. You'd better go to bed, said Alvina. Have you eaten anything? One little mouthful, said Madame plaintively. Max sat looking pale and stricken. Louis had hurried forward to take Madame's hand. He kissed it quickly, then turned aside his head because of the tears in his eyes. Jeffrey gulped beer in large throatfuls, and Chicho, with his head bent, was watching from under his eyebrows.

I'll run round for the doctor, said Alvina. Don't, don't do that, my dear. Don't you go and do that? I'm likely to a temperature. Liable to a temperature, murmured Louis, pathetically. I'll go to bed, said Madame, obediently rising. Wait a bit, I'll see if there's a fire in the bedroom, said Alvina. Oh, my dear, you are too good.

Open the door for her, Chichot. Chichot reached across at the door, but was too late. Max had hastened to usher Alvina out. Madame sank back in her chair. Never for ten years, she was wailing. What fair? Ah, what fair? What fare you, my poor, son your quichuigan?

What will I make morrieu' don't tell pe? La Bon de Moiselle. "'La bon de mooselle, "'she'll have du cour, "'she'll probably "'as, he had a little "'de chere. "'Max, libster,

"'shall I see "'seer, oh, yeah, oh, yeah. "'Ah, no, madame, "'ach, no, "'n't so fuched by ellend, "'said Max. "'Mank a core is "'solomently

"'al ticho, maudam, "'that nature, poverer, "'Senza sentiment. "'Nienta de bello. "'Ahime, "'que amico, "'que, ragazzo duro, "'Ipero.'

"'Trova?' said Ciccio, "'with a curl of the lip. "'He looked as he dropped "'his long, beautiful lashes, "'as if he might weep "'for all that, "'if he were not bound "'to be misbehaving just now.

"'So Madame moaned in four languages "'as she posed, pallid in her armchair. "' Usually she spoke in French only "'with her young men, "'but this was an excellent, her occasion. La Pover, Kishuega, murmured, Madame. She'll finish en monde.

El pass the poor Kishuegan. Kishuegan was Madame's red Indian name, the name under which she danced her squaw's fire dance. Now that she knew she was ill, Madame seemed to become more ill. Her breath came in little pants. She had a pain in her side. A feverish flush seemed to mount her cheek.

The young men were all extremely uncomfortable. Louis did not conceal his tears. Only Chichot kept the thin smile on his lips and added to Madame's annoyance and pain. Alvina came down to take her to bed. The young men all rose and kissed Madame's hand as she went out, her poor jewelled hand that was faintly perfumed with odour cologne. She spoke an appropriate good-night to each of them.

Good-night, my faithful, Max, I trust my self-oomax. I trust myself to you. Good night, Louis, the tender heart. Good night, valiant Geoffrey. Ah, Chitio, do not add to the weight of my heart. Be good braves, all. Be brothers in one accord. One little prayer for Porchishuagin.

Good night. After which valediction, she slowly climbed the stairs, putting her hand on her knee at each step with the effort. No, no, she said to Max, who would have followed to her. her assistance. Do not come up. No, no. Her bedroom was tidy and proper. Tonight, she moaned, I shan't be able to see that the boy's rooms are well in order. They are not to be trusted, no. They need an overseeing eye, especially Chicho.

Especially Chicho. She sank down by the fire and began to undo her dress. You must let me help you, said Alvina. You know I have been a nurse. "'Ah, you are too kind. Too kind, dear young lady. I am a lonely old woman. I am not used to atoncience. Best leave me. Let me help you,' said Alvina. "'Alas, Achime, who would have thought Kishuaghan would need help. I danced last night with the boys in the theatre in Leek, and tonight I am put to bed in—' "'What is the name of this place, dear? It seems I don't remember it.' Woodhouse, said Alvina. Woodhouse? Woodhouse? Is there not something called wood-louse? I believe. Oh, horrible. Why is it horrible? Alvina quickly undressed the plump, trim little woman.

She seemed so soft. Alvina could not imagine how she could be a dancer on the stage, strenuous. But Madame's softness could flash into wild energy, sudden, convulsive power, like a puddlefish. Alvina brushed out the long black hair and plaited it lightly. Then she got Madame madame, said madame, the good bed, the good bed, but cold, it is so cold. Would you hang up my dress, dear, and fold my stockings? Alvina quickly folded and put aside the dainty underclothing. Queer, dainty woman was, madame, even to her wonderful, threaded, black and gold. old garters. My poor boys,

no kishweigand tomorrow. You don't think I need see a priest, dear? A priest, said madame, her teeth chattering. Priest? Oh no. You'll be better when we can get you warm. I think it's only a chill.

Mrs. Rowlings is warming a blanket. Alvina ran downstairs. Max opened the sitting-room door and stood watching at the sound of footsteps. His rather bony fists were clenched. beneath his loose shirt-cuffs, his eyebrows, tragically lifted. Is she much ill? he asked. I don't know, but I don't think so. Do you mind heating the blanket while Miss Rowlings makes thin gruel? Max and Louis stood heating blankets. Louis's trousers were

cut rather tight at the waist and gave him a female look. Max was straight and stiff. Mrs. Rowlings asked Geoffrey to fill the cold-skuttles and carry one upstairs. Geoffrey obediently went out with a lantern to the coal shed. Afterwards he was to carry up the horsehair armchair. I must go home for some things, said Alvina to Chicho. Will you come and carry them for me? He started up and with one movement threw away his cigarette. He did not look at Alvina.

His beautiful lashes seemed to screen his eyes. He was fairly tall, but loosely built for an Italian, with slightly sloping shoulders. Alvina noticed the brown, slender, Mediterranean hand. as he put his fingers to his lips. It was a hand such as she did not know, prehensile and tender and dusky. With an odd, graceful slouch he went into the passage and reached for his coat. He did not say a word, but held aloof as he walked with Alvina. "'I'm sorry for Madame,' said Alvina, as she hurried, rather breathless through the night. She does think for you men.' But Chichot vouchsafed no answer,

and walked with his hands in the pockets of his waterproof. whinsing from the weather. "'I'm afraid she will never be able to dance tomorrow,' said Alvina. "'You think she won't be able?' he said. "'I'm almost sure she won't,' after which he said nothing. And Alvina also kept silence till they came to the black, dark passage and encumbered yard at the back of the house. "'I don't think you can see at all,' she said.

"'It's this way.' She groped for him in the dark and met his groping hand. "'This way,' she said. It was curious how light his finger. were in their clasp, almost like a child's touch. So they came under the light from the window of the sitting-room. Alvina hurried indoors, and the young man followed. I shall have to stay with Madame to-night, she explained hurriedly. She's feverish, but she may throw it off if we can get her into a sweat, and Alvina ran upstairs, collecting things necessary. Chicho stood back near the door

and answered all Miss Pinnigar's entreaties to come to the fire with a shake of the head and a slight smile of the lips, bashful and stupid. But do come and warm yourself before you go out again, said Miss Pinnigar, looking at the man as he drooped his head in the distance. He still shook descent, but opened his mouth at last. It makes it colder after, he said, showing his teeth in a slight, stupid smile. Oh, well, if you think so, said Miss Pinnigar, nettled. She couldn't make heads or tails of him, and didn't try.

When they got back, Madame was light-headed and talking excitedly of her dance, her young men. The three young men were terrified. They had got the blankets scorching hot. Alvina smeared the plasters and applied them to Madame's side, where the pain was. What a white-skinned, soft, plump child she seemed. Her pain meant a touch of pluracy for sure. The men hovered outside the door. Alvina wrapped the poor patient in the hot blankets, got a few spoonfuls of hot gruel and whiskey down her throat, fastened her down in bed, lowered the light, and banished the men from the stairs. Then she sat down to watch. Madame chafed, moaned, murmured feverishly. Alvina soothed her and

put her hands in bed, and at last the poor dear became quiet. Her brow was faintly moist. She fell into a quiet sleep, perspiring freely. Alvina watched her still, soothed her when she suddenly started and began to break out of the bedclothes, quieted her, pressed her gently, firmly down, folded her tight, and made her submit to the perspiration against which, in convulsive starts, she fought and strove, crying that she was suffocating, she was too hot, too hot. End of Chapter 7, Part 1 Read by Tony Foster Chapter 7, Part 2 Of the Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Lie still, lie still, said Alvina.

You must keep warm. Poor Madame moaned, how she hated seething in the bath of her own perspiration. Her willful nature rebelled strongly. She would have thrown aside her covering, and gasped into the cold air if Alvina had not pressed her down with that soft, inevitable pressure. So the hours passed till about one o'clock, when the perspiration became less profuse and the patient was really better, really quieter.

Then Alvina went downstairs for a moment. She saw the light still burning in the front room. Tapping, she entered. There sat back by the fire, a picture of misery with Louis opposite him, nodding asleep after his tears. On the sofa Geoffrey snored lightly, while Chichot sat with his head on the table, his arms spread out, dead asleep.

Again she noticed the tender, dusky, Mediterranean hands, the slender wrists, slender for a man, naturally loose and muscular. "'Haven't you gone to bed?' whispered Alvina. "'Why?' Louis started awake. Max, the only stubborn watcher, shook his head lugubriously. "'But she's better,' whispered Alvina. "'She's perspired. "'She's better.

"'She's sleeping naturally.' "'Max stared with round, sleep-witened, owlish eyes, "'pessimistic and sceptical. "'Yes,' persisted Alvina. "'Come and look at her, "'but don't wake her, whatever you do.' "'Max took off his slippers and rose to his tall height. "'Louie, like a scared chicken, followed.

"'Each man held his slippers in his hand. "'They noiselessly entered and peeped, stealthily over the heaped bedclothes. Madame was lying, looking a little flushed and very girlish, sleeping lightly, with a strand of black hair stuck to her cheek, and her lips lightly parted. Max watched her for some moments, then suddenly he straightened himself, pushed back his brown hair that was brushed up in the German fashion, and crossed himself, dropping his knee as before an altar, crossed himself, and dropped his knee once more, and then a third time crossed himself and inclined before the altar.

Then he straightened himself again and turned aside. Louis also crossed himself. His tears burst out. He bowed and took the edge of a blanket to his lips, kissing it reverently. Then he covered his face with his hand. Meanwhile, Madame slept lightly and innocently on. Alvina turned to go. Max silently followed, leading Louis by the arm.

when they got downstairs max and louis threw themselves in each other's arms and kissed each other on either cheek gravely in continental fashion she is better said max gravely in french thanks to god replied louis alvina witnessed all this with some amazement the men did not heed her max went over and shook geoffrey louis put his hand on chicho's shoulder the sleepers were difficult to wake the wakers shook the sleeping but in vain At last Geoffrey began to stir, but in vain Louis lifted Chico's shoulders from the table. The head and the hands dropped inert. The long black lashes lay motionless. The rather long, fine Greek nose drew the same light breaths, the mouth remained shut. Strange, fine black hair he had, closest fur, animal and naked, frail-seeming, tawny hands. There was a silver ring on one hand. Alvina suddenly seized one of the inert hands that slid on the tablecloth as Louis shook the young man's shoulders. Tight she pressed the hand. Chichot opened his tawny yellowish

eyes that seemed to have been put in with a dirty finger as the saying goes, owing to the suttiness of the lashes and brows. He was quite drunk with his first sleep and saw nothing. "'Wake up!' said Alvina, laughing, pressing his hand again. He lifted his head once more, suddenly clasped her hand. His eyes came to consciousness. His hand relaxed. He recognized her, and he sat back in his chair, turning his face aside and lowering his lashes. "'Get up, great beast!' Louis was saying softly in French, pushing him as ox-drivers sometimes pushed their oxen.

Chichot staggered to his feet. "'She is better,' they told him. "'We are going to bed.' They took their candles and trussed. trooped off upstairs, each one bowing to Alvina as he passed. Max, solemnly, Louis Gallant, the other two dumb and sleepy. They occupied the two attic chambers. Alvina carried up the loose bed from the sofa and slept on the floor before the fire in Madame's room. Madame slept well and long, rousing and stirring and settling off again. It was eight o'clock before she asked her

first question. Alvina was already up. "'Oh, alor, then I am better. "'I am quite well, I can dance today.' "'I don't think today,' said Alvina, "'but perhaps to-morrow.' "'No, to-day,' said madame. "'I can dance to-day because I am quite well. "'I am Kishwing.'

"'You are better, but you must lie still to-day. "'Yes, really. "'You will find you are weak when you try to stand.' "'Madame watched Alvina's thin face with sullen eyes. "'You are an English woman, severe and materialist, she said. Alvinas started and looked round at her with wide blue eyes. Why, she said.

There was a wan, pathetic look about her, a sort of heroism which Madame detested, but which now she found touching. Come, said Madame, stretching out her plump, jeweled hand. Come, come, I am an ungrateful woman. Come, they are not good for you, the people. I see it. Come to me.

alveena went slowly to madame and took the outstretched hand madame kissed her hand then drew her down and kissed her on either cheek gravely as the young men had kissed each other you have been good to quichuegin and quichuegin has a heart that remembers there miss rufton i shall do what you tell me quesuegan obeys you and madame patted alvina's hand and nodded her head sagely shall i take your temperature said alveen "'Yes, my dear, you shall. You shall bid me, and I shall obey.' So Madame lay back on her pillow, submissively pursing the thermometer between her lips and watching Alvina with black eyes. "'It's all right,' said Alvina, as she looked at the thermometer. "'Normal.' "'Reechoed, Madame's rather guttural voice.

"'Good! Well, then, when shall I dance?' Alvina turned and looked at her. "'I think truly,' said Alvina. It shouldn't be before Thursday or Friday. Thursday, repeated, Madame. You say Thursday? There was a note of strong rebellion in her voice. You'll be so weak.

You've only just escaped pluracy. I can only say what I truly think, can't I? Are you English women, said Madame, watching with black eyes? I think you like to have your own way, in all things to have your own way. And over all people, you are so good to have your own way. yes you good English women Thursday very well it shall be Thursday till Thursday then Kishuegin does not exist and she subsided already rather weak upon her pillow again when she had taken her tea and was washed and her room was tidied she summoned the young men alvina had warned Max that she wanted

Madame to be kept as quiet as possible this day as soon as the first of the four appeared in his shirt sleeves and his slippers in the doorway, Madame said, Ah, there you are my young men! Come in, come in, come in. It is not Kishwagan addresses you. Kishwaghan does not exist till Thursday, as the English d'emoiselle makes it. She held out her hand, faintly perfumed with Odour-Cologne. The whole room smelled of Odur Cologne, and Max stooped his brittle spine and kissed it. She touched his cheek gently with her other hand. My faithful Max, Max, my support. louis came smiling with a bunch of violets and pinky anemones he laid them down on the bed before her and took her hand bowing and kissing it reverently

you are better dear madame he said smiling long at her better yes gentle louis and better for thy flowers chivalricard she put the violets and anemones to her face with both hands and then gently laid them aside to extend her hand to geoffrey "'Ducco Geoffrey will do his best while there is no Kishuagin,' she said, as he stooped to her salute. "'Bianso, madame.' "'Cichot, a button off thy shirt-cough. "'Where is my needle?' She looked round the room as Chichot kissed her hand. "'Did you want anything?' said Alvina, who had not followed the French. "'My needle, to sorens his button. It is there in the silk bag.'

"'I will do it,' said Alvina. "'Thank you.' While Alvinas sewed on the button, Madame spoke to her young men, principally to Max. They were to obey Max, she said, for he was their eldest brother. This afternoon they would practice well the scene of the white prisoner. Very carefully they must practice, and they must find someone who would play the young squaw, for in this scene she had practically nothing to do, the young squaw, but just sit and stand. Miss Huffton, but, ah, Miss Huffton must play the piano.

No, she could not take the part of the young squaw, some other then. While the interview was going on, Mr. May arrived, full of concern. "'Shan't we have the procession?' he cried. "'Ah, the possession!' cried Madame. The Natchikiketawara troop, upon request, would signalize its entry into any town by a procession. The young men were dressed as Indian Braves, and headed by Kishwagin. They rode on horseback through the main streets. Chichot, who was the crack horseman, having served a very well-known horsey Marquesi in an Italian cavalry regiment, did a bit of show-riding.

Mr May was very keen on the procession. He had the horses in readiness. The morning was faintly sunny, after the sleet and bad weather, and now he arrived to find Madame in bed and the young men holding counsel with her. How very unfortunate! cried Mr. May. How very unfortunate! "'Dreadful, dreadful!' wailed Madame from the bed. "'But can't we do anything?' "'Yes, you can do the white prisoner's scene. "'The young men can do that if you find a dummy squaw.

"'Ah, I think I must get up after all.' "'Alvina saw the look of fret and exhaustion in Madame's face. "'Won't you all go downstairs now?' said Alvina. "'Mr. Max knows what you must do.' "'And she shooed the five men out of the bedroom. "'I must get it. up. I won't dance. I will be a dummy, but I must be there. It is too dreadful, too dreadful, wailed madame. Don't take any notice of them. They can manage by themselves. Men are such babies.

Let them carry it through by themselves. Children. They are all children, wailed madame, all children. And so what will they do without their old governaunt? My poor braves, what will they do without Kishuagin? It is. It's too dreadful. Too dreadful. Yes. The poor Mr. May so disappointed. Then let him be disappointed, cried Alvina, as she forcibly tucked up, Madame, and made her lie still. You are hard, you are a hard English woman. All alike, all alike. Madame subsided fretfully and weakly. Alvina moved softly about, and in a few minutes Madame was sleeping again. Alvina went downstairs. Mr. May was listening to Max, who was telling in German all about the white prisoner scene. Mr. May had spent his boyhood in a German school. He cocked his head on one side, and, laying his hand on Max's arm, entertained him in odd German. The others were silent. Chichot made no pretense of listening, but smoked and stared at his own feet. Louis and Geoffrey half understood, so Louis nodded with a look of deep.

comprehension whilst Geoffrey uttered short snappy yeah yeah do ebain rather irrelevant I'll be the squar cried Mr May in English breaking off and turning round to the company he perked up his head in an odd parrot-like fashion I'll be the squaw what's her name Kishw again I'll be Kishw again and he bridled and beamed self-consciously the two tall Swiss looked down on him faintly smiling Cheecher sitting with his arms on his knees on the sofa, screwed round his head, and watched the phenomenon of Mr. May with inscrutable, expressionless attention. "'Let us go,' said Mr. May, bubbling with new importance.

"'Let us go and rehearse this morning, and let us do the procession this afternoon, when the colliers are just coming home. "'Dea! What? Isn't that exactly the idea? "'Well, will you be ready at once, now?' He looked excitedly at the young men. They nodded with slow gravity, as if they were already braves. Then they turned to put on their boots. Soon they were all trooping down to Lundley.

Mr. May prancing like a little circus pony beside Alvina, the four young men rolling ahead. What do you think of it? cried Mr. May. We've saved the situation. What? Don't you think so? Don't you think we can congratulate ourselves? They found Mr. Huffton, fussing about in the theatre. He was on tenterhooks of agitation.

knowing Madame was ill. Max gave a brilliant display of yodeling. But I must explain to them, cried Mr. May. I must explain to them what yodel means. And turning to the empty theatre, he began, stretching forth his hand. In the high Alps of Switzerland, where eternal snows and glaciers rain over luscious meadows, full of flowers, if you should chance to awaken, as I have done, in some lonely wooden farm, amid the mountain pastures, you, uh, you, let me see, if you, no, if you should chance to spend the night in some lonely wooden farm amid the upland pastures, dawn will wake you with a wild inhuman song. You will open your eyes to the first gleam of icy, eternal sunbeams. Your ears will be ringing

with weird singing that has no words and no meaning, but sounds as if some wild and icy god were warbling to himself as he wandered among the peaks of dawn. You look forth across the flowers to the blue snow, and you see far off a small figure of a man moving among the grass. It is a peasant singing his mountain song, warbling like some creature that lifted up its voice on the edge of the eternal snows before the human race began. During this oration, James Huffton sat with his chin in his hand, devoured with bitter jealousy, measuring Mr. May's eloquence, and then he started, as Max, tall and handsome now, in Tyrell Lee's costume, white shirt and green, scrote, scrote, square braces, short trousers of chamois leather, stitched with green and red,

firm planted naked knees, naked ankles and heavy shoes, warbled his native yodel strains, a piercing and disturbing sound. He was flushed, erect, keen-tempered, and fierce and mountainous. There was a fierce, icy passion in the man. Alvina began to understand Madame's objection to him. Louis and Geoffrey did a fast dialogue, two foreigners at the same moment spying a purse in the street, struggling with each other and protesting they wanted to take it to the policeman, Cheecho, who stood solid and ridiculous. Mr. Hufford nodded slowly and gravely, as if to give his measured approval. Then all retired to dress for the great scene. Alvina practiced the music madame carried with her. If Madame found a good pianist, she welcomed the accompaniment.

If not, she dispensed with it. Am I all right? Said a smirking voice. And there was a kishwegan. Dusky, coy with long black hair and a short, chamois dress, garters and moccasins and bare arms. So coy and so smirking. Alvina burst out laughing.

But shan't I do? protested Mr. May, hurt. Yes, you're wonderful, said Alvina, choking. But I must laugh. "'But why? Tell me why,' says Mr. May anxiously. "'Is it my appearance you laugh at, or is it only me? "'If it's me, I don't mind, but if it's my appearance, tell me so.' "'Here an appalling figure of Chicho in war paint strolled onto the stage.

"'He was naked to the waist, wore scalp-fringed trousers, "'was dusky red-skinned, had long black hair and eagle's feathers, "'only two feathers, and a face wonderfully and terribly painted, with white, red, yellow, and black lines. He was evidently pleased with himself. His curious, soft slouch and curious way of lifting his lip from his white teeth, in a sort of smile, was very convincing. "'You haven't got the girdle,' he said,

"'touching Mr. May's plump waist and some flowers in your hair. "'Mr. May here gave a sharp cry and a jump. "'A bear on its hind legs, slow, shambling, rolling its loose shoulders, was stretching a paw towards him. The bear dropped heavily on four paws again, and a laugh came from its muzzle. "'You won't have to dance,' said Geoffrey, out of the bear. "'Come and put in the flowers,' said Mr. May, anxiously to Alvina. In the dressing-room, the dividing curtain was drawn. Max, in deerskin trousers, but with unpainted torso, looked very white and strange, as he put the last touches of war paint on Louis's face.

He glanced round at Alvina, then went on with his work. There was a sort of nobility about his erect, white form and stiffly carried head, the semi-luminous brown hair. He seemed curiously superior. Alvina adjusted the maidenly Mr May. Louis arose, a brave like Chichot in war paint, even more hideous. Max slipped on a tattered hunting shirt and cartridge belt. His face was a little darkened.

He was the white prisoner. They arranged the scenery while Alvina watched. It was soon done. A black cloth of tree trunks and dark forest, a wigwam, a fire, and a cradle hanging from a pole. As they worked, Alvina tried in vain to dissociate the two braves from their war paint. The lines were drawn so cleverly that the grimace of ferocity was fixed and horrible, so that even in the quiet work of scene-shifting,

Louis's stiffish female grace seemed full of latent cruelty, whilst Chichot's more muscular slouch made her feel she would not trust him for a single moment. Awful things men were, savage, cruel, underneath their civilisation. The scene had its beauty. It began with Kishwegan alone at the door of the wigwam, cooking, listening, giving an occasional push to the hanging cradle. and, if only Madame were taking the part, crooning an Indian cradle song. Enter the brave Louis, with his white prisoner, Max, who has his hands bound to his side.

Kishwagan gravely salutes her husband. The bound prisoner is seated by the fire. Kishwagan serves food and asks permission to feed the prisoner. The brave Louis, hearing a sound, starts up with his bow and arrow. There is a dumb scene of sympathy between Kishwagon. Kishwagan and the prisoner. The prisoner wants his bonds cut. Re-enter the brave Louis. He is angry with Kishwagon. Enter the brave Chicho, hauling a bear, apparently dead. Kishuagan examines the bear. Chichael examines the prisoner. Chichael tortures the prisoner, makes him stand, makes him

caper unwillingly. Kishuagin swings the cradle. The prisoner is tripped up, falls and cannot rise. He lies near the fallen bear. Kishuagin carries food to Chicho. The two braves converse in dumb show. Kishuagin swings the cradle and croons. The men rise once more and bend over the prisoner. As they do so, there is a muffled roar. The bear is sitting up. Louis swings round, and at the same moment the bear strikes him down. Chichael springs forward and stabs the bear, then closes with it. Kishuagin runs and cuts the prisoner's bonds. He rises,

and stands trying to lift his numbed and powerless arms, while the bear slowly crushes Chichael and Kishuagan kneels over her husband. The bear drops Chichael lifeless and turns to Kishwagan. At that moment Max manages to kill the bear. He takes Kishwagan by the hand and kneels with her beside the dead Louis. It was wonderful how well the men played their different parts, but Mr. May was a little too frisky as Kishwagon. However, it would do.

Chichot got dressed as soon as possible to go and look at the horses hired for the afternoon procession. Alvina accompanied him. Mr. May and the others were busy. You know, I think it's quite wonderful, your scene, she said to Chicho. He turned and looked down at her. His yellow, dusky, set eyes rested on her good-naturedly, without seeing her.

His lip curled in a self-conscious, contemptuous sort of smile, "'Not without Madame,' he said, "'with the slow, half-snearing, stupid smile. "'Without Madame,' he lifted his shoulders "'and spread his hands and tilted his brows. "'Fools play, you know?' "'No,' said Alvina. "'I think Mr. May is good, considering.

"'What does Madame do?' she asked a little jealously. "'Do?' he looked down at her with the same long, "'half sardonic look of his yellow eyes, "'like a cat, looking casually at a bird "'which flutters past. and again he made his shrugging motion. She does it all, really. The others, they are nothing.

What they are, Madame, has made them. And now they think they've done it all, you see. You see, that's it. But how has Madame made it all? Thought it out, you mean? Thought it out, yes, and then done it. You should see her dance. Ah, you should see her dance round the bear when I bring him in.

Ah, a beautiful thing, you know. She claps her hand and cheat her. stood still in the street, with his hat cocked a little on one side, rather common-looking, and he smiled along his fine nose at Alvina, and he clapped his hands lightly, and he tilted his eyebrows, and his eyelids as if facially he were imitating a dance, and all the time his lips smiled stupidly. As he gave a little assertive shake of his head, finishing, there came a great yell of laughter from the opposite pavement, where a gang of pottery lasses in aprons all spattered with grey clay, and hair and boots and skin, spattered with pallid spots, had stood to

watch. The girl's opposite shrieked again, for all the world like a gang of grey baboons. Ticho turned round and looked at them with a sneer along his nose. They yelled the louder, and he was horribly uncomfortable, walking there beside Alvina, with his rather small and effeminently shod feet. How stupid they are, said Alvina. I've got used to them. They should be, he lifted his hand with a sharp, vicious movement, smacked, he concluded, lowering his hand again. Who is going to do it, said Alvina? He gave a neapolitan grimace and twiddled the fingers of one hand outspread in the air as if to say, there you are. You've got to thank the fools who failed to do it. Why do you all love Madame so much? Alvina asked, how love, he said, making a little grimace.

We like her, we love her, as if she were a mother. You say love, he raised his shoulders slightly with a shrug, and all the time he looked down at Alvina from under his dusky eyelashes, as if watching her sideways, and his mouth had the peculiar, stupid, self-conscious, half-gearing smile. Alvina was a little bit annoyed, but she felt that the great instinctive good-naturedness came out of him. He was self-conscious and constrained, knowing she did not follow his language of gesture. For him, it was not yet quite natural to express himself in speech. Gesture and grimace were

instantaneous, and spoke worlds of things, if you would but accept them. But certainly he was stupid in her sense of the word. She could hear Mr. May's verdict of him, like a child, you know, just as charming and just as tiresome and just as stupid. Where is he? Where is he's? He's not? He's a your home? she asked him. In Italy? She felt a fool. Which part, she insisted. Naples, he said, looking down at her sideways, searchingly. It must be lovely, she said. Ha! He threw his head on one side and spread out his hand, as if to say, what do you want if you don't find Naples lovely. I should like to see it, but I shouldn't like to die, she said. What? They say see Naples and die, She laughed. He opened his mouth and understood. Then he smiled at her directly.

You know what that means, he said cutely. It means see Naples and die afterwards. Don't die before you've seen it. He smiled with a knowing smile. I see, I see, she cried. I never thought of that. He was pleased with her surprise and amusement. Ah, Naples, he said, she is lovely. He spread his hand across. the air in front of him, the sea and Positilipo and Sorrento and Capri. Ah, you have never been out of England? No, she said, I should love to go. He looked down into her eyes.

It was his instinct to say at once he would take her. You have seen nothing, nothing, he said to her. But if Naples is so lovely, how could you leave it? She asked. What? She repeated her question. For answer he looked at her, held out his hand, and rubbing the ball of his thumb across the tips of his fingers, said, with a fine, handsome smile,

"'Penies! Money! You can't earn money in Naples. Ah, Naples is beautiful, but she is poor. You live in the sun, and you earn fourteen, fifteen pence a day. Not enough, she said. He put his head on one side and tilted his brows as if to say, what are you to do? And the smile on his mouth was sad, fine and charming there was an indefinable air of sadness or wistfulness about him something so robust and fragile at the same time that she was drawn in a strange way but you'll go back she said where to italy to naples yes i shall go back to italy he said as if unwilling to commit himself but perhaps i shan't go back to naples never ah never i don't say never I shall go to Naples to see my mother's sister, but I shan't go to live. Have you a mother and father? I, no, I have a brother and two sisters.

In America, parents, none, they are dead. And you wonder about the world, she said. He looked at her and made a slight, sad gesture, indifferent also. But you have madame for a mother, she said. He made another gesture this time, pressed down the corners of his mouth as if he didn't like it. Then he turned with the slow, fine smile. Does a man want two mothers? He said, as if he posed a conundrum.

I shouldn't think so, laughed Alvina. He glanced at her to see what she meant, what she understood. My mother is dead, see? He said. French women. French women. They have their baby. till they are a hundred.

What do you mean? said Alvina, laughing. A Frenchman is a little man when he is seven years old, and if his mother comes, he is a little baby boy when he is seventy. Do you know that? I didn't know it, said Alvina. But now you do, he said, lurching round a corner with her. They had come to the stables.

Three of the horses were there, including the thoroughbred Chichot was going to ride. He stood and examined the beasts critically. Then he spoke to them with strange sounds, patted them, stroked them down, felt them, slid his hand down them, over them, under them, and felt their legs. Then he looked up from stooping there under the horses with a long, slow look of his yellow eyes at Alvina.

She felt unconsciously flattered. His long yellow look lingered, holding her eyes. She wondered what he was thinking, yet he never spoke. He turned again to the horses. They seemed to understand him, to prick up alert. This is mine, he said, with his hand on the neck of the old thoroughbred. It was a bay with a white blaze. I think he's nice, she said. He seems so sensitive. In England, he answered suddenly, horses live a long time, because they don't live, never alive, see? In England, railway engines are alive, and horses go on wheels. He smiled into her eyes as if she understood. She was a trifle

nervous as he smiled at her from out of the stable, so yellow-eyed and half-mysterious, derisive. Her impulse was to turn and go away from the stable, but a deeper impulse made her smile into his face, as she said to him, they like you to touch them. Oh, his eyes kept hers, curious how dark they seemed, with only a yellow ring of. of pupil. He was looking right into her, beyond her usual self, impersonal. The horses, she said, she was afraid of his long, cat-like look, yet she felt convinced of his ultimate good nature. He seemed to her to be the only passionately good-natured man she had ever seen. She watched him vaguely, with strange, vague trust, implicit belief in him, in him,

in what? That afternoon the colliers, trooping home in the winter afternoon, were rejoiced with a spectacle. Kishwagan, in her deerskin, fringed garters and fringed frock of deerskin, her long hair down her back, and with marvellous cloths and trappings on her steed, riding astride on a tall white horse,

followed by Max in chieftain's robes, and chieftain's long headdress of dyed feathers. Then by the others, in war paint and feathers and brilliant Navajo blankets. They carried bows and spears. Cicho was without his blanket, naked to the waist, in war paint and brandishing a long spear. He dashed up from the rear, saluted the chieftain with his arm and his spear on high as he swept past, suddenly drew up his rearing steed and trotted slowly back again, making his horse perform its paces. He was extraordinarily velvety and alive on horseback.

Crowds of excited, shouting children ran chattering along the pavements. The colliers, as they tramped, grey and heavy, in an intermittent stream uphill from the low grey west, stood on the pavement in wonder as the cavalcade approached and passed, jingling the silver bells of its trappings, vibrating the wonderful colours of the barred blankets and saddlecloths, the scarlet wool of the accoutrements, the bright tips of feathers. Women shrieked as Chicho in his war paint wheeled near the pavement. Children screamed and ran.

The colliers shouted. Chichael smiled in his terrifying warpaint, brandished his spear and trotted softly, like a flower on its stem, round to the procession. Miss Pinnigar and Dalviner and James Huffton had come round into Narborough Road, to watch. It was a great moment. Looking along the road they saw all the shopkeepers at their doors, the pavement's eager, and then, in the distance the white horse jingling its trappings of scarlet hair and bells, with the dusky Kishwagan sitting on the saddle blanket of brilliant, lurid stripes,

sitting impassive and all dusky above that intermittent flashing of colour. Then the chieftain, dark-faced, erect, easy, swayed in a white blanket with scarlet and black stripes, and all his strange crest of white, tip-died feathers, swaying down his back. As he came nearer once saw the wolfskin and the brilliant moccasins against the black sides of his horse, Louis and Geoffrey followed, lurid, horrid in the face,

wearing blankets with stroke after stroke of blazing colour upon their duskiness. and sitting stern, holding their spears. Lastly, Chichot on his bay horse with a green seat, flickering hither and thither in the rear, his feathers swaying, his horse sweating, his face ghastly smiling in its war paint. So they advanced down the grey pallor of Narborough Road in the late, wintry afternoon.

Somewhere the sun was setting, and far overhead was a flush of orange. "'Well, I never,' murmured Miss Pinnigar. "'Well, I never!' The strange savageness of the striped Navajo blankets seemed to her unsettling, advancing down Narborough Road. She examined Kishwegan curiously. "'Can you believe that that's Mr. May?

He's exactly like a girl. Well, well, it makes you wonder what is and what isn't. But aren't they good?' What? Most striking. Exactly like Indians. You can't believe your eyes. My word, what a terrifying race they— Here she uttered a scream and ran back, clutching the wall as Chicho swept past, brushing her with his horse's tail, and actually swinging his spear, so as to touch Alvina and James Huffton lightly with the butt of it. James too started with a cry. The mob at the corner screamed, but Alvina caught the slow, mischievous smile as the painted horror showed his

teeth in passing. She was able to flash back an excited laugh. She felt his yellow, tawny eyes linger on her in that one second, as if negligently. I call that too much, Miss Pinnigar was crying, thoroughly upset. Now that was unnecessary, why it was enough to scare one to death. Besides, it's dangerous. It ought to be put a stop to. I don't believe in letting these show people have liberties. The cavalcade was slowly passing, with its uneasy horses and its flare of striped color and its silent riders. Chicho was trotting softly back on his green saddlecloth,

suave as velvet, his dusky, naked torso, beautiful. Hey, you'd think you'd get his death, the women in the crowd were saying. A proper savage one that. Makes you a blood run code. "'Ah, and a man for all that takes painted face for what's worth. A tidy man, I say.' He did not look at Alvina. The faint, mischievous smile uncovered his teeth. He fell in suddenly behind Geoffrey, with a jerk of his steed, calling out to Geoffrey in Italian. It was becoming cold. The cavalcade fell into a trot, Mr. May, shaking rather badly. Chichot. Chichot halted, rested his lance against a lamp-post, switched his green blanket from underneath him,

and flung it round him as he sat and darted off. They had all disappeared over the brow of Lumley Hill, descending. He was gone too. In the wintry twilight the crowd began lingeringly to turn away, and in some strange way it manifested its disapproval of the spectacle. As grown-up men and women, they were a little bit insulted by such a show. It was an anachronism. They wanted a direct appeal to the mind. Miss Pinnigar expressed it. Well, she said, when she was safely back in Manchester house,

with the gas lighted, and as she was pouring the boiling water into the teapot. You may say what you like. It's interesting in a way just to show what savage red Indians were like, but it's childish. It's only childishness. I can't understand myself how people can go on liking shows. Nothing happens. It's not like the cinema where you see it all and take it all in at once.

You know everything at a glance. You don't know anything by looking at these people. You know there are only men dressed up for money. I can't see why you should encourage it. I don't hold with idle show people parading round. I don't myself. I like to go to the cinema once a week. It's instruction. You take it all in at a glance, all you need to know, and it lasts you for a week. You can get to know everything about people's actual lives from the cinema. I don't see why you want people dressing up and showing off. They sat down to their tea and toast and marmalade during this harangue. Miss Pinnagar was always like a douche of cold water to Alvina,

bringing her back to consciousness after a delicious excitement. In a minute, Madame and Ciccio and all seemed to become unreal, the actual unrealities, while the ragged, dithering pictures of the film were actual, real as the day, and Alvina was always put out when this happened. She really hated Miss Pinnigar, yet she had nothing to answer. They were unreal, Madame and Chicho and the rest. Chicho was just a fantasy blown in on the wind to blow away again. The real, permanent thing was Woodhouse, the Semperidem, Narborough Road and the unchangeable grubby gloom of Manchester House,

with the stuffy, padding Miss Pinnigar and her father, whose fingers, whose very soul, seemed dirty with pennies. These were the solid, permanent fact. These were life itself. And Chichot, splashing up on his bay horse and green cloth, he was a mountebank and an extraneous non-entity, a coloured old rag blown down the Narborough Road into limbo, into limbo. Whilst Miss Pinnigar and her father sat,

frowsily on forever, eating their toast and cutting off the crust and sipping their third cup of tea. They would never blow away, never, never. Woodhouse was there to eternity, and the Natchikita Tua'ar troop was blowing like a rag of old paper into limbo. Nothingness! Poor madame! Poor gallant, histrionic madame! The frowsy Miss Pinnigar could crumple her up and throw her down the utilitarian drain and have done with her, whilst Miss Pinnigar lived on forever. This put Alvina into a sharp temper. Miss Pinnigar, she said, I do think you go on in the most unattractive way sometimes. You're a regular spoil sport.

Well, said Miss Pinnigar, tartly, I don't approve of your way of sport, I'm afraid. You can't disapprove it as much as I hate your spoil sport existence, said Alvina in a flare. "'Alvina, are you mad?' said her father. "'Wonder I'm not,' said Alvina, "'considering what my life is.' "'Eend of Chapter 7, Part 2. "'Read by Tony Foster. "'Chapter 8, Part 1 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence.

"'This Librevox recording is in the public domain. "'Cicho.' "'Madame did not pick up her spirits after her cold. "'For two days she lay in bed, attended by mrs rowlings and alvina and the young men but she was most careful never to give any room for scandal the young men might not approach her save in the presence of some third party and then it was strictly a visit of ceremonial business oh your woodhouse how glad i shall be when i have left it she said to alvina i feel it is unlucky for me do you said alvina but if you'd had this bad cold in some places you might have been much worse don't you think oh my dear cried madam do you think I could confuse you in my dislike of this woodhouse oh no you are not woodhouse on the contrary I think it is unkind for you

also this place you look also what shall I say thin not very happy it was a note of interrogation I'm sure I dislike woodhouse much more than you can replied Alvin I am sure. Yes, I am sure I see it. Why don't you go away? Why don't you marry? Nobody wants to marry me, said Alvina. Madame looked at her searchingly, with shrewd black eyes under her arched eyebrows. How? she exclaimed. How don't they? You're not bad looking, only a little too thin, too haggard. She watched Alvina. Alvina laughed uncomfortably. Is there nobody? persisted Madame. Not now, said Alvina.

Absolutely nobody. She looked with a confused laugh into Madame's strict black eyes. You see, I didn't care for the Woodhouse young men either. I couldn't. Madame nodded slowly up and down. A secret satisfaction came over

her pallid, waxy countenance in which her black eyes were like twins swift, extraneous creatures, oddly like two bright little dark animals in the snow. Sure, she said, sapient. Sure, how could you? But there are other men besides these here? She waved her hand to the window. I don't meet them, do I? said Alvina. No, not often, but sometimes, sometimes. There was a silence between the two women, very pregnant.

English women, said Madame, are so practical. Why are they? I suppose they can't help it, said Alvina. But they're not half so practical and clever as you, madame. Oh, la, la, I am practical differently. I am practical, impractically, she stumbled over the words. But you're soon now, in. in Jude the Obscure, is it not an interesting book?

And is she not always too practically practical? If she had been impractically practical, she could have been quite happy. Do you know what I mean? No, but she is ridiculous, Sue. So Anna Karenin, ridiculous both, don't you think? Why? said Alvin. Why did they both make everybody unhappy when they had the man they wanted and enough money? I think they are both so silly.

If they had been beaten, they would have lost all their practical ideas and troubles, merely forgot them, and been happy enough. I am a woman who says it. Such ideas they have are not tragical. No, not at all. They are nonsense. You see, nonsense. That is all. Nonsense.

Sue and Anna, they are nonsensical. That is all. No tragedy whatsoever. Nonsense. I am a woman. woman, I know men also, and I know nonsense when I see it. English women are all nonsense, the worst women in the world for nonsense. Well, I am English, said Alvina. Yes, my dear, you are English, but you are not necessarily so nonsensical. Why are you at all? Nonsensical, laughed Alvina, but I don't know what you call my nonsense.

"'Ah,' said Madame wearily, "'they never understand. "'But I like you, my dear. "'I am an old woman.' "'Younger than I,' said Alvina. "'Younger than you, because I am practical from the heart, "'and not only from the head. "'You are not practical from the heart,

"'and yet you have a heart.' "'But all English women have good hearts,' protested Alvina. "'No, no,' objected Madame. "'They are all very very very, very, very. very kind and very practical with their kindness but they have no heart in all their kindness it is all head all head the kindness of the head i can't agree with you said alvin no no i don't expect it but i don't mind you are very kind to me and i thank you but it is from the head you see and so i thank you from the head from the heart no madame pllok her white fingers together and laid them on her breast with a gesture of repudiation. Her black eyes stared, spitefully. But, Madame, said Alvina, nettled, I should never be half such a good businesswoman as you.

Isn't that from the head? Ha! Of course, you wouldn't be a good businesswoman, because you are kind from the head. I, she tapped her forehead and shook her head. I am not kind from the head. From the head I am businesswoman, good businesswoman. Of course I am a good business woman, of course. But here she changed her expression, widened her eyes and laid her hand on her breast. When the heart speaks, then I listen with the art.

I do not listen with the head. The art hears the heart. The head, that is another thing. But you have blue eyes, you cannot understand. only dark eyes. She paused and mused. And what about yellow eyes? Asked Alvina, laughing.

Madame darted a look at her, her lips curling with a very faint, fine smile of derision. Yet for the first time her black eyes dilated and became warm. Yellow eyes like Gilles, she said, with her great watchful eyes

and her smiling, subtle mouth. They are the, darkest of all, and she shook her head roguishly. Are they? said Alvina, confusedly, feeling a blush burning up her throat into her face. Ha! ha! laughed madame. Ha! I am an old woman, you see. My heart is old enough to be kind, and my head is old enough to be clever. My heart is kind to few people, very few, especially in this England. My young men know that. But, perhaps to you it is kind.

Thank you, said Alvina. There, from the head, thank you. It is not well done, you see, you see. But Alvina run away in confusion. She felt Madame was having her on a string. Mr. May enjoyed himself hugely, playing Kishwagan. When Madame came downstairs, Louis, who was a good satirical mimic,

imitated him. Alvina happened to come into their sitting-room in the midst of their birth, of laughter. They all stopped and looked at her cautiously. "'Continue! Continue!' said Madame to Louis, and to Alvina, sit down, my dear, and see what a good actor we have in our Louis. Louis, glanced round, laid his head a little on one side, and drew in his chin, with Mr. May's smirk exactly, and wagging his tail slightly, he commenced to play the false Kishweigin.

He sidled and bridled and ejaculated with. with raised hands, and in the dumb show the tall Frenchman made such a ludicrous caricature of Mr. Huffton's manager that Madame wept again with laughter, whilst Max leaned back against the wall and giggled continuously, like some pot involuntarily boiling. Geoffrey spread his shut fists across the table and shouted with laughter. Chichot threw back his head and showed all his teeth in a loud laugh of delighted derision. vision. Alvina laughed also, but she flushed. There was a certain biting, annihilating quality in Louis's derision of the absentee, and the others enjoyed it so much. At moments Alvina caught her lip

between her teeth. It was so screamingly funny and so annihilating. She laughed in spite of herself. In spite of herself, she was shaken into a convulsion of laughter. Louis was masterful. He mastered her psyche. She laughed till her head lay helpless on the chair. She could not move. Helpless, inert, she lay in her orgasm of laughter. The end of Mr. May. Yet she was hurt. And then Madame wiped her own shrewd black eyes and nodded slow approval. Suddenly Louis started and held up a warning finger. They all at once covered their smiles and pulled themselves together. Only Alvina lay silently laughing. Oh, good morning, Mrs. Rollings, they heard Mr. May's voice.

Your company is lively. Is Miss Hofden here? May I go through? They heard his quick little step and his quick little tap. Come in, called Madame. The Natchikitawara's all sat with straight faces. Only poor Alvina lay back in her chair in a new, weak convulsion. Mr. May glanced quickly round and advanced to Madame. "'Oh, good morning, madame, so glad to see you downstairs,' he said, taking her hand and bowing

ceremoniously. "'Excuse my intruding on your mirth,' he looked archly round. Alvina was still incompetent. She lay leaning sideways in her chair and could not even speak to him. "'It was evidently a good joke,' he said. "'May I hear it, too?' "'Oh,' said Madame, drawing, "'it was no joke.

"'It was only Louis making a fool of himself, "'doing a turn. "'Must have been a good one,' said Mr. May. "'Can't we put it on?' "'No,' drolled madame. "'It was nothing, just a nonsensical mood of the moment. "'Won't you sit down? "'You would like a little whiskey, yes?'

"'Max poured out whiskey and water for Mr. May.' "'Alvina sat with her first. face averted, quiet, but unable to speak to Mr. May. Max and Louis had become polite. Geoffrey stared, with his big, dark blue eyes stolidly at the newcomer. Chicho leaned with his arms on his knees, looking sideways under his long lashes at the inert alveena. "'Well,' said Madame, "'and are you satisfied with your houses?' "'Oh, yes,' said Mr. May. "'Quite. The two nights have been excellent.'

excellent ah i am glad and miss hofton tells me i should not dance to-morrow it is too soon miss hofton knows said mr may archly of course said madame i must do as she tells me why yes since it is for your good and not hers of course of course it is very kind of her miss hofton is most kind to every "'Every one,' said Mr. May. "'I am sure,' said Madame. "'And I am very glad you have been such a good, Kishuenang. "'That is very nice also.' "'Yes,' replied Mr. May. "'I begin to wonder if I have mistaken in my vocation.

"'I should have been on the boards instead of behind them.' "'No doubt,' said Madame. "'But it is a little late.' "'The eyes of the foreigners watching him flattered Mr. May. "'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 art, 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 art and appreciate them from the spirit. There!

And they don't want to appreciate and to appreciate and to. a 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 Kishwegan 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 Belizond, and I shall be a bourgeois 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 Natchakitawara group either. For Thursday there was to be a change of programme. Kishwagin's wedding, with the white prisoner, B. 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 unobtrusive as a rule, Max could suddenly assume an air of hauteur and overbeard, and overbearing, which was really very annoying. Geoffrey always fumed under it. But Chichot, it put into unholy, ungovernable tempers.

For Max suddenly would reveal his contempt of the Italian, as he called Chichot, using the cockney word. "'Pah! "'Kel Tete de Beau!' said Max, suddenly contemptuous and angry, "'because Chichot, who really was slow at taking in the thing said to him, had once more failed to understand. "'Come?' queried Chichot, in his slow, derisive way.

"'Comeo!' sneered Max in echo. "'What, what, what, 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 Chichot, sideling up. "'To you, loud of an Italian.' "'Max's colour was up.

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. Chicho 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. Chicho was clutching a property knife. Now, none of that, none of that, said Mr. May, peremptory. But Chichael, stretching forward, taught and immobile with rage, was quite unconscious.

His hand was fast on his stage-knife. A dirty Italian, said Max in English, turning to Mr. May. They understand nothing. But the last word was smothered in Chichot's spring and stab. Max half started onto his guard, received the blow on his collarbone, near the pommel of the shoulder, reeled round on top of Mr. May,

whilst Chichos 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. Halt! Max! Max! Max! Aton! 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 Chichot 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, attend, ami, lest le partier. Max, you say that I ame, you dole say, ami, you le's lehle partier. 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 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, Fré, 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'd 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 Chico. 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 raincoat, which she had on her arm. Madame was in a state of perturbation. She had heard someone come in at the back and go upstairs, and go out again. Mrs. Rowlings had told her it was the Italian,

who had come 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 a hat on when the others arrived. What is it? she cried. She heard a hurried explanation from Louis. Ah, the animal! The animal! He wasn't worth all my pains! cried poor madame, sitting with one shoe off and one shoe on.

Why, Max, why did he? Why did he? thou not remain man enough to control that insulting mountain temper of thine. Have I not said, and said, and said, that in the Natchakito hour there was but one nation, the Red Indian, but one tribe, the tribe of Kishue, and now thou hast called him a dirty Italian or a dog of an Italian, and he has behaved like an animal. Too much, too much of an animal, too little esprit, but thou, Max, art almost as bad. Thy temper is a devils, which may be is worse than an animal. Ah, this woodhouse, a curse is on it, I know it is.

Would we wear away from it? Will the week never pass? We shall have to find Chicho. Without him the company is ruined. Until I get a substitute. I must get a substitute. And how, and where, in this country? Tell me that.

I am tired of Natchakita, Oara. There is no true treasurer. of Kishue. No, never. I have had enough of Natchakitawara. Let us break up. Let us part, my brave, let us say adieu here in the Fuenest Woodhouse. Oh, madame, dear madam, said Louis. Let us hope. Let us swear a closer fidelity, dear Madame, our Kishue again. Let us never

part. Max, thou does not want to part, brother. Well-loved. "'Thou dost not want apart, brother, whom I love. "'And thou, Geoffrey, thou!' Madame burst into tears. Louis wept, too. Even Max turned aside his face, with tears. Alvina stole out of the room, followed by Mr. May. In a while Madame came out to them.

"'Oh!' she said, "'You have not gone away. "'We are wondering which way Chichos will have gone "'on to Naboro or to Marce.' "'Jeffrey will go. on his bicycle to find him, but shall it be to Naborer or to Marce? Ask the policeman in the marketplace, said Alvina. He's sure to have noticed him, because Chichot's yellow bicycle is so uncommon. Mr. May tripped out on this errand, while the

others discussed among themselves where Chicho might be. Mr. May returned, and said that Chichael had ridden off down the Naborah road. It was raining slightly. Ah, said Madame, and now out to find him in that great town. Surely he will want to speak to Geoffrey before he goes, said Louis. They were always good friends. They all looked at Geoffrey. He shrugged his broad shoulders. Always good friends, he said. Yes. He will perhaps wait for me at his cousins in Battersea. In the nobara, I don't know. How much money had he? asked Mr. May. Madame spread her hands and lifted her shoulders. Who knows? she said. These Italians, said Louis, turning to Mr. May. They have always money. In another country,

they will not spend one sue if they can help. They are like this, and he made the Neapolitan gesture, drawing in the air with his fingers. But would he abandon you all without a word? cried Mr. May. Yes, yes, said Madame, with a sort of stoic pathos. He would. He alone would do such a thing, but he would do it. And what point would he make for? What point? You mean where would he go? To Battersea, no doubt, to his cousin,

and then to Italy, if he thinks he has saved enough money to buy land or whatever it is. And so good-bye to him, said Mr. May, bitterly. Geoffrey ought to know, said Madame, looking at Geoffrey. Geoffrey shrugged his shoulders and would not give his comrade away. No, he said, I don't know. No. He will leave a message at Bathsea. I know, but I don't know if he will go to Italy. And you don't know where to find him in Narborough? asked Mr. May sharply, very much on the spot. No, I don't. Perhaps at the station he will go by train to London.

It was evident Geoffrey was not going to help Mr. May. All right, said Madame, cutting through this futility. Go there to Narborough, Geoffrey, and see, and be back at the theatre for what. work, go now, and if thou canst find him, bring him again to us. Tell him to come out of kindness to me. Tell him. And she waved the young man away. He departed on his nine-mile ride through the rain to Nabra. They know, said madame, they know each other's places. It is a little more than a year since we came to Nabor, but they will remember. Jeffrey rode swiftly as possible through the mud. He did not care very much whether he found his friend or not.

He liked the Italian, but he never looked on him as a permanency. He knew Chicho was dissatisfied and wanted a change. He knew that Italy was pulling him away from the troop, with which he had been associated now for three years or more. And the Swiss from Martigny knew that the Neapolitan would go, breaking all ties, one day suddenly back to Italy. It was so, and Geoffrey was philosophical about it. He rode into town, and the first thing he did was to seek out the music-hall artists at their lodgings.

He knew a good many of them. They gave him a welcome and a whiskey, but none of them had seen Chicho. They sent him off to other artists, other lodging houses. He went the round of associates, known and unknown, of lodging strange and familiar, of third-rate possible public houses. Then he went to the Italians down in the marsh. he knew these people always ask for one another, and then, hurrying, he dashed to the Midland Station,

and then to the Great Central Station, asking the porters on the London departure platform if they had seen his pal, a man with a yellow bicycle and a black bicycle cape, all to no purpose. Geoffrey hurriedly lit his lamp and swung off in the dark back to Woodhouse. He was a powerfully built, imperturbable, fellow. He pressed slowly uphill through the streets, then ran downhill into the darkness of the

industrial country. He had continually to cross the new tram lines which were awkward, and he had occasionally to dodge the brilliantly illuminated tram cars which threaded their way across country through so much darkness. All the time it rained, and his back wheel slipped under him in the mud and on the new tram track. As he pressed in the long, dark, he pressed in the long, darkness that lay between Slater's Mill and Derby houses, he saw a light ahead, another cyclist. He moved to his side of the road. The light approached very fast. It was a strong acetylene flare. He watched it, a flash and a splash, and he saw the humped back of what was probably Chicho going by at a great pace on the low racing machine.

"'Hi, Cheech! Chich! he yelled, dropping off his own bicycle. "'Ha, yeah, he heard the answering shout, "'unmistakably Italian, way down the darkness. "'He turned, saw the other cyclist had stopped. "'The flare swung round, and Chichot softly rode up. "'He dropped off beside Geoffrey. "'Twa, said Chichot. "'Heh, who vat you?

"'Hea, ejaculated Chichael. "'The conversation consisted a good deal in noises, "'variously ejaculated. "'Coming back?' asked Jeffrey. Where have you been? Retorted Chicho. Now, Borough, looking for thee.

Where have you? Buckled my front wheel at Derby houses. Come off? Hey! Hurt. Nothing. Max is all right. Mild.

Come on. Come back with me. Nay, Chichot shook his head. Madame's crying. Wants thee to come back. Chichot shook his head. Come on, Cheech, said Geoffrey. Chichot shook his head.

"'Never?' said Geoffrey. "'Baster, had enough,' said Chichot, "'with an invisible grimace. "'Come for a bit, and we'll clear together.' "'Cichael again shook his head. "'What is it, Adieu?' "'Cichot did not speak. "'Don't go, comrade,' said Geoffrey.

"'Foh,' said Chichot, slightly derisive. "'Eh, all-law, I'd like to come with thee. "'What?' "'Where?' "'Doesn't matter. "'Dard going to Italy? "'Who knows?' "'Seems so.

"'I'd like to go back.' "'Eh, Alor?' "'Cicho, half-veered round. "'Wait for me a few days,' said Geoffrey. "'Where?' "'See you to-morrow in Narborough. "'Go to Mrs. Pim's Six Hampton Street. "'Gitzeventy is there.

"'Right, eh?' "'I'll think about it. "'Eleven o'-clock, eh?' I'll think about it. Friends ever, Cichio, eh? Jeffrey held out his hand. Chichot slowly took it.

The two men leaned to each other and kissed farewell on either cheek. Tomorrow, Cich. Orevoir, Gigi. Chichot dropped onto his bicycle and was gone in a breath. Jeffrey waited a moment for a tram which was rushing 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'll go to Naborah and bring back the naughty chichikio 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'm 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 hamden street at five minutes to eleven you'll 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 bumping 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 Chitio 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. He says he is going back to Italy. To London. It is this same. You can never toss them. Is he quite obstinate? Geoffrey lifted his shoulders. Madame could see the beginnings of defection in him too,

and she was tired and dispirited. We shall have to finish the natural. Chakitawara, that is all, she said fretfully. Geoffrey watched her stolidly, impassively. Does thou want to go with him? She asked suddenly. Geoffrey smiled sheepishly, and his colour deepened. But he did not speak.

Go then, she said. Go then. Go with him. But for the sake of my honour, finish this week at Woodhouse. Can I make Miss Hofton's father lose these two nights? Where is your sheep? shame. Finish this week and then go. Go. But finish this week. Tell Francesco that. I have finished with him, but let him finish this engagement. Don't put me to shame. Don't destroy my honor and the honor

of the Natchikita Wara. Tell him that. End of Chapter 8, Part 1. Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 8 Part 2 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. Geoffrey turned again into the house. Madame, in her chic little black hat and spotted veil, and her trim black coat and skirt, stood there at the street corner, staring before her, shivering a little with cold, but saying no word of any sort.

Again, Geoffrey appeared out of the doorway. his face was impassive. He says he doesn't want, he said. Ah, she cried, suddenly in French. The ungrateful, the animal! He shall suffer, see if he shall not suffer. The low canaille without faith or feeling, my max therewith right,

such canaerie should be beaten as dogs are beaten till they follow at heel. Will no one beat him for? me? No one? Yes, go back. Tell him before he leaves England he shall feel the hand of Kishwegan and it shall be heavier than the black hand. Tell him that, the coward, that causes a woman's word to be broken against her will. Ah, can I, can I? Neither faith nor feeling, neither faith nor feeling. Toss them not, dogs of the south. She took a a few agitated steps down the pavement. Then she raised her veil to wipe away her tears of anger

and bitter disappointment. Wait a bit, said Alvina. I'll go. She was touched. No, don't you, cried madame. Yes, I will, she said. The light of battle was in her eyes. You'll come with me to the door, she said to Geoffrey. Geoffrey started obediently, and led the way up a long, narrow stair, covered with yellow and brown oilcloth, rather worn, onto the top of the house. Chichot, he said, outside the door. Wee, came the curly voice of Chicho. Geoffrey opened the door. Chichot was sitting on a narrow bed in a rather poor attic, under the steep slope of the roof.

Don't come in, said Alvina to Geoffrey, looking over her shoulder at him as she entered. Then she closed the door behind her, and stopped the door behind her, and stood. stood with her back to it, facing the Italian. He sat loose on the bed, a cigarette between his fingers, dropping ash on the bare boards between his feet. He looked up curiously at Alvina. She stood watching him with wide, bright blue eyes, smiling slightly and saying nothing. He looked up at her steadily, on his guard from under his long black lashes. "'Won't you come?' she said, smiling and looking into his eyes. he flicked off the ash of his cigarette with his little finger she wondered why he wore the nail of his little finger so long so very long still she smiled at him and still he gave no sign

do come she urged never taking her eyes from him he made not the slightest movement but sat with his hands dropped between his knees watching her the cigarette wavering up its blue thread of smoke won't you she said as she said as she should stood with her back to the door, Won't you come? She smiled, strangely and vividly. Suddenly she took a pace forward, stooped, watching his face as if timidly, caught his brown hand in her own, and lifted it towards herself. His hands started, dropped the cigarette, but was not withdrawn. You will come, won't you, she said, smiling gently into his strange, watchful yellow eyes

that looked fixedly into hers, the dark pupil opening, round and softening. She smiled into his softening round eyes, the eyes of some animal which stares in one of its silent, gentle moments, and suddenly she kissed his hand, kissed it twice, quickly, on the fingers and the back. He wore a silver ring. Even as she kissed his fingers with her lips, the silver ring seemed to her a symbol of his subjection, inferiority. She drew his hand slightly, and he rose to his feet. She turned round and took the door handle, still holding his fingers in her left hand. "'You are coming, aren't you?' she said, looking over her shoulder into his eyes, and taking consent from his unchanging eyes, she let go his hand and slightly opened the door.

He turned slowly, and taking his shoulder. coat from a nail, slung it over his shoulders, and drew it on. Then he picked up his hat, and put his foot on his half-smoked cigarette, which lay smoking still. He followed her out of the room, walking with his head rather forward, in the half-loutish, sensual-subjected way of the Italians. As they entered the street, they saw the trim French figure of Madame standing alone, as if abandoned. Her face was very very very much. very white under her spotted veil, her eyes very black. She watched Chichot following behind Alvina in his dark hang-dog fashion, and she did not move a muscle until he came to a standstill

in front of her. She was watching his face. "'De voila, don't, she said, without expression. "'Alan'a coffe, eh? Let us go and drink some coffee.' She had now put an inflection of tenderness into her voice, but her eyes were bled. with anger. Chichos smiled slowly, the slow, fine, stupid smile, and turned to walk alongside. Madame said nothing as they went. Geoffrey passed on his bicycle, calling out that he would go straight to Woodhouse. When the three sat with their cups of coffee, Madame pushed up her veil just above her eyes, so that it was a black band above her brows. Her face was pale and full like a

child's, but almost stonily expressionless. Her eyes were black and inscrutable. She watched both Chicho and Alvina with her black, inscrutable looks. Would you like also biscuits with your coffee, the two of you? she said, with an amiable intonation, which her strange black looks belied. Yes, said Alvina. She was a little flushed, as if defiant, while Chicho sat sheepishly, turning aside his duck head, the slow, stupid, yet fine smile on his lips. And no more trouble with Max, eh? You, Chichot?

Said madame, still with the amiable intonation and the same black-watching eyes. No more of these stupid scenes, eh? What? Do you answer me? No more from me, he said, looking up at her with a narrow, cat-like look in his derisive eyes. Oh, no? "'No more? Good, then. It is good. We are glad, aren't we? Miss Hoffton, that Chichot has come back and there ought to be no more else, yeah, aren't we? I'm awfully glad,' said Alvina. "'A awfully glad, yes, awfully glad. You're here, you, Chichot? And you remember another time. What, don't you? Here!'

He looked up at her, the slow, derisive smile, curling his lips. Sure. he said, slowly, with subtle intonation. Yes, good. Well, then, well then. We are all friends. We are all friends, aren't we? All the Natchakito are us here? What do you think?

What you say? Yes, said Chichot again, looking up at her with his yellow, glinting eyes. All right, all right, then. It is all right, forgotten. Madame sounded quite frank and restored, but the sullen watchfulness in her eyes and the narrowed look in Chichos, as he glanced at her, showed another state behind the obviousness of the words, and Miss Ofton is one of us, yes? She has united us once more, and so she has become one of us. Madame smiled strangely from her blank, round, white face. I should love to be one of the Natchikitoaras, said Alvin. "'Yes. Well, why not? Why not become one? Why not?' "'What you say, Chichot? You can play the piano, or perhaps do other things,

perhaps better than Kishuagin? What you say, Chichot? Should she not join us? Is she not one of us?' He smiled and showed his teeth, but did not answer. "'Well, what is it? Say then. Shall she not?' "'Yes,' said Chichot, unwilling to commit himself. "'Yes, so I said, so I said. "'Quite a good idea. We will think of it, and perhaps speak to your father, and you shall come.' "'Yes.' So the two women returned to Woodhouse by the tram car while Chicho rode home on his bicycle. It was surprising how little Madame and Alvina found to say to one another.

Madame affected the reunion of her troop, and all seemed pretty much as before. She had decided to dance the next night, the Saturday night. on Sunday the party would leave for Warsaw, about 30 miles away, to fulfil their next engagement. That evening, Chicho, whenever he had a moment to spare, watched Elvina. She knew it, but she could not make out what his watching meant. In the same way he might have watched a serpent had he found one gliding in the theatre. He looked at her sideways, furtively, but persistently, and yet he did not want to meet her glance. He avoided her and watched her. As she saw him standing in his negligent, muscular, slouching fashion, with his head dropped forward and his eyes sideways, sometimes she disliked him. But there was a

sort of finesse about his face. His skin was delicately tawny and slightly lustrous. The eyes were set in so dark that one expected them to be black and flashing. And then one met the yellow pupils, sulphurious and remote. It was like meeting a lion. His long, fine nose, his rather long, rounded chin and curling lips seemed refined through ages of forgotten culture. He was waiting, silent there, with something muscular and remote about his very droop. He was waiting. What for? Alvina could not guess. She wanted to meet his eye to have an open understanding with him, but he would not. When she went to, he went to. up to talk to him, he answered in his stupid fashion, with a smile of the mouth and no change of the

eyes, saying nothing at all. Obstinately he held away from her. When he was in his war paint, at one moment she hated his muscular, handsome, downward drooping torso, so stupid and full. The fine, sharp, uprightness of Max seemed much finer, clearer, more manly. She chose velvety, suave heaviness, the very heave of his muscles, so full and softly powerful, sickened her. She flashed away angrily on her piano. Madame, who was dancing Kishwegan on the last evening, cast sharp glances at her. Alvina had avoided Madame as Chichot had avoided Alvina, elusive and yet conscious, a distance and yet a connection. Madame danced beautifully, no denying it, she was an artist. She became a

became something quite different, fresh, virginal, pristine, a magic creature flickering there. She was infinitely delicate and attractive. Her braves became glamorous and heroic at once, and magically she cast her spell over them. It was all very well for Alvina to bang the piano crossly. She could not put out the glow which surrounded Kishuegan and her troop. Chichos was handsome now, without war paint, and roused, fearless, and at the same time, suggestive, a dark, mysterious glamour on his face, passionate and remote. A stranger, and so beautiful. Alvina flashed at the piano, almost in tears. She hated his beauty. It shut her apart. She had nothing to do with it. Madame, with her long, dark hair hanging in finely brushed

tresses, her cheek burning under its dusky stain, was another creature. How soft she was on her feet, how humble and remote she seemed as across a chasm from the men, how submissive she was, with an eternity of inaccessible submission. Her hovering dance round the dead bear was exquisite, her dark, secretive curiosity, her admiration of the massive male strength of the creature, her quivers of triumph over the dead beast, her cruel exultation, and her fear that he was not really dead. It was a lovely sight, suggesting the world's morning before Eve had bitten any white fleshed apple, whilst she was still dusky, dark-eyed and still. And then her stealthy sympathy with the white prisoner. Now indeed she was the dusky Eve tempted into knowledge. Her fascination was

ruthless. She kneeled by the dead brave, her husband, as she had knelt by the bear in fear and admiration and doubt and exultation. She gave him the least little push with her foot, dead meat like the bear, and a flash of delight went over her that changed into a sob of mortal anguish, and then, flickering, wicked, doubtful, she watched Cheecho wrestling with the bear.

She was the clue to all the action, was Kishwegan, and her dark braves seemed to become darker, more secret, malevolent, burning with a cruel fire and at the same time wistful, knowing their end. Chichot laughed in a strange way as he wrestled with the bear, as he had never laughed on the previous evenings. The sound went out into the audience, a soft, malevolent, derisive sound. And when the bear was supposed to have crushed him and he was to have fallen, he reeled out of the bear's arms and said to Madame in his derisive voice,

Vivo sempre, Madame. And then he fell. Madame stopped as if shot, hearing his words, I am still alive, Madame. She remained suspended, motionless, suddenly wilted. Then all at once her hand went to her mouth with a scream. The bear! So the scene concluded itself. But instead of the tender, half-wistful triumph of Kishwagon,

a triumph electric as it should have been when she took the white man's hand and kissed it, there was a doubt, a hesitancy, a nullity. and Max did not quite know what to do. After the performance, neither Madame nor Max dared say anything to Chichot about his innovation into the play. Louis felt he had to speak. It was left to him.

I say Chich, he said. Why did you change the scene? It might have spoiled everything if Madame wasn't such a genius. Why did you say that? Why, said Chicho, answering Louis French in Italian, I am tired of being dead, you see.

Madame and Max heard in sight. silence. When Alvina had played God Save the King, she went round behind the stage. But Chichot and Geoffrey had already packed up the property and left. Madame was talking to James Huffden. Louis and Max were busy together. Mr. May came to Alvina. Well, he said, that closes another week. I think we've done very well in face of difficulties, don't you? Wonderfully, she said. But poor Mr. May spoke and looked pathetically. He seemed to feel forlorn. Alvina was not attending to him. Her eye was roving. She took no notice of him. Madame came up. Well, Miss Offton, she said. Time to say goodbye, I suppose.

How do you feel after dancing? asked Alvina. Well, not so strong as usual, but not so bad, you know. I shall be all right, thanks to you. I think your father is more ill than I. To me, he looks very ill. "'Father wears himself away,' said Alvina. "'Yes, and when you are no longer young, there is not so much to wear. "'Well, I must thank you once more.' "'What time do you leave in the morning?' "'By the train at half-past ten. "'If it doesn't rain, the young men will cycle, perhaps all of them.

"'Then they will go when they like.' "'I will come round to say good-bye,' said Alvina. "'Oh, no, don't disturb yourself. "'Yes, I want to take home the things, the kettle for the bronch, and chytus and those things. Oh, thank you very much, but don't trouble yourself. I will send Gijo with them, or one of the others. I should like to say good-bye to you all, persisted Alvina.

Madame glanced round at Max and Louis. Are we not all ye? No, the two have gone. No. Well, well, what time will you come? About nine? Very well, and I leave at ten. Very well.

Then au revoir till the morning. Good-night. "'The night,' said Alvina, "'her colour was rather flushed. "'She walked up with Mr. May "'and hardly noticed he was there. "'After supper when James Huffton had gone up to count his pennies, "'Alvina said to Miss Pinnigar,

"'don't you think father looks rather seedy, Miss Pinnigar?' "'I've been thinking so a long time,' said Miss Pinnigar tartly. "'What do you think he ought to do?' "'He's killing himself down there "'in all weather's and freezing in that box office, "'and then the bad atmosphere.' He's killing himself, that's all. What can we do?

Nothing, so long as there's that place down there. Nothing at all. Alvina thought so too, so she went to bed. She was up in time and watching the clock. It was a grey morning, but not raining. At five minutes to nine, she hurried off to Mrs. Rowlings. In the backyard the bicycles were out, glittering and muddy, according to their owners.

Chichael was crouching, mending a tyre, crouching, balanced on his toes near the earth. He turned like a quick-eared animal, glancing up as she approached, but did not rise. Are you getting ready to go, she said, looking down at him. He screwed his head round to her unwillingly, upside down, his chin tilted up at her. She did not know him thus inverted. Her eyes rested on his face, puzzled. His chin seemed so large, aggressive.

He was a little repellent and brutal, inverted. yet she continued. Would you help me to carry back the things we brought for Madame? He rose to his feet, but did not look at her. He was wearing broken cycling shoes. He stood looking at his bicycle tube. Not just yet, she said. I want to say goodbye to Madame.

Will you come in half an hour? Yes, sir, I will come, he said, still watching his bicycle tube, which sprawled nakedly on the floor. The forward drop of his head was curiously beautiful to her. the straight, powerful nape of the neck, the delicate shape of the back of the head, the black hair, the way the neck sprang from the strong, loose shoulders was beautiful. There was something mindless but intent about the forward reach of his head.

His face seemed colourless, neutral-tinted, and expressionless. She went indoors. The young men were moving about, making preparations. "'Come upstairs, miss often,' called Madame's voice from above. "'Alvina mounted to find Madame packing. "'It is an uneasy moment when we are busy to move,' said Madame, "'looking up at Alvina as if she were a stranger. "'I'm afraid I'm in the way, but I won't stay a minute. "'Oh, it is all right.

"'Here are the things you brought,' Madame indicated a little pile, "'and thank you very much, very much. "'I feel you saved my life. "'And now let me give you one little token of my gratitude. "'It is not much, because we are not millionaire, in the Natchakitavara, just a little remembrance of our troublesome visit to Woodhouse. She presented Alvina with a pair of exquisite bead moccasins, woven in a weird, lovely pattern, with soft, dear-skinned souls and sides.

They belong to Kishwegan. So it is Kishwegan who gives them to you, because she is grateful to you for saving her life, or at least from a long illness. Oh, but I don't want to take them, said Alvina. "'You don't like them. Why?' "'I think they're lovely, lovely. "'But I don't want to take them from you. "'If I give them, you do not take them from me. "'You'll receive them, here?'

"'And Madame pressed back the slippers, "'opening her plump, jewelled hands in a gesture of finality. "'But I don't like to take these,' said Alvina. "'I feel they belong to Natchikitawara, "'and I don't want to rob Natchikitawara, do I? "'Do take them back. No, I have given them. You cannot rob Nacchakitawara in taking a pair of shoes.

Impossible. And I'm sure they're much too small for me. Ha! exclaimed Madame. It is that. Tye. I know they are, said Alvina, laughing confusedly. She sat down and took off her own shoe. The moccasin was a little too short, just a little,

but it was charming on the foot. Charming. Yes, said Madame, it is too. too short. Very well. I must find you something else. Please don't, said Alvina. Please don't find me anything. I don't want anything. Please. What? said Madame, eyeing her closely. You don't want? Why? You don't want anything from Natchekite Tawara or from Kishuagang? Eh? From which? Don't give me anything, please, said Alvina. All right, all right, then. I won't. I won't give you anything. I can't give you

anything you want from Natchakitawara. A madame visit herself again with the packing. I'm awfully sorry you're going, said Alvina. Sorry? Why? Yes, so am I sorry. We shan't see you anymore. Yes, so I am. But perhaps we shall see you another time, yeah? I shall send you a postcard. Perhaps I shall send one of the young men on his bicycle to bring you something which I shall

buy for you. Yes, shall I? Oh, I should be awfully glad. "'But don't buy—' "'Alvina checked herself in time. "'Don't buy anything. "'Send me a little thing from Natchakitawara. "'I love the slippers.'

"'But they are too small,' said Madame, "'who had been watching her with black eyes "'that read every motive. "'Madame, too, had her avaricious side "'and was glad to get back the slippers. "'Very well. Very well, I will do that. "'I will send you some small thing from Natchakitowara, "'and one of the young men shall bring it,

"'Babst Gitcho. "'Eh?' "'Thank you so much,' said Alvina, "'holding out her hand. "'Good-bye. "'I'm so sorry you're going.' "'Well, well, we are not going so far, "'not so very far.

"'Perhaps we shall see each other another day, "'it may be. "'Good-bye.' "'Madame took Alvina's hand "'and smiled at her winsomely all at once, "'kindly, from her inscrutable black eyes. "'A sudden unusual kindness.' alvina flushed with surprise and a desire to cry yes i am sorry you are not with natchakitawara but we shall see good-bye i shall do my packing

alvina carried down the thing she had to remove then she went to say good-bye to the young men who were in various stages of their toilet max alone was quite presentable chicho was just putting on the outer cover of his front tire she watched his brown thumbs press it into place he was quite presentable he was just putting on the outer cover of his front tire she watched his brown thumbs press it into place he was quick and sure, much more capable, and even masterful than you would have supposed, seeing his tawny Mediterranean hands. He spun the wheel round, patting it lightly. Is it finished? Yes, I think. He reached his pump and blew up the tyre. She watched his softly applied force, what physical, muscular force there was in him. Then he swung round the bicycle and stood it again on its wheels, after which he quickly folded his tools. Will you come now, she said? He turned, rubbing his hands together and drying them on an old cloth. He went into the house, pulled on his coat and his cap,

and picked up things from the table. "'Where are you going?' Max asked. Chicho jerked his head towards Alvina. "'Oh, allow me to carry them, Miss Huffton. "'He is not fit,' said Max. "'True. "'Cichio had no collar on, and his shoes were bust. "'I don't mind,' said Alvina hastily.

"'He knows where they go. "'He brought them before.' "'But I will carry them. "'I am dressed. me, and he began to take the things. You get dressed, Chichot. Chichot looked at Alvina. Do you want, he said, as if waiting for orders. Do let Chicho take them, said Alvina to Max. Thank you ever so much, but let him take them. So Alvina marched off through the Sunday morning streets, with the Italian who was down at heel and encumbered with an armful of sickroom

apparatus. She did not know what to say, and he said nothing. We will go in this way, she said. suddenly opening the hall door. She had unlocked it before she went out, for that entrance was hardly ever used. So she showed the Italian into the somber drawing-room, with its high black bookshelves, with rows and rows of calf-bound volumes, its old red and flowered carpet, its grand piano, littered with music. Chichot put down the things as she directed, and stood with his cap in his hands, looking aside. "'Thank you so much,' she said, lingering. He curled his lips, in a faint, deprecatory smile. Nothing, he murmured.

His eye had wondered uncomfortably up to a portrait on the wall. That was my mother, said Alvina. He glanced down at her, but did not answer. I'm so sorry you're going away, she said, nervously. She stood looking up at him with wide blue eyes. The faint smile grew on the lower part of his face, which he kept averted.

Then he looked at her. We have to move, he said, with his eyes watching her. her reservedly, his mouth twisting, with a half-bashful smile. "'Do you like continually going away?' she said. Her wide blue eyes fixed on his face. "'We have to do it. I like it.' What he said meant nothing to him. He now watched her fixedly, with a slightly mocking look, and a reserve he would not relinquish.

"'Do you think I shall ever see you again?' she said. "'Sure do you like?' he answered, with a sly smile and a faint shrug. "'I should like, awfully,' a flush grew on her cheek. She heard Miss Pinnigar's scarcely audible step approaching. He nodded at her slightly, watching her fixedly, turning up the corners of his eyes slyly, his nose seeming slyly to sharpen. "'All right, next week, eh? in the morning.' "'Do!' cried Alvina, as Miss Pinnigar came through the door.

He glanced quickly over his shoulder. "'Oh!' cried Miss Pinnigar. "'I couldn't imagine who it was,' she eyed the young fellow sharply. "'Couldn't you?' said Alvina. "'We brought back these things.' "'Oh, yes. Well, you better come into the other room, to the fire,' said Miss Pinnigar. "'I shall go along. Good-bye,' said Cichot, and with a slight bow to Alvina, and a still slighter to Miss Pinnigar. He was out of the room and out of the front door, as if turning

tail. "'I suppose they're going this morning,' said Miss Pinnigar. End of Chapter 8, Part 2. Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 9, Part 1 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Alvina becomes a lay. Alvina wept when the Natchez had gone. She loved them so much.

She wanted to be with them. Even Chichot she regarded as only one of the Natchez. She looked forward to his coming as a visit from the troop. How dull the theatre was without them. She was tired of the endeavour. She wished it did not exist. The rehearsal on the Monday morning bored her terribly. Her father was nervous and irritable. The previous week had tried him sorely. He had worked himself into a state of nervous apprehension such as nothing would have justified, unless perhaps if the wooden walls of the endeavour had burnt to the ground with James inside victimised like another Samson. He had developed a nervous, horror of all artists. He did not feel safe for one single moment whilst he depended on a single one of them. We shall have to convert it into all pictures, he said, in a nervous fever to Mr. May. Don't make any more engagements after the end of next month. Really? said Mr. May. Really? Have you quite decided? Yes, quite, yes, quite, James fluttered. I've written about a new machine and

the supply of films from Chanticle's. Really, said Mr. May. Oh, well, then, in that case. But he was filled with dismay and chagrin. Of course, he said later to Alvina. I can't possibly stop on if we are nothing but a picture show. And he arched his blanched and dismal eyelids with ghastly finality. Why? cried Alvina. Oh, why?

He was rather ironic. Well, it's not my line at all. I'm not a film operator. And he put his head on one side with a grimace of contempt and superiority. "'But you are as well,' said Alvina. "'Yes, as well, but not only. "'You may wash the dishes in the scullery, "'but you're not only the char, are you?'

"'But is it the same?' cried Alvina. "'Of course,' cried Mr. May. "'Of course it's the same.' "'Alvina laughed a little heartlessly into his pallid, stricken eyes. "'But what will you do?' she asked. "'I shall have to look for something else,' said the injured, "'but dauntless little man. "'There's nothing else,' has been.

there. Wouldn't you stay on? she asked. I wouldn't think of it. I wouldn't think of it. He turtled like an injured pigeon. Well, she said, looking laconically into his face, it's between you and father. Of course, he said. Naturally. Where else? But his tone was a little spiteful, as if he had rested his last hopes on Alvina. Alvina went away. She mentioned the coming change to Miss Pinnigar. Well, said Miss Pinnigar, judicious but aloof. It's a move. It's a in the right direction, but I doubt if it'll do any good. Do you, said Alvina. Why? I don't believe in the place, and I never did, declared Miss Pinnigar. I don't believe any good will come of it. But why, persisted Alvina, what makes you

feel so sure about it? I don't know, but that's how I feel, and I have from the first. It was wrong from the first. It was wrong to begin it. But why, insisted Alvina, laughing. your father had no business to be led into it. He'd no business to touch this show business. It isn't like him. It doesn't belong to him. He's gone against his own nature and his own life. Oh, but, said Alvina, father was a showman even in the shop. He always was. Mother said he was like a showman in a booth. Miss Pinnigar was taken aback. Well, she said sharply, if that's what you've seen in him, there was a pause. And in that case, she continued. you tartly. I think some of the showman has come out of the daughter, or show woman, which doesn't

improve it to my idea. Why is it any worse? said Alvina. I enjoy it, and so does father. No, cried Miss Pinnigar. There you're wrong. There you make a mistake. It's all against his better nature. Really? said Alvina, in surprise. What a new idea. But which is father's better nature? You may not know it. said Miss Pinnigar coldly, and if so I can never tell you, but that doesn't alter it. She lapsed into dead silence for a moment. Then suddenly she broke out, vicious and cold. He'll go on till he's killed himself, and then he'll know. The little adverb then came whistling across the space like a bullet. It made Alvina pause. Was her father going to die? She reflected. Well, all men must die. She forgot the question in others that occupied.

her. First, could she bear it when the endeavour was turned into another cheap and nasty film shop? The strange figures of the artists, passing under her observation, had really entertained her, week by week. Some weeks they had bored her. Some weeks she had detested them, but there was always a chance in the coming week. Think of the Natchakitawaras. She thought too much of the Natchakitawara's. She knew it, and she tried to force her mind to the contemplation of the new state of things, when she banged at the piano to a set of dithering and boring pictures. There would be her father, herself, and Mr May, or a new operator, a new manager. The new manager, she thought of him for a moment, and thought of the mechanical,

factory-faced persons who managed rights and the Woodhouse Empire. But her mind fell away from this barren study. She was obsessed by the Natchakitawaras. They seemed to have fascinated her. which of them it was or what it was that had cast the spell over her she did not know, but she was as if hypnotised, she longed to be with them. Her soul gravitated towards them all the time. Monday passed and Chichot did not come. Tuesday passed, and Wednesday. In her soul she was skeptical of their keeping their promise, either Madame or Chichot. Why should they keep their

promise? She knew what these nomadic artisks were, and her soul was stubborn within. her. On Wednesday night there was another sensation at the endeavour. Mr May found James Huffton fainting in the box office after the performance had begun. What to do? He could not interrupt Alvina nor the performance. He sent the chocolate and orange boy across to the pear tree for brandy. James revived. I'm all right, he said, in a brittle fashion. I'm all right, don't bother. So he sat with his head on his hand in the box office and Mr. May had to leave him to operate the film. the interval arrived Mr May hurried to the box office, a narrow hole that James could just sit in, and there he found the invalid in the same posture, semi-conscious. He gave him more brandy.

"'I'm all right, I tell you,' said James, his eyes flaring. Leave me alone. But he looked anything but all right. Mr. May hurried for Alvina. When the daughter entered the ticket place, her father was again an estate of torpor. "'Father,' she said, shaking his shoulder gently. "'What's the matter?' "'He murmured something, but was incoherent. "'She looked at his face. "'It was grey and blank. "'We shall have to get him home,' she said.

"'We shall have to get a cab.' "'Give him a little brandy,' said Mr. May. "'The boy was sent for the cab. "'James swallowed a spoonful of brandy. "'He came to himself irritably. "'What? What?' he said. "'I won't have all this fuss. "'Go on with the performance.

"'There's no need to bother about me.' "'His eye was wild. "'You must go home.' father, said Alvina. Leave me alone. Will you leave me alone? Hectored by women all my life. Hectored by women. First one,

then another, I won't stand it. I won't stand it. He looked at Alvina with a look of frenzy as he lapsed again, fell with his head on his hands on his ticket board. Alvina looked at Mr. May. We must get him home, she said.

She covered him up with a coat and sat by him. The performance went on without music. At last the cab came. James, unconscious, was driven up to Woodhouse. He had to be carried indoors. Alvina hurried ahead to make a light in the dark passage. Father's ill, she announced to Miss Pinnigar. Didn't I say so? said Miss Pinnigar, starting from her chair. The two women went out to meet the cabman, who had James in his arms. Can you manage? cried Alvina, showing a light. He don't weigh much, said the man. "'went Miss Pinnigar's tongue in a rapid tut-tut of distress.

"'What have I said now?' she exclaimed. "'What have I said all along?' James was laid on the sofa. His eyes were half shut. They made him drink brandy. The boy was sent for the doctor. Alvina's bed was warmed. The sick man was got to bed and then started another vigil.

Alvina sat up in the sick room. James started and muttered, but did not regain consciousness. dawn came and he was the same, pneumonia and pleuracy and a touch of meningitis. Alvina drank her tea, took a little breakfast and went to bed at about nine o'clock in the morning, leaving James in charge of Miss Pinnigar. Time was all deranged. Miss Pinnigar was a nervous nurse. She sat in horror and apprehension, her eyebrows raised, starting and looking at James in terror whenever he made a noise. She hurried to him and did what she could, but one would have said she was repulsed. She found her task unconsciously repugnant.

During the course of the morning Mrs. Rowlings came up and said that the Italian from last week had come, and could he speak to Miss Huffton? Tell him she's resting, and Mr. Huffton is seriously ill, said Miss Pinnigar sharply. When Alvina came downstairs at about four in the afternoon, she found a package, a comb of carved bone, and a message from Madame to Miss Huffton with kindest greetings and most sincere thanks from Kishwagin. The comb with its carved, beast-faced serpent was her portion. Alvina asked if there had been any other message, none.

Mr May came in and stayed for a dismal half-hour. Then Alvina went back to her nursing. The patient was no better, still unconscious. Miss Pinnigar came down, red-eyed and sullen-looking. the condition of James gave little room for hope. In the early morning he died. Alvina called Miss Rowlings and they composed the body. It was still only five o'clock and not light.

Alvina went to lie down in her father's little, rather chilly chamber at the end of the corridor. She tried to sleep, but could not. At half-past seven she arose and started the business of the new day. The doctor came. She went to the registrar and so on. mr may came it was decided to keep open the theatre he would find someone else for the piano someone else to issue the tickets in the afternoon arrived frederick huffton james's cousin and nearest relative he was a middle-aged blond florid church-going draper from narborough well-to-do and very bourgeois he tried to talk to alvina in a fatherly fashion or a friendly or a helpful fashion but alvina could not listen to him

He got on her nerves. Hearing the gate bang, she rose and hurried to the window. She was in the drawing room with her cousin to give the interview its proper air of solemnity. She saw Chicho rearing his yellow bicycle against the wall, and going with his head forward along the narrow, dark way of the backyard to the scullery door. Excuse me a minute, she said to her cousin, who looked up irritably as she left the room. She was just in time to open the door as Chicho tapped. She stood on the doorstep above him.

He looked up, with a faint smile from under his black lashes. How nice of you to come, she said. But her face was blanched and tired, without expression. Only her large eyes looked blue in their tiredness, as she glanced down at Chichot. He seemed to her far away. Madame asks, how is Mr. Huffden, he said. Father, he died this morning, she said quietly.

He died, exclaimed the Italian, a flashed. of fear and dismay going over his face. Yes, this morning. She had neither tears nor emotion, but just looked down on him abstractedly from her height on the kitchen step. He dropped his eyes and looked at his feet. Then he lifted his eyes again and looked at her. She looked back at him, as from across a distance. So they watched each other, as strangers across a wide, abstract distance. He turned and looked down the dark yard towards the gate where he could just see the pale grey tyre of his bicycle and the yellow mudguard.

He seemed to be reflecting. If he went now, he went forever. Involuntarily he turned and lifted his face again towards Alvina, as if studying her curiously. She remained there on the doorstep, neutral, blanched, with wide, still, neutral eyes. She did not seem to see him. He studied her with alert, yellow dusky, inscrutable eyes until she met his look,

and then he gave the faintish gesture with his head, as of summons towards him. Her soul started and died in her, and again he gave the slight, almost imperceptible jerk of the head, backwards and sideways, as if summoning her towards him. His face too was closed and expressionless, but in his eyes, which kept hers, there was a dark flicker of ascendancy. He was going to triumph over her. She knew it. And her soul sank as if it sank out of her body. It sank away out of her body, left her there powerless, soulless. And yet as he turned with his head stretched forward to move away, as he glanced slightly over his shoulder, she stepped down from the step, down to his level, to follow him. He went ducking along the dark yard, nearly to the gate. Near the gate, near his bicycle, was a corner made by a shed. Here he turned lingeringly to her, and she lingered in front of him. Her eyes were wide and neutral and submissive, with a new, awful submission as if she had lost her soul. So she looked up at him like a victim.

There was a faint smile in his eyes. He stretched forward over her. You love me? Yes, yes, he said. in a voice that seemed like a palpable contact on her. Yes, she whispered, involuntarily, soulless, like a victim. He put his arm round her, subtly, and lifted her. Yes, he re-echoed, almost mocking in his triumph. Yes, yes! And smiling he kissed her delicately, with a certain finesse of knowledge. She moaned in spirit, in his arms, felt herself dead, dead.

and he kissed her with a finesse, a passionate finesse, which seemed like coals of fire on her head. They heard footsteps. Miss Pindigar was coming to look for her. Chicho set her down, looked long into her eyes, inscrutably, smiling, and said, I come to-morrow. With which he ducked and ran out of the yard, picking up his bicycle like a feather, and taking no notice of Miss Pinnigar, letting the yard door bang too behind. him. Alvina, said Miss Pinnigar, but Alvina did not answer. She turned, slipped past, ran indoors and upstairs to the little bare bedroom she had made her own. She locked the door and kneeled down on the

floor, bowing down her head to her knees in a paroxysm on the floor, in a paroxysm because she loved him. She doubled herself up in a paroxysm on her knees on the floor because she loved him. It was far more like pain, like agony, than like joy. She swayed herself to and fro in a paroxysm of unbearable sensation, because she loved him. Miss Pinnigar came and knocked at the door, Alvina, Alvina! Oh, you are there? Whatever are you doing? Aren't you coming down to speak to your cousin? Soon, said Alvina. And taking a pillow from the bed, she crushed it against herself and swayed herself unconsciously, in her orgasm of unbearable feeling. Right in her bowels she felt it, the terrible, unbearable feeling. How could she bear it? She crouched over until she became still. A moment of stillness seemed to cover

her like sleep, an eternity of sleep in that one second. Then she roused and got up. She went to the mirror, still, evernessent, and tidied her hair, smoothed her face. She was so still, so remote, she felt that nothing, nothing could ever touch her. And so she went downstairs to that horrible cousin of her father's. She seemed so intangible, remote and virginal, that her cousin and Miss Pinnigar both failed to make anything of her. She answered their questions simply, but did not talk. They talked to each other,

and at last the cousin went away with a profound dislike of Miss Alvina. She did not notice. She was only glad he was gone. and she went about for the rest of the day elusive and vague. She slept deeply that night, without dreams. The next day was Saturday. It came with a great storm of wind and rain and hail, of fury. Alvina looked out in dismay.

She knew Chicho would not be able to come. He could not cycle, and it was impossible to get by train and return the same day. She was almost relieved. She was relieved by the intermission of fate. She was thankful for the day of night. neutrality. In the early afternoon came a telegram, coming both tomorrow morning, deepest sympathy, Madame. Tomorrow was Sunday, and the funeral was in the afternoon. Alvina felt a burning inside her,

thinking of Chicho. She winced, and yet she wanted him to come. Terribly she wanted him to come. She showed the telegram to Miss Pinnigar. Good gracious, said the weary Miss Pinnigar. Fancy those people, and I warrant they'll want to be at the funeral, as if he was anything to them. I think it's very nice of her, said Alvina. Oh, well, said Miss Pinnagar, if you think so. I don't fancy he would have wanted such people following myself. And what does she mean by both? Who's the other?

Miss Pinnigar looked sharply at Alvina. Chico, said Alvina. The Italian? Why, goodness me, what's he coming for? I can't make you out, Alvina. Is that his name? Chichot, I never heard such a name. Doesn't sound like a name at all to me. There won't be room for them in the cabs. We'll order another. More expense. I never knew such impertinent people.

But Alvina did not hear her. On the next morning, she dressed herself carefully in her new dress. It was black foil. Carefully she did her hair. Cheecho and Madame were coming. The thought of Chicho made her shudder. She hung about, waiting. luckily none of the funeral guests would arrive till after one o'clock. Alvina sat listless, musing, by the fire in the drawing-room. She left everything now to Miss Pinnigar and Mrs. Rowlings. Miss Pinnigar, red-eyed and yellow-skinned, was irritable beyond words. It was nearly midday when Alvina heard the gate. She hurried to open the front door. Madame was in her little black hat and her black-spotted veil.

Cheecho, in a black overcoat, was closing the yard door behind her. Oh, my dear girl, Madame cried, trotting forward with outstretched black kid hands, one of which held an umbrella. I am so shocked, I am so shocked to hear of your poor father. Am I to believe it? Am I really? No, I can't. She lifted her veil, kissed Alvina and dabbed her eyes.

Chicho came up the steps. He took off his hat to Alvina, smiled slightly as he passed her. He looked rather pale, constrained. She closed the door and ushered them into the drawing-room. Madame looked round like a bird, examining the room and the furniture. She was evidently a little impressed, but all the time she was uttering her condolences. Tell me, poor girl, how it happened. There isn't much to tell, said Alvina, and she gave the brief account of James's illness and death. worn out worn out madame said nodding slowly up and down her black veil pushed up sagged over her brows like a morning band you cannot afford to waste the stamina and will you keep on the theatre with mr may chicho was sitting looking towards the fire his presence made alveena tremble she noticed how the fine black hair of his head showed no parting at all it just grew like a close cap and was pushed aside at the forehead

sometimes he looked at her as madame talked and again looked at her and looked away at last madame came to a halt there was a long pause you will stay to the funeral oh my dear we shall be too much no said alvina i have arranged for you there you think of everything but i will not come not chichot he will not trouble you chichot looked up at alvina i should like him to come said alvina simply but a deep flush began to mount her face she did not know where it came from she felt so cold and she wanted to cry madame watched her closely siamo di accordo came the voice of chicho alvina and madame both looked at him he sat constrained with his face averted his eyes dropped but smiling madame looked closely at alvina is it true what he says she asked i don't understand him said alvina I don't understand what he said. That you have agreed with him. Madame and Chichot both watched Alvina as she sat in her new black dress. Her eyes involuntarily turned to his.

I don't know, she said vaguely. Have I? And she looked at him. Madame kept silence for some moments. Then she said gravely, Well, yes, well, she looked from one to another. Well, there is a lot to consider. But if you have decided, neither of them answered.

said. Madame suddenly rose and went to Alvina. She kissed her on either cheek. I shall protect you, she said. Then she returned to her seat. What have you said to Miss Often? She said suddenly to Chicho, tackling him direct and speaking coldly. He looked at Madame with a faint, derisive smile. Then he turned to Alvina. She bent her head and blushed. Speak then, said Madame. You have a reason? She seemed mistrustful of him. but he turned aside his face and refused to speak, sitting as if he were unaware of Madame's presence. Oh, well, said Madame, I shall be there, signorino. She spoke with a half-playful threat.

Chicho curled his lip. You do not know him yet, she said, turning to Alvina. I know that, said Alvina, offended. Then she added, wouldn't you like to take off your hat? If you truly wish me to stay, said madame. Yes, please do. and will you hang your coat in the hall, she said to Chichot. Oh, said Madame roughly, he will not stay to eat. He will go out to somewhere.

Alvina looked at him. Would you rather, she said. He looked at her with sardonic yellow eyes. If you want, he said, the awkward, derisive smile curling his lips and showing his teeth. She had a moment of sheer panic. Was he just stupid and bestial? The thought went clean through her. His yellow eyes watched her sardonically. It was the clean modelling of his dark, other-world face that decided her, for it sent the deep spasm across her.

"'I'd like you to stay,' she said. A smile of triumph went over his face. Madame watched him stonily as she stood beside her chair, one hand lightly balanced on her hip. Alvina was reminded of Kishwagin, but even in Madame's stony mistrust there was an element of attraction towards him. He had taken his cigarette-case from his pocket. "'I ne fume not in the salon,' said Madame brutally. "'Will you put your coat in the passage?

And do smoke if you wish,' said Alvina. He rose to his feet and took off his overcoat. His face was obstinate and mocking. He was rather floridly dressed, though in black, and wore boots of black-patent leather with tan uppers. Handsome he was, but undeniably in bad taste. The silver ring was still on his finger, and his close, fine, unparted hair went badly with smart English clothes. He looked common. Alvina confessed it, and her heart sank. But what was she to do? He evidently was not happy. Obstinacy made him stick out the situation. Alvina and Madame went upstairs. Madame wanted to see the dead James. She looked at his frail, handsome, ethereal face and crossed herself as she wept. "'An belle home, supondon,' she whispered.

"'Mor'er en jour. "'Cet too far voie.' "'And she sniggered with fear and sobs. "'They went down to Alvina's bare room. "'Madame glanced round, "'as she did in every room she entered. "'This was father's bedroom,' said Alvina. "'The other was mine.

"'He wouldn't have it anything but like this, bare.' "'Nature of a monk, a hermit,' whispered madame. "'Who would have thought it? "'Ah, the men, the men!' And she unpinned her hat and patted her hair before the small mirror, into which she had to peep to see herself. Alvina stood waiting. "'And now,' whispered Madame, suddenly turning,

"'what the bad's this gee joy?' It was ridiculous that she would not raise her voice above a whisper, upstairs there, but so it was. She scrutinized Alvina with her eyes of bright black glass. Alvina looked back at her, but did not know what to say. say. What about him, eh? Will you marry him? Why will you? I suppose because I like him, said Alvina, flushing. Madame made a little grimace. Oh, yes, he whispered, with a contemptuous mouth. Oh, yes, because you like him, but you know nothing of him, nothing. How can you like him not

knowing him? He may be a real bald character. How would you like him then? He isn't, is he? said Alvina? I don't know. I don't know. He may be. Even I, I do not know him. No, though he has been with me for three years. What is he? He is a man of the people, a boatman, a laborer, an artist's model. He sticks to nothing. How old is he? asked Alvina. He is 25, a boy only. And you? You are older. 30, confessed Alvina. Thirty. Well now. So much difference. How can you trust him? How can you?

Why does he want to marry you? Why? I don't know, said Alvina. No, and I don't know. But I know something of these Italian men, who are laborers in every country, just laborers and undermen always, always down, down, down.

And Madame pressed her spread palms downwards. And so, when they have a chance to come up, she raised her hand with a spring. They are very conceited, and they take their chance. He will want to rise by you, and you will go down with him. That is how it is. I have seen it before. Yes, more than one time.

But, said Alvina, laughing ruefully, he can't rise much because of me, can he? How not? How not? In the first place, you are English, and he thinks to rise by that. then you are not of the lower class you are of the higher class the class of the masters such as employ chicho and men like him how will he not rise in the world by you yes he will rise very much or he will draw you down down yes one or another and then he thinks that now you have money now your father is dead here madame glanced apprehensively at the closed door and they all like money yes very much all italians do they said alviner scared i'm sure there won't be any money i'm sure father is in dead what you think do you really oh poor miss ofton well and will you tell chicho that eh

Yeah? Yes, certainly. If it matters, said poor Alvina. Of course it matters. Of course. It matters very much. It matters to him because he will not have much. He saves, saves, saves as they all do,

to go back to Italy and buy a piece of land. And if he has you, it will cost him much more. He cannot continue with Natchakit orara. All will be much more difficult. oh i will tell him in time said alvena pale at the lips you will tell him yes that is better and then you will see but he is obstinate as a mule and if he will still have you then you must think Can you live in England as the wife of a labouring man, a dirty Italian, as they all say? It is serious. It is not pleasant for you, who have not known it. I also have not known it, but I have seen. Alvina watched with wide, troubled eyes, while Madame darted looks as from bright,

deep black glass. Yes, said Alvina, I should hate being a labourer's wife, in a nasty little house in a street. In a house, cried Madame. It would not be in a house. They live many together in one house. It would be two rooms or even one room in another house with many people, not quite clean. You see? I couldn't stand that, she said, finally. No, Madame nodded approval. No, you could not. They live in a bad way, the Italians. They do not know the English home. Never. They don't. They don't like it, nor do they know the Swiss clean and proper house. No, they don't understand. They run into their roles to sleep or to shelter, and that is all.

The same in Italy, said Alvina, even more, because there it is sunny very often. And you don't need a house, said Alvina. I should like that. Yes, it is nice, but you don't know the life, and you would be alone with people like animals. And if you go to Italy, he will beat you. he will beat you if i let him said alveena but you can't help it away there from everybody nobody will help you if you're a wife in italy nobody will help you are his property when you marry by italian law it is not like england there is no divorce in italy and if he beats you you are helpless but why should he beat me said alvina why should he want to they do they are so jealous and then they go into their ungovernable tempers horrible tempers only when they're provoked said alvina thinking of max yes but you will not know what provokes him who can say when he will be provoked and then he beats you

There seemed to be a gathering triumph in Madame's bright black eyes. Alvina looked at her and turned to the door. At any rate, I know now, she said, in rather a flat voice. And it is true, it is all of it true, whispered Madame vindictively. Alvina wanted to run from her. I must go to the kitchen, she said. Shall we go down? Alvina did not go into the drawing-room with Madame.

She was too much upset, and she had almost a horror of seeing Cheechie-chie-church. at that moment. Miss Pinnigar, her face stained Carmine by the fire, was helping Mrs. Rowlings with the dinner. Are they both staying or only one, she said tartly? Both, said Alvina, busying herself with the gravy to hide her distress and confusion. The man as well, said Miss Pinnagar. What does the woman want to bring him for? I'm sure I don't know what your father would say, a common show fellow, looks what he is, and staying to dinner. Miss Pinnigar was thoroughly out of temper as she tried the potatoes. Alvina set the table. Then she went to the drawing-room. "'Will you come to dinner?' she said to her two guests. Chichot rose, threw his cigarette into the

fire and looked round. Outside was a faint, watery sunshine, but at least it was out of doors. He felt himself imprisoned, and out of his element, he had an irresistible impulse to go. When he got into the hall he laid his hand on his hat. The stupid, constrained smile was on his face. I'll go now, he said. We've set the table for you, said Alvina. Stop now since you have stopped for so long, said Madame, darting her black looks at him. But he hurried on his coat, looking stupid. Madame lifted her eyebrows disdainfully. This is polite behaviour, she said, sarcastically. Alvina stood at her loss. You return to the funeral, said Madame coldly.

He shook his head. When you are ready to go, he said. At four o'clock, said Madame, when the funeral has come home, then we shall be in time for the train. He nodded, smiled stupidly, opened the door and went. This is just like him to be so sore, Madame could not express herself as she walked down to the kitchen. Miss Pinnigar, this is Madame, said Alvina.

How do you do, said Miss Pinnigar, a little distance and condescending. Madame eyed her keenly. Where is the man? I don't know his name, said Miss Pinnigar. He wouldn't stay, said Alvina. What is his name, Madame? Maraska.

Francesco Marasca. Neapolitan. Marasca, echoed Alvina. It has a bad sound, a sound of a bad ogily, bad sign, said Madame. Maraska! She shook her head at the taste of the syllables. Why do you think so? said Alvina. Do you think there is a meaning

in sounds, goodness and badness? Yes, said Madame, certainly. Some sounds are good, therefore life, for creating, and some sounds are bad, therefore destroying. Maraska! That is bad, like swearing. But what sort of badness? What does it do? said Alvina.

What does it do? It sends life down, down, instead of lifting it up. "'Why should things always go up? "'Why should life always go up?' said Alvina. "'I don't know,' said Madame, "'cutting her meat quickly. "'There was a pause. "'And what about other names

"'interrupted Miss Pinnigar a little lofty? "'What about Huffton, for example?' "'Madame put down her fork, "'but kept her knife in her hand. "'She looked across the room, not at Miss Pinnigar. "'Horton, Hoffton,' she said. "'When it is said, it has a sound a giggle, against, that is against the neighbour, against humanity.

But when it is written Horton, then it is different, it is four. It is always pronounced Huffton, said Miss Pinnigar. By us, said Alvina. We ought to know, said Miss Pinnigar. Madame turned to the look at the unhappy, elderly woman. You are relative of the family, she said? No, not a relative, but I've been here many years, said Miss Pinnigar. "'Oh, yes,' said Madame.

Miss Pinnigar was frightfully affronted. The meal, with the three women at table, passed painfully. Miss Pinnigar rose to go upstairs and weep. She felt very forlorn. Alvina rose to wipe the dishes, hastily, because the funeral guests would all be coming. Madame went into the drawing-room to smoke her sly cigarette. Mr. May was the first to turn up for the lugubrious affair,

very tight and tailored, but a little extinguble. wished, all in black. He never wore black and was very unhappy in it, being almost morbidly sensitive to the impression the colour made on him. He was set to entertain Madame. She did not pretend distress, but sat, black-eyed and watchful, very much her business self. What about the theatre? Will it go on? She asked. Well, I don't know. I don't know Miss Huffton's intentions, said Mr. May. He was a little stilted today. It's hers, said Madame. "'Why, as far as I understand, and if she wants to sell out?' Mr. May spread his hands and looked dismal, but distant.

"'You should form a company and carry on,' said Madame. Mr. May looked even more distant, drawing himself up in an odd fashion, so that he looked as if he were trust. But Madame's shrewd black eyes and busy mind did not let him off. "'By miss off done out,' said Madame shrewdly. "'Of course,' said Mr. May. Miss Huffton herself must decide. Oh, sure.

Are you married? Yes? Your wife here? My wife is in London. And children? A daughter. Madame slowly nodded her head up and down, as if she put thousands of two-and-toes together.

You think there will be much to come to Miss Huffton? She said. Do you mean property? I really can't say, I haven't inquired. No, but you have a good idea, eh? "'I'm afraid I haven't.' "'No, well, it won't be much, then.' "'Really, I don't know.

"'I should say, not a large fortune?' "'No, eh,' Madame kept him fixed with her black eyes. "'Do you think the other one will get anything?' "'The other one?' queried Mr. May, "'with an uprising cadence.' "'Madame nodded slightly towards the kitchen. "'Zerudron the miss—' "'Miss Pinn, Pins.

what you call her. Miss Pinnigar, the manageress of the workgirls? Really, I don't know at all. Mr. May was most freezing. Uh-huh, uh-huh, mused Madame quietly. Then she asked, Which work-girls do you say? And she listened astutely to Mr. May's forced account of the workroom upstairs, extorting all the details she desired to gather. Then there was a pause. Madame glanced round the room. Nice house, she said. Is it their own? So I believe. Again, Madame nodded sagely. Deges, perhaps, eh? Morgage? And she looked slyly sardonic. Really? said Mr. May, bouncing to his feet. Do you mind if I go to speak to Mrs. Rowlings? Oh, no, go along, said Madame, and Mr. May skipped out in a temper. Madame was left alone in her comfortable chair,

studying details of the room and making accounts in her own mind until the actual funeral guests began to arrive. And then she had the satisfaction of sizing them up. Several arrived with wreaths. The coffin had been carried down and laid in the small sitting-room, Mrs. Huffden's sitting-room. It was covered with white wreaths and streamers of purple ribbon. There was a crush and a confusion.

And then at last the hearse and the cabs had arrived. The coffin was carried out. Alvina followed on the arm of her father's cousin, whom she disliked. Miss Pinnigar marshaled the other mourners. It was a wretched business. But it was a great funeral. There were nine cabs, besides the hearse. Woodhouse had revived its ancient respect for the house of Huffton. A posse of minor tradesmen followed the cabs, all in black and with black gloves. The richer tradesmen sat in the cabs. Poor Alvina, this was the only day in all her life when she was the centre of public attention. For once, every eye was upon her. Every mind was thinking about her. Poor Alvina, said every member of the Woodhouse, middle class.

Poor Alvina Huffton, said every Collier's wife. Poor thing, left alone, and hardly a penny to bless herself with. Lucky if she's not left with a pile of debts. James Huffton ran through some money in his day. Aye, if she had her right, she'd be a rich woman. Why, a mother brought three or four thousand's with her, aye, but James sank it all in Throckley and Klondike and the endeavour. Well, he was his own worst enemy. He paid his way. I'm not so sure about that. Look how he served his wife, and now Alvina. I'm not so sure he was his own worst enemy. He was bad enough enemy to his own flesh and blood. Ah well, he'll spend no more money anyhow. No, he went sudden, didn't he? But he was getting very frail if you noticed. Oh yes. Why,

he fair seemed to totter down to Lumley. Do you reckon as that place pays its way? What, the endeavour? They say it does. They say it makes a nice bit. Well, it's mostly pretty full. Ah, it is. Perhaps it won't be now. Mr. Huffton's gone. Perhaps not. I wonder if he will leave much. I'm sure he won't. Everything he's got's mortgaged up to the hill. He'll leave debts. You see if he doesn't. What is she going to do then? She'll have to go out of Manchester her and Miss Pinnigar, wonder what she'll do? Perhaps she'll take up that nursing. She never made much of that, did she, and spent a sight of money on her training, they say. She's a bit like a father in the business line, all flukes. Pity some nice young man doesn't turn up and marry her.

I don't know. She doesn't seem to hook on, does she? Why, she's never had a proper boy. They make out she was engaged once. Aye, but nobody ever saw him, and it was off as soon as it was on. Can you remember she went with Albert Whitton for a bit? Did she? No, I never knew. When was that? Why, when he was at Oxford, do you know, learning for his headmaster's place? Why didn't she marry him then?

Perhaps he never asked her. Aye, there's that to it. She'd have looked down her nose at him, time's gone by. Aye, but that's all over, my boy. She'd snap at anybody now. Look how she carries on with that manager. Why, that's something awful. Have you ever watched her in the cinema?

She never lets him alone, and it's anybody alike. Oh, she doesn't respect herself, I don't consider. No girl who respected herself would go on as she does, throwing herself at every fella's head. Does she, though? Aye, any performer or anybody. She's a tidy age, though. She's not much chance of getting off.

How old do you reckon she is? Must be well over thirty. You never say. Well, she looks it. She does be guy, a dragged old maid. Oh, but she spritles up. a bit sometimes. Ah, when she thinks she's hooked on to somebody.

I wonder why she never did take. It's funny. Oh, she was too high and mighty before, and now it's too late. Nobody wants her. And she's got no relations to go to either, is she? No, that's her father's cousin who she's walking with. Look, they're coming. He's a fine-looking man, isn't he?

You'd have thought they'd have buried Miss Frost beside Mrs. Huffton. You would, wouldn't you? I should think Alvina will lie by Miss Frost. They say the grave was made. for both of them. Aye, she was a lot more of a mother to her than her own mother. She was good to them. Miss Frost was. Alvina thought the world of her. That's her stone. Look, down there. Not a very grand one, considering. No, it isn't. Look, there's room for Alvina's name underneath. Sh-sh! Alvina had sat back in the cab and watched from her obscurity the many faces on the street,

so familiar, so familiar, familiar as her own face. And now she seemed to see them from a great distance, out of her darkness. Her big cousin sat opposite her, how she disliked his presence. In chapel she cried, thinking of her mother and Miss Frost and her father. She felt so desolate, it all seemed so empty. Bitterly, she cried, when she bent down during the prayer, and her crying started Miss Pinnigar, who cried almost as bitterly. It was all rather horrible, the afterwards, the horrible afterwards. There was the story. flow progress to the cemetery. It was a dull, cold day. Alvina shivered as she stood on the bleak hillside by the open grave. Her coat did not seem warm enough. Her old black sealskin furs were not much

protection. The minister stood on the plank by the grave, and she stood near, watching the white flowers blowing in the cold wind. She had watched them for her mother and for Miss Frost. She felt a sudden clinging to Miss Pinnigar. Yet they would happen. to part. Miss Pinnigar had been so fond of her father in a quaint, reserved way. Poor Miss Pinnigar, that was all life had offered her. Well, after all, it had been a home and a home life, to which home and home life Alvina now clung with a desperate yearning, knowing inevitably she was going to lose it, now her father was gone. Strange that he was gone, but he was weary, worn very thin and weary. He had lived his day. How different he

it all was now at his death from the time when Alvina knew him as a little child and thought him such a fine gentleman. You live and learn and lose. For one moment she looked at Madame who was shuddering with cold, her face hidden behind her black spotted veil, but Madame seemed immensely remote, so unreal, and Chicho, what was his name? She could not think of it. What was it? She tried to think of Madame's slow enunciation. Maraska, Marashino, Marasha, Marashino. What was a Marasino? Where'd she heard it?

Cudgling her brains, she remembered the doctors and the suppers after the theatre. And Maraschino? Why, that was the favourite white liqueur of the innocent Dr. Young. She could remember even now the way he seemed to smack his lips, saying the word Marashino. Yet she did not think much of it. Hot, bitterish stuff, nothing, not like greenish, charters which Dr. James gave her. Maraschino, yes, that was it, made from cherries. Well,

Chichos' name was nearly the same. But she supposed Italian words were a good deal like this. Chicho de Marasca, the bitter cherry, was standing on the edge of the crowd, looking on. He had no connection whatever with the proceedings, stood outside, self-conscious, uncomfortable, bitten by the wind and hating the people who stared at him. He saw the truce, trim, plump figure of Madame, like some trim, plump partridge among a flock of barnyard fowls, and he depended on her presence. Without her, he would have felt too horribly uncomfortable on that raw hillside. She and he were in some way allied. But these others, how alien and uncouth he felt them. Impressed by their fine clothes, the English working classes were nonetheless barbarians to him,

uncivilized, just as he was to them an uncivilized animal, uncouth they seemed to him, all raw angles and harshness like their own weather, not that he thought about them, but he felt it in his flesh, the harshness and discomfort of them, and Alvina was one of them, as she stood there by the grave, pale and pinched and reserved-looking, she was of a piece with the hideous, cold-gray discomfort of the whole scene. Never had anything been more uncongenial to him. He was dying to get away, to clear out. That was all he wanted. Only some southern obstinacy made him watch, from the duskiness of his face, the pale, reserved girl at the grave. Perhaps he even disliked her at that time, but he watched in his dislike. When the ceremony was over and the mourners turned

away to go back to the cabs. Madame pressed forward to Alvina. I shall say goodbye now, Miss Ofton. We must go to the station for the train. And thank you. Thank you. Good-bye. But, Alvina looked round. Chicho is there. I see him. We must catch the train. Oh, but, won't you drive? Won't you ask Chichot to drive with you in the cab? Where is he? Madame pointed him out as he hung back among the graves. His black hat cocked a little on one side. He was watching. Alvina broke away from her cousin and went to him. Madame is going to drive to the station, she said. She wants you to get in with her. He looked round at the cabs. All right, he said, and he picked his way across the graves to Madame, following Alvina.

End of Chapter 9, Part 1. Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 9, Part 2 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public. to Maine. So we go together in the cab, said Madame to him, then, good-bye, my dear, Miss Ofton. Perhaps we shall meet once more. Who knows? My hat is with you, my dear. She put her arms round Alvina and kissed her a little theatrically. The cousin looked on, very much aloof. Chicho stood by. Come then, Chichot, said Madame. Goodbye, said Alvina to him. You'll come again, won't you?

She looked at him from her strained, pale face. All right, he said, shaking her hand loosely. It sounded hopelessly indefinite. You will come, won't you? she repeated, staring at him with strained, unseeing blue eyes. All right, he said, ducking and turning away. She stood quite still for a moment, quite lost. Then she went on with her cousin to her cab, home to the funeral tea.

"'Good-bye,' Madame fluttered, a black-edged handkerchief, but Chichot, most comfortable in his four-wheeler, kept hidden. The funeral tea with its baked meats and sweets was a terrible affair, but it came to an end as everything comes to an end, and Miss Pinnigar and Alvina were left alone in the emptiness of Manchester House. "'If you weren't here, Miss Pinnigar, I should be quite by myself,' said Alvina, blanched and strained. "'Yes, and so should I without you,' said Miss Pinnigar, doggedly.

They looked at each other, and that night both slept in Miss Pinnigar's bed out of sheer terror of the empty house. During the days following the funeral, no one could have been more tiresome than Alvina. James had left everything to his daughter, accepting some rights in the workshop, which were Miss Pinnigar's. But the question was, how much did everything amount too? There was something less than a hundred pounds in the bank. There was a mortgage on Manchester House. There were substantial bills owing on account of the endeavour. Alvina had about a hundred pounds left from the insurance money

when all funeral expenses were paid. Of that she was sure and of nothing else. For the rest she was almost driven mad by people coming to talk to her. The lawyer came, the clergyman came, her cousin came, The old, stout, prosperous tradesmen of Woodhouse came. Mr. May came. Miss Pinnigar came. And they all had schemes and they all had advice.

The chief plan was that the theatre should be sold up and that Manchester House should be sold, reserving a lease on the top floor, where Miss Pinnigar's workrooms were. That Miss Pinnigar and Alvina should move into a small house, Miss Pinnigar keeping the workroom, Alvina giving music lessons, that the two women should be partners in the workshop.

There were other plans, of course. There was a faction against the chapel faction, which favoured the plans sketched out above. The theatre faction, including Mr May and some of the more florid tradesmen, favoured the risking of everything in the endeavour. Alvina was to be the proprietress of the endeavour. She was to run it on some sort of successful lines and abandon all other enterprise.

Minor plans included the other endeavour. election of Alvina to the post of parish nurse at six pounds a month, a small private school, a small haberdashery shop, and a position in the office of her cousin's Narborough business. To one and all Alvina answered with a tantalising, I don't know what I'm going to do, I don't know, I can't say yet, I shall see, I shall see, till one and all became angry with her. They were all so benevolent and also sure that they were proposing the very best thing she could do, and they were all nettled, even indignant that she did not jump at their proposals. She listened to them all. She even invited their advice.

Continually she said, well, what do you think of it? And she repeated the chapel plan to the theatre group, the theatre plan to the chapel party, the nursing to the pianoforte proposes, the haberdashery shop to the private school advocates. Tell me what you think, she said repeatedly. And they all told her they thought their plan was best. and bit by bit she told every advocate the proposal of every other advocate.

Well, lawyer Beebe thinks. And, well now, Mr. Clay, the minister, advises, and so on and so on, till it was all buzzing through thirty, benevolent and officious heads. And thirty benevolently officious wills were striving to plant each one its own particular scheme of benevolence. and Alvina, naive and pathetic, egged them all on in their strife, without even knowing what she was doing. One thing only was certain. Some obstinate will in her own self absolutely refused to have her mind made up.

She would not have her mind made up for her, and she would not make it up for herself. And so everybody began to say, I'm getting tired of her. You talk to her, and you get no fodder. She slips off to something else. I'm not going to bother with her anymore. In truth, Woodhouse was in a fever for three weeks or more, arranging Alvina's unarrangeable future for her. Offers of charity were innumerable for three weeks.

Meanwhile, the lawyer went on with the proving of the will and the drawing up of a final account of James's property. Mr. May went on with the endeavour, although Alvina did not go down to play. Miss Pinnigar went on with the workgirls, and Alvina went on unmaking her mind. Chichot did not come during the first week. Alvina had a postcard from Madame, from Cheshire, rather far off, but such was the buzz and excitement over her material future,

such a fever was worked up round about her, that Alvina, the petty-properited heroine of the moment, was quite carried away in a storm of schemes and benevolent suggestions. She answered Madame's postcard, but did not give much thought to the Natchakita Juarez. As a matter of fact, she was enjoying a real moment of importance, there at the centre of Woodhouse's rather domineering benevolence, a benevolence which she unconsciously, but systematically frustrated. All this scheming for selling out and making reservations and hanging on and fixing prices, and getting private bids for Manchester House and for the endeavour, the excitement of forming a limited company to run the endeavour, of seeing a lawyer about the sale of Manchester House and the auctioneer about the sale of the furniture, of receiving men who wanted to pick up the machines upstairs cheap, and of keeping everything dangling, deciding nothing, putting everything off till she had seen somebody else, this for the moment fascinated her,

went to her head. It was not until the second week had passed that her excitement began to merge into irritation, and not until the third week had gone by that she began to feel herself tangled in an asphyxating web of indecision, and her heart began to sing because Chicho had never turned up. Now she would have given anything to see the Natchakitawara's again, but she did not know where they were. Now she began to loathe the excitement of her property, doubtfully hers, every stick of it. Now she would give anything to get away from Woodhouse, from the horrible buzzer, and entanglement of her sordid affairs. Now again her wild recklessness came over her. She suddenly said she was going away somewhere. She would not say where. She cashed all the money

she could, £125. She took the train to Cheshire, to the last address of the Natchakitawara's. She followed them to Stockport and back to Chinle, and there she was stuck for the night. next day she dashed back almost to Woodhouse and swerved round to Sheffield. There, in that black town, thank heaven, she saw their announcement on the wall. She took a taxi to their theatre and then onto their lodgings. The first thing she saw was Louis, in his shirt sleeves, on the landing above. She laughed with excitement and pleasure. She seemed another woman.

Madame looked up, almost annoyed when she entered. I couldn't keep away from you, madame, she cried. "'Evidently,' said Madame. "'Madame was darning socks for the young men. "'She was a wonderful mother for them, "'sowed for them, cooked for them, "'looked after them most carefully. "'Not many minutes was Madame idle.

"'Do you mind?' said Alvina. "'Madame darned for some moments without answering. "'And how is everything at the Woodhouse?' she asked. "'I couldn't bear it any longer. "'I couldn't bear it. "'So I collected all the money I could and ran away. "'Nobody knows where I am.' madame looked up with bright black censorious eyes at the flushed girl opposite alvina had a certain strangeness and brightness which madame did not know and a frankness which the frenchwoman mistrusted but found disarming

and all the business the will and all said madame they're still fussing about it and there is some money i've got a hundred pounds here laughed alvina what there will be when everything is settled i don't know "'But not very much, I'm sure of that. "'How much do you think? "'A thousand pounds? "'Oh, it's just possible, you know, "'but it's just as likely there won't be another penny.' "'Madame nodded slowly, as always when she did her calculations. "'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. He said perhaps I might be with the Natchakitawara's. 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. Chichot didn't come to see you, eh? No, said Elvina, yet he promised. Again, Madame smiled sardonically. Do you call it a promise, she said. You are easy to be satisfied. satisfied with their 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 this 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 do you think a hundred and twenty pounds is enough?' "'What for?' "'To satisfy Chichot.' "'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 Chichot. He entered, looking not very good-tempered. "'Be so good, my dear,' said Madame to him, "'to go to the station and fetch Miss Offton's little bag. "'You have got the ticket, have you?'

"'Alvina handed the luggage ticket to Madame. "'Midland railway,' said Madame. and, Chichot, 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 Chichael. 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 quote, my dear. Soon we will have tea when Cheech 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 our 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 has nothing. but are the others? Why, you see, they are men, and they know which side to butter their bread. Men are like cats, my dear. They don't like their bread without butter. Why should they? Nor do I, nor do I.

Can I help with the darning, said Alvina. Here, I shall give you Tieto'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 Alvin's. I don't mind which sock I down, 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. Eh?

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. "'Here? 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 Ticho, 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, Cheecho 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 Huffton join the Natchekitewarras? 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, Chichot, furtive. With great pleasure, said Max, but can the Natchikikwara's afford to pay a pianist for themselves? No, said Madame, and no, I think not. Miss Ofton will come for one month to prove,

and in that time she shall pay for herself, yes? So she fancies it. Can we pay her expenses? said Max. No, said Alvina. Let me pay everything for myself for a month. I should like to be with you, awfully. She looked across with a look half mischievous, half beseeching at the erect Max. He bowed as he sat at table.

I think we shall all be honoured, he said. Certainly, said Louis, bowing also over his teacup. Geoffrey inclined his head. and Chichot lowered his eyelashes in indication of agreement. "'Now then,' said Madame briskly, "'we are all agreed. "'Tonight we will have a bottle of wine on it?' "'Yes, gentlemen?

"'What did you say? "'Chianti? "'Eh?' "'They all bowed above the table. "'And a Miss Ofton shall have her professional name, eh? "'Because we cannot say Miss Ofton.' "'What?' "'Do call me Alvina,' said Alvina.

"'Alvina, Alvina. "'No, excuse me, my dear, I don't like it. I don't like this V sound. Tonight we shall find a name. After tea they inquired for a room for Alvina. There was none in the house, but two doors away was another decent lodging house where a bedroom on the top floor was found for her.

I think you are very well here, said Madame. Quite nice, said Alvina, looking round the hideous little room and remembering her other term of probation as a maternity nurse. She dressed as attractively as possible, in her new dress of black voile, and imitating madame she put four jewelled rings on her fingers. As a rule she only wore the morning ring of black enamel and diamond,

which had been always on Miss Frost's finger. Now she left off this, and took four diamond rings and one good sapphire. She looked at herself in her mirror she had never done before, really interested in the effect she made, and in her dress she pinned a valuable old ruby brooch. Then she went down to Madame's house. Madame eyed her shrewdly with just a touch of jealousy, the eternal jealousy that must exist between the plump, pale partridge of a French woman,

whose black hair is so glossy and tidy, whose black eyes are so acute, whose black dress is so neat and chic, and the rather thin Englishwoman in soft voile, with soft, rather loose brown hair and demure blue-grey eyes. "'Oh, a difference! What a difference! "'When you have a little more flesh, then,' "'Madame made a slight click with her tongue.

"'What a good brooch, eh?' "'Madame fingered the brooch. "'Old paste. Old paste. Antique.' "'No,' said Alvina. "'They are real rubies. "'It was my great-grandmothers.' "'Do you mean it? Real? Are you sure? "'I think I am quite sure.'

"'Madame scrutinized the jewels with a fine eye. "'M? she said. "'And Alvina did not. know whether she was skeptical or jealous or admiring or really impressed. And the diamonds are real, said Madame, making Alvina hold up her hands. I've always understood so, said Alvina. Madame scrutinized and slowly nodded her head. Then she looked into Alvina's eyes, really a little jealous.

And there's a full thousand francs there, she said, nodding sagely. Really, said Alvina. For sure, it's enough, it's enough. and there was a silence between the two women. The young men had been out shopping for the supper. Louis, who knew where to find French and German stuff, came in with bundles. Chicho returned with a couple of flasks.

Geoffrey with sundry moist papers of edibles. Alvina helped Madame to put the anchovies and sardines and tunny and ham and salami on various plates. She broke off a bit of fern from one of the flower pots to stick in the pork pie. she set the table with its ugly knives and forks and glasses. All the time her rings sparkled, her red brooch sent out beams. She laughed and was gay.

She was quick, and she flattered, Madame, by being very deferential to her. Whether she was herself or not, in the hideous, common, stuffy sitting-room of the lodging house, she did not know or care, but she felt excited and gay. She knew the young men were watching her. Max gave his assistance wherever possible. Geoffrey watched her rings half spellbound, but Alvina was concerned only to flatter the plump, white, soft vanity of Madame. She carefully chose for Madame the finest plate,

the clearest glass, the whitest hafted knife, the most delicate fork, all of which Madame saw with acute eyes. At the theatre the same, Alvina played for Kishwagin, only for Kishwagin, only for Kishwagin, and Madame had the time of her life. You know, my dear, she said afterward to Alvina, I understand sympathy in music.

Music goes straight to the heart, and she kissed Alvina on both cheeks, throwing her arms round her neck dramatically. I'm so glad, said the wily Alvina, and the young men stirred uneasily and smiled furtively. They hurried home to the famous supper. Madame sat at one end of the table, Alvina at the other. Madame had Max and Louis by her side.

Alvina had Ciccio and Geoffrey. Chicho was on Alvina's right hand, a delicate hint. They began with hors d'oeuvre and tumblers three parts full of Kianti. Alvina wanted to water her wine, but was not allowed to insult the sacred liquid. There was a spirit of great liveliness and conviviality. Madame became paler, her eyes blacker. With the wine she drank, her voice became a little raucous. Tonight, she said, the Natchakitawaras make their feast of affiliation. The white daughter has entered the tribe of the Irondell, swallows that pass from land to land and build their nests between roof and wall. A new swallow,

a new huronna from the tents of the pale face, from the low, of the north and the tribe of the Yanghese. Madame's black eyes glared with a kind of wild triumph down the table at Alvina. Nameless, without having a name, comes the maiden with the red jewels, dark-hearted with the red beams. Wine from the pale-faced shadows, drunken wine for Kishwagon, strange wine for the braves in the nostrils, "'Valie, avu?' Madame lifted her glass. "'Vali, drink to her,

"'Bois to her, w'a'el.' "'She thrust her glass forwards in the air. "'The young men thrust their glasses up towards Alvina in a cluster. "'She could see their mouths all smiling, "'their teeth white as they cried in their throats. "'Valie, vali, w'er, avu!' "'Cicho was near to her. "'Under the table he laid his hand on her knee.

"'Quickly she put forward her hand to, to protect herself. He took her hand and looked at her along the glass as he drank. She saw his throat move as the wine went down it. He put down his glass, still watching her. Vali, he said, in his throat. Then across the table, Hey, Gigi, Villalé, the petit chaman. Com'o? Me prontue. There came a great burst of laughter from Louis. It is good, it is good, he cried. Oh, madame, Vialli, it is is Italian for the little way, the alley, that is too rich. Max went off into a high and ribbled laugh.

Lale Italian, he said, and shouted with laughter. Allé au revenue, what does it matter? cried Madame in French, so long as it is a good journey. Here Geoffrey at last saw the joke. With a strange, determined flourish, he filled his glass, cocking up his elbow. At your tchit, a bon voyage! "'Hage!' he said, and then he tilted up his chin and swallowed in great throatfuls. "'Certainly! Certainly!' cried Madame.

"'To their good journey, my Cichot, for thou art not a great traveller.' "'Nah, for that, you haplodun vo, said Geoffrey.' During this passage in French, Alvina sat with very bright eyes, looking from one to another and not understanding. But she knew it was something improper on her account. Her eyes had a bright, slightly bewildered look as she turned from one face to another. Chichot had let go her hand and was wiping his lips with his fingers. He too was a little self-conscious.

"'Ase de set eternel, voie-etalienne,' said Madame. "'Courage, courage, or chame, d'Angle de ch'Einel, voire,' said Chichot, looking round. Madame suddenly pulled herself together. They will not have my name. they will call you Alley, she said to Alvina. Is it good? Will it do? Quite, said Alvina.

And she could not understand why Gigi, and then the others after him, went off into a shout of laughter. She kept looking round with bright, puzzled eyes. Her face was slightly flushed and tender-looking. She looked naive, young. Then you will become one of the tribe of Natchakitawara, of the name Alleya, yes?

"'Yes,' said Alvina. "'And obey the strict rules of the tribe. "'Do you agree?' "'Yes.' "'Then listen.' Madame primmed and preened herself like a black pigeon and darted glances out of her black eyes. "'We are one tribe, one nation.'

"'Say it.' "'We are one tribe, one nation,' repeated Alvina. "'Say all,' cried Madame. "'We are one tribe, one nation,' they shouted, "'with varying accent. "'Good,' said Madame. "'And no. "'No nation do we know but the nation of the Irondel.'

"'No nation do we know but the nation of the Hirondel?' came the rugged chant of strong male voices, resonant and gay with mockery. "'Yon'Hirondel means swallows,' said Madame. "'Yes, I know,' said Alvina. "'So, you know. Well, then, we know no nation but the Irondel. We have no law but Huron law.' "'We have no law but Huron law,' "'sang the response in a deep sardonic chant.

"'We have no lawgiver except Kishwegan. "'We have no lawgiver except Kishwegan,' they sang sonorous. "'We have no home but the tent of Kishwegan. "'We have no home but the tent of Kishwagon. "'There is no good but the good of Natchakitawara.' There is no good but the good of Natchekhi Tawarra. We are the Hiron Del. We are the Hiron Del.

We are Kishwegan. We are Kishwegan. We are Monde Agua. We are Mondagua. We are Aton Krois. We are Aton Kwa. We are Pakohila. We are Pakovhila.

We are Wolgachka. We are Wolgachka. We are Alley, we are Alley. La musica, Paco Gila, La Musica, cried Madame, starting to her feet and sounding frenzied. Cicho got up quickly and took his mandoline from its case. Ah, ay, yeah, began Madame, with a long, faint wail. And on the wailing mandoline the music started. She began to dance a slight but intense dance.

then she waved for a partner and set up a Tarantella wail. Louis threw off his coat and sprang to Tarantella attention. Cicho rang out the peculiar Tarantella, and Madame and Louis danced in the tight space. "'Bra! Bravo!' cried the others, when Madame sank into her place, and they crowded forward to kiss her hand. One after the other they kissed her fingers,

whilst she laid her left hand languidly on the head of one man after another, as she sat slightly panting. Chicho, however, did not come up, but sat faintly twanging the mandoline. Nor did Alvina leave her place. Paco Gwila! cried Madame, with an imperious gesture. Alley! Come! Chicho laid down his mandolin

and went to kiss the fingers of Kishwagan. Alvina also went forward. Madame held out her hand. Alvina kissed it. Madame laid her hand on the head of Alvina. This is the third. squore Alley. This is the daughter of Kishwagin, she said, in her Tohara manner. And where is the brave of Alley? Where is the arm that upholds the daughter of Kishwagin?

Which of the swallows spreads his wings over the gentle head of the new one? Paco-o-whila, said Louis. Pac-a-pac-wheeler! Pac-O-wheeler! said the others. Spread soft wings, spread dark-roofed wings, Paco Gila, said Kishwagan, and Chicho, in his shirt-sleeves, solemnly spread his arms. Stoop, stoop al-A, beneath the wings of Paco-Hila, said Kishwagan, faintly pressing Alvina on the shoulder. Alvina stooped and crouched under the right arm of Paco-Hweiler. As the bird flown home, chanted Kishwagan, to one of the strains of their music.

The bird is home, chanted the men. "'Is the nest warm?' chanted Kishwagon. "'The nest is warm. "'Does the he bird stoop? "'He stoops. "'Who takes a lay, Baco Wheeler?' "'Cecho gently stooped and raised Alvina to her feet. "'Saysa,' said Madame, kissing her.

"'And now children, unless the Sheffield policeman, will knock at our door, "'we must retire to our wigwams all.' chicho was watching alveena madame made him a secret imperative gesture that he should accompany the young woman you have your key allay she said did i have a key said alvina madame smiled subtly as she produced a latch-key kishwega must open your doors for you all she said then with a slight flourish she presented the key to chicho i give it to him yes she smiled with her subtle maliciously smile. Chichot, smiling brightly and keeping his head ducked, took the key. Alvina looked brightly as if bewildered from one to another. Also the light, said Madame, producing a pocket flashlight which she triumphantly handed to Chicho. Alvina watched him. She noticed how he dropped his head forward from his straight, strong shoulders. How beautiful that was, the strong, forward-inclining nape

and back of the head. It produced a kind of dazed submission in her, the drugged sense of unknown beauty. And so good night, Allais, bonnui, fee de Tarraura. Madame kissed her, and darted black, unaccountable looks at her. Each brave also kissed her hand with a profound salute. Then the men shook hands warmly with Chichot, murmuring to him. He did not put on his hat nor his coat, but ran round as he was to the neighbouring house with her, and opened the door. She entered, and he followed, flashing on the light. So she climbed weakly up the dusty, drab stairs, he following. When she came to her door, she turned and looked at him.

His face was scarcely visible, it seemed, and yet so strange and beautiful. It was the unknown beauty which almost killed her. You aren't coming, she quavered. He gave an odd, half-gay, half-mossed. twicken twitch of his thick, dark brows and began to laugh silently. Then he nodded again, laughing at her boldly, carelessly, triumphantly, like the dark southerner he was. Her instinct was to defend herself, when suddenly she found herself in the dark. She gasped, and as she gasped, he quite gently put her inside her room and closed the door, keeping one arm round her all the

time. She felt his heavy, muscular predominance. So he took her in both arms, powerful, mysterious, horrible in the pitch dark, yet the sense of the unknown beauty of him weighed her down like some force. If for one moment she could have escaped from that black spell of his beauty, she would have been free, but she could not. He was awful to her, shameless, so that she died under his shamelessness, his smiling, progressive shamelessness. Yet she could not see him ugly. If only she could, for one second, have seen him ugly, he would not have killed her and made her his slave as he did.

But the spell was on her, of his darkness and unfathomed handsomeness, and he killed her. He simply took her and assassinated her. How she suffered, no one can tell. Yet, all the time, his lustrous, dark beauty, unbearable. When later she pressed her face on his chest and cried, he held her gently as if she was a child, but took no notice, and she felt in the darkness that he smiled. It was utterly dark, and she knew he smiled, and she began to get hysterical.

But he only kissed her, his smile deepening to a heavy laughter, silent and invisible, but sensible, as he carried her away once more. He intended her to be his slave, she knew, and he seemed to throw her down, and suffocate her like a wave, and she could have fought, if only the sense of his dark, rich handsomeness had not numbed her like a venom, so she was suffocated in his passion. In the morning when it was light he turned and looked at her from under his long black lashes, a long, steady, cruel, faintly smiling look from his tawny eyes, searching her as if to see whether she was still alive, and she looked back at him,

heavy-eyed and half-subjected. He smiled slightly at her, rose, and left her, and she turned her face to the wall, feeling beaten, yet not quite beaten to death. Save for the fatal numbness of her love for him, she could still have escaped him, but she lay inert, as if envenomed, he wanted to make her his slave. When she went down to the Natchiki Tawaras for breakfast, she found them waiting for her. She was rather frail and tender-looking, with wondering eyes that showed she had been crying. "'Come, daughter of the tawaras,' said madam, brightly to her. "'We have been waiting for you. Good morning, and all happiness, eh?

Look, it is a gift day for you.' Madame smilingly led Alvina to her place. Beside her plate was a bunch of violets, a bunch of carnations, a pair of exquisite bead moccasins, and a pair of fine, dough-skin gloves, delicately decorated with featherwork on the cuffs. The slippers were from Kishwegan, the gloves were from Mondagua, the carnations from Atonquois, the violets from Wolgakka, all to the daughter of the Tohara's Allay, as it said on the little cards. "'The gift of Pakahouila you know,' said Madame smiling,

"'the brothers of Pakahuella are your brothers.' One by one they went to her, and each one laid the back of her fingers against his forehead, saying in turn, I am your brother Mondagua, Alay, I am your brother Atonquah, I am your brother, Walgajka, Alay, best brother, you know, so spoke Geoffrey, looking at her with large, almost solemn eyes of affection. Alvina smiled a little wanly, wondering where she was. It was all so solemn, was it all mockery, play-acting, she felt bitterly inclined to cry. Meanwhile, Madame came in with the coffee, which she always made herself, and the party sat down to breakfast.

Chichio sat on Alvinas right, but he seemed to avoid looking at her or speaking to her. All the time he looked across the table, with the half-asserted, knowing look in his eyes, at Gigi, and all the time he addressed himself to Gigi, with the throaty, rich, plangent quality in his voice that Alvina could not bear. It seemed terrible to her. and he spoke in French, and the two men seemed to be exchanging unspeakable communications. So that Alvina, for all her wistfulness and subjectiveness, was at last seriously offended. She rose as soon as possible from table. In her own heart she wanted attention and public recognition from Chicho, none of which she got.

She returned to her own house, to her own room, anxious to tidy everything, not wishing to have her landlady in the room, and she half expected Chicho to come to speak to her. As she was busy washing a garment in the bowl, her landlady knocked and dented. She was a rough and rather beery-looking Yorkshire woman, not attractive. Oh, you've made your bed, aren't you? Yes, said Alvina. I've done everything.

I see Jan. You've been sharp. Alvina did not answer. Seems you're doing your sen a bit of wishing. Still Alvina didn't answer. You can ingotint in the backyard. I think it'll live. dry here said alveena there's no much drying up here send us out when it's ready you'll be at and wanting it i can dry it's off for you at kitchen you don't take a drop o nothing do you no said alveena i don't like it so much a bit stronger in the bottle my sake's alive

well you mona y'nay a fling like rest but come now which one on em is it i catch sight of him going out but i didn't me out which one of em it was eh eh it's a pity you don't take a drop o nothing it's a world's pity is it fair is it fair is it on them, the tallest. No, said Alvina, the darkest one. Oh, aye? Well, there's a strapping enough fellow for them as goes that road. I thought madame was particular. I'll charge her a bit more, you know, as'll have to make a bit out of it. I'm particular as a rule. I don't like him coming in and going out, you know. Things get said. You look so quiet you do. Come now, it's worth extra quart to me, else I shan't have it. I shan't. You can't make as free as all that with the house, you know, be what it may. She stood red-faced and dower in the doorway. Alvina quietly gave her half a sovereign.

Nay, lass, said the woman, if you share niver a drop at flashing, you mun split it. Five shillings is oceans, my wench. I'm not down on you, not me. Only, we've got to keep up appearances a bit, you know. Dash my rags, it's a caution. I haven't got five shillings, said Alvina. You have not. All right, giz, gis half a crown today, and another tomorrow. It'll keep. It'll keep. God bless you for a good wench. Open arts worth all your bum-righteousness. It is for me. And a sight more. You're all right, my wench. You're all right. And the rather bleary woman went nodding away. Alvina ought to have minded, but she didn't. She even laughed into her rickety mirror. At the back of her thoughts, all she minded was that

Chicho did not pay her some attention. She really expected him now to come to speak to her, if she could have imagined how far he was from any such intention. So she loitered unwillingly at her window, high over the grey, hard, cobbled street, and saw her landlady hastening along the black asphalt pavement, her dirty apron thrown discreetly over what was most obviously a quart jug. She followed the squat, intent figure with her eye, to the public house at the corner, and then she saw Chicho humped over his yellow bisoner, going for a steep and perilous ride with Gigi.

Still she lingered in her sordid room. She could feel Madame was expecting her, but she felt inert, weak, incommunicative. Only a real fear of offending Madame drove her down at last. Max opened the door to let her in. Ah, he said, you've come. We were wondering about you. Thank you, she said, as she passed into the dirty hall where still two bicycles stood.

Madame is in the kitchen, he said. Alvina found Madame trust in a large white apron, busy rubbing a yellow fleshed hen with lemon previous to boiling. "'Ah!' said Madame, so there you are! I have been out and done my shopping, and already begun to prepare the dinner. "'Yes, you may help me. Can you wash leeks? Yes, every grain of sand? Shall I trust you then?' Madame usually had a kitchen to herself in the morning. She either ousted her landlady or used her a second cook. But Madame was a gourmet, if not gourmet. If she inclined towards self-indulgence in any direction, it was in the direction of food.

She loved a good table, and hence the towaras saved less money than they might. She was an exacting, tormenting, bullying cook. Alvina, who knew well enough how to prepare a simple dinner, was offended by Madame's exactions, Madame turning back the green leaves of a leak, and hunting a speck of earth down into the white, like a flea in a bed was too much for Alvina.

I'm afraid I shall never be particular enough, she said. Can't I do anything else for you? For me? I need nothing to be done for me. But for the young men, yes, I will show you in one minute. And she took Alvina upstairs to her room and gave her a pair of the thin leather trousers, fringed with hair, belonging to one of the braves. A seam had ripped. Madame gave Alvina a fine all

and some waxed thread. "'The leather is not good in these things of Jijis,' she said. "'It is badly prepared. "'See, like this.' And she showed Alvina another place where the garment was repaired. "'Keep on your apron. "'At the weekend you must fetch more clothes, "'not spoil this beautiful gown of wool.

"'Where have you left your diamonds? "'What, in your room? "'Are they locked? "'Oh, my dear!' "'Madam turned pale and darted looks of fire at Alvina. "'If they are stolen!' she cried. All have become quite weak, hearing you. She panted and shook her head.

If they had not stolen you, I had the only saints alone to be thankful for keeping them. But run, run! And Madame really stamped her foot. Bring me everything you've got. Everything that is valuable. I shall lock it up. How can you? Avina was hustled off to her lodging.

Fortunately nothing was gone. She brought all to Madame, and Madame fingered the treasures lovingly. "'Now what you want you must ask me for,' she said. "'With what close curiosity, Madame examined the ruby brooch.' "'You can have that if you like, madame,' said Alvina. "'You mean—' "'What?' "'I will give you that brooch, if you like to take it.'

"'Give me this,' cried Madame, and a flash went over her face. Then she changed into a sort of wheedling. "'No, no, I shan't take it. I shan't take it. you don't want to give away such a thing? I don't mind, said Alvina. Do take it if you like it. Oh, no.

Oh, no, I can't take it. A beautiful thing, it is really. It would be worth over a thousand francs, because I believe it is quite genuine. I'm sure it's genuine, said Alvina. Do have it, since you like it. Oh, I can't. I can't.

Yes, do. The beautiful red stones, antique gems, antique gems, and do you really give it to me? Yes, I should like to. You are a girl with a noble art, Madame threw her arms round Alvina's neck and kissed her. Alvina felt very cool about it. Madame locked up the jewels quickly, after one last look. My foul, she said, which must not boil too fast.

At length Alvina was called down to dinner. The young men were at table, talking as young men. do, not very interestingly. After the meal, Chichot sat and twanged his mandoline, making its crying noise vibrate through the house. I shall go and look at the town, said Alvina. And who shall go with you? asked Madame. I'll go alone, said Alvina, unless you will come, madame. Alas, no, I can't. I can't come. Will you really go alone? Yes, I want to go to the women's shops, said Alvina. You want to? All right, then. And you will come home at tea time, yes? As soon as Alvina had gone out, Chichot put away his mandoline and lit a cigarette.

Then after a while he hailed Geoffrey and the two young men sallied forth. Alvina, emerging from a draper shop in Rotherhampton Broadway, found them loitering on the pavement outside, and they strolled along with her. So she went into a shop that sold ladies' underwear, leaving them on the pavement. She stayed as long as she could, but there they were when she came out. They had endless lounging,

I thought you would be gone on, she said. No worry, said Chichot, and he took away her parcels from her, as if he had a right. She wished he wouldn't tilt the flap of his black hat over one eye, and she wished there wasn't quite so much waistline in the cut of his coat, and that he didn't smoke cigarettes against the end of his nose in the street. But wishing wouldn't alter him. He strayed alongside as if he half belonged, and half didn't, most irritating. She wasted as much time as possible in the shops, then they took the tram home again. Chichot paid the three fares, laying his hand restrainingly on Gigi's hand, when Gigi's hand sought pence in his trouser pocket, and throwing his arm over his friend's shoulder,

in affectionate but vulgar triumph when the fairs were paid. Alvina was on her high horse. They tried to talk to her, they tried to ingratiate themselves, but she wasn't having any. She talked with icy pleasantness, and so the tea time passed and the time after tea. The performance went rather mechanically at the theatre, and the supper at home, with bottled beer and boiled ham, was a conventionally cheerful affair. Even Madame was a little afraid of Alvina this evening. I'm tired. I shall go early to my room, said Alvina. Yes, I think we are all tired, said Madame.

Why is it, said Max, metaphysically? Why is it that two merry evenings never follow one behind the other? Max, Beale makes thee a farceur of a fine quality, said Madame. Alvina rose. Please don't get up, she said to the others. I have my key and can see quite well, she said. Good night all. They rose and bowed their good nights,

but Chichot, with an obstinate and ugly little smile on his face, followed her. Please don't come, she said, turning at the street door. but obstinately he lounged into the street with her. He followed her to her door. Did you bring the flashlight, she said. The stair is so dark. He looked at her and turned as if to get the light. Quickly she opened the house door and slipped inside,

shutting it sharply in his face. He stood for some moments looking at the door and an ugly little look mounted his straight nose. He too turned indoors. Alvina hurried to bed and slept well, and the next day the same, she was all icy pleasantness. The Natchikikawaras were a little bit put out by her. She was a spoke in their wheel, a scotch to their facility.

She made them irritable, and that evening it was Friday. Chicho did not rise to accompany her to her house, and she knew they were relieved that she had gone. That did not please her. The next day, which was Saturday, the last and greatest day of the week, she found herself again somewhat of an outsider in the troop. The tribe had assembled in its old unison. She was the intruder, the interloper,

and Chichot never looked at her, only showed her the half-averted side of his cheek, on which was a slightly jeering, ugly look. "'Will you got to Woodhouse to-mour?' Madame asked her, rather coolly. They none of them called her Alley anymore. "'I'd better fetch some things, hadn't I?' said Alvina. certainly if you think you will stay with us this was a nasty slap in the face for her but i want to she said yes then you will go to woodhouse tomorrow and come to mansfield on monday morning like that it shall be you will stay one night at woodhouse through alvena's mind flitted the rapid thought they want an evening without me her pride mounted obstinately she very nearly said i may stay in woodhouse altogether but she very nearly said i may stay in woodhouse altogether but she

held her tongue. After all, they were very common people. They ought to be glad to have her. Look how madame snapped up that brooch, and look what an uncouth lout chicho was. After all, she was demeaning herself shamefully, staying with them in common, sordid lodgings. After all, she had been bred up differently from that. They had horribly low standards, such low standards, not only of morality, but of life altogether. Really, she had come down in the world. She had to world, conforming to such standards of life. She evoked the images of her mother and Miss Frost, ladies and noble women both. Whatever could she be thinking of herself? However there was time for her to retrace her steps. She had not given herself away, except a Cicho, and her heart burned

when she thought of him, partly with anger and mortification, partly, alas, with undeniable and unsatisfied love. Let her bridal a she, she might, her heart burned, and she wanted to look at him, she wanted him to notice her, and instinct told her that he might ignore her forever. She went to her room, an unhappy woman, and wept and fretted till morning, chafing between humiliation and yearning. End of, Chapter 9, Part 2. Read by Tony Foster Chapter 10, Part 1 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This The Brevox recording is in the public domain.

The Fall of Manchester House Alvina rose, chastened and wistful. As she was doing her hair, she heard the plaintive nasal sound of Chichos' mandoline. She looked down the mixed vista of backyards and little gardens and was able to catch sight of a portion of Chicho, who was sitting on a box in the blue brick yard of his house, bareheaded and in his shirt sleeves, twitching away at the wall. wailing mandoline. It was not a warm morning, but there was a streak of sunshine. Alvina had noticed

that Chicho did not seem to feel the cold, unless it were a wind or a driving rain. He was playing the wildly yearning Neapolitan songs, of which Alvina knew nothing, but although she only saw a section of him, the glimpse of his head was enough to rouse in her that overwhelming fascination, which came and went in spells. His remoteness, his southerness, something velvety and dark, so easily she might miss him altogether. Within a hair's breadth, she had let him disappear. She hurried down. Geoffrey opened the door to her.

She smiled at him in a quick, luminous smile, a magic change in her. I could hear Chichot playing, she said. Geoffrey spread his rather thick lips in a smile, and jerked his head in the direction of the back door, with a deep, intimate look into Alvina's eyes, as if to say his friend was lovesick. Shall I go through? said Alvina. Geoffrey laid his large hand on her shoulder for a moment, looked into her eyes and nodded. He was a broad-shouldered fellow, with a rather flat, handsome face, well-coloured,

and with the look of the alpine ox about him, slow, eternal, even a little mysterious. Alvina was startled by the deep, mysterious look in his dark, fringed ox eyes. The odd arch of his eyebrows made him suddenly seem not quite human to her. She smiled to him again, startled. But he only inclined his head, and with his heavy hand on her shoulder, gently impelled her towards Chichot. When she came out at the back, she smiled straight into Chichot's face with her sudden, luminous smile. His hand on the mandoline trembled into silence.

He sat looking at her with an instant re-establishment of knowledge, and yet she shrank from the long, inscrutable gaze of his black set, tawny eyes. She resented him a little. And yet she went forward to him and stood so that her dress touched him, and still he gazed up at her, with the heavy, unspeaking look that seemed to bear her down. He seemed like some creature that was watching her for his person, purposes. She looked aside at the black garden, which had a wiry gooseberry bush. You will come with me to Woodhouse, she said. He did not answer till she turned to him again.

Then, as she met his eyes, to Woodhouse, he said, watching her to fix her. Yes, she said, a little pale at the lips. And she saw his eternal smile of triumph, slowly growing round his mouth. She wanted to cover his mouth with her hand. She preferred his tawny eyes with their black brows and lashes. His eyes watched her as a cat watches a bird, but without the white gleam of ferocity. In his eyes was a deep, deep, deep sun-warmth, something fathomless, deepening, black and abysmal, but somehow sweet to her. 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, sir, 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 mandolin, "'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 Vois 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? Saganade before breakfast? "'You have strong stomachs, I see. "'Egs and arm are more the question, huh? "'Come, you smell them, don't you?' "'A flicker of contempt and derision "'went over Chichot's face as he broke off "'and looked aside.

"'I prefer the serenade,' said Alvina. "'I've had ham and eggs before.' "'You do, huh? "'Well, always you won't. "'And now you must eat the ham and eggs, however. "'Yes, isn't it so?' "'Cicho 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 stroked the nape of her neck, and passed 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 Chichot 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, Alley, go on to Naborer, and we will leave you until tomorrow. And now there is not much time. I am going to Woodhouse, said Chicho, in French. You also? By the train or the bicycle?

Train, said Chichot. Waste so much money? Chichael raised his shoulders slightly. When breakfast was over and Alvina had gone to her room, Geoffrey went out into the backyard where the bicycles stood. Cheech, he said, I should like to go with thee to Woodhouse. Come on bicycle with me. Chichael shook his head.

I am going in train with her, he said. Geoffrey darkened with his heavy anger. I would like to know how it is there, Chelle, he said. "'Ask her,' said Chichot. "'Jeffrey watched him suddenly. "'Thou forsakest me,' he said. "'I would like to see it, there.' "'Ask her,' repeated Chichot.

"'Then come on bicycle.' "'You're content to leave me,' muttered Geoffrey. "'Cichot 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 the bicycle, eh? "'Ask her. Go on. Go on and ask her.' "'Alvina was surprised to hear a tap at her door, "'and Jiji's voice in his strong foreign accent. "'Miss Huffton, 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 reassured him.' "'Nah, I lie,' he said. "'Tell me something.' "'What?' laughed Alvina. "'Can I come to Woodhouse?' "'When?'

"'Today? "'Can I come to bicycle to tea, eh? "'At your house with you and Chichot, eh?' "'He was smiling with a thick, doubtful, "'half-sullened smile. "'Do,' said Alvina. "'He looked at her with his large, dark blue eyes. "'Really, eh?' he said,

"'holding out his large hand. "'She shook hands with him warmly. "'Yes, really,' she said. "'I wish she would.' "'Good,' he said, "'a broad smile on his thick mouth, "'and all the time he watched her curiously "'from his large eyes.

"'Cicho, a good chap, eh?' he said. "'Is he?' laughed Alvina. "'Ha! "'Gee shook his head solemnly. "'The best!' "'He made such solemn eyes,' Alvina laughed. "'He laughed too and picked up her bag "'as if it were a bubble.

"'Nachitch,' he said, "'as he saw Chichiech,' he said, as he saw Chichot in the street. Som d'Aco? Ben, said Chichot, holding out his hand for the bag. Done. Ne, no, says Jiji, shrugging.

Alvina found herself on the new and busy station that Sunday morning, one of the little theatrical company. It was an odd experience. They were so obviously a theatrical company. People apart from the world. Madame was darting her black eyes here and there behind her spotted veil.

and standing with the ostensible self-possession of her profession. Max was circling round with large strides, round a big black box on which the red words Natchakitawara showed mystic, and round the small bunch of stage fittings at the end of the platform. Louis was waiting to get the tickets. Gigi and Chichot were bringing up the bicycles. They were a whole train of departure in themselves, busy, bustling, cheerful, and curiously apart, vagrants.

Alvina strolled away towards the half-open bookstall. Geoffrey was standing, monumental, between her and the company. She returned to him. "'What time shall we expect you?' she said. He smiled at her in his broad, friendly fashion. "'Expect me to be there? Why?' he rolled his head and proceeded to calculate. "'At four o'clock.

Just about the time when we get there,' she said. said. He looked at her sagely and nodded. They were a good-humoured company in the railway carriage. The men smoked cigarettes and tapped off the ash on the heels of their boots. Madame watched every traveller with professional curiosity. Max scrutinised the newspaper, Lloyd's, and pointed out items to Louis, who read them over Max's shoulder. Chichos suddenly smacked Geoffrey on the thigh and looked laughing into his face. So, till they arrived at the junction. And they were the junction. And they Then there was a kissing and a taking of farewells, as if the company was separating forever. Louis darted into the refreshment bar and returned with little pies and oranges, which he

deposited in the carriage. Madame presented Alvina with a packet of chocolate, and it was Goodbye, Goodbye, Ciccio, Bon voyage, have a good time both. So Alvina sped on in the fast train to Narborough with Cicho. I do like them all, she said. He opened. He always. He opened his mouth slightly and lifted his head up and down. She saw in the movement how affectionate he was, and in his own way how emotional. He loved them all. She put her hand to his. He gave her hand one sudden squeeze, of physical understanding, then left it as if nothing had happened. There were other people in the carriage with them. She could not help feeling how sudden and lovely that moment's grasp of his hand was, so warm, so whole. And thus they watched the Sunday

morning landscape slipped by as they ran into Narborough. They went out to a little restaurant to eat. It was one o'clock. Isn't it strange that we are travelling together like this, she said, as she sat opposite him. He smiled, looking into her eyes. You think it's strange, he said, showing his teeth slightly. Don't you, she cried. He gave a slight, laconic laugh. And I can hardly bear it that I love you so much, she said, quavering across, the potatoes. He glanced furtively round to see if anyone was listening, if anyone might hear. He would have hated it, but no one was near. Beneath the tiny table he took her two knees between his knees, and pressed them with a slow, immensely powerful pressure. Helplessly she put her hand

across the table to him. He covered it for one moment with his hand, then ignored it, but her knees were still between the powerful living vice of his knees. Eat, he said to her, smiling, motioning to her plate, and he relaxed her. They decided to go out to Woodhouse on the tram car, a long hour's ride. Sitting on the top of the covered car, in the atmosphere of strong tobacco smoke, he seemed self-conscious, withdrawn into his own cover, so obviously a dark-skinned foreigner. And Alvina, as she sat beside her. him was reminded of the woman with the negro husband down in Lumley. She understood the woman's

reserve. She herself felt, in the same way, something of an outcast because of the man at her side. An outcast! And glad to be an outcast! She clung to Ticho's dark, despised, foreign nature. She loved it, she worshipped it. She defied all the other world. Dark, he sat beside her, drawn into himself, overcast by his presumed inferiority among these northern industrial people, and she was with him, on his side, outside the pale of her own people. There were already acquaintances on the tram. She nodded in answer to their salutation, but so obviously from a distance that they kept turning round to eye her and Chichot, but they left her alone. The breach between her and them was established forever,

and it was her will which established it. So up and down the weary hills of the hilly, industrial countryside, till at last they drew near to Woodhouse. They passed the ruins of Throttle-Hapney, and Alvina glanced at it indifferent. They ran along the Narborough Road. A fair number of Woodhouse young people were strolling along the pavements in their Sunday clothes.

She knew them all. She knew Lizzie Bates's foxfurs and Fanny Clough's lilac costume, and Mrs. Smitham's winged hat. She knew them all, and almost inevitably the old Woodhouse feeling began to steal over her. She was glad they could not see her. She was a little ashamed of Chicho. She wished for the moment Chicho were not there. And as the time came to get down, she looked anxiously back and forth to see at which halt she had better descend, where fewer people would notice her. But then she threw her scruples to the wind and descended into the staring Sunday afternoon street, attended by Chichot, who carried her bag.

She knew she was a marked figure. They slipped round to Manchester House. Miss Pinnigar expected Alvina, but by the train, which came later, so she had to be knocked up, but she was lying down. She opened the door, looking a little patched in her cheeks, because of her curious colouring, and a little forlorn, and a little dumpy, and a little irritable. "'I didn't know there'd be two of you,' was her greeting. "'Didn't you?' said Alvina, kissing her. "'Cicho came to carry my bag.'

"'Oh,' said Miss Pinnigar, "'how'd you do?' And she thrust out her hand to him. He shook it loosely. "'I had your wire,' said Miss Pinnigar. "'You said the train. "'Mrs. Rowlings is coming in at four again.' "'Oh, all right,' said Alvina.

"'The house was silent and afternoon-like. "'Cichie-ch took off his coat and sat down in Mr. Huffton's chair. Alvina told him to smoke. He kept silent and reserved. Miss Pinnigar, a poor, patch-cheeked, rather round-backed figure with grey-brown fringe, stood as if she did not quite know what to say or do. She followed Elvina upstairs to her room. "'I can't think why you bring him here,' snapped Miss Pinnigar. "'I don't know what you're thinking about. The whole place is talking already.' "'I don't care,' said Alvina. "'I like him.'

"'Oh, for shame!' cried Miss Pinnigar. "'lifting her hand with Miss Frost's helpless, involuntary movement. "'What do you think of yourself? "'And your father a month dead? "'It doesn't matter. "'Father is dead, and I'm sure the dead don't mind. "'I never knew such things as you say. "'Why, I mean them.'

"'Miss Pinnigar's stood blank and helpless. "'You're not asking him to stay the night,' she blurted. "'Yes, and I'm going back with him to Madame to-morrow. "'You know I'm part of the company now, as pianist.' "'And are you going to marry him?' "'I don't know.' "'How can you say you don't know? "'Why, it's awful.

"'You make me feel I shall go out of my mind.' "'But I don't know,' said Alvina. "'It's incredible, simply incredible. "'I believe you're out of your senses. "'I used to think sometimes "'there was something wrong with your mother, "'and that's what it is with you. "'You're not quite right in your mind.

"'You need to be looked after. "'Do I, Miss Pinnigar? "'Ah, well, don't you trouble to look after. me, will you? No one will if I don't. I hope no one will. There was a pause. I'm ashamed to live another day in Woodhouse, said Miss Pinnigar. I'm leaving it forever, said Alvina. I should think so, said Miss Pinnigar. Suddenly she sank into a chair and burst into tears, wailing, Your poor father! Your poor father! I'm sure the dead are all right. Why must you pity him? You're a lost girl! cried.

Miss Pinnigar. Am I really? laughed Alvina. It sounded funny. Yes, you're a lost girl, sobbed Miss Pinnigar, on a final note of despair. I like being lost, said Alvina.

Miss Pinnagar wept herself into silence. She looked huddled and forlorn. Alvina went to her and laid her hand on her shoulder. Don't fret, Miss Pinnigar, she said. Don't be silly. I love to be with Chichot and Madame. Perhaps in the end. I shall marry him. But if I don't, her hand suddenly gripped Miss Pinnigar's heavy arm till it hurt.

I wouldn't lose a minute of him. No, not for anything, would I? Paul Miss Pinnigar dwindled, convinced. You make it hard for me in Woodhouse, she said, hopeless. Never mind, said Alvina, kissing her. Woodhouse isn't heaven and earth? It's been my home for 40 years. "'It's been mine for thirty. "'That's why I'm glad to leave it.' There was a pause. "'I've been thinking,' said Miss Pinnigar, "'about opening a little business in Tamworth.

"'You know the Watson's are there?' "'I believe you'd be happy,' said Alvina. "'Miss Pinnigar pulled herself together. "'She had energy and courage still. "'I don't want to stay here anyhow,' she said. "'Woodhouse has nothing for me any more.' "'Of course it hasn't,' said Alvina. "'I think you'd be happier away from it.'

"'Yes, probably I should. Now.' "'Noneless, poor Miss Pinnigar was grey-haired. "'She was almost a dumpy, odd old woman.' "'They went downstairs. Miss Pinnigar put on the kettle. "'Would you like to see the house?' said Alvina, to Chicho. "'He nodded, and she took him from room to room. "'His eyes looked quickly and curiously over everything, "'noticing things, but without criticism.

"'This was my mother's little sitting-room. she said. She sat here for years in this chair. Always here, he said, looking into Alvinas face. Yes, she was ill with her heart. This is another photograph of her. I'm not like her. Who is that? he asked, pointing to a photograph of the handsome, white-haired Miss Frost. That was Miss Frost, my governess. She lived here till she died. I loved her. She meant everything to me. She also dead. Yes, five years ago. They went to the drawing room.

He laid his hand on the keys of the piano, sounding a chord. Play, she said. He shook his head, smiling slightly. But he wished her to play. She sat and played one of Kishwagin's pieces. He listened, faintly smiling. Fine piano, eh? he said, looking into her face. I like the tone, she said.

Is it yours? The piano? Yes, I suppose everything is mine. in name at least. I don't know how father's affairs are really. He looked at her, and again his eye wandered over the room. He saw a little coloured portrait of a child with a fleece of brownish gold hair and surprised eyes, in a pale blue, stiff frock with a broad, dark blue sash. You, he said. Do you recognise me, she said? Aren't I comical? She took him upstairs, first to the monumental bedroom. This was mother's room, she said. Now it is mine.

he looked at her then at the things in the room then out of the window then at her again she flushed and hurried to show him his room and the bathroom then she went downstairs he kept glancing up at the height of the ceilings the size of the rooms taking in the size and proportion of the house and the quality of the fittings it is a big house she said yours mine in name said alvina father left all to me and his debts as well you see "'Mudge debts?' "'Oh, yes, I don't quite know how much, "'but perhaps more debts than there is property. "'I should go and see the law in the morning. "'Perhaps there will be nothing at all left for me "'when everything is paid.

"'She had stopped on the stairs, telling him this, "'turning round to him, who was on the steps above. "'He looked down on her, calculating. "'Then he smiled sourly. "'Bad job, eh, if it is all gone,' he said. "'I don't mind, really, if I can live,' she said. "'He spread his hands, depred, not understanding. Then he glanced up the stairs and along the corridor again, and downstairs into the hall.

A fine, big house, grander, if it was yours, he said. I wish it were, she said, rather pathetically, if you like it so much. He shrugged his shoulders. He said, I'll not like it. I don't like it, she said. I think it's a gloomy, miserable hole. I hate it. I've lived here all my life and seen everything bad happen here. I hate it. Why, you? he said, with a curious, sarcastic intonation. It's a bad job if it isn't yours, for certain, he said, as they entered the living room, where Miss Pinnigar sat cutting bread and butter. What? said Miss Pinnigar sharply. The house, said Alvina. Oh well, we don't know. We'll hope for the best, replied Miss Pinnigar,

arranging the bread and butter on the plate. Then, rather tart, she added, it is a bad job, and a good many things are a bad job besides that. If Miss Huffton had what she ought to have, things would be very different, I assure you. Oh yes, said Chichael, to whom this address was directed. Very different, indeed. If all the money hadn't been lost in the way it has, Miss Huffton wouldn't be playing the piano, for one thing, in a cinematograph show. No, but perhaps not, said Chichael. Certainly not. It's not the right thing for her to be doing at all. "'You think not,' said Chichael. "'Do you imagine it is?' said Miss Pinnigar,

turning point-blank on him, as he sat by the fire. He looked curiously at Miss Pinnigar, grinning slightly. "'He said, how do I know?' "'I should have thought it was obvious,' said Miss Pinnigar. "'He ejaculated, not fully understanding.' "'But of course, those that are used to nothing better "'can't see anything but what they used to,' she said, rising and shaking the crumbs from her black silk apron into the fire.

He watched her. Miss Pinnagar went away into the scullery. Alvina was laying a fire in the drawing-room. She came with a dust-pan to take some coal from the fire of the living-room. What do you want? said Chicho, rising, and he took the shovel from her hand. Big hot fires, aren't they? he said, as he lifted the burning coals from the glowing mass of the grate. Enough, said Alvina.

"'Enough, we'll put it in the drawing-room.' He carried the shovel of flaming, smoking coals to the other room, and threw them in the grate on the sticks, watching Alvina put on more pieces of coal. "'Fine, a fire! Quick work, eh? A beautiful thing, a fire. You know what they say in my place? You can live without food, but you can't live without fire.'

"'But I always thought it was hot in Naples,' said Alvina. "'No, it isn't. And in my village, you know, when I was a small boy.' that was in the mountains, an hour quick train from Naples, cold in the winter, hot in the summer. As cold as England, said Alvina. Eh, and colder. The wolves come down. You could hear them crying in the night, in the frost.

How terrifying, said Alvina. And they will kill the dogs. Always they kill the dogs. You know, they hate dogs, wolves do. He made a queer noise to show how wolves hate dogs. Alvina understood and laughed. So should I, if I was a wolf, she said. Yes, eh?

His eyes gleamed on her for a moment. Ah, but the poor dogs, you find them bitten, carried away among the trees or the stones, hard to find them the next day. How frightened they must be, said Alvina. Frightened? He made sudden gesticulations and ejaculations, which added volumes to his few words. And did you like it, your voice? village, she said. He put his head on one side in deprecation. No, he said, because, you see,

there is nothing to do, no money. Work, work, work, work. No life, you see nothing. When I was a small boy, my father, he died, and my mother comes with me to Naples. Then I go with the little boats on the sea, fishing, carrying people. He flourished his hand as if to make her understand all the things that must be wordless. He smiled at her, but there was a faint, poignant sadness and remoteness in him, a beauty of old fatality and ultimate indifference to fate. And were you very poor? Bore? Why, yes, nothing. Rags, no shoes, bread, little fish from the sea, shellfish. His hands flickered, his eyes rested on her with a profound look of knowledge, and it seemed, in spite of all, one state was very much the same to him as.

another. Poverty was as much life as affluence. Only he had a sort of jealous idea that it was humiliating to be poor, and so, for vanity's sake, he would have possessions. The countless generations of civilisation behind him had left him an instinct of the world's meaninglessness. Only his little modern education made money and independence and ID fixay. Old instinct told him the world was nothing. But modern education, so shallow, was very much. Was very much. much more efficacious than instinct. It drove him to make a show of himself to the world. Alvina, watching him, as if hypnotized, saw his old beauty, formed through civilization after civilization, and at the same time she saw his modern vulgarianism and decadence.

And when you go back, you will go back to your old village, she said. He made a gesture with his head and shoulders, evasive, non-committal. I don't know, you see, he said. "'What is the name of it?' "'Pesco Calasio.' "'He said the word subduedly, unwillingly. "'Tell me again,' said Alvina. "'Pesco Calasio!' "'She repeated it.

"'And tell me how you spell it,' she said. "'He fumbled in his pocket for a pencil and a piece of paper. "'She rose and brought him an old sketchbook. "'He wrote, slowly, but with the beautiful Italian hand, "'the name of his village.' "'And write your name,' she said. "'Marasca Francesco,' he wrote. and write the name of your father and mother, she said.

He looked at her inquiringly. I want to see them, she said. Marasca Giovanni, he wrote, and under that Califano Maria. She looked at the four names in the graceful Italian script, and one after the other she read them out. He corrected her, smiling gravely. When she said them properly, he nodded,

Yes, he said, that's it. You say it well. At that moment Miss Pinnigar came in to say Mrs. Rowley, had seen another of the young men riding down the street. That's Gigi. He doesn't know how to come here, said Chichot, quickly taking his hat and going out to find his friend. Geoffrey arrived, his broad face hot and perspiring. Couldn't you find it? said Alvina.

I find the house, but I could not find no door, said Geoffrey. They all laughed and sat down to tea. Geoffrey and Chichot talked to each other in French and kept each other in countenance. Fortunately for them, Madame had seen. to their table manners, but still they were far too free and easy to suit Miss Pinnaker. "'Do you know,' said Chichot, in French to Geoffrey, "'what a fine house this is?'

"'No,' said Geoffrey, rolling his large eyes round the room, and speaking with his cheeks stuffed out with food. "'Is it? Ah, if it was hers, you know.' And so, after tea, Chichio said to Alvina, "'Shall you let Geoffrey see the house?' The talk commenced again. Jeffrey, with his thick legs, planted apart, gazed round the rooms, and made his comments in French to Chichot.

When they climbed the stairs, he fingered the big, smooth, mahogany banister rail. In the bedroom he stared, almost dismayed at the colossal bed and cupboard. In the bathroom he turned on the old-fashioned silver taps. Here is my room, said Chichot, in French. "'Ace Halloween!' replied Gigi. Chichiecho also glanced along the corridor. Yes, he said, but an open course. Look, my boy, if you could marry this, meaning the house.

Ha, she doesn't know if it deserves any more. Perhaps the debts cover every bit of it. Don't say so. Nah, that's a pity. That's a pity. La Pover fie, povre demoiselle, lamented Geoffrey. Isn't it a pity? What dost say?

A thousand pities. A thousand pities. my boy. Love needs no havings, but marriage does. Love is for all, even the grasshoppers. But marriage means a kitchen. That's how it is. La Pover de Moselle. It's malure for her. That's the true, said Chichot. And also for me as well. For thee as well, cher, perhaps, said Geoffrey, laying his hand on Chichot's shoulder and giving him a sudden hug. They smile to each other. "'Who knows?' said Chicho.

"'Who knows, truly, my chich!' As they went downstairs to rejoin Alvina, whom they heard playing on the piano in the drawing-room, Geoffrey peeped once more into the big bedroom. "'Tou, never mante so hot, my beau. "'For me, it would be difficult to me levee. "'I'd bein'er, me. "'Tou, you've also a bit abey, eh?

"'Nest? "'You, there's place for you?' said Chit. you? No, I crevereré la rote, not for me, and they went laughing downstairs. Miss Pinnagar was sitting with Alvina, determined not to go to chapel this evening. She sat, rather hulked, reading a novel. Alvina flirted with the two men, played the piano to them, and suggested a game of cards. Oh, Alvina, you will never bring out the cards tonight, expostulated poor Miss Pinnagar. But Miss Pinnigar, it can't possibly hurt anybody.

you know what i think and what your father thought and your mother and miss frost you see i think it's only prejudice said alvina oh very well said miss pinnigar angrily and closing her book she rose and went to the other room alvina brought out the cards and a little box of pence which remained from endeavour harvests at that moment there was a knock it was mr may miss pinnigar brought him in in triumph oh he said company i heard you'd come, Miss Huffton, so I hastened to pay my compliments. I didn't know you had company. How do you do, Francesco? How do you do, Geoffrey? Como on allé, you, al-you-do, all right? Well, said Geoffrey.

You are going to take a hand? Cards on Sunday evening? Dear me, what a revolution. Of course, I'm not bigoted. If Miss Huffton asks me? Miss Pinnigar looked solemnly at Alvina. Yes, do take a hand, Mr. May, said Alvina. "'Thank you. I will, then, if I may,

"'especially as I see those tempting piles of pennies and hapenies. "'Who is bank, may I ask? "'Is Miss Pennegar going to play, too?' "'But Miss Pinagher had turned her poor, bowed back, and departed. "'I'm afraid she's offended,' said Alvina. "'But why we don't put her soul in danger, do we now? "'I'm a good Catholic, you know, I can't do with these provincial little creeds.' "'Who deals? Do you, Miss Huffton? But I'm afraid we shall have a rather dry game.'

"'What? Isn't that your opinion?' The other men laughed. "'If Miss Huffton would just allow me to run round and bring something in, yes? May I? That would be so much more cheerful. What is your choice, gentlemen?' "'Beer,' said Chichot, and Geoffrey nodded. "'Beer! Oh, really? Extrondry. I always take a little whiskey myself. What kind of beer? Ale or bitter? I'm afraid I'd better bring bottles. Now, how can I secrete them? You haven't a small travelling case, Miss Huffton. Then I shall look as if I'd just been taking a journey, which I have, to the sun and back. And if that isn't far enough, even for Miss Pinnigar and John Wesley, why, I'm sorry.

Alvina produced the travelling case. Excellent, he said. Excellent. It'll hold half a dozen beautifully. Now, he fell into a whisper, hadn't I better sneak out at the front door and so escaped the clutches of the watchdog? Out he went, on tiptoe, the other two men grinning at him. Fortunately there were glasses, the best old glasses in the side cupboard in the drawing room, but unfortunately, when Mr. May returned, a corkscrew was in request. So Alvina stole to the kitchen. Miss Pinnigar sat dumped by the fire with her spectacles and her book. She watched like a lynx as Alvina returned, and she saw the tell-tale corkscrew, so she dumped a little deeper in her chair. There was a sound of revelry by night!

For Mr May, after a long depression, was in high feather. They shouted, positively shouted over their cards. They roared with excitement, expostulation and laughter. Miss Pinnigar sat through it all, but at one point, she could bear it no longer. The drawing-room door opened, and the dumpy, hulked, faded woman in a black serge dress, stood like a rather squat avenging angel in the doorway. What would your father say to this? She said sternly. The company suspended their laughter and their cards and looked around. Miss Pinnigar wilted and felt strange under so many eyes.

"'Father!' said Alvina. "'But why father?' "'You lost girl.' said Miss Pinnigar, backing out and closing the door. Mr. May laughed so much that he knocked his whiskey over. There, he cried helpless. Look what she's cast me! And he went off into another paroxysm, swelling like a turkey. Chicho opened his mouth, laughing silently.

Lost girl! Lost girl! How lost! When you are at home! said Geoffrey, making large eyes and looking hither and thither, as if he had lost something. They all went off again in a muffled burst. No, but really, said Mr. May, drinking and card-playing with strange men in the drying room on Sunday evening. Of course it's scandalous. It's terrible.

I don't know how ever you'll be saved after such a sin, and in Manchester house too. He went off into another silent, turkey scarlet burst of mirth, wriggling in his chair and squealing in his chair and squealing, faintly. Oh, I love it. I love it. You lost, girl. Why, of course she's lost, and Miss Pinnigar has only just found it out. Who wouldn't be lost? Why, even Miss Pinnigar would be lost if she could. Of course she would. Quite natural. Mr. May wiped his eyes with his handkerchief, which had unfortunately mopped up his whiskey. So they played on till Mr. May and Jeffrey had won all the pennies, except two pence of chichos. Alvina was in debt. Well, I think it's been a most agreeable game, said Mr. May.

Most agreeable, don't you all? The two other men smiled and nodded. I'm only sorry to think Miss Huffton has lost so steadily all evening. Really quite remarkable. But then, you see, I comfort myself with the reflection, lucky in cards, unlucky in love. I'm certainly hounded with misfortune in love. and I'm sure Miss Huffton would rather be unlucky in cards than in love.

What? Isn't it so? Of course, said Alvina. There, you see, of course. Well, all we can do after that is to wish her success in love. Isn't that so, gentlemen? I'm sure we are all quite willing to do our best to contribute to it. Isn't it so, gentlemen? Aren't we all ready to do our best to contribute to Miss Huffton's happiness in love? Love. Well then, let us drink to it. He lifted his glass and bowed to Alvina.

With every wish for your success in love, Miss Huffton, and your devoted servant. He bowed and drank. Geoffrey made large eyes at her as he held up his glass. I know you'll come out all right in love. I know, he said heavily. And you, Chicho, aren't you drinking? said Mr. May. "'Chiccio held up his glass, looked at Alvina, made a little mouth at her, comical, and drank his beer. "'Well,' said Mr. May, "'Bear must confirm it, since words won't.' "'What time is it?' said Alvina. We must have supper.' "'It was past nine o'clock. Alvina rose and went to the kitchen, the men trailing after her. "'Miss Pinnigar was not there. She was not anywhere.'

"'Has you gone to bed?' said Mr. May. "'And he crept stealthily upstairs on tiptoe. a comical, flush-faced, tubby little man. He was familiar with the house. He returned prancing. I heard a cough, he said. There's a light under her door. She's gone to bed. Now, haven't I always said she was a good soul? I shall drink her health. Miss Pinnigar! And he bowed stiffly in the direction of the stairs, Your health, and a good night's rest. After which, giggling gaily, he seated himself at the head of the table and began to carve the cold mutton. End of Chapter 10, Part 1.

Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 10, Part 2 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. And where are the Natchiki Tawaras this week? he asked, they told him. Oh, and you two are cycling back to the camp of Kishwegan tonight. We mustn't prolong our cheerfulness. too far. Chicho is staying to help me with my bag tomorrow, said Alvina. You know I've joined the Tuaras permanently, as pianist. No, I didn't know that. Oh, really? Really? Oh, well, I see.

Permanently. Yes, I am surprised. Yes, as pianist. And if I might ask, what is your share of the tribal income. That isn't settled yet, said Alvina. No, exactly, exactly. It wouldn't be settled yet. And you say it is a permanent engagement. Of course. That's such a figure. Yes, it is a permanent engagement, said Alvina. Really? What a blow you give me? You won't come back to the endeavour? What? Not at all? No, said Alvina, I shall sell out of the endeavour. Really? You've decided, have you? "'Oh, this is news to me, and is this quite final, too?' "'Quite,' said Alvina. "'I see.'

"'Putting two and two together, if I may say so,' and he glanced from her to the young men, "'I see. "'Most decidedly, most one-sidedly, if I may use the vulgarism, "'I see E. "'Oh, but what a blow you give me! "'What a blow you give me!' "'Why?'

"'said Alvina. What's to become of the endeavour, and consequently of poor me? Can't you keep it going, "'form a company?' "'I'm afraid I can't. I've done my best, but I'm afraid, you know, you've landed me.' "'I'm so sorry,' said Alvina. "'I hope not.' "'Thank you for the hope,' said Mr. May sarcastically. They say hope is sweet. I begin to find it a little bitter. Poor man, he had already gone quite yellow in the face. Cheecho and Geoffrey watched him with dark-seeing eyes. And when are you going to let this fatal decision take effect? asked Mr. May. I'm going to see the lawyer tomorrow and I'm going to tell him to sell everything and clear up as soon as possible, said Alvina. Sell everything? This house? And all it contains? Yes, said

Alvina, everything. Really? Mr. May seemed smitten quite dumb. "'I feel as if the world had suddenly come to an end,' he said. "'But hasn't your world often come to an end before?' said Alvina. "'Well, I suppose, once or twice, but never quite on top of me, you see, before.' There was a silence. "'And have you told Miss Pinnigar?' said Mr. May. "'Not finally, but she's decided to open a little business in Tamworth, where she has relations.' "'Has she?

"'And are you really going to tour with these young people?' he indicated Chichot and Gigi. "'And at no salary,' his voice rose. "'Why, it's almost white slave traffic on Madame's part. "'Upon my word!' "'I don't think so,' said Alvina. "'Don't you see that's insulting?' "'Insulting? "'Well, I don't know. I think it's the truth.'

"'Not to be said to me for all that,' said Alvina, quivering with anger. Oh, perked Mr. May, yellow with strange rage. Oh, I mustn't say what I think. Oh! Not if you think those things, said Alvina. Oh, really? The difficulty is, you see. I'm afraid I do think them. Alvina watched him with big, heavy eyes. Go away, she said. Go away. I won't be insulted by you.

No, indeed, cried Mr. May, starting to his feet, his eyes almost bolting from his head. No, indeed, I wouldn't think of insulting you in the presence of these two young gentlemen. Chichot rose slowly, and with a slow, repeated motion of the head indicated the door. "'Ale,' he said. "'Certainment,' cried Mr. May, flying at Chichot, verbally like an enraged hen, yellow at the gills. "'Certainment. I'm en-vay. This company ne'est my choice.' "'Alea,' said Chichot. more loudly. And Mr. May strutted out of the room like a bird bursting with its own rage.

Chichot stood with his hands on the table listening. They heard Mr. May slam the front door. Gone, said Geoffrey. Chichot smiled, sneeringly. Voie, a concochand de lay, said Gigi, amply and calmly. Chichael sat down in his chair. Geoffrey poured out some beer for him, saying, "'Drink, my cheek. The bubble has burst. And Gigi knocked in his own puff cheek with his fist. Allay, my dear, your health. We are the Tawarers.

We are Alay. We are Pakokwila. We are Walgachka. All right. The milk pig is stewed and eaten. Walla. He drank, smiling broadly. One by one, said Geoffrey, who was a little drunk.

One by one, we put them out in the field. They are all to combat. Who remains? Pakawila, Walgatchka, Alley. He smiled very broadly. Alvina was sitting, sunk in thought and torpor after her sudden anger. "'Ale, what do you think about? You are the bride of Tohara,' said Geoffrey.

Alvina looked at him, smiling rather wanly. "'And who is Tohara?' she asked. He raised his shoulders and spread his hands and swayed his head from side to side, for all the world like a comic Mandarin. There, he cried, the question, who is Tohara? Who? Tell me, Chicho is he, and I am he, and Max and Louis. He spread his hand to the distant members of the tribe. I can't be the bride of all four of you, said Alvina, laughing. No, no, no, no, such a thing does not come into my mind, but you are the bride of Tohara. You dwell in the tent of Ptora. You dwell in the tent of Ptora. You dwell in the tent of Pouara. You dwell in the tent of P Pakohueila, and comes the day, should it ever be so. There is no room for you in the tent of Pakofwila, then the lodge of Walgachka the bear is open for you. Open, yes, wide open. He spread his arms from his ample chest at the end of the table. Open, and when Alley enters it is the lodge of

Alley. Walgachka is the bear that serves Alley. By the Lord. of the pale face, by the law of the Yengees, by the law of the Fransays, Walgatcha shall be husband-bear to Alley. That day she lifts the door-gerton of his tent. He rolled his eyes and looked around. Alvina watched him. But I might be afraid of a husband-bear, she said. Jeffrey got onto his feet. By the money too, he said, the head of the bear, Walgatchka is humble. Here Geoffrey bowed his head. His teeth are as soft as lilies.

Here he opened his mouth and put his finger on his small, close teeth. His hands are as soft as bees that stroke of flower. Here he spread his hands and went and suddenly flopped on his knees beside Alvina, showing his hands and his teeth still and rolling his eyes. Alé can have no fear at all of the bear, Walgatka. he said, looking up at her comically. Chichot, who had been watching and slightly grinning, here rose to his feet and took Geoffrey by the shoulder, pulling him up.

Bastar, he said. To e'er, Saoul, you are drunk, my Gigi. Get up. How are you going to ride to Mansfield, eh? Great beast. Chichot, said Geoffrey solemnly, I love thee. I love thee as a brother and also more.

I love thee as a brother, my Chichot. as thou knowest. But, and he puffed fiercely, I am the slave of Alley, I am the tame bear of Alaya. Get up, said Chicho. Get up! Pibacho.

She doesn't want a tame bear, he smiled down on his friend. Geoffrey rose to his feet and flung his arms round Chicho. Cheech, he besought him. Cheech, I love thee as a brother, but let me be the tame bear of Allay. let me be the gentle bear of Alley.

All right, said Chichot, thou art the tame bear of Alley. Geoffrey strained Chichot to his breast. Thank you, thank you. Salute me, my own friend. And Chichot kissed him on either cheek, whereupon Geoffrey immediately flopped on his knees again before Alvina and presented her his broad, rich-coloured cheek. Salute your bear, Allais, he cried.

"'Salute your slave, the tame bear, Walgachka, "'who is a wild bear, for all except Alley and his brother, Pachohila, the Puma.' Jeffrey growled realistically as a wild bear, as he kneeled before Alvina, presenting his cheek. Alvina looked at Chicho, who stood above watching. Then she lightly kissed him on the cheek and said, "'Won't you go to bed and sleep?' Jeffrey staggered to his feet, shaking his head. No, no, he said.

No, no, Walgachka must travel to the tent of Gishuagen to the camp of the towaras. Not tonight, Monbrave, said Chicho. Tonight we stay here, eh? Why separate, eh? Frere. Geoffrey again clasped Chichot in his arms. Paco Wheeler and Walgatka are blood brothers, two bodies, one blood. one blood in two bodies, one stream in two valleys, one lake between two mountains.

Here Geoffrey gazed with large heavy eyes on Chicho. Alvina brought a candle and lighted it. You will manage in the one room, she said. I'll give you another pillow. She led the way upstairs. Jeffrey followed heavily. Then Chicho. On the landing, Alvina gave them the pillow and the candle, smiled,

bade them good-night in a whisper and went downstairs again. She cleared away the supper and carried away all glasses and bottles from the drawing-room. Then she washed up, removing all traces of the feast. The cards she restored to their old mahogany box. Manchester House looked itself again. She turned off the gas at the metre and went upstairs to bed. From the far room she could hear the gentle but profound vibrations of Geoffrey's snoring. She was tired after her day, too tired to trouble about anything anymore.

But in the morning she was first downstairs. She heard Miss Pinnigar and hurried. Hastily she opened the windows and doors to drive away the smell of beer and smoke. She heard the men rumbling in the bathroom, and quickly she prepared breakfast and made a fire. Mrs. Rowlings would not appear till later in the day. At a quarter to seven Miss Pinnigar came down and went into the scullery to make her tea. Did both the men stay, she asked. Yes, they both slept in the end room, said Alvina.

Miss Pinnigar said no more, but padded with her tea and her boiled egg into the living room. In the morning she was wordless. Ticho came down in his shirt sleeves as usual, but wearing the collar. He greeted Miss Pinnigar politely. Good morning, she said, and went on with her tea. Geoffrey appeared. Miss Pinnigar glanced once at him, sullenly, and briefly answered his good morning. Then she went on with her egg, slow and persistent in her movements, mum. The men went out to attend to Geoffrey's bicycle. The morning was slow and grey, obscure. As they pumped up the tyres, they heard someone padding behind. Miss Pinnigar came and unbolted the yard door, but ignored their presence. Then they saw her return and slowly mount the outer stair ladder which

went up to the top floor. Two minutes afterwards they were startled by the eruption of the work girls. As for the work girls, they gave quite loud, startled squeals, suddenly seeing the two men on their right hand in the obscure morning, and they lingered on the stairway to gaze in rapt curiosity, poking and whispering, until Miss Pinnigar appeared overhead and sharply rang a bell which hung beside the entrance door of the workrooms. After which excitements, Geoffrey and Chichot went into breakfast, which Alvina had prepared. You have done it all, eh? said Chicho, glancing round. Yes, I've made breakfast for years now, said Alvina.

Not many more times here, eh, he said, smiling significantly. I hope not, said Alvina. Chichael sat down, almost like a husband, as if it were his right. Geoffrey was very quiet this morning. he ate his breakfast and rose to go. I shall see you soon, he said, smiling sheepishly and bowing to Alvina. Chicho accompanied him to the street. When Chicho returned, Alvina was once more washing dishes.

What time shall we go, he said. We'll catch the one train. I must see the lawyer this morning. And what shall you say to him? I shall tell him to sell everything. And marry me? She started and looked at him. You don't want to marry, do you?

She said, "'Yes, I do.' "'Would you rather wait and see?' "'What?' he said. "'See if there is any money.' He watched her steadily, and his brow darkened. "'Why?' he said. She began to tremble.

"'You'd like it better if there was money.' A slow, sinister smile came on his mouth. His eyes never smiled, except to Geoffrey, when a flood of warm, laughing light sometimes suffused them. "'You think I should?' "'Yes, it's true, isn't it? You would?' He turned his eyes aside and looked at her hands as she washed the forks. They trembled slightly. Then he looked back at her eyes again,

that were watching him, large and wistful and a little accusing. His impudent laugh came on his face. "'Yes,' he said, "'it is always better if there is money.' He put his hand on her, and she winced, "'But I marry you for love, you know. You know what love is?' And he put his arms round her and laughed down into her face. She strained away. But you can have love without marriage, she said.

You know that. All right, all right. Give me love, eh? I want that. She struggled against him. But not now, she said. She saw the light in his eyes fixed determinedly, and he nodded,

Now, he said, now. His yellow, tawny eyes looked down into hers, alien and overbearing. I can't, she said. I can't now. He laughed in a sinister way, yet with a certain warm-heartedness. Come to that big room, he said. Her face flew, fixed into opposition.

I can't now, really, she said, grimly. His eyes looked down at hers. Her eyes looked back at him, hard and cold and determined. They remained motionless for some seconds. Then, a stray wisp of her hair catching his attention, desire filled his heart, warm and full, obliterating his anger in the combat. For a moment he softened. He saw her hardness becoming more assertive, and he wavered in sudden dislike, and almost dropped her.

Then again the desire flushed his heart, his smile became reckless of her, and he picked her right up. Yes, sir, he said, now. For a second, she struggled frenziedly. But almost instantly she recognised how much stronger he was, and she was still, mute and motionless with anger. White and mute and motionless she was taken to her room, and at the back of her mind all the time she wondered at his deliberate recklessness of her. Recklessly he had his will of her, but deliberately and thoroughly, not rushing to the issue, but taking everything he wanted of her, progressively and fully, leaving her style. dark, with nothing, nothing of herself, nothing. When she could lie still, she turned away from him, still mute, and he lay with his arms over

her, motionless. Noises went on in the street, overhead in the workroom, but theirs was complete silence. At last he rose and looked at her, "'Love is a fine thing, Alley,' he said. She lay mute and unmoving. He approached, laid his hand on her breast, and came. kissed her. Love, he said, asserting and laughing. But still she was completely mute and motionless. He threw bedclothes over her and went downstairs, whistling softly. She knew she would have to break her own trance of obstinacy. So she snuggled down into the bedclothes, shivering deliciously, for her skin had become chilled. She didn't care a bit, really, about her own downfall. She snuggled deliciously in the sheets and admitted to herself that she loved him. In truth, she loved him,

and she was laughing to herself. Luxuriously, she resented having to get up and tackle her heap of broken garments, but she did it. She took other clothes, adjusted her hair, tied on her apron, and went downstairs once more. She could not find Chicho. He'd gone out. A stray cat darted from the scullery and broke a plate in her leap. Alvina found her washing up water cold. She put on more and began to dry her dishes. Chicho returned shortly and stood in the doorway looking at her. She turned to him, unexpectedly laughing. What do you think of yourself? She laughed. Well, he said with a little nod and a furtive look of triumph about him, evasive. He went past her and into the room. Her inside burned with love for him, so elusive.

so beautiful in his silent passing out of her sight. She wiped her dishes happily. Why was she so absurdly happy? She asked herself, and why did she still fight so hard against the sense of his dark, unseasable beauty? Unseasable, forever unseasable. That made her almost his slave. She fought against her own desire to fall at his feet. Ridiculous to be so happy. She sang to herself as she went about her work downstairs, then she went upstairs to do the bedrooms and pack her bag. At ten o'clock she was to go to the family lawyer. She lingered over her possessions,

what to take and what not to take. And so doing she wasted her time. It was already ten o'clock when she hurried downstairs. He was sitting quite still, waiting. He looked up at her. Now I must hurry, she said. I don't think I should be more than an hour. He put on his heart and went out with her.

I shall tell the lawyer I am engaged to you. Shall I? She asked. Yes, he said. Tell him what you like. He was indifferent. Because, said Alvina gaily, we can please ourselves what we do,

whatever we say. I shall say we think of getting married in the summer when we know each other better and going to Italy. Why shall you say all that? said Chicho, because I shall have to give some account of myself, or they'll make me do something I don't want to do.

You might come to the law. lawyers with me, will you? He's an awfully nice old man. Then he'd believe in you. But Chichot shook his head. No, he said, I shan't go. He doesn't want to see me. Well, if you don't want to, but I remember your name, Francesco Maraska, and I remember Pesco Calasio. Chichot heard in silence as they walked the half-empty, Monday morning street of Woodhouse. People kept nodding to Alvina. Some hurried inquisitively across to speak to her and look at Chicho. Chicho, however, stood aside and turned his back. Oh, yes, Alvina said.

I'm staying with friends, here and there, for a few weeks. No, I don't know when I shall be back. Goodbye. You're looking well, Alvina, people said to her. I think you're looking wonderful. A change does you good. It does, doesn't it? said Alvina brightly, and she was pleased she was looking well.

Well, goodbye for a minute, she said, glancing, smiling. into his eyes and nodding to him as she left him at the gate of the lawyer's house by the ivy-covered wall. The lawyer was a little man, all grey. Alvina had known him since she was a child, but rather as an official than an individual. She arrived all smiling in his room. He sat down and scrutinised her sharply, officially, before beginning. Well, Miss Huffden, and what news have you? I don't think I have any, Mr. Beebe. I came to you for news. "'Ah,' said the lawyer, and he fingered a paperweight that covered a pile of papers. "'I'm afraid there is nothing very pleasant, unfortunately,

"'and nothing very unpleasant either, for that matter.' "'He gave her a shrewd little smile. "'Is the will proved?' "'Not yet. "'But I expect it will be through in a few days' time.' "'And are all the claims in?' "'Yes, I think so. "'I think so.'

"'And again he laid his hand on the pile of papers, "'under the paperweight, "'and ran through the edges, with the tips of his fingers. All those, said Alvina. Yes, he said quietly. It sounded ominous. Many, said Alvina.

A fair amount! A fair amount! Let me show you a statement. He rose and brought her a paper. She made out, with the lawyer's help, that the claims against her father's property exceeded the gross estimate of his property by some £700. Does it mean we owe £700, she asked?

"'That is only on the estimate of the property. "'It might, of course, realize much more when sold, "'or it might realize less.' "'How awful,' said Alvina, her courage sinking. "'Unfortunate! "'Unfortunate!' "'However, I don't think the realization of the property "'would amount to less than the estimate.

"'I don't think so.' "'But even then,' said Alvina, "'there is sure to be something owing. "'She saw herself saddled with her father's debts. "'I'm afraid so,' said the lawyer. "'And then what?' said Alvina. "'Oh, the creditors will have to be satisfied with a little less than they claim, I suppose. "'Not a very great deal, you see.

"'I don't expect they will complain a great deal. "'In fact, some of them will be less badly off than they feared. "'No, on that score we need not trouble further.' "'Useless if we do, anyhow. "'But now, about yourself. "'Would you like me to try to compound with the creditors "'so that you could have some sort of provision? "'They are mostly people who know you, know your condition,

and I might try—try what? said Alvina, to make some sort of compound. Perhaps she might retain a lease of Miss Pinnigar's workrooms, perhaps even something might be done about the cinematograph. What would you like? Alvina sat still in her chair, looking through the window at the ivy sprays and the leaf buds on the lilac. She felt she could not. She could not cut off every resource. In her own heart she had confidently expected a few hundred pounds, even a thousand or more. and that would make her something of a catch to people who had nothing.

But now, nothing, nothing at the back of her but her hundred pounds. When that was gone! In her dilemma she looked at the lawyer. You didn't expect it would be quite so bad, he said. I think I didn't, she said. No, well, it might have been worse. Again he waited, and again she looked at him vacantly. What do you think, he said.

For an answer, she only looked at him with wide. eyes. Perhaps you would rather decide later. No, she said, no. It's no use deciding later. The lawyer watched her with curious eyes, his hand beat a little impatiently. I will do my best, he said, to get what I can for you. Oh, well, she said, better let everything go. I don't want to hang on. Don't bother about me at all. I shall go away anyhow. You will go away, said the lawyer, and he studied his fingernails. Yes. I shan't stay here. Oh, and may I ask if you have any definite idea where you will go?

I've got an engagement as pianist with a travelling theatrical company. Oh, indeed, said the lawyer, scrutinising her sharply. She stared away vacantly out of the window. He took to the attentive study of his fingernails once more, and at a sufficient salary? Quite sufficient, thank you, said Alvina. Oh, well, well, no. now, he fidgeted a little. You see, we are all old neighbours and connected with your father for many

years. We, that is, the person's interested, and myself, would not like to think that you were driven out of Woodhouse, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, uh, we could come to some composition, make some arrangement that would be agreeable to you, and would, in some measure, secure you means of a livelihood. He watched Alvina with sharp blue eyes. Alvina looked back at him, still vacantly. No, thanks awfully, she said, but don't bother. I'm going away. With the travelling theatrical company. Yes. The lawyer studied his fingernails intensely. Well, he said, feeling with a fingertip and imaginary roughness of one nail edge. Well, in that case, in that case, supposing you have made an irrevocable decision, he looked

up at her sharply, she nodded slowly like a porcelain mandarin. In that case, he said, we must proceed with the valuation and the preparation for the sale. Yes, she said faintly. You realise, he said, that everything in Manchester house except your private personal property and that of Miss Pinnigar belongs to the claimants, your father's creditors, and may not be removed from the house. Yes, she said. And it will be necessary to make an account of everything in the house. So if you and Miss Pinnigar will put your possessions strictly apart, but I shall see Miss Pinnigar during the course of the day, would you ask her to call about seven? I think she is free then. Alvina sat trembling.

I shall pack my things today, she said. Of course, said the lawyer. any little things to which you may be attached the claimants would no doubt wish to you to regard as your own for anything of greater value your piano for example I should have to make a personal request oh I don't want anything said Alvina no well you will see

you'll be here a few days no said Alvina I'm going away today today is that also irrevocable yes I must go this afternoon on account of your engagement may I ask where your company is performing this week? Far away? Mansfield. Oh, well then, in case I particularly wish to see you, you could come over. If necessary, said Alvina, but I don't want to come to Woodhouse unless it is

necessary. Can't we write? Yes, certainly, certainly, most things, certainly. And now, he went into certain technical matters, and Alvina signed some documents. At last she was free to go. She had been almost an hour in the room. well good morning miss huffton you will hear from me and i from you i wish you a pleasant experience in your new occupation you are not leaving woodhouse forever good-bye she said and she hurried to the road Try as she might, she felt as if she had had a blow which knocked her down. She felt she had had a blow. At the lawyer's gate she stood a minute. There across the hollow rose the cemetery hill. There were her graves, her mothers, Miss Frost's, her fathers. Looking, she made out the white cross at Miss Frost's grave, the grey stone at her parents. Then she turned slowly,

under the church wall, back to Manchester House. She felt, he was a young, he was a manchester house. She felt humiliated. She felt she did not want to see anybody at all. She did not want to see Miss Penigar, nor the Natchakitawaras, and least of all, Chicho. She felt strange in Woodhouse, almost as if the ground had risen from under her feet and hit her over the mouth. The fact that Manchester House and its very furniture was under seal to be sold on behalf of her father's creditors made her feel as if all her woodhouse life had suddenly gone smash. She loathed the thought of Manchester House.

She loathed staying another minute in it. And yet she did not want to go to the Natchikitawara's either. The church clock above her clanged eleven. She ought to take the 1240 train to Mansfield. Yet instead of going home, she turned off down the alley towards the fields and the brook. How many times had she gone that road? How many times had she seen Miss Frost bravely striding home that way from her music pupils? How many years had she noticed a particular wild cherry tree coming to blossom?

A particular bit of blackthorn scatter its whiteness in among the pleached twigs of a hawthorn hedge? How often, how many springs had Miss Frost come home with a bit of this blackthorn in her hand? Alvina did not want to go to Mansfield that afternoon. She felt insulted. She knew she would be much cheaper in Madame's eyes. She knew her own position with the troop would be humiliating. It would be openly a little humiliating. But it would be much more maddeningly humiliating to stay in Woodhouse and experience the full flavour of Woodhouse's calculated benevolence. She hardly knew which was worse, the cool look of insolent, half-contempt, half-satisfaction with which Madame would receive the news of her financial downfall,

or the officious patronage which she would meet from the Woodhouse magnates. She knew exactly how Madame's black eyes would shine, how her mouth would curl with a sneering, slightly triumphant smile as she heard the news, and she could hear the bullying tone in which Henry Wagstaff would dictate the Woodhouse benevolence to her. She wanted to go away from them all, from them all, forever. Even from Chichot, for she felt he insulted her too. Suttly, they all did it. They had regard for her possibilities as an air-ess.

Five hundred, even two hundred pounds would have made all the difference, useless to deny it. Even to Chicho, Chichot would have had a lifelong respect for her, if she had come with even so paltry a sum as two hundred pounds. Now she had nothing. He would coolly withhold this respect. She felt he might jeer at her, and she could not get away from this feeling. Mercifully, she had the bit of ready money,

and she had a few trinkets which might be sold, nothing else. Mercifully, for the mere moment, she was independent. Whatever else she did, she must go back and pack. She must pack her two boxes and leave them ready, for she felt that once she had left, she would never come back to Woodhouse again. If England had cliffs all round,

why, when there was nowhere else to go and no getting beyond, she could walk over one of the cliffs. Meanwhile, she had her short run before her. She banked hard on her independence. So she turned back to the town. She would not be able to take the 1240 train, for it was already midday, but she was glad. She wanted some time to herself. She would send Chicho on. Slowly she climbed the familiar hill, slowly and rather bitterly. She felt her native place insulted her, and she was. She felt the Natchez insulted her. In the midst of the insult, she remained isolated upon herself, and she wished to be alone. She found Chichael waiting at the end of the yard,

eternally waiting, it seemed. He was impatient. You have been a long time, he said. Yes, she answered. We shall have to make ace to catch the train. I can't go by this train. I shall have to come on later. You can just eat a mouthful of lunch and go now. They went indoors. "'Igar had not yet come down.' "'Mrs. Rowlings was busy, peeling potatoes.' "'Mr. Marasca is going by the train. "'You'll have to have a little cold meat,' said Alvina. "'Would you mind putting it ready while I go upstairs?'

"'Shapsies and full banks he's sent them bills,' said Mrs. Rawlings. "'Alvina opened them and turned pale. "'It was thirty pounds, the total funeral expenses. "'She had completely forgotten them. "'And Mr. Atterwell wants to know what you'd like to put on Thedstone "'for your father if you'd write it down. "'All right.' Mrs. Rawlings popped on the potatoes for Miss Pinnigar's dinner and spread the cloth for Cicho.

When he was eating, Miss Pinnigar came in. She inquired for Alvina and went upstairs. "'Have you had your dinner?' she said, for there was Alvina sitting, writing a letter. "'I'm going by a later train,' said Alvina. "'Both of you?' "'No, he's going now.' Miss Pinnigar came downstairs again and went through to the scullery. When Alvina came down, she returned to the living room. "'Give this letter to Madame,' Alvina said to Chichot.

"'I shall be at the hall by seven to-night. "'I shall go straight there.' "'Why can't you come now?' said Chichot. "'I can't possibly,' said Elvina. "'The lawyer has just told me father's debts come to much more than everything is worth. "'Nothing is ours, not even the plate you're eating from. "'Everything is under seal to be sold to pay off what is owing. "'So I've got to get my own clothes and boots together,

"'all they'll be sold with the rest. "'Mr. Beebe wants you to go round at seven this evening, Miss Pinnigar before I forget. Really? gasped Miss Pinnigar. Really? The house and the furniture, and everything got to be sold up. Then we're on the streets. I can't believe it. So he told me, said Alvina. But how positively awful, said Miss Pinnigar, sinking motionless into a chair.

It's not more than I expected, said Alvina. I'm putting my things into my two trunks, and I shall just ask Mrs. Slaney to store them for me. then I have the bag I shall travel with. Really? gasped Miss Pinnigar. I can't believe it. And when have we got to get out? Oh, I don't think there's a desperate hurry. They'll take an inventory of all the things

and we can live on here till they're actually ready for the sale. And when will that be? I don't know. A week or two. And is the cinematograph to be sold the same? Yes, everything. The piano, even Mother's portrait. It's impossible to believe it, said Miss Pinnigar.

It's impossible. He can never have left things so bad. Chicho, said Alvina, you'll really have to go if you're to catch the train. You'll give Madame my letter, won't you? I should hate you to miss the train. I know she can't bear me already, for all the fuss and upset I cause. Chicho rose slowly, wiping his mouth. You'll be there at seven o'clock, he said.

At the theatre, she replied. And without more ado, he left. Mrs. Rowlings came in. You've heard, said Miss Pinnigar dramatically. I heard something. said Mrs. Rowlings. Sold up. Everything to be sold up. Every stick and rag. I never thought I should live to see the day, said Miss Pinnigar.

You might almost have expected it, said Mrs. Rowlings. But you're all right, yourself, Miss Pinnigar. Your money isn't with us, is it? No, said Miss Pinnigar. What little I have put by is safe. But it's not enough to live on. It's not enough to keep me, even supposing I only live another ten years. If I only spend a pound a week, it costs. $52 pounds a year, and for ten years, look at it, it's £520, and you couldn't say less.

And I haven't half that amount. I never had more than a wage, you know. Why, Miss Frost earned a good deal more than I do, and she didn't leave much more than fifty. Where's the money to come from? But if you've enough to start a little business, said Alvina. Yes, it's what I shall have to do. It's what I shall have to do. And then what about you. you. What about you? Oh, don't bother about me, said Alvina. Yes, it's all very well, don't bother, but when you come to my age, you know you've got to bother, and bother a great deal. If you're not going to find yourself in a position you'd be sorry for, you have to bother, and you'll have to bother before you've done. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof, said Alvina.

Huh, sufficient for a good many days, it seems to me. Miss Pinnigar was in a real temper. to Alvina this seemed an odd way of taking it. The three women sat down to an uncomfortable dinner of cold meat and hot potatoes and warmed up pudding. But whatever you do, pronounce Miss Pinnigar, whatever you do and however you strive in this life, you're knocked down in the end. You're always knocked down. It doesn't matter, said Alvina. If it's only in the end, it doesn't matter if you've had your life. You've never had your life till you're dead, said Miss Pinnigar. And if you work and strive, you've a right to the fruits of your work. It doesn't matter, said Alvina, laconically, so long as you've enjoyed working and striving.

But Miss Pinnigar was too angry to be philosophic. Alvina knew it was useless to be either angry or otherwise emotional. Nonetheless, she also felt as if she had been knocked down, and she almost envied poor Miss Pinnigar the prospect of a little day-by-day haberdashery shop in Tamworth. Her own problems seemed so much more menacing. Answer or die, said the Sphinx of Fate. Miss Pinnigar could answer her own fate, according to its question. She could say, haberdasiary shop, and her Sphinx would recognise this answer as true to nature, and would be satisfied. But every individual has his own, or her own fate, and her own Sphinx. Alvina's Sphinx was an old, deep thoroughbred. She

would take no mongrel answers, and her thoroughbred teeth were long. and sharp. To Alvina, the last of the fantastic but pure-bred race of Huffton, the problem of her fate was terribly abstruse. The only thing to do was not to solve it, to stray on and answer fate with whatever came into one's head. No good striving with fate. Trust to a lucky shot, or take the consequences. Miss Pinnigar, said Alvina, have we any money in hand? There is about £20 pounds in the bank. It's all shown in my books, said Miss Pinnigar. We couldn't take it, could we? Every penny shows in the books. Alvina pondered again. Are there more bills to come in, she asked. I mean, my bills. Do I owe anything? I don't think you do, said Miss Pinnigar. I'm going to

keep the insurance money anyway. They can say what they like. I've got it, and I'm going to keep it. Well, said Miss Pinnigar, it's not my business, but there's sharps and full banks to pay. "'I'll pay those,' said Alvina. "'You'll tell Atterwell what to put on Father's Stone. "'How much does it cost?' "'Five shillings a letter, you remember.' "'Well, we'll just put the name of the date. "'How much will that be?'

"'James Huffton, born 17th January. "'You'll have to put also of,' said Miss Pinnigar. "'Also of,' said Alvina. "'One, two, three, four, five, six. "'Six letters, thirty shillings.' Seems an awful lot for all so of. But you can't leave it out, said Miss Pinnigar. You can't economise over that.

I begrudge it, said Alvina. End of, Chapter 10, Part 2. Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 11, Part 1 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Honourable Engagement For days after joining the Natcha Keating Chawarres, Alvina was very quiet, subdued and rather remote, sensible of her humiliating position

as a hanger on. They, none of them, took much notice of her. They drifted on, rather disjointedly. The cordiality, the joie de vivre, did not revive. Madame was a little irritable, and very exacting, and inclined to be spiteful. Chichot went his way with Geoffrey. In the second week, Madame found out that a man had been surreptu. "'morticiously inquiring about them at their lodgings "'from the landlady and the landlady's "'blowsy daughter. "'It must have been a detective,

"'some shoddy detective. "'Madame waited. "'Then she sent Max over to Mansfield "'on some fictitious errand. "'Yes, the lousy-looking dogs of detectives "'had been there, too, "'making the most minute inquiries "'as to the behaviour of the Natchekitoaras.

"'What they did, how their sleeping was arranged, "'how Madame addressed the men, what attitude the men took towards Alvina. Madame waited again, and again, when they moved to Doncaster, the same two mongrel-looking fellows were lurking in the street, and plying the inmates of their lodging house with questions. All the natures caught sight of the men,

and Madame cleverly wormed out of the righteous and respectable landlady what the men had asked. Once more it was about the sleeping accommodation, whether the landlady heard anything in the landlady, the night, whether she noticed anything in the bedrooms, in the beds. No doubt about it. The Natchikikawaras were under suspicion. They were being followed and watched.

What for? Madame made a shrewd guess. They want to say we are immoral foreigners, she said. But what have our personal morals got to do with them? said Max angrily. Yes, but they're English. They are so pure, said Madame. You know, said Louis.

Somebody must have put them up to it. Perhaps, said Madame, somebody on account of Alley. Alvina went white. Yes, said Geoffrey, white slave traffic. Mr. May said it. Madame slowly nodded. Mr. May, she said. Mr. May, it is he.

He knows all about morals and immorals. Yes, I know. Yes, yes, yes. He suspects all our immoral doings may brides. "'But there aren't any, except mine,' cried Alvina, pale to the lips. "'You, you! There you are,' Madame smiled archly, and rather mockingly. "'What are we to do?' said Max, pale on the cheekbones. "'Curse them! Curse them!' Louis was muttering in his rolling accent.

"'Wait,' said Madame, wait. "'They will not do anything to us. You are only dirty foreigners, may brave. at the most they will ask us only to leave their pure country. We don't interfere with none of them, cried Max. Cursed them, muttered Louis. Never mind, my cher. You are in a pure country. Let us wait. If you think it's me, said Alvina, I can go away. Oh, my dear, you are only the excuse, said Madame, smiling indulgently at her.

Let us wait and see. She took it smilingly, but her cheeks were white as paper, and her eyes black as drops of ink with anger. Wait and see, she chanted ironically, Wait and see, if we must leave the dear country, then adieu. And she gravely bowed to an imaginary England. I feel it's my fault, I feel I ought to go away, cried Alvina, who was terribly distressed, seeing madame's glitter and pallor

and the black brows of the men. Never had Chichot's brow looked so ominously black, and Alvina felt it was all her fault. Never had she experienced such a horrible feeling, as if something repulsive were creeping on her from behind. Every minute of these weeks was a horror to her, the sense of the low-down dogs of detectives hanging round, sliding behind them, trying to get hold of some clear proof of immorality on their part, and then the unknown vengeance of the authorities. the repulsive secrecy and all the absolute power of the police authorities, the sense of a great malevolent power which had them all the time in its grip, and was watching, feeling,

waiting to strike the morbid blow, the sense of the utter helplessness of individuals who were not even accused, only watched and emmeshed. The feeling that they, the Natchiki Tawaras, herself included, must be monsters of hideous vice to have provoked all. this, and yet the sane knowledge that they, none of them, were monsters of vice. This was quite killing. The sight of a policeman would send up Alvina's heart in a flame of fear, agony. Yet she knew she had nothing legally to be afraid of. Every knock at the door was horrible. She simply could not understand it, yet there it was. They were watched, followed. Of that there was no question, and all she could imagine was that the troop was secretly accused of white slave traffic by somebody in Woodhouse.

Probably Mr May had gone the round of the benevolent magnets of Woodhouse, concerning himself with her virtue and currying favour with his concern. Of this she became convinced that it was concerned for her virtue which had started the whole business, and that the first instigator was Mr May, who had got round some vulgar magistrate or county council. Madame did not consider Alvina's view very seriously. She thought it was some personal malevolence against the Tuaras themselves, probably put up by some other professionals with whom Madame was not popular. Be that as it may, for some weeks they went about in the shadow of this repulsive finger which was following after them, to touch them and destroy them with the black smear of shame.

The men were silent and inclined to be sulky. They seemed to hold together. They seemed to be united into a strong, four-square silence and tension. They kept to themselves, and Alvina kept to herself, and Madame kept to herself. So they went about. And slowly the cloud melted. It never broke. Alvina felt that the very force of the sullen, silent, fearlessness and fury in the towaras had prevented its bursting.

Once there had been a weakening, a cringing, they would all have been lost. but their hearts hardened with black indomitable anger, and the cloud melted, it passed away. There was no sign. Early summer was now at hand. Alvina no longer felt at home with the Natchez. While the trouble was hanging over, they seemed to ignore her altogether.

The men hardly spoke to her. They hardly spoke to Madame, for that matter. They kept within the four square enclosure of themselves. But Alvina felt herself particularly. excluded, left out. And when the trouble of the detectives began to pass off, and the men became more cheerful again, wanted her to jest and be familiar with them, she responded verbally, but in her heart there was no response. Madame had been quite generous with her. She allowed her to pay for her room and the expense of travelling, but she had her food with the rest. Wherever she was,

Madame bought the food for the party, and cooked it herself, and Alvina came to her. And Alvina came in with the rest. She paid no board. She waited, however, for Madame to suggest a small salary, or at least that the troops should pay her living expenses, but Madame did not make such a suggestion, so Alvina knew she was not very badly wanted, and she guarded her money and watched for some other opportunity. It became her habit to go every morning to the public library of the town in which she found herself, to look through the advertisements, advertising. Advertisement. for maternity nurses, for nursery governesses, pianists, travelling companions, even ladies' maids. For some weeks she found nothing, though she wrote several letters.

One morning, Chichot, who had begun to hang round her again, accompanied her as she set out to the library, but her heart was closed against him. "'Where are you going to the library?' he asked her. It was in Lancaster, to look at the papers and magazines. "'Ah, to find a job, eh?' His cuteness startled her for a moment. "'If I found one I should take it,' she said. "'Here, I know that,' he said.

It so happened that that very morning she saw on the notice board of the library an announcement that the Borough Council wished to engage the services of an experienced maternity nurse, applications to be made to the medical board. Alvina wrote down the directions. Chicho watched her. "'What is her maternity nurse?' he said. "'And Akushes,' she said, "'the nurse who attends when babies are born.'

"'Do you know how to do that?' he said, incredulous and jeering slightly. "'I was trained to do it,' she said. "'He said no more, but walked by her side as she returned to the lodgings. "'As they drew near the lodgings,' he said, "'you don't want to stop with us any more.' "'I can't,' she said. "'He made a slight mocking gesture. "'I can't,' he repeated.

"'Why do you always say you can't?' "'Because I can't,' she said. "'Poof!' he went with a whistling sound of contempt. But she went indoors to her room. Fortunately when she had finally cleared her things from Manchester House, she had brought with her her nurse's certificate and recommendations from doctors. She wrote out her application, took the tram to the town hall, and dropped it in the letterbox there.

then she wired home to her doctor for another reference, after which she went to the library and got out a book on her subject. If summoned, she would have to go before the medical board on Monday. She had a week. She read and pondered hard, recalling all her previous experience and knowledge. She wondered if she ought to appear before the board in uniform. Her nurse's dresses were packed in her trunk at Mrs. Slaney's in Woodhouse. It was now May. The whole business at Woodhouse was finished. Manchester House and all the furniture was sold to some boot and shoe people. At least the boot and shoe people had the house. They had given £4,000 for it, which was above the lawyer's estimate.

On the other hand, the theatre was sold for almost nothing. It all worked out that some £33, which the creditors made up to £50,000, remained for Alvina. She insisted on Miss Pinnigar's having half. half of this, and so that was all over. Miss Pinnigar was already in Tamworth, and her little shop would be opened next week. She wrote happily and excitedly about it. Sometimes fate acts swiftly and without a hitch. On Thursday, Alvina received her notice that she was to appear before the board on the following Monday, and yet she could not bring herself to speak of it to Madame till the Saturday evening. When they were all at supper, she said,

Madame, I applied for a post of maternity nurse to the borough of Lancaster. Madame raised her eyebrows. Cheecho had said nothing. Oh, really? You never told me. I thought it would be no use if it all came to nothing. They want me to go and see them on Monday, and then they will decide. Really? Do they? On Monday? And then if you get this work, you will stay here? Yes? Yes, of course. Of course. Of course. Yes. And if not?

The two women looked at each other. What, said Alvina, if you don't get it? You are not sure? No, said Alvina. I'm not a bit sure. Well, then. Now, and if you don't get it? What shall I do, you mean? Yes, what shall you do?

I don't know. How? You don't know. Shall you come back to us, then? I will, if you like? If I like. If I like. Come, it is not a question of if I like. It is what do you want to do yourself. I feel you don't want me very badly, said Alvina. Why? Why do you feel? Who makes you? Which of us makes you feel so? Tell me. Nobody in particular, but I feel it. Oh, well. If you're not, if you feel you, if you're a little, if you're If nobody makes you, and yet you feel it, it must be in yourself.

Don't you see? Eh? Isn't it so? Perhaps it is, admitted Alvina. Well, then, well, so Madame gave her conge. But if you like to come back, if you like, then, Madame shrugged her shoulders, you must come, I suppose. Thank you, said Alvina. The young men were watching.

They seemed indifferent. Chichot turned aside with his faint, stupid smile. In the morning, Madame gave Alvina all her belongings, from the little safe she called her bank. There is the money. So and so and so, that is correct. Please count it once more. Alvina counted it and kept it, clutched in her hand.

And there are your rings, and your chain and your locket. See? All, everything. But not the brooch. Where is the brooch? "'Here! Shall I give it back?' "'I gave it to you,' said Alvina, offended. "'She looked into Madame's black eyes.

"'Madame dropped her eyes. "'Yes, you gave it, "'but I thought, you see, as you have now not much money, "'perhaps you would like to take it again.' "'No, thank you,' said Alvina, "'and she went away, "'leaving Madame with the red brooch in her plump hand. "'Thank goodness I've given her something valuable,'

"'thought Alvina to herself, she went trembling to her room. She had packed her bag. She had to find new rooms. She bade goodbye to the Natchikikawar's. Her face was cold and distant, but she smiled slightly as she bade them goodbye. And perhaps, said madame, perhaps you will come to Wigan tomorrow afternoon or evening, yes? Thank you, said Alvina. She went out and found a little hotel, where she took her room for the night, explaining the cause of her visit to Lancaster. Her heart was hard and burning. A deep, burning, silent anger against everything possessed her, and a profound indifference to mankind. And therefore, the next day, everything went as if by magic. She had decided that at the least sign of

indifference from the medical board people, she would walk away, take her bag, and go to Windermere. She had never been to the lakes, and Windermere was not far off. She would not endure one single hint of contumily from anyone else. She would go straight to Windermere to see the big lake. Why not do as she wished? She could be quite happy by herself among the lakes, and she would be absolutely free, absolutely free. She rather looked forward to leaving the town hall,

hurrying to take her bag and off to the station and freedom. Hadn't she still got about a hundred pounds? Why bother for one moment? to be quite alone in the whole world, and quite, quite free, with her hundred pounds, the prospect attracted her sincerely. And therefore everything went charmingly at the town hall. The medical board were charming to her. Charming!

There was no hesitation at all. From the first moment she was engaged, and she was given a pleasant room in a hospital, in a garden, and the matron was charming to her, and the doctor's most curate. Curtis. When could she undertake to commence her duties? When did they want her? The very moment she could come. She could begin tomorrow, but she had no uniform. Oh, the matron would lend her uniform and aprons till her box arrived. So there she was, by afternoon, installed in her pleasant little room

looking on the garden and dressed in a nurse's uniform. It was all sudden like magic. She had wired to Madame, she had wired for her box. She was another person. Needless to say, she was glad. Needless to say that in the morning, when she had thoroughly bathed and dressed in clean clothes and put on the white dress, the white apron and the white cap, she felt another person. So clean, she felt so thankful. Her skin seemed caressed and live with cleanliness and whiteness, luminous she felt. It was so different from being with the Natchez. In the garden the snowballs, Gilda roses swayed softly among green foliage. There was pink may blossom and single scarlet may blossom and underneath the young green of the trees, irises rearing purple and moth-white.

A young gardener was working and a convalescent slowly trailed a few paces. Having ten minutes still, Alvina sat down and wrote to Chicho. I am glad I've got this post as nurse here. Everyone is most kind, and I feel at home already. I feel quite happy here. I shall think of my days with the Natchakitwara's and of you, who were such a stranger to me. Goodbye. A. H.

This she addressed it and posted. No doubt Madame would find occasion to read it, but let her. Alvina now settled down to her new work. there was of course a great deal to do, for she had work both in the hospital and out in the town, though chiefly out in the town. She went rapidly from case to case as she was summoned, and she was summoned at all hours, so that it was tiring work, which left her no time to herself, except just in snatches. She had no serious acquaintance with anybody. She was too busy. The matron and sisters and doctors and patients were all part of her day's work,

and she regarded them as such. The men she chiefly ignored, she felt much more friendly with the matron. She had many a cup of tea and many a chat in the matron's room, in the quiet, sunny afternoons when the work was not pressing. Alvina took her quiet moments when she could, for she never knew when she would be wrung up by one or other of the doctors in the town. And so, from the matron, she learnt to crochet. It was work she had never taken to, but now she had her ball of cotton and her hook, and she worked away as she chatted. She was in good health, and she was getting fatter again. With the Natchikikawaras, she had improved a good deal.

Her colour and her strength had returned. But undoubtedly the nursing life, arduous as it was, suited her best. She became a handsome, reposeful woman, jolly, with the other nurses, really happy with her friend the matron, who was well-bred and wise, and never over-intimate. The doctor with whom Alvina had most to do was a Dr. Mitchell, a Scotchman. He had a large practice among the poor, and was an energetic man. He was about 54 years old, tall, largely built, with a good figure, but with extraordinarily large feet and hands. His face was red and clean-shaven, his eyes blue, his teeth very good. He laughed and

talked rather mouthingly. Alvina, who knew what the nurses told her, knew that he had come as a poor boy and bottle-washer to Dr. Robertson, a fellow Scotchman, and that he had made his way up gradually till he became a doctor himself and had an independent practice. Now he was quite rich, and a bachelor. but the nurses did not set their bonnets at him very much because he was rather mouthy and overbearing. In the houses of the poor he was a great autocrat. What is that stuff you've got there? He inquired largely, seeing a bottle of somebody's soothing syrup by a poor woman's bedside. Take it and throw it down the sink.

And the next time you want a soothing syrup, put a little boot blacking in hot water, it'll do you just as much good. imagine the slow pompous large-mouthed way in which the red-faced handsomely built man pronounced these words and you realize why the poor set such store by him he was eagle-eyed wherever he went there was a scuffle directly his foot was heard on the stairs and he knew they were hiding something he sniffed the air he glanced round with a sharp eye and during the course of his visit picked up a blue mug which was pushed behind the looking at the look glass. He peered inside and smelled it. Stout, he said, in a tone of indignant inquiry. God Almighty would presumably take on just such a tone, finding the core of an apple flung away among the dead nettle of paradise. Stout! Have you been drinking stout? This, as he gazed down on the one mother in the bed. It gave me a drop, doctor, I felt that low. The

doctor marched out of the room, still holding the mug in his hand. The sick woman watched him with haunted eyes. The attendant women threw up their hands and looked at one another. Was he going forever? There came a sudden smash. The doctor had flung the blue mug downstairs. He returned with a solemn stride. There, he said, and the next person that gives you stout will be thrown down along with the mug. Oh, Doctor, the bitter comfort, well, the sick woman, it did never do me no arm. Harm! Harm! With a stomach as weak as yours! Harm! Do you know better than I do? What have I come here for? To be told by you, what will do you harm and what won't? It appears to me you need no doctor here.

you know everything already oh no doctor it's not like that but when you feel as if you'd sink through the bed and you don't know what to do with yourself take a little beef tea or a little rice pudding take nourishment don't take that muck do you hear charging upon the attendant women who shrank against the wall she's to have nothing alcoholic at all and don't let let it me catch you giving it her. They say there's no but four percent he stout, retorted the daring female. Four percent, mimicked the doctor brutally. Why, what does an ignorant creature like you know about four percent? The woman muttered a little under her breath. What? Speak out. Let me hear what you've got to say, my woman. I've no doubt it's something for my benefit. But they have confronted woman rushed out of the room and burst into tears on the landing. After which Dr. Mitchell, mollified, largely told the patient how she was to behave, concluding, nourishment. Nourishment is what you want. Nonsense, don't tell me you can't take it. Push it

down if it won't go down by itself. Oh, doctor, don't say, oh, doctor to me. Do as I tell you. that's your business, after which he marched out, and the rattle of his motor-car was shortly heard. Alvina got used to scenes like these. She wondered why the people stood it, but soon she realised that they loved it, particularly the women. Oh, nurse, stop till Dr. Mitchell's been. I'm scared of death of him, for fear he's going to shout at me. Why does everybody put up with him? asked innocent Alvina. "'Oh, he's good-hearted, nurse. He does feel for you.'

"'And everywhere it was the same. "'Oh, he's got a heart, you know. He's rough, but he's got a heart. "'I'd rather have him than your smarmish slalom in sort. "'Oh, you feel safe with Dr. Mitchell. "'I don't care what you say.' "'But to Alvina this peculiar form of blustering, bullying heart "'which had all the women scurrying like chickens "'was not particularly attractive.

"'The men did not like Dr. Mitchell, and would not have him if possible. Yet since he was club doctor and panel doctor, they had to submit. The first thing he said to a sick or injured labourer invariably was, And keep off the beer. Oh, aye, keep off the beer, or I shan't set foot in this house again. I's got a red enough face on thee than in the shat. My face is red with exposure to all weathers,

attending ignorant people like you. i never touch alcohol in any form no an adunner i drink a drop of beer if that's what you ca touchin alcohol and i'm none the wuss for it that sees you've heard what i've told you "'Aye, I have. And if you go on with the beer, you may go on with curing yourself. I shan't attend you. You know I mean what I say, Mrs. Larick, this to the wife. I do, doctor, and I know it's true what you say, and I'm at him night and day about it. Oh, well, if he will hear no reason, he must suffer for it. He mustn't think I'm going to be running after him, if he disobeys my orders.' And the doctor stalked off, and the woman began to complain. Nonetheless, the women had their complaints against Dr. Mitchell. If ever Alvina entered a clean house on a wet day, she was sure to hear the housewife chuntering.

Oh, my lord, come in, nurse. What a day! Doctor's not been yet, and he's bound to come now, I've just cleaned up, traips him with his grept feet. He's got the biggest understandings of any man in Lancaster. My husband says that the best bearer passed is its kingdom, and he does make such a mess, but he never stops to wipe his feet on the mat, marches straight up your clean stairs.

Why don't you tell him to wipe his feet? said Alvina. Oh my word, fancy me telling him. It jumped down my throat with both feet afore I'd open my mouth. He's not to be spoken to, he isn't. He's, my lord, he is. You mustn't look or you're done for. Alvina laughed. She knew they all liked him for brow-beating them

and having a heart over and above. Sometimes he was given a good hit. though nearly always by a man. It happened he was in a workman's house when the man was at dinner. Can he give a man something better, nor this year pat, Mrs, said the hairy husband, turning up his nose at the rice pudding.

Oh, go on, cried the wife. I hadn't had no time for out else. Dr. Mitchell was just stooping his handsome figure in the doorway. Rice pudding, he exclaimed largely. You couldn't have anything more wholesome and nourishing. I have a rice pudding every day. day of my life. Every day of my life I do. The man was eating his pudding and purling his big moustache copiously with it. He did not answer. Do you, doctor, cried the woman, and never

no different. Never, said the doctor. Fancy that. You're that fond of them. I find they agree with me. They are light and digestible, and my stomach is as weak as a baby's. The labourer wiped his big mustache on his sleeve. Mine isna that's ease, he said, so perhaps no use. Swatter to me. I want to feel as I've had some, a bit of suitesy dumpling in a pint of hail, something to filth full up, and that bit the same if I did my work. If I did your work, sneered the doctor, why, I do ten times the work that any one of you

does. It's just the work that has ruined my digestion, the never getting a quiet meal and never a whole night's rest. When do you think I can sit at table and digest my dinner? I have to be off looking after people like you. Eh, that could tell the titty bottle withy, said the labourer. But Dr. Mitchell was furious for weeks over this. It put him in a black rage to have his great manliness insulted. Alvina was quietly amused. The doctor began by being rather lordly and condescending with her. But luckily she felt she knew her work at least as well as he knew it. She smiled and let him condescend. Certainly she neither feared nor even admired him. To tell the truth,

she rather disliked him, the great red-faced bachelor of 53, with his bald spot and his stomach as weak as a baby's, and his mouthing imperiousness, and his good heart which was as selfish as it could be. nothing can be more cocksurredly selfish than a good heart which believes in its own beneficence. He was a little too much the teetotler on the one hand to be so largely manly on the other. Alvina preferred the labourers with their awful long mustaches that got full of food, and he was a little too loud-mouthedly lordly to be in human good taste. As a matter of fact, he was conscious of the fact that he had risen to be a gentleman. Now if a man is conscious of being a gentleman, he is bound to be a little less than a man.

But if he is gnawed with anxiety lest he may not be a gentleman, he is only pitiable. There is a third case, however. If a man must loftily, by his manner, assert that he is now a gentleman, he shows himself a clown. For Alvina, poor Dr. Mitchell fell into this third category of clowns. She tolerated him good-humouredly. as women so often tolerate ninnies and posers. She smiled to herself when she saw his large and important presence on the board. She smiled when she saw him at a sale,

buying the grandest pieces of antique furniture. She smiled when he talked of going up to Scotland for grouse shooting or of snatching an hour on Sunday morning for golf, and she talked him over with quiet, delicate malice with the matron. He was no favourite at the hospital. Gradually Dr. Mitchell's manner changed towards her. From his imperious condescension he took to a tone of uneasy equality. This did not suit him. Dr. Mitchell had no equals. He had only the vast stratum of inferiors towards whom he exercised his quite profitable beneficence. It brought him in about two thousand a year, and then his superiors, people who had been born with money. It was the tradesmen and professionals who had started at the bottom and clambered to the motor-car footing who distressed him, and therefore, whilst he treated Alvina on this uneasy tradesman footing, he felt himself in a false position. She kept her attitude of quiet amusement,

and little by little he sank. From being a lofty creature soaring over her head, he was now like a big fish, poking its nose above water and making eyes at her. He treated her with rather presuming deference. You look tired this morning, he barked at her in one hot day. I think it's thunder, she said. Thunder? Work, you mean? And he gave a slight smile.

I'm going to drive you back. Oh, no, thanks. Don't trouble. I've got to call on the way. Where have you got to call? She told him. Very well. That takes you no more than five minutes.

I'll wait for you. Now, take your cloak. She was surprised. yet, like other women, she submitted. As they drove, he saw a man with a barrow of cucumbers. He stopped the car and leaned towards the man. Take that barrel load of poison and bury it, he shouted in his strong voice. The busy street hesitated.

What's that, mister? replied the mystified hawker. Dr. Mitchell pointed to the green pile of cucumbers. Take that barrel load of poison and bury it, he called. "'Before you do anybody any more harm with it.' "'What barrow-load of poison's that?' asked the hawker approaching. "'A crowd began to gather.' "'What barrow-load of poison is that?' repeated the doctor. "'Why, your barrow-load of cucumbers!'

"'Oh!' said the man, scrutinizing his cucumbers carefully. "'To be sure, some were a little yellow at the end. "'How's that? Cumbus is right enough.' "'Fresh from market this morning?' "'Fresh or not fresh,' said the doctor, "'mouthing his words distinctly. "'You might as well put poison into your stomach "'as those things.

"'Cucumbars are the worst thing you can eat.' "'Oh!' said the man, stuttering, "'that's happened for them as doesn't like them. "'I never know the cumber do me no arm, "'and I eat them like a happle.' "'Whereupon the hawker took a cumber from his barrow, "'bid off the end, and chewed it till the, The sap squirted.

What's wrong with that? He said, holding up the bitten cucumber. I'm not talking about what's wrong with that, said the doctor. My business is what's wrong with the stomach it goes into. I'm a doctor, and I know that those things cause me half my work. They cause half the internal troubles people suffer from in summertime. Oh, I? That's no loss to you, is it? Me and you's partners.

More cumbers I sell, more graft for you, according to that. What's wrong, then? Cumbars, fine, fresh cumbars, all fresh and juicy, all cheap and tasty, yelled the man. I am a doctor not only to cure illness, but to prevent it where I can. And cucumbers are poison to everybody. Cumbers, cumbers, fresh cumbers, yelled the man. Dr. Mitchell started his car. When will they learn intelligence? he said to Alvina, smiling and showing his white, even teeth.

I don't care, you know, myself, he said. I should always let people do what they wanted. Even if you knew it would do them harm? He queried, smiling with amiable condescension. Yes, why not? It's their own affair, and they'll do themselves harm one way or another. And you wouldn't try to prevent it? You might as well try to stop the sea with your fingers.

You think so, smiled the doctor. I see, you are a pessimist. You are a pessimist with regard to human nature. Am I? smiled Alvina, thinking the rose would smell as sweet. It seemed to please the doctor to find that Alvina was a pessimist with regard to human nature. It seemed to give her an air of distinction. In his eyes, she seemed distinguished. He was in a fair way.

to dote on her. She, of course, when he began to admire her, liked him much better, and even saw graceful, boyish attractions in him. There was really something childish about him, and this something childish, since it looked up to her as if she were the saving grace, naturally flattered her and made her feel gentler towards him. He got in the habit of picking her up in his car when he could, and he would tap at the matron's door, smiling and showing all his beautiful teeth, just about tea time. May I come in? His voice sounded almost flirty. Certainly. I see you're having tea. Very nice. A cup of tea at this hour. Have one too, doctor. I will, with pleasure. And he sat down, wreathed with smiles. Alvina rose to get a cup. I didn't intend to disturb you, nurse, he said.

"'Men are always intruders,' he smiled to the matron. "'Sometimes,' said the matron, "'women are charmed to be intruded upon. "'Oh, really?' his eyes sparkled. "'Perhaps you wouldn't say so, nurse,' he said, turning to Alvina. "'Alvina was just reaching at the cupboard. "'Very charming she looked in her fresh dress and cap and soft brown hair. "'Very attractive her figure,

"'with its full soft, soft, low. loins. She turned round to him. Oh, yes, she said. I quite agree with the matron. Oh, you do? He did not quite know how to take it. But you mind being disturbed at your tea, I'm sure. No, said Alvina, we are so used to being disturbed. Rather weak, doctor, said the matron, pouring the tea. Very weak, please. The doctor was a little laboured in his gallantry, but unmistakably gallant. When he was gone, the matron looked demure, and Alvina confused. Each waited for the other to speak.

Don't you think Dr. Mitchell is quite coming out, said Alvina. Quite, quite the ladies' man. I wonder who it is can be bringing him out. A very praiseworthy work, I am sure. She looked wickedly at Alvina. No, don't look at me, laughed Alvina. I know nothing about it. Do you think it may be me? said the matron, mischievous.

I am sure of it, matron. He begins to show some taste at last. There now, said Dematron, I shall put my cap straight, and she went to the mirror, fluffing her hair and settling her cap. There, she said, bobbing a little curtsy to Alvina. They both laughed and went off to work. End of, Chapter 11, Part 1. Read by Tony Foster.

Chapter 11, Part 2 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. But there was no mistake. Dr. Mitchell was beginning to expand. With Alvina he quite unbent and seemed even to sun himself when she was near to attract her attention. He smiled and smirked and became oddly self-conscious, rather uncomfortable. He liked to hang over her chair, and he made a great event of offering her a cigarette whenever they met, although he himself never smoked.

he had a gold cigarette case. One day he asked her in to see his garden. He had a pleasant old square house with a big walled garden. He showed her his flowers and his wall fruit, and asked her to eat his strawberries. He bade her admire his asparagus. And then he gave her tea in the drawing-room, with strawberries and cream and cakes,

all of which he ate nothing. But he smiled expansively all the time. He was a maid man, and now he was really left. letting himself go, luxuriating in everything, above all in Alvina, who poured tea gracefully from the old Georgian teapot, and smiled so pleasantly above the Queen Anne teacups. And she, wicked that she was, admired every detail of his drawing-room. It was a pleasant room indeed, with roses outside the French door and a lawn in sunshine beyond, with bright red flowers in beds. But indoors, it was

insistently antique. Alvina admired the Jacobian sideboard and the Jacobean armchairs and the heppel-white wall chairs and the Sheraton-Setee and the Chippendale Stans and the Axminster Carpet and the Bronze Clock with Shakespeare and Ariosto reclining on it. Yes, she even admired Shakespeare on the clock and the Ormolu cabinet and the beadwork footstools and the dreadful savre d'estre with a cherub in it and but why new me? She admired everything, and Dr. Mitchell's heart expanded in his bosom till he felt it would burst, unless he either fell at her feet or did something extraordinary. He had never even imagined what it was to be so expanded. What a delicious feeling! He could have kissed her feet in an ecstasy of wild expansion,

but habit, so far, prevented his doing more than beam. Another day he said to her, when they were talking of age, You're as young as you feel. Why, when I was twenty, I felt I had all the cares and responsibility of the world on my shoulders. And no, I am middle-aged, more or less. I feel as light as if I were just beginning life. He beamed down at her. Perhaps you are only just beginning your own life, she said.

You have lived for your work till now. It may be that, he said. It may be that up till no, I have lived for others, for my patience. And no, perhaps I may have lived for others. maybe allowed to live a little more for myself. He beamed with real luxury, saw the real luxury of life begin. Why shouldn't you, said Alvina? Oh yes, I intend to, he said, with confidence.

He really, by degrees, made up his mind to marry now, and to retire in part from his work. That is, he would hire another assistant and give himself a fair amount of leisure. He was inordinately proud of his house, and now he looked forward to the treat of his life, hanging round the woman he had made his wife, following her about, feeling proud of her and his house, talking to her from morning till night, really finding himself in her. When he had to go his rounds, she would go with him in the car. He made up his mind she would be willing to accompany him. He would teach her to drive,

and they would sit side by side, she driving him and waiting for him, and he would run out of the houses of his patients and find her sitting there, and he would get in beside her and feel so snug and so sure and so happy as she drove him off to the next case, he informing her about his work. And if ever she did not go out with him, she would be there on the doorstep waiting for him the moment she heard the car, and they would have long, cozy evenings together in the drawing-room as he luxuriated in her very presence. She would sit on his knees and they would be snug for hours

Before they went warmly and deliciously to bed And in the morning he need not rush off He would loiter about with her They would loiter down the garden Looking at every new flower and every new fruit She would wear fresh flowery dresses And no cap on her hair He would never be able to tear himself away from her

And every hour he would be rushing back to her They would be simply everything to one another and how he would enjoy it. Ah! He pondered as to whether he would have children. A child would take her away from him. That was his first thought. But then, ah, well, he would have to leave it till the time.

Love's young dream is never so delicious as at the virgin age of 53. But he was quite cautious. He made no definite advances till he had put a plain question. It was August Bank holiday, that for ever, ever black day of the Declaration of War when his question was put, for this year of our story is the fatal year 1914. There was quite a stir in the town over the Declaration of War, but most people felt that the news was only intended to give an extra thrill to the all-important event of bank holiday. Half the world had gone to Blackpool or Southport, the other half had gone to the lakes

or into the country. Lancaster was busy with a sort of fate, not withstanding, and as the weather was decent, everybody was in a real holiday mood. So that Dr. Mitchell, who had contrived to pick up Alvina at the hospital, contrived to bring her to his house at half-past three for tea. What do you think of this new war? said Alvina. Oh, it will be over in six weeks, said the doctor easily, and there they left it. Only, with a fleeting thought, Alvina wondered if it would affect the Natchiketawaras. She had never heard any more of them. "'Where would you have liked the go to-day?' said the doctor,

turning to smile at her as he drove the car. "'I think to Windermere. Into the lakes?' she said. "'We might make a tour of the lakes before long,' he said. She was not thinking, so she took no particular notice of the speech. "'How nice,' she said vaguely. "'We could go in the car and take them as we chose,' said the doctor. "'Yes,' she said, wondering at him now. when they had had tea quietly and gallantly, Tate or Tate, in his drawing-room, he asked her if she would like to see the other rooms of the house.

She thanked him, and he showed her the substantial oak dining-room, and the little room with medical works and a revolving chair, which he called his study. then the kitchen and the pantry, the housekeeper looking askance, then upstairs to his bedroom, which was very fine with old mahogany tallboys and silver candlesticks on the dressing-table, and brushes with green ivory backs, and a hygienic white bed and straw mats. Then the visitor's bedroom corresponding with its old satin-wood furniture and cream-coloured chairs with large, pale blue cushions, and a pale carpet with reddish wreaths. Very nice, lovely, awfully nice, I do like that. Isn't that beautiful? I've never seen anything like that, came the gratifying fireworks of admiration from Alvina, and he smiled and

gloated. But in her mind she was thinking of Manchester House, and how dark and horrible it was, how she hated it, but how it had impressed Chichot and Geoffrey, how they would have loved to feel themselves masters of it, and how done in the eye they were. She smiled to herself rather grimly. For this afternoon she was feeling unaccountably uneasy and wistful, yearning into the distance again, a trick she thought she had happily lost. The doctor dragged her up even to the slanting attics. He was a big man, and he always wore navy-blue suits, well-tailored and immaculate. Unconsciously she felt that big men in good navy-blue suits, especially if they had had reddish faces and rather big feet, and if their hair was wearing thin, were a special type all to themselves, solid and rather namby-pamby and tiresome.

What very nice attics! I think the many angles which the roof makes, the different slants, you know, are so attractive. Oh, and the fascinating little window! She crouched in the hollow of the small dormer window. Fascinating! See the town and the hills! I know I should want this. room for my own. Then have it, he said. Have it for one of your own. She crept out of the window recess and looked up at him. He was leaning forward to her, smiling, self-conscious, tentative and eager. She thought it best to laugh at her. I was only talking like a child from the imagination, she said. I quite understand that, he replied deliberately, but I am speaking what I mean. She did not answer, but looked at him reproachfully. He was smiling and smirking broadly at her. Won't you marry me and come and have this garret for your own? He spoke as if he were offering her a chocolate.

He smiled with curious uncertainty. I don't know, she said vaguely. His smile broadened. Well, no, he said, make up your mind. I'm not good at talking about love, you know. But I think I'm pretty good at feeling it, you know. I want you to come here and be happy. With me. He added the two last words as a sort of sly post-scriptum, and as if to commit himself finally. But I've never thought about it, she said, rapidly cogitating.

I know you haven't, but think about it now. He began to be hugely pleased with himself. Think about it now. And tell me if you could put up with me, as well as the garret. He beamed and put his head a little on one. one side, rather like Mr. May for one second. But he was much more dangerous than Mr. May. He was overbearing, and had the devil's own temper if he was thwarted. This she knew. He was a big man in a navy-blue suit with very white teeth. Again she thought she'd better laugh it off.

It's you I am thinking about, she laughed, flirting still. It's you I am wondering about. "'Well,' he said, rather pleased with himself, "'you wonder about me till you've made up your mind.' "'I will,' she said, seizing the opportunity. "'I'll wonder about you till I've made up my mind. "'Shall I?' "'Yes,' he said. "'That's what I wish you to do.

"'And the next time I ask you, you'll let me know.' "'That's it, isn't it?' "'He smiled indulgently down on her, "'thought her face young and charming, charming.' "'Charming.' "'Yes,' she said. said, but don't ask me too soon, will you? How, too soon? he smiled delightedly.

You'll give me time to wonder about you, won't you? You won't ask me again this month, will you? This month? His eyes beamed with pleasure. He enjoyed the procrastination as much as she did. But the month's only just begun. However, yes, you shall have you way. I won't ask you again this month.

And I'll promise to wonder about. you all the month, she laughed. That's a bargain, he said. They went downstairs, and Alvina returned to her duties. She was very much excited, very much excited, indeed. A big, well-to-do man in a navy blue suit of handsome appearance, aged 53, with white teeth and a delicate stomach. It was exciting. A sure position, a very nice home and lovely things in it, once they were dragged about a bit. And of course he'd adore her. That went without saying. She was as fussy as if someone had given her a lovely new pair of boots. She was really fussy and pleased with herself, and quite decided she'd take it all on. That was how it put itself to her. She would take it all on.

Of course there was the man himself to consider, but he was quite presentable. There was nothing at all against it, nothing at all. If he had pressed her during the first half of the month of August he would almost certainly have got her, but he only beamed in anticipation. Meanwhile the stir and restlessness of the war had begun, and was making itself felt even in Lancaster, and the excitement and the unease began to wear through Alvena's rather glamorous fussiness. Some of her old fretfulness came back on her. Her spirit, which had been as if asleep these months, now woke rather irritably and chafed against its collar. Who was this elderly man that she should marry him?

Who was he that she should be kissed by him? Actually kissed and fondled by him. Repulsive. She avoided him like the plague. Fancy reposing against his broad navy blue waistcoat. She started as if she had been stung. Fancy seeing his red smiling face just above hers, coming down to embrace her.

she pushed it away with her open hand and she ran away to avoid the thought. And yet, and yet, she would be so comfortable, she would be so well off for the rest of her life. The hateful problem of material circumstance would be solved forever, and she knew well how hateful material circumstances can make life. Therefore she could not decide in a hurry, but she bore Dr. Mitchell a deep grud. that he could not grant her all the advantages of his offer, and excuse her the acceptance of him himself. She dared not decide in a hurry,

and this very fear, like a yoke on her, made her resent the man who drove her to decision. Sometimes she rebelled. Sometimes she laughed unpleasantly in the man's face, though she dared not go too far, for she was a little afraid of him, and his rabid temper also. In her moments of sullen rebellion,

she thought of Natchakitawara. She thought of them deeply. She wondered where they were, what they were doing, how the war had affected them. Poor Geoffrey was a Frenchman. He would have to go to France to fight. Max and Louis was Swiss. It would not affect them, nor Ciccio, who was Italian. She wondered if the troop was in England, if they would continue together when Geoffrey was gone. She wondered if they thought of her. She felt they did. She felt they did not forget her. She felt, there was a connection. In fact, during the latter part of August, she wondered a good deal more about the Natchez than about Dr. Mitchell. But wondering about the Natchez would not help her. She felt if she knew where they were, she would fly to them, but then she knew she wouldn't.

When she was at the station, she saw crowds and bustle. People were seeing their young men off. Beer was flowing. Sailors on the train were tipsy. Women were holding young men by the lapel of the coat. and when the train drew away the young men waving the women cried aloud and sobbed after them a chill ran down alvena's spine this was another matter apart from her dr mitchell it made him feel very unreal trivial she did not know what she was going to do she realized she must do something take some part in the wild dislocation of life she knew that she would put off dr mitchell again she talked the matter over with the matron the matron the matron and advised her to procrastinate. Why not volunteer for war service? True, she was a maternity nurse, and this was hardly the qualification needed for the nursing of soldiers, but still she was a nurse. Alvina felt this was the thing to do. Everywhere was a stir and a seet of excitement. Men were active, women were needed too. She put down her name on the list of volunteers for

active service. This was on the last day of August. On the 1st of September, Dr. Mitchell was round at the hospital early, when Alvina was just beginning her morning duties there. He went into the matron's room and asked for Nurse Huffton. The matron left them together. The doctor was excited. He smiled broadly, but with a tension of nervous excitement. Alvina was troubled. Her heart beat fast. No, said Dr. Mitchell. What have you to say to me? She looked up at him with confused eyes. smiled excitedly and meaningfully at her and came a little nearer. Today is the day when you answer, isn't it?

He said. No, then. Let me hear what you have to say. But she only watched him with large, troubled eyes and did not speak. He came still nearer to her. Well then, he said, I am to take it that silence gives consent. And he laughed nervously, with nervous anticipation, as he tried to put his arm round her, but she stepped suddenly back. No, not yet, she said. Why? he asked. I haven't given my answer,

she said. Give it then, he said, testily. I've volunteered for active service, she stammered. I felt I ought to do something. Why? he asked. He could put a nasty intonation into that monosyllable. I should have thought you would answer me first. She did not answer, but watched him. She did not like him. I only signed yesterday, she said. Why didn't you leave it till tomorrow? It would have looked better. He was angry, but he saw a half-frightened, half-guilty look on her face, and during the weeks of anticipation he had worked himself up.

But put that aside, he smiled again a little dangerously. You have still to answer my question. Having volunteered for war service doesn't prevent you're being engaged to me, does it? Alvina watched him with large eyes, and again he came very near to her, so that his blue serge waistcoat seemed to impinge on her, and his purplish red face was above her. I'd rather not be engaged, under the circumstances, she said. Why, came the nasty monosyllable?

What have the circumstances got to do with it? Everything is so uncertain, she said. I'd rather wait. Wait, haven't you waited long enough? There's nothing at all to prevent you'll get in. engaged to me now. Nothing whatsoever. Come now. I'm old enough not to be played with, and I'm too much in love with you to let you go on indefinitely like this. Come now. He smiled imminent and held out his large hand for her hand. Let me put the ring on your finger. It'll be the proudest day of my life

when I make you my wife. Give me your hand. Alvina was wavering. For one thing, mere curiosity made her want to see the ring. She half-lifted her hand, and but for the knowledge that he would kiss her, she would have given it. But he would kiss her, and against that she obstinately set her will, she put her hand behind her back, and looked obstinately into his eyes. "'Don't play a game with me,' he said dangerously. But she only continued to look mockingly and obstinately into his eyes. "'Come,' he said, beckoning for her to give her. He said, beckoning for her to her hand. With a barely perceptible shake of the head, she refused, staring at him all the time. His ungovernable temper got the better of him. He saw red, and without knowing, seized her by the

shoulder, swung her back, and thrust her, pressed her against the wall as if he would push her through it. His face was blind with anger, like a hot, red sun. Suddenly, almost instantaneously, he came to himself again and drew back his hands, shaking his right hand as if some rat had bitten it. I'm sorry, he shouted, beside himself. I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I'm sorry. He dithered before her. She recovered her equilibrium and pale to the lips looked at him with somber eyes. I'm sorry, he continued loudly in his strange frenzy, like a small boy. Don't remember. Don't remember. Don't think I did it. his face was a kind of blank and unconsciously he wrung the hand that had gripped her as if it pained him she watched him and wondered why on earth all this frenzy she was left rather cold she did not at all feel the strong feelings he seemed to expect of her

there was nothing so very unnatural after all in being bumped up suddenly against the wall certainly her shoulder hurt where he had gripped it but there were plenty of worse hurts in the world She watched him with wide, distant eyes, and he fell on his knees before her, as she backed against the bookcase, and he caught hold of the edge of her dress bottom, drawing it to him, which made her rather abashed and much more uncomfortable. Forgive me, he said, don't remember, forgive me, love me, love me, love me,

forgive me and love me, forgive me and love me. As Alvina was looking down, dismayed, on the great, red-faced, elderly man, who in his crying out showed his white teeth like a child, and as she was gently trying to draw her skirt from his clutch, the door opened, and there stood the matron in her big, frilled cap. Alvina glanced at her, flushed crimson, and looked down to the man. She touched his face with her hand. "'Never mind,' she said.

"'It's nothing. Don't think about it.' He caught her hand and clunked to it. Love me, love me, love me, love me, he cried. The matron softly closed the door again, withdrawing. Love me, love me! Alvina was absolutely dumbfounded by this scene. She had no idea men did such things.

It did not touch her. It dumbfounded her. The doctor, clinging to her hand, struggled to his feet and flung his arms around her, clasping her wildly to him. You love me? me, don't you? He said, vibrating and beside himself as he pressed her to his breast and hid his face against her hair. At such a moment, what was the good of saying she didn't? But she didn't. Pity for his shame, however, kept her silent, motionless and silent in his arms, smothered against the blue serge

waistcoat of his broad breast. He was beginning to come to himself. He became silent, but he still strain her fast. He had no idea of letting her go. "'You will take my ring, won't you?' he said, at last, still in the strange, lamentable voice, "'You will take my ring?' "'Yes,' she said coldly, anything for a quiet emergence from this scene. He fumbled feverishly in his pocket with one hand, holding her still fast by the other arm, and with one hand he managed to extract the ring from its case, letting the case roll away on the floor. It was a diamond solitaire.

Which finger? Which finger is it? he asked, beginning to smile rather weakly. She extricated her hand and held out her engagement finger. Upon it was the morning ring Miss Frost had always worn. The doctor slipped the diamond solitaire above the morning ring and folded Alvina to his breast again. No, he said, almost in his normal voice. No, I know you love. me. The pleased self-satisfaction in his voice made her angry. She managed to extricate herself. You will come along with me, no, he said. I can't, she answered. I must get back to my work here.

No, Salon can do that. I'd rather not. Where are you going today? She told him her cases. Well, you will come and have tea with me. I shall expect you to have tea with me every day. But Alvina was straightening her crushed cap before the mirror and did not answer. We can see as much as we like of each other, no, we're engaged, he said, smiling with satisfaction. I wonder where the matron is, said Alvina, suddenly going into the cool, white corridor. He followed her, and they met the matron just coming out of the ward. Matron, said Dr. Mitchell, with the return of his old-mouthing importance. You may congratulate Nurse Huffington and me on our engagement, he smiled largely.

I may congratulate you, you mean, said the matron. "'Yes, of course. And both of us, since we are new, one,' he replied. "'Not quite yet,' said the matron, gravely. "'And at length she managed to get rid of him. "'At once she went to look for Alvina, who had gone to her duties. "'Well, I suppose it is all right,' said the matron, gravely. "'No, it isn't,' said Alvina. "'I shall never marry him.'

"'Ah, never is a long while. "'Did he hear me come in?' "'No, I'm sure he didn't. Thank goodness for that. Yes, indeed. It was perfectly horrible, following me round on his knees and shouting for me to love him.

Perfectly horrible. Well, said the matron, you never know what men will do till you've known them. And then you need be surprised at nothing. Nothing. I'm surprised at nothing they do. I must say, said Alvina, I was surprised, very unpleasantly.

But you accepted him. Anything to quieten him, like hysterical child. "'Yes, but I'm not sure you haven't taken a very risky way of quieting him, "'giving him what he wanted.' "'I think,' said Alvina, "'I can look after myself. "'I may be moved any day now.'

"'Well,' said the matron, "'he may prevent you getting moved, you know. "'He's on the board, and if he says you're indispensable?' "'This was a new idea for Alvina to cogitate. "'She had counted on a speedy escape. "'She put his ring in her apron pocket, and there she forgot it until he pounced on her in the afternoon in the house of one of her patients. He waited for her to take her off.

Where's your ring? he said, and she realised that it lay in the pocket of a soiled, discarded apron, perhaps lost forever. I shan't wear it on duty, she said. You know that. She had to go to tea with him. She avoided his love-making by telling him any sort of spooniness revolted her, and he was too much an old bachelor to take easily to a fondling. habit, before marriage at least. So he mercifully left her alone. He was, on the whole, devoutly thankful she wanted to be left alone, but he wanted her to be there. That was his greatest craving.

He wanted her to be always there, and so he craved for marriage, to possess her entirely, and to have her always there with him, so that he was never alone, alone and apart from all the world, but by her side, always by her side. No. "'When shall we fix the marriage?' he said. "'It is no good putting it back. "'We both know what we're doing. "'And now the engagement is announced.' "'He looked at her anxiously.

"'She could see the hysterical little boy "'under the great authoritative man. "'Oh, not till after Christmas,' she said. "'After Christmas!' he started as if he had been bitten. "'Nonsense! "'It's nonsense to wait so long. "'Next month at the latest.' "'Oh, no,' she said.

"'I don't. think so soon. Why not? The sooner the better. You'd better send in your resignation at once so that you're free. Oh, but is there any need? I may be transferred for war service. That's not likely. You're our only maternity nurse. And so the days went by. She had tea with him practically every afternoon, and she got used to him. They discussed the furnishing. She could not help suggesting a few alterations, a few arrangements according to her idea, and he drew up a plan of a wedding tour in Scotland. Yet she was quite certain she would not marry him. Demetron laughed at her certainty. You will drift into it, she said. He's tying you down by too many little threads.

Ah, well, you'll see, said Alvina. Yes, said Demetron, I shall see. And it was true that Alvina's will was indeterminate at this time. She was resolved not to marry. but her will, like a spring that is hitched somehow, did not fly direct against the doctor. She had sent in her resignation, as he suggested, but not that she might be free to marry him, but that she might be at liberty to flee him, so she told herself. Yet she worked into his hands. One day she sat with the doctor in the car near the station. It was towards the end of September, held up by a squad of soldiers in khaki, who were marching off with their band wildly playing to embark on the special troop train that was coming down from the north. The town was in

great excitement. War fever was spreading everywhere. Men were rushing to enlist, and being constantly rejected, but it was still the days of regular standards. As the crowd surged on the pavement, as the soldiers tramped to the station, as the traffic waited, there came a certain flow in the opposite direction. The 4-15 train had come in. People were struggling along with lugging, and luggage. Children were running with spades and buckets. Cabs were crawling along with families. It was the seaside people coming home. Alvina watched the two crowds mingle, and as she watched, she saw two men, one carrying a mandoline case and a suitcase which she knew. It was Chicho. She did not know the other man, some theatrical individual. The two men halted almost near the car

to watch the band go by. Alvina saw Chico quite near to her. She would have liked to squirt water down his brown, handsome, oblivious neck. She felt she hated him. He stood there watching the music, his lips curling in his faintly derisive Italian manner as he talked to the other man. His eyelashes were as long and dark as ever. His eyes had still the attractive look of being set in with a smutty finger. He had got the same brownish suit on, which she disliked, the same black hat, set slightly, jauntily over one eye. He looked common, and yet with that peculiar southern aloofness, which gave him a certain beauty and distinction in her eyes. She felt she hated him, rather. She felt she had been let down by him. The band had passed. A child ran against the wheel of the

standing car. Alvina suddenly reached forward and made a loud, screeching flourish on the hooter. Everyone looked round, including the laden, tramping soldiers. We can't move yet, said Dr. Mitchell. But Alvina was looking at Chico at that moment. He had turned with the rest, looking inquiringly at the car, and his quick eyes, the whites of which showed so white against his duskiness, the yellow pupils, so non-wereingly.

Unhuman met hers with a quick flash of recognition. His mouth began to curl in a smile of greeting, but she stared at him without moving a muscle, just blankly stared, abstracting every scrap of feeling, even of animosity or coldness, out of her gaze. She saw the smile die on his lips, his eyes glanced sideways, and again sideways, with that curious animal shyness which characterised him. It was as if he did not want to see her looking at him and ran from side to side like a caged weasel,

avoiding her blank, glaucus look. She turned pleasantly to Dr. Mitchell. What did you say? She asked, sweetly. End of Chapter 11, Part 2. Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 12 of The Lost Girl by D.H. H. H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Alley also is engaged. Alvina found it pleasant to be

respected as she was respected in Lancaster. It is not only the prophet who hath honour save in his own country. It is everyone with individuality. In this northern town Alvina found that her individuality really told. Already she belonged to the revered caste of medicine men, and into the bargain, she was a personality, a person. Well and good. She was not going to cheapen herself. She felt that even in the eyes of the natives, the well-to-do part at least, she lost a little of her distinction when she was engaged to Dr. Mitchell. The engagement had been announced in the Times, the Morning Post, the Manchester Guardian, and the local news. No fear about its being known. And it cast a slight slur of vulgar familiarity over her.

her. In Woodhouse, she knew, it elevated her in the common esteem tremendously, but she was no longer in Woodhouse. She was in Lancaster, and in Lancaster, her engagement pigeonholed her. Apart from Dr. Mitchell, she had a magic potentiality. Connected with him, she was a known and labelled quantity. This she gathered from her contact with the local gentry. The matron was a woman of family, who somehow managed in her big, white, frilled cap to be distinguished, like an abbess of old. The really toony women of the place came to take tea in her room, and these little teas in the hospital were like a little elegant female conspiracy. There was a slight flavour of art and literature about.

The matron had known Walter Pater in the somewhat remote past. Alvina was admitted to these teas with the few women who formed the Tony intellectual elite of this north. town. There was a certain freemasonry in the matron's room. The matron, a lady doctor, a clergyman's daughter, and the wives of two industrial magnets of the place, these five, and then Alvena, formed the little group. They did not meet a great deal outside the hospital, but they always met with that curious female freemasonry, which can form a law into itself, even among the most conventional women. They talked as they would never talk before men, or before feminine outsiders. They threw aside the whole vestment of convention. They discussed plainly the things they thought

about, even the most secret, and they were quite calm about the things they did, even the most impossible. Alvina felt that her transgression was a very mild affair, and that her engagement was really in for a dig. And are you going to marry him? asked Mrs. Took, with a long, cool look. I can't imagine myself, said Alvina. Oh, but so many things happen outside one's imagination. That's where your body has you. I can't imagine the time going to have a child.

She lowered her eyelids, weary and sardonically over her large eyes. Mrs. Tewke was the wife of the son of a local manufacturer. She was about 28 years old, pale, with great dark grey eyes and an arched nose and black hair, very like a head on one of the lovely Syracusan coins. The odd look of a smile which wasn't a smile at the corners of the mouth, the arched nose and the slowness of the big, full, classic eyes gave her the dangerous Greek look of the Syracusan women of the past, the dangerous, heavily civilised women of old Sicily,

those who laughed about the Latomia. But do you think you can have a child without wanting it at all? Alvina. Oh, but there isn't one bit of me wants it. Not one bit. My flesh doesn't want it, and my mind doesn't. Yet there it is. She spread her fine hands with a flicker of inevitability. Something must want it, said Alvina. Oh, said Mrs. Chook, the universe is one big machine and we're just part of it. She flicked out her grey silk handkerchief and dabbed her nose, watching with big black-grey eyes the fresh face of Alvina. There's not one bit of me concerned in having this child, she persisted to Alvina.

My flesh isn't concerned, and my mind isn't. And yet, lo voila! I'm just plente! I can't imagine why I married Tommy. And yet, I did, she shook her head as if it was all just beyond her, and the pseudo-smile at the corners of her ageless mouth deepened. Alvina was to nurse Mrs. Tewke. The baby was expected at the end of August, but already the middle of September was here,

and the baby had not arrived. The Tewks were not very rich, the young ones, that is. Tommy wanted to compose music, so he lived on what his father gave him. His father gave him a little house outside the town, a house furnished with expensive bits of old furniture, in a way that the town's people thought insane. But there you are.

Effie would insist on dabbing a rare bit of you. yellow brocade on the wall instead of a picture, and in painting apple-green shelves in the recesses of the whitewashed wall of the dining-room. Then she enameled the whole furniture yellow, and decorated it with curious green and lavender lines and flowers, and had unearthly cushions and sardinian pottery with unspeakable peaked griffins. What were you to make of such a woman? Alvina slept in her house these days, instead of at the hospital, for Effie was a very bad sleeper. She would sit up in bed, the two glossy black plats hanging beside her white arch face, wrapping loosely round her, her dressing gown of a sort of plumago-coloured, dark grey silk,

lined with fine silk of metallic blue, and there ivory and jet black and grey, like black lead, she would sit in the white bedclothes, flicking her handkerchief, and revealing a flicker of Kingfisher blue silk and white silk nightdress, complaining of her neuritis nerve and her own impossible condition, and begging Alvina to stay with her another half hour, and suddenly studying the big, blood-red stone on her finger as if she were reading something in it. I believe I shall be like the woman in Saint-Nouvelle

and carry my child for five years. Do you know that story? She said that eating a parsley leaf on which bits of snow were sticking started the child in her. It might just as well. Alvina would laugh and get tired. There was about her a kind of half-bitter sanity and nonchalance which the nervous woman liked. One night as they were sitting thus in the bedroom, at nearly eleven o'clock, they started and listened. Dogs in the distance had also started to yelp, and mandolin was wailing its vibration in the night outside, rapidly, delicately quivering. Alvina went pale. She knew it was Chichot. She had seen him lurking in the streets of the town,

but had never spoken to him. "'What's this?' cried Mrs. Chook, cocking her head on one side. "'Music! A mandolin! How extraordinary! Do you think it's a serenade?' and she lifted her brows archly. "'I should think it is,' said Alvina. "'How extraordinary! What a moment to choose to serenade the lady! "'Isn't it like life? I must look at it.' She got out of bed with some difficulty, wrapped her dressing-gown round her, pushed her feet into slippers, and went to the window. She opened the sash.

It was a lovely moonlight night of September. Below lay the little front garden, with its short drive and its iron gates that closed on the high road. From the shadow of the high road came the noise of the mandoline. "'Hello, Tommy,' called Mrs. Chook to her husband, whom she saw on the drive below her. How's your musical here? All right, doesn't it disturb you?

Came the man's voice from the moonlight below. Not a bit, I like it. I'm waiting for the voice. Oh, Richard, oh Mondois! But the music had stopped. There, cried Mrs. Chuke, you frightened him off. And we're dying to be serenaded, aren't we nurse? She turned to Alvina.

Do give me my fur, will you? Thanks so much. Won't you open the other window and look out there? "'Alvina went to the second window. "'She stood looking out. "'Do play again?' "'Mrs. Chook called into the night. "'Do sing something.'

"'And with her white arm she reached for a glory rose "'that hung in the moonlight from the wall, "'and with a flash of her white arm "'she flung it toward the garden wall, "'ineffectually, of course. "'Won't you play again?' she called into the night, "'to the unseen. "'Tomie, go indoors.

"'The bird won't sing when you're about. "'It's an Italian by the sound of him, "'Nothing I ate more than an emotional Italian music, "'perfectly nauseating. "'Never mind, dear, I know it sounds as if all their insides were coming out of the mouth. "'But we want to be serenaded, don't we nurse?' "'Alvina stood at her window, but did not answer. "'Ah!' came the odd query from Mrs. Chook.

"'Don't you like it?' "'Yes,' said Alvina, very much. "'And aren't you dying for the song?' "'Quite.' "'There!' cried Mrs. Chook into the moonlight. "'una canzone, bella, bella, "'moto bella!' "'She pronounced her syllables one by one,

"'calling into the night. "'It sounded comical. "'There came a rude laugh from the drive below. "'Go indoors, Tommy. "'You won't sing if you're there. "'Nothing will sing if you're there,' "'called the young woman. "'They heard a footstep on the gravel

"'and then the slam of the hall door. "'Now!' cried Mrs. Chook. "'They waited, and sure enough came the fine tinkle of the mandoline, and after a few moments the song. It was one of the well-known Neapolitan songs, and Chicho sang it as it should be sung. Mrs. Chook went across to Alvina.

Doesn't he put his bowels into it, he said, laying her hand on her own full figure, and rolling her eyes mockingly. I'm sure it's more effective than cenopods. Then she returned to her own window, huddled her furs over her breast and rested her white elbows in the moonlight. Tornasurientu, fami can par. The song suddenly ended in a clamorous animal sort of yearning.

Mrs. Tewke was quite still, resting her chin on her fingers. Alvina also was still. Then Mrs. Tewke slowly reached for the rosebuds on the old wall. "'Molto Bella,' she cried, half ironically. "'Molto Bella! "'I've you envoy on Rose!' "'And she threw the roses out onto the drive. "'A man's figure was seen hovering

"'outside the gate on the high road. "'Enterre!' cried Mrs. Stuke. "'Enterre! "'Prené vore rose! "'Come in and take your rose!' "'The man's voice called something from the distance. "'What?' cried Mrs. Tuch. "'I can't enter.'

"'You can't enter?' "'You can't enter. Why, then? The podne is not a key? Entry, don't. No, en-t-pourne, called the well-known voice of Chichot.

What do, Alvina, take him the rose to the gate, will you? Yes, do. The singing is horrible, I think. I can't go down to him. But do take him the roses and see what he looks like. Yes, do!

Mrs. Tewke's eyes were arched and excited. Alvina looked at her slowly. Alvina was also smiling to herself. She went slowly down the stairs and out of the front door. From a bush at the side she pulled two sweet-smelling roses. Then in the drive she picked up Effie's flowers. Chichael was standing outside the gate. "'Ale!' he said in a soft, yearning voice.

"'Mrs. Tewke sent you these roses,' said Alvina, putting the flowers through the bars of the gate. "'Ale!' he said, caressing her hand, kissing it with a soft, passionate, yearning mouth. Alvinas shivered. Quickly he opened the gate and drew her through. He drew her into the shadow of the wall and put his arms round her,

lifting her from her feet with passionate yearning. Allais, he said, I love you, Allais, my beautiful Alley, I love you, Alley! He held her fast to his breast and began to walk away with her. His throbbing, musical powers, seemed completely to envelop her.

He was just walking away with her down the road, clinging fast to her, enveloping her. Nurse! Nurse! I can't see you! Nurse! Came the long call of Mrs. Chook through the night. Dogs began to bark. Put me down, Mered Alvina. Put me down, Chico. Come with me to Italy. Come with me to Italy, Alley. I can't go to Italy by myself, Alley.

Come with me, to be married to me, Alley. "'Ale!' his voice was a strange, "'horse whisper just above her face. "'He still held her in his throbbing, heavy embrace. "'Yes, yes,' she whispered. "'Yes, yes, yes. "'But put me down, Chichot, put me down. "'Come to eat at me with me, Alley, come with me,'

"'he still reiterated in a voice hoarse with pain and yearning. "'Nurse, nurse, nurse, wherever are you? "'Nus! I want you!' sang the uneasy, querulous voice of Mrs. Tewke. "'Do put me down,' murmured Alvina, stirring in his arms. He slowly relaxed his clasp, and she slid down like rain to earth, but still he clung to her. "'Come with me, Alley, come with me to Italy,' he said. She saw his face, beautiful, non-human in the moonlight, and she shuddered slightly. "'Yes,' she said, I will come, but let me go now.

"'Where is your mandolin?' He turned round and looked up the road. "' Nurse, you absolutely must come! I can't bear it!' cried the strange voice of Mrs. Tewke. Alvina slipped from the man, who was a little bewildered, and threw the gate into the drive. "'You must come!' came the voice in pain from the upper window. Alvina ran upstairs. She found Mrs. Tewke crouched in a chair with a drawn, horrified, terrified face, As her pain suddenly gripped her, she uttered an exclamation and pressed her clenched fists hard on her face. The pains have begun, said Alvina, hurrying to her.

Oh, it's horrible! It's horrible! I don't want it! cried the woman in travail. Alvina comforted her and reassured her as best she could, and from outside, once more, came the despairing howl of the Neapolitan song, animal and inhuman on the night. It's to do you, pat, adieu, Taluntare to this core Inel paste'n'te'nureable, But still unendurable,

Tieno cordi non turnar, But none me la sa. It was almost unendurable, But suddenly Mrs. Tewke became quite still, and sat with her fists clenched on her knees, her two jet-black plats dropping on either side of her ivory face. Her big eyes fixed, staring into space,

at the line, Manun me laza. She began to murmur softly to herself. Yes, it's dreadful. It's horrible. I can't understand it. What does it mean that noise? It's as bad as these pains.

What does it mean? What does he say? I can understand a little Italian, she paused, and again came the sudden complaint. Manun me la sa. Manun me la sa, she murmured, repeating the music. That means, don't leave me. Don't leave me. But why?

Why shouldn't one human being go away from another? What does it mean? That awful noise. Isn't love the most horrible thing? I think it's horrible. It just does one in and turns one into a sort of howling animal. I'm howling with one sort of pain, he's howling with another. Two hellish animals, howling through the night.

I'm not myself, he's not himself. Oh, I think it's horrible. What does it look like, nurse? Is he beautiful? Is he a great hefty brute? She looked with big, slow, enigmatic eyes at Alvina. He's a man I knew before, said Alvina. Mrs. Tewke's face woke from its heart.

half-trance. Really? Oh, a man you knew before? Where? It's a long story, said Alvina, in a travelling music hall troupe. In a travelling music hall troupe? How extraordinary. Why, how did you come across such an individual? Alvina explained as briefly as possible. Mrs. Tewke watched her. Really, she said, you've done all those things. And she scrutinised Alvina's face. You've had some effect on him, that's evident, she said. Then she shuddered and dabbed her nose with her handkerchief. Oh, the flesh is a beastly thing, she cried. To make a man howl outside there like that, because you're here, and to make me howl because I've got a child inside me. It's unbearable. What does he look like, really? I don't know, said Alvina, not extraordinary,

rather a hefty brute. Mrs. Chook glanced at her to detect The irony. I should like to see him, she said. Do you think I might? I don't know, said Alvina, non-committal. Do you think he might come up? Ask him. Do let me see him. Do you really want to, said Alvina. Of course. Mrs. Tuch watched Alvina with big, dark, slow eyes. Then she dragged herself to her feet. Alvina helped her into bed. Do ask him to come up for a minute, Effie said. We'll give him a glass of Tommy's famous port. Do let me see him. Yes, do. She stretched her long white arm to Alvina with sudden imploring. Alvina laughed and turned doubtfully away.

The night was silent outside, but she found Chicho leaning against a gate-pillar. He started up. "'Ale, he said. "'Will you come in for a moment? I can't leave Mrs. Tuch.' Chichael obediently followed Alvina into the house and up the stairs without a word.

He was ushered into the bedroom. He drew back when he saw Effie in the bed, sitting with her long platts and her dark eyes and the subtle seeming smile at the corners of her mouth. Do come in, she said. I want to thank you for the music. Nurse says it was for her, but I enjoyed it also. Would you tell me the words? I think it's a wonderful song. Ticho hung back against the door, his head dropped, and the shy, suspicious, faintly malicious smile on his face. Have a glass of poor do, said Effie. Nurse, give us all one. I should like one, too. and a biscuit. Again she stretched out her long white arm from the sudden blue lining of her wrap,

suddenly, as if taken with the desire. Cheecho shifted on his feet, watching Alvina pour out the port. He swallowed his in one swallow and put aside his glass. Have some more, said Effie, watching over the top of her glass. He smiled faintly, stupidly, and shook his head. Won't you? Now tell me the words of the song. He looked at her from out of the dusky hollows of his brow and did not answer. The faint, stupid, half-smile, half sneer was on his lips. Won't you tell them me? I understood one line.

Chichos smiled more pronouncedly as he watched her, but did not speak. I understood one line, said Effie, making big eyes at him. Man on me last year, don't leave me. There, isn't that it? He smiled, stirred on his feet and nodded. "'Don't leave me there. I knew it was that. Why don't you want Nurse to leave you? Do you want her to be with you every minute?' He smiled a little contemptuously, awkwardly, and turned aside his face, glancing at Alvina. Effie's watchful eyes caught the glance. It was swift and full of the terrible yearning which so horrified her. At the same moment a spasm crossed her face. Her expression went blank.

"'Shall we go down?' said Alvina, to Chicho. He turned immediately with his cap in his hand and followed. In the hall he pricked up his ears as he took the mandoline from the chest. He could hear the stifled cries and exclamations from Mrs. Tewke. At the same moment the door of the study opened, and the musician, a burly fellow with troubled hair, came out. "'Is that Mrs. Tewke?' he snapped anxiously. "'Yes, the pains have begun,' said Alvina.

"'Oh, God, and have you left her?' He was quite irascible. "'Only for a minute,' said Alvina. but with a pf of angry indignation he was climbing the stairs she's going to have a child said alvina tchicho i shall have to go back to her and she held out her hand he did not take her hand but looked down into her face with the same slightly distorted look of overwhelming yearning yearning heavy and unbearable in which he was carried towards her as on a flood "'Alle,' he said, with a faint lift of the lip that showed his teeth, "'like a pained animal, a curious sort of smile. "'He could not go away.

"'I shall have to go back to her,' she said. "'Shall you come with me to Italy? Allay.' "'Yes. Where is, madame?' "'Gone. Gigi, all gone. "'Gone where?' "'Gone back to France. "'Called up. "'And Madame and Louis and Max?'

"'Switzerland.' "'He stood helplessly looking at her. "'Well, I must go.' said. He watched her with his yellow eyes from under his long black lashes, like some chained animal, haunted by doom. She turned and left him standing. She found Mrs. Tewke wildly clutching the edge of the sheets and crying, No, Tommy dear, I'm awfully fond of you, you know I am, but go away. Oh, God, go away. I put a space between us. Put a space between us! She almost shrieked. He pushed up his hair.

He'd been working on a big choral work which he was composing, and by this time he was almost demented. Can't you stand my presence? he shouted, and dashed downstairs. Nurse, cried Effie, it's no use trying to get a grip on life. It's just at the mercy of forces, she shrieked angrily. Why not, said Alvina? There are good life forces. Even the will of God is a life force. You don't understand. I want to be by myself, and I'm not myself. I'm just torn to pieces by forces. It's horrible.

Well, it's not my fault. I didn't make the universe, said Alvina. If you have to be torn to pieces by forces, well, you have. Other forces will put you together again. I don't want them to. I want to be myself. I don't want to be nailed together like a chair with a hammer. I want to be myself. You won't be nailed together like a chair. You should have faith in life.

But I hate life. It's nothing but a man. massive forces. I am intelligent. Life isn't intelligent. Look at it this moment. Do you call this intelligent? Oh, oh, it's horrible. Oh, she was wild and sweating with her pains. Tommy flounced out downstairs beside himself. He was heard talking to someone in the moonlight outside, to Chicho. He had already telephoned wildly for the doctor, but the doctor had replied that nurse would ring him up. The moment Mrs. Chook recovered her breath, she began again. I hate life and faith and such things. Faith is only fear, and life is a mass of unintelligent

forces to which intelligent beings are submitted, prostituted. Oh, oh, prostituted. Perhaps life itself is something bigger than intelligence, said Alvina. Bigger than intelligence, shrieked Effie. Nothing is bigger than intelligence. Your man is a hefty brute. His yellow eyes aren't intelligent. They're animal. No, said Alvina, something else. I wish he didn't attract me. There, because you're not content to be at the mercy of forces, cried Effie. I'm not. I'm not. I want to be myself. And so forces tear me to pieces. Tear me to pee. Oh, no! Downstairs Tommy had walked Chichot back into the house again, and the two men were drinking port

in the study, discussing it. Italy, for which Tommy had a great sentimental affection, though he hated all Italian music after the younger Scarlatti. They drank port all through the night, Tommy being strictly forbidden to interfere upstairs, or even to fetch the doctor. They drank three and a half bottles of port, and were discovered in the morning by Alvina, fast asleep in the study, with the electric light still burning. Tommy slept with his fair and ruffled head hanging over the edge of the couch like some great loose fruit. Chicho was on the floor, face downwards, his face in his folded arms. Alvina had a great difficulty in waking the inert Chicho. In the end, she had to leave him and roused

Tommy first, who in rousing fell off the sofa with a crash which woke him disagreeably, so that he turned on Alvina in a fury and asked her what the hell she thought she was doing. In answer to which Alvina held up a finger warningly, and Tommy, suddenly remembering, fell back as if he had been struck. She's sleeping now, said Alvina. Is it a boy or a girl? he cried. It isn't born yet, she said. Oh, God, it's an accursed fugue, cried the bemused Tommy, after which they proceeded to wake Chicho, who was like the dead doll in Patrushka, all loose and floppy. When he was awake, however, he smiled at Alvina and said,

Alley! The dark, waking smile upset her, Badly. End of. Chapter 12. Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 13 of The Lost Girl by D.H.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. The Wedded Wife The Upshot of it all was that Alvina ran away to Scarborough without telling anybody. It was in the first week in October. She asked for a weekend to make some arrangements for her marriage. The marriage was presumably with Dr. Mitchell, though she had given him no definite word. However, her month's notice was up, so she was legally free, and therefore she packed a rather large bag with all her ordinary things, and set off in her everyday dress, leaving the nursing paraphernalia behind. She knew Scarborough quite well, and quite quickly found rooms which she had occupied before in a boarding-house where she had stayed with Miss Frost long ago.

Having recovered from her journey, she went out onto the cliffs on the north side. It was evening, and the sea was before her. What was she to do? She had run away from both men, from Chicho as well as from Mitchell. She had spent the last fortnight, more or less, avoiding the pair of them. Now she had a moment to herself. She was even free from Mrs. Chook, who, in her own way, was more exacting than the men. Mrs. Chook had a baby daughter, and was getting well.

Cheecho was living with the chukes. Tommy had taken a fancy to him and had half engaged him as a sort of personal attendant, the sort of thing Tommy would do, not having paid his butcher's bills. So Alvina sat on the cliffs in a mood of exasperation. She was sick of being badgered about. She didn't really want to marry anybody. Why should she? She was thankful beyond measure to be by herself. How sick she was of other people and their importunities. What was she to do? She decided to offer herself again in a little while for war service, in a new town this time. Meanwhile, she wanted to be by herself. She made excursions. She walked on the moors in the brief but lovely days of early October. For three days it was all so sweet and lovely, perfect liberty, pure, almost paradisal. The fourth day it rained, simply rained all day long and was cold.

dismal, disheartening beyond words. There she sat, stranded in the dismalness, and knew no way out. She went to bed at nine o'clock, having decided in a jerk to go to London and find work in the war hospitals at once, not to leave off until she had found it. But in the night she dreamed that Alexander, her first fianc, was with her on the key of some harbour, and was reproaching her bitterly, even reviling her for having come too late so that they had missed their ship. They were there to catch the boat, and she, for dilettariness, was an hour late, and she could see the broad stern of the steamer, not far off, just an hour late. She showed Alexander her watch exactly ten o'clock instead of nine,

and he was more angry than ever because her watch was slow. He pointed to the harbour clock. It was ten minutes past ten. When she woke up she was thinking of Alexander. It was such a long time since she had thought of him. She wondered if he had a right to be angry with her. The day was still grey, with sweeping rain-clouds on the sea, gruesome, objectionable. It was a prolongation of yesterday.

Well, despair was no good, and being miserable was no good either. She got no satisfaction out of either mood. The only thing to do was to act, seize hold of life and wring its neck. She took the timetable that hung in the hall, the timetable, that magic carpet of today. When in doubt, move. This was the maxim, move.

Where to? Another click of a resolution. She would wire to Chichael and meet him. Where? York, Leeds, Halifax. She looked up the places in the timetable and decided on Leeds. She wrote out a telegram that she would be at Leeds that evening. Would he get it in time?

Chance it. She hurried off and sent the telegram. Then she took a little luggage, told the people of her house she would be back next day, and set off. She did not like whirling in the direction of Lancaster, but no matter. She waited a long time for the train from the north to come in. The first person she saw was Tommy. He waved to her and jumped from the moving train. I say, he said, so good.

glad to see you. Cheecho is with me. Effie insisted on my coming to see you. There was Cheecho climbing down with the bag. A sort of servant. This was too much for her. So you came with your valet, she said, as Cheecho stood with the bag. Not a bit, said Tommy, laying his hand on the other man's shoulder. We're the best of friends. I don't carry bags because my heart is rather groggy. I say, nurse, excuse me, but I like you better in uniform. Black doesn't suit you. You don't mind? Yes, I do, but I've only got black clothes, except uniforms.

Well, look here now. You're not going on anywhere tonight, are you? It is too late. Well, now, let's turn into the hotel and have a talk. I'm acting under Effie's orders, as you may gather. At the hotel Tommy gave her a letter from his wife to the tune of, Don't marry this Italian, you'll put yourself in a wretched hole,

and one wants to avoid getting into holes. I know, concluded Effie, on a sinister note. Tommy sang another tune. Chicho was a lovely chap, a rare chap, a treat. He, Tommy, could quite understand any woman's wanting to marry him, didn't agree a bit with Effie. But marriage, you know, was so final. And then with this war on, you never knew how things might turn out,

a foreigner and all that. And then, you won't mind what I say, we won't talk about class and that rot. If the man's good enough, he's good enough by himself. But is he your intellectual equal nurse? After all, it's a big point. You don't want to marry a man you can't talk to. Cheecho's a treat to be with because he's so natural,

but it isn't a mental treat. Alvina thought of Mrs. Tute, who complained that Tommy talked to music and pseudo-philosophy by the hour when he was wound up. She saw Effie's long, outstreet, stretched arm of repudiation and weariness. Of course, another of Mrs. Chook's exclamations, why not be at a vistic, if you can be,

and follow at a man's heel just because he's a man? Be like barbarous women, a slave. During all this, Chichos stayed out of the room, as bidden. It was not till Alvina sat before her mirror that he opened her door softly and entered. I come in, he said, and he closed the door. Alvina remained with her hairbrush suspended, watching him. He came to her, smiling softly, to take her in his arms, but she put the chair between them.

Why did you bring Mr. Chook, she said? He lifted his shoulders. I haven't brought him, he said, watching her. Why did you show him the telegram? It was Mrs. Chook took it. Why did you give it to 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 chukes.' "'And she began again to brush her hair. "'Cicho watched her with narrowing eyes. "'What do you mean?' he said. "'I shan't go. "'A lay. You come with me.' "'Ha!' she sniffed scornfully.

"'I shall go where I like.' "'But slowly he shook his head. "'You come,' Alay,' he said. "'You come with me, with Chichot.' "'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, L.A. 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, L.A. 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 mesmerised, and he was reaching forward to her as a snake reaches, nor could she recoil. You come, Alley, 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 said, he said, he was as if bewitched. She couldn't

fight against her bewitchment. Why? Because he seemed to her beautiful, so beautiful, and this left her numb, submissive. Why must she see him beautiful? Why was she willless? She felt herself like one of the old sacred prostitutes, a sacred prostitute. In the morning, very early, they left for Scarborough, leaving a letter for the sleeping Tommy. In Scarborough they went to the registrar. In Scarborough, they went to the registrar's office. They could be married in a fortnight's time, and so the fortnight passed, and she was under his spell. Only she knew it. She felt extinguished. Chichot talked to her, but only ordinary things. There was no wonderful intimacy of speech, such as she had always imagined and always craved for. No, he loved her, but it was in a dark, mesmeric way which did not let her be

herself. As love did not stimulate her or excite her, it extinguished her. She had to be the quiescent, obscure woman. She felt as if she were veiled. Her thoughts were dim in the dim back regions of consciousness. Yet somewhere she almost exulted. Atavism. Mrs. Tuch's word would play in her mind. Was it atavism this sinking into extinction under the spell of Chichot? Was it, and Was it atavism, this strange, sleep-like submission to his being? Perhaps it was? Perhaps it was. But it was also heavy and sweet and rich.

Somewhere she was content. Somewhere even she was vastly proud of the dark, veiled, eternal loneliness she felt under his shadow. And so it had to be. She shuddered when she touched him, because he was so beautiful, and she was so submitted. She quivered when he moved as if she were his shadow. Yet her mind remained distantly clear. She would criticise him, find fault with him, the things he did. But ultimately she could find no fault with him.

She had lost the power. She didn't care. She'd lost the power to care about his faults. Strange, sweet, poisonous indifference. She was drugged, and she knew it. Would she ever wake out of her, dark, warm coma. She shuddered and hoped not. Mrs. Chook would say atavism. Atavism, the word recurred curiously. But under all her questioning, she felt well, a nonchalance,

deep as sleep, a passivity and indifference so dark and sweet she felt it must be evil. Evil! She was evil. And yet she had no power to be otherwise. They were legally married, And she was glad. She was relieved by knowing she could not escape. She was Mrs. Maraska. What was the good of trying to be, Miss Huffden, any longer? Maraska, the bitter cherry. Some dark poison fruit she had eaten.

How glad she was she had eaten it. How beautiful he was! And no one saw it but herself. For her, it was so potent it made her tremble when she noticed him. His beauty, his dark shadow. Cheecho really was much handsomer since his marriage. He seemed to emerge. Before, he had seemed to make himself invisible in the streets in England altogether. But now something unfolded in him. He was a potent, glamorous presence. People turned to watch him. There was a certain dark, leopard-like pride in the air about him, something that the English people watched. He wanted to go to Italy, and now it was his will which counted. Alvina, as his wife, must submit. He took her to London the day after the marriage.

He wanted to get away to Italy. He did not like being in England, a foreigner, amid the beginnings of the spy craze. In London they stayed at his cousin's house. His cousin kept a restaurant in Battersea and was a flourishing London Italian, a real London product with all the good English virtues of cleanliness and honesty,

added to an Italian shrewdness. His name was Giuseppe Califano, and he was pale, and he had four children of whom he was very proud. He received Alvina with an affable respect, as if she were an asset in the family, but as if he were a little uneasy and disapproving. She had come down in marrying Chicho, she had lost caste. He rather seemed to exult over her degradation, for he was a northernised Italian. He had accepted English standards. His children were English brats.

He almost patronised Alvina. But then a long, slow look from her remote blue eyes brought him up sharp, and he envied Chicho suddenly. He was almost in love with her himself. She disturbed him. She disturbed him in his new English aplomb of a London restaurateur, and she disturbed in him the old Italian dark soul to which he was renegade. He tried treating her as an English lady,

but the slow, remote look in her eyes made this fall flat. He had to be Italian. And he was jealous of Chicho. In Chichos' face was a lurking smile, and round his fine nose there seemed a subtle, semi-defiant triumph. After all, he had triumphed over his well-to-do, anglicised cousin. With a stealthy, leopard-like pride, Chichael went through the streets of London

in those wild early days of war. He was the one victor, arching, stealthily, over the vanquished north. Alvinas saw nothing of all these complexities. For the time being, she was all dark and potent. Things were curious to her. It was curious to be in Battersea, in this English-Italian household, where the children spoke English more readily than Italian. It was strange to be high over the restaurant,

to see the trees of the park, to hear the clang of trams, It was strange to walk out and come to the river. It was strange to feel the seethe of war and dread in the air, but she did not question. She seemed steeped in the passional influence of the man, as in some narcotic. She even forgot Mrs. Chook's atavism. Vague and unquestioning she went through the days.

She accompanied Chico into town. She went with him to make purchases, or she sat by his side in the music hall, or she stayed in her room and sewed, or she sat at meals with the Califano's, a vague brightness on her face. And Mrs. Califano was very nice to her, very gentle, though with the suspicion of malicious triumph, mockery beneath her gentleness. Still, she was nice and womanly, hovering as she was between her English emancipation and her Italian subordination. She half-pityed Alvina,

and was more than half jealous of her. Alvina was aware of nothing, only of her. Only of the presence of Chichot. It was his physical presence which cast a spell over her. She lived within his aura, and she submitted to him as if he had extended his dark nature over her. She knew nothing about him. She lived mindlessly within his presence, quivering within his influence, as if his blood beat in her. She knew she was subjected, one tiny corner of her knew, and watched. He was very happy, and his face had a real beauty. His eyes glowed with lustrous secrecy, like the eyes of some victorious, happy, wild creature seen remote under a bush, and he was very good to her. His tenderness made her quiver into a swoon of complete self-forgetfulness, as if the floodgates of her depths opened. The depth of his warm, mindless, enveloping love was immeasurable. She felt she could sink forever into his warm, pulsating, embraced. Afterwards, later on, when she was inclined to criticise him, she would remember the moment when she saw his face at the Italian consulate in London. There were many people at the consulate, clamouring for passports, a wild and ill-regulated crowd. They had waited their turn and got inside. Cheecho was not good at pushing his way, and inside a courteous, tall old man with a white beard had lifted the flap for Alvina to go inside the office and sit down,

to fill in the form. She thanked the old man, who bowed as if he had a reputation to keep up. Chicho followed, and it was he who had to sit down and fill up the form because she did not understand the Italian questions. She stood at his side, watching the excited, laughing, noisy, east-end Italians at the desk. The whole place had a certain free and easy confusion, a human, unofficial, muddling liveliness, which was not quite like. England, even though it was in the middle of London. "'What was your mother's name?' Cichot was asking her. She turned to him. He sat with the pen perched flourishingly at the end of

his fingers, suspended in the serious and artistic business of filling in a form. And his face had a dark luminousness, like a dark transparency which was shut and has now expanded. She quivered as if it was more than she could bear, for his face was open like a flower right to the depths of his soul, a dark, lovely translucency, vulnerable to the deep quick of his soul. The lovely, rich darkness of his southern nature, so different from her own, exposing itself now in its passional vulnerability, made her go white with a kind of fear. For an instant, her face seemed drawn and old as she looked down at him, answering his questions. Then her eyes became sightless with tears.

She stopped as if to look at his writing, and quickly kissed his fingers that held the pen, there in the midst of the crowded, vulgar, consulate. He stayed suspended, again looking up at her with the bright, unfolded eyes of a wild creature which plays and is not seen. A faint smile, very beautiful to her, was on his face. What did he see when he looked?

looked at her. She did not know, she did not know, and she would never know. For an instant, she swore inside herself that God himself should not take her away from this man. She would commit herself to him through every eternity. And then the vagueness came over her again. She turned aside, photographically seeing the crowd in the consulate, but really unconscious. His movement as he rose seemed to move her in her sleep. She turned to him at once. It was early in November before they could leave for Italy, and her dim, lustrous state lasted all the time.

She found herself at Charing Cross in the early morning, in all the bustle of catching the continental train. Giuseppe was there, and Gemma his wife and two of the children, besides three other Italian friends of Chichot. They all crowded up the platform. Giuseppe had insisted that Chichos should take second-class tickets. They were very very... early. Alvina and Chicho were installed in a second-class compartment with all their packages.

Chicho was pale, yellowish under his tawny skin and nervous. He stood excitedly on the platform, talking in Italian, or rather in his own dialect, whilst Alvina sat quite still in her corner. Sometimes one of the women or one of the children came to say a few words to her, or Giuseppe hurried to her with illustrated papers. They treated her as if she was some sort of invalid or angel, now she was leaving. But most of their attention they gave to Chicho, talking at him rapidly all at once, whilst he answered, and glanced in this way and that, under his fine lashes,

and smiled his old, nervous, meaningless smile. He was curiously upset. Time came to shut the doors. The women and children kissed Alvina, saying, you'll be all right, eh, going to Italy? And then profound and meaningful nods, which she could not interpret, but which were fraught surely with good fellowship. Then they all kissed Chicho. The men took him in their arms and kissed him on either cheek. The children lifted their faces in eager anticipation of the double kiss. Strange how eager they were for this embrace. How they all kept

taking Chichos' hand, one after the other, whilst he smiled, constrainedly and nervously. End of Chapter 13, read by Tony Foster. Chapter 14 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librivox recording is in the public domain. The Journey Across The train began to move. Giuseppe ran alongside, holding Chico's hands still.

The women and children were crying and waving their handkerchiefs. The other men were shouting messages. making strange eager gestures, and Alvina sat quite still, wonderingly. And so the big, heavy train drew out, leaving the others small and dim on the platform. It was foggy. The river was a sea of yellow beneath the ponderous iron bridge. The morning was dim and dank. The train was very full. Next to Alvina sat a trim French woman reading Lélion. There was a terrible encumbrance of packages.

and luggage everywhere. Opposite her sat Chico, his black overcoat open over his pale grey suit, his black hat a little over his left eye. He glanced at her from time to time, smiling constrainedly. She remained very still. They ran through Bromley and out into the open country. It was grey, with shivers of grey sunshine. On the downs there was thin snow. The air in the train was hot, heavy with the crowd and tense with excitement and uneasiness. The train seemed to rush ponderously, massively, across the wheeled. And so, through Fokston to the sea. There was sun in the sky now, and white clouds,

in the sort of hollow sky dome above the grey earth with its horizon walls of fog. The air was still. The sea heaved with a sucking noise inside the dock. Alvina and Chichot sat aft on the second-class deck, their bags near them. He put a white muffle around himself. Alvina hugged herself in her beaver scarf and muff. She looked tender and beautiful in her still vagueness, and Chicho, hovering about her, was beautiful too.

His estrangement gave him a certain wistful nobility, which for the moment put him beyond all class inferiority. The passengers glanced at them across the magic, of estrangement. The sea was very still. The sun was fairly high in the open sky, where white cloud-tops showed against the pale, wintry blue. Across the sea came a silver sun-track, and Alvina and Chicho looked at the sun, which stood a little to the right of the ship's course. "'The sun!' said Chicho, nodding towards the orb and smiling to her. "'I love it,' she said. He smiled again, silently. He was strangely moved.

She did not know why. The wind was cold over the wintry sea, though the sun's beams were warm. They rose, walked round the cabins. Other ships were at sea, destroyers and battleships, grey, low, and sinister on the water. Then a tall, bright schooner glimmered far down the channel. Some brown fishing smacks kept together. All was very still in the wintry sunshine of the channel. So they turned to walk to the stoner,

stern of the boat, and Alvina's heart suddenly contracted. She caught Chicho's arm as the boat rolled gently, for there, behind, behind all the sunshine, was England. England, beyond the water, rising with ash-gray, corpse-gray cliffs, and streaks of snow on the downs above. England, like a long, ash-gray coffin, slowly submerging. She watched it, fascinated and terrified. It seemed to repudiate the sunshine, to remain unilluminated, long and ash-gray and dead, with streaks of snow like serenements. That was England. Her thoughts flew to Woodhouse, the grey centre of it all.

Home! Her heart died within her. Never had she felt so utterly strange and far off. Chicho at her side was as nothing. As spellbound she watched, a way off, behind all the sun. sunshine and the sea, the grey snow-streaked substance of England, slowly receding and sinking, submerging. She felt she could not believe it. It was like looking at something else. What? It was like a long, ash-grey coffin, winter, slowly submerging in the sea. England?

She turned again to the sun, but clouds and veils were already weaving in the sky. The cold was beginning to soak in, moreover. She sat very still for a long time, almost an eternity, and when she looked round again there was only a bank of mist behind, beyond the sea, a bank of mist and a few grey, stalking ships. She must watch for the coast of France. And there it was already, looming up grey and amorphous, patched with snow. It had a grey, heaped, sordid look in the November light. She had imagined Boulogne-Gne, gay and brilliant, whereas it was more grey and dismal than England, but not that magical, mystic, phantom look. The ship slowly put about and backed into the harbour. She watched the

key approach. Cheecho was gathering up the luggage. Then came the first cry one ever hears, "'Porteur, porter, want a porter?' A porter in a blouse strung the luggage on his strap, and Chicho and Alvina entered the crush for the exit and the passport inspection. There was a tense, eager, frightened crowd, and officials shouting directions in French and English. Alvina found herself at last before a table where bearded men in uniforms were splashing open the pink sheets of the English passports. She felt strange and uneasy, that her passport was unimpressive and Italian. The official scrutinised her and asked questions of Chicho. Nobody asked her anything. She might have been Chichos' shadow. So they went through.

to the vast, crowded cavern of a customs house, where they found their porter waving to them in the mob. Chicho fought in the mob while the porter whisked off Alvina to get seats in the big train, and at last she was planted once more in a seat, with Chichot's place reserved beside her. And there she sat, looking across the railway lines at the harbour, in the last burst of grey sunshine. Men looked at her, officials stared at her, soldiers made remarks about her. And at last, after an eternity, Chicho came along the platform, the porter trotting behind. They sat and ate the food they had brought and drank wine and tea, and after weary hours the train set off through snow-patched country to Paris.

Everywhere was crowded, the train was stuffy without being warm. Next to Alvinas sat a large, fat, youngish Frenchman, who overflowed over her in a hot fashion. Darkness began to fall. The train was very late. There were strange and frightening delays. Strange lights appeared in the sky. Everybody seemed to be listening for strange noises. It was all such a whirl and confusion that Alvina lost count, relapsed into a sort of stupidity. Glems, flashes, noises, and then at last the frenzy of Paris. It was night, a black city and snow falling, and no train that was. A night. A black city and snow falling, and no train that. that night across to the Guard de Leon. In a state of semi-stupefaction after all the questionings and examinings and blustering they were finally allowed to go straight across Paris. But this meant another wild tussle with a Paris taxi driver in the filtering snow,

so they were deposited in the Guard de Leon. And the first person who rushed upon them was Geoffrey, in a rather grimy privates uniform. He had already seen some hard service and had a wild, bewildered look. He kissed Chichot and burst into tears on his shoulder, there in the great turmoil of the entrance hall of the Garderillon. People looked, but nobody seemed surprise. Geoffrey sobbed, and the tears came silently down Chichot's cheeks. I've waited for you since five o'clock, and I've got to go back now.

Chicho, Chicho, I wanted so badly to see you. I shall never see thee again, brother, my brother, cried Gigi, and a sob shook. him. Gigi, my jiji, my jiji, do you aden regue my letter? Yesterday, oh, Chicho, Chicho, I shall die without thee. But no, Gigi, Fray, you won't die. Yes, Chichael, I shall, I know I shall. I say no, brother, said Chichot, but a spasm suddenly took him. He pulled off his hat and put it over his face and sobbed into it.

Adieu, Rami, adieu! cried Gigi, clutching the other man's arm. Chichot took his hat from his tear-stained face and put it on his head. Then the two men embraced. "'Tusue at you, said Geoffrey,' with a strange, solemn salute in front of Chicho and Alvina. Then he turned on his heel and marched rapidly out of the station, his soiled soldier's overcoat, flapping in the wind at the door. Chichael watched him go.

Then he turned and looked, with haunted out of the station. eyes into the eyes of Alvina, and then they hurried down the desolate platform in the darkness. Many people, Italians largely, were camped waiting there, while bits of snow wavered down. Chicho bought food and hired cushions. The train backed in. There was a horrible fight for seats, men scrambling through windows. Alvina got a place, but Chichael had to stay in the corridor. Then the long night journey through France, slow and blind. The train was now so hot that the iron plate on the floor burnt Alvinas feet. Outside she saw glimpses of snow.

A fat Italian hotelkeeper put on a smoking cap, covered the light and spread himself before Alvina. In the next carriage a child was screaming. It screamed all the night, all the way from Paris to Chamboree. It screamed. The train came to sudden halts and stood still in the snow. The hotel-keeper snored. Alvina became almost comatose in the burning heat of the carriage.

And again the train rumbled on. And again she saw glimpses of stations, glimpses of snow, through the chinks in the curtain windows. And again there was a jerk and a sudden halt, a drowsy mutter from the sleepers, somebody uncovering the light and somebody covering it again. somebody looking out, somebody tramping down the corridor, the child screaming. The child belonged to two poor Italians, Milanese, a shred of a thin little man and a rather loose woman. They had five tiny children, all boys, and the four who could stand on their feet all wore scarlet caps. The fifth was a baby. Alvina had seen a French official yelling at the

poor shred of a young father on the platform. When morning came and the bleary people pulled the curtains, it was a clear dawn, and they were in the south of France. There was no sign of snow. The landscape was half southern, half alpine. White houses with brownish tiles stood among almond trees and cactus. It was beautiful, and Alvina felt she had known it all before, in a happier life. The morning was graceful almost a spring. She went out in the corridor to talk to Chico. He was on his feet with his back to the inner window, rolling slightly to the motion of the train. His face was pale. He had that sombre, haunted, unhappy look. Alvina, thrilled by the southern country, was smiling excitedly. This is my first morning abroad, she said. Yes, he answered. I love it here, she said. Isn't this like

Italy. He looked darkly out of the window and shook his head. But the somber look remained on his face. She watched him, and her heart sank as she had never known it sink before. Are you thinking of Gigi, she asked? He looked at her with a faint, unhappy, bitter smile, but he said nothing. He seemed far off from her. A wild unhappiness beat inside her breast. She went down the corridor, away from him, to avoid this new agony, which after all was not her agony. She listened to the chatter of French and Italian in the corridor. She felt the excitement and terror of France, inside the railway carriage, and outside she saw white oxen slowly ploughing beneath the lingering yellow poplars of the sub-alps. She saw peasants

looking up. She saw a woman holding a baby to her breast, watching the train. She saw the excited, yeasty crowds at the station, and they passed a river and a great little. lake, and it all seemed bigger, nobler than England. She felt vaster influences spreading around. The past was greater, more magnificent in these regions. For the first time the nostalgia of the vast Roman and classic world took possession of her, and she found it splendid. For the first time she opened her eyes on a continent, the alpine core of a continent, and for the first time she realized what it was to escape from the smallish perfection of England into the grander imperfection of a great continent. Near Chamboree they went down for breakfast to the restaurant car, and secretly she was very happy.

Chichot's distress made her uneasy, but underneath she was extraordinarily relieved and glad. Chicho did not trouble her very much, the sense of the bigness of the lands about her, the excitement of traveling with continental people, the pleasantness of her coffee and rolls and honey, the feeling that vast events were taking place, all this stimulated her. She had brushed, as it were, the fringe of the terror of the war and the invasion. Fear was seething around her, and yet she was excited and glad. The vast world was in one of its convulsions, and she was moving against it. Somewhere, she believed in the convulsion the event elated her.

The train began to climb up to Modin. How wonderful the Alps were! What a bigness! An unbreakable power was in the mountains! Up and up the train crept, and she looked at the rocky slopes, the glistening peaks of snow in the blue heaven, the hollow valleys with fir trees and low-roofed houses.

There were quarries near the railway and men working. There was a strange mountain town, dirty-looking, and still the train climbed up and up in the hot morning sunshine, creeping slowly round the mountain loops, so that a little brown dog from one of the cottages ran alongside the train for a long way, barking at Alvina, even running ahead of the creeping, snorting train, and barking at the people ahead. Alvina, looking out, saw the two unfamiliar engines snorting out their smoke round the bend ahead,

and the morning wore away to midday. Chico became excited as they neared Modan, the frontier station. His eye lit up again, he pulled himself together for the entrance into Italy. Slowly the train rolled into the dismal station, and then a confusion indescribable of porters and masses of luggage, the unspeakable crush and crowd at the customs barriers, the more intense crowd through the passport office, all like a madness. They were out on the platform again. They had secured their places. Chichot wanted to have luncheon in the station restaurant. They went through the passages, and there, in the dirty station gangways and big corridors, dozens of Italians were lying on the ground. Men, women, children,

camping with their bundles and packages in heaps. They were either emigrants or refugees. Alvina had never seen people heard about, like cattle, dumb, brute, cat. battle. It impressed her. She could not grasp that an Italian labourer would lie down just where he was, tired in the street, on a station, in any corner, like a dog. In the afternoon they were slipping down the Alps towards Turin, and everywhere was snow, deep, white, wonderful snow, beautiful and fresh, glistening in the afternoon light all down the mountain slopes, on the railway track, almost seeming to touch the train, and twilight was full. falling, and at the stations people crowded in once more.

It had been dark a long time when they reached Turin. Many people alighted from the train, many surged to get in, but Chico and Alvina had seats side by side. They were becoming tired now, but they were in Italy. Once more they went down for a meal, and then the train set off again in the night for Alessandria and Genoa, Pisa and Rome. It was night, the train ran better. There was a more easy sense in Italy.

Chicho talked a little with other travelling companions, and Alvina settled her cushion and slept more or less till Genoa. After the long wait at Genoa, she dozed off again. She woke to see the sea in the moonlight beneath her, a lovely silvery sea, coming right to the carriage. The train seemed to be tripping on the edge of the Mediterranean, round bays and between dark rocks and under castles, a nighttime fairyland for hours.

She watched spellbound, spellbound by the magic of the world itself, and she thought to herself, whatever life may be, and whatever horror men have made of it, the world is a lovely place, a magic place, something to marvel over. The world is an amazing place. This thought dozed her off again. Yet she had a consciousness of tunnels and hills, and of broad marshes pallid under a moon and a coming dawn, and in the dawn there was Pisa.

She watched the word hanging in the station in the dimness, Pisa. Chichot told her people were changing for Florence. It all seemed wonderful to her, wonderful. She sat and watched the black station, then she heard the sound of the child's trumpet, and it did not occur to her to connect the trains moving on with the sound of the trumpet. it. But she saw the golden dawn, a golden sun coming out of level country. She loved it. She loved being in Italy. She loved the lounging carelessness of the train. She liked having Italian money, hearing the Italians round her, though they were neither as beautiful nor as melodious as she had

expected. She loved watching the glowing antique landscape. She read and read again, a pericoloso sporgesi and a viatato fumare, and the other little magical notices on the carriages. Ticho told her what they meant and how to say them, and sympathetic Italians opposite at once asked him if they were married, and who and what his bride was, and they gazed at her with bright, approving eyes, though she felt terribly bedraggled and travel-worn. You come from England? Yes, nice country, said a man, in a corner. leaning forward to make this display of his linguistic capacity.

"'Not so nice as this,' said Alvina. "'Eh?' Alvina repeated herself. "'Not so nice? Oh, no. Fog, eh?' The fat man whisked his fingers in the air to indicate fog in the atmosphere. "'But nice country, very convenient.' He sat up in triumph, having achieved this word, and the conversation once more became a spatter of Italian. the women were very interested. They looked at Alvina, at every atom of her, and she divined that they were

wondering if she was already with child. Sure enough, they were asking Chico in Italian if she was making him a baby. But he shook his head and did not know, just a bit constrained. So they ate slices of sausages and bread and fried rice balls with wonderfully greasy fingers, and they drank red wine in big throatfuls out of bottles, and they offered their fare to Chicho and Alvina, and were charmed when she said to Chicho she would have some bread and sausage. He picked the strips off the sausage for her with his fingers and made her a sandwich with a roll. The women watched her bite it, and bright-eyed and pleased, they said, nodding their heads, Wano, Wano? And she who knew this word understood, and replied,

Yes, good, Wono! No, nodding her head likewise, which caused immense satisfaction. The women showed the whole paper of sausage slices and nodded and beamed and said, "'Sevoly ancora?' And Alvina bit her wide sandwich and smiled and said, "'Yes, awfully nice.' And the women looked at each other and said something, and Chicho interposed, shaking his head.

But one woman ostentatiously wiped a bottle mouth with a clean handkerchief and offered the bottle to Alvina saying, Vino Buono. Vecchio, vequio! nodding violently and indicating that she should drink. She looked at Ciccio and he looked back at her doubtingly. Shall I drink some, she said? If you like, he replied, making an Italian gesture of indifference. So she drank some of the wine and it dribbled onto her chin.

She was not good at managing a bottle, but she liked the feeling of warmth it gave her. She was very tired. Si piachi? Piachi? Do you like it, interpreted Chichot. Yes, very much. What is very much, she asked of Chicho?

Moldo. Yes, Moldo. Of course, I knew Molto from music, she added. The women made noises and smiled and nodded, and so the train pulsed on till they came to Rome. There was again the wild scramble with luggage, a general leave-taking, and then the masses of people on the station at Rome.

Roma! Roma! Roma! What was it to Alvina but a name and a crowded, excited station, and Chichot running after the luggage and the pair of them eating in a station restaurant? Almost immediately after eating they were in the train once more, with new fellow travellers, running south this time towards Naples. In a days of increasing weariness, Alvina watched the dreary to her sordid-seeming Campania that skirts the railway, the broken aqueduct trailing in the near distance over the stricken plain.

She saw a tram car, far out from everywhere, running up to cross the railway. She saw it was going to Frascati. And slowly the hills approached. They passed the vines of the foothills, the reeds, and were among the mountains. Wonderful little towns perched, fortified on rocks and peaks. Mountains rose straight up off the level plain, like old topographical. Prince. Rivers wandered in the wild, rocky places. It all seemed ancient and shaggy, savage still, under all its remote civilisation, this region of the Alban Mountains, south of Rome.

So the train clambered up and down and went round corners. They had not far to go now. Alvina was almost too tired to care what it would be like. They were going to Chichos' native village. They were to stay in the house of his uncle, his mother's brother. This uncle had been a model in London. He had built a house on the land left by Chicho's grandfather. He lived alone now, for his wife was dead and his children were abroad. Giuseppe was his son, Giuseppe of Battersea in whose house Alvina had stayed. This much Alvina knew.

She knew that a portion of the land down at Pesco Colasio belonged to Chicho, a bit of half-savage, ancient earth that had been left to his mother by old Francesco Califano. her hard-grinding peasant father. This land remained integral in the property and was worked by Chichos' two uncles, Pancratio and Giovanni. Pangratio was the well-to-do uncle who had been a model and had built a villa.

Giovanni was not much good. That was how Chicho put it. They expected Pancaccio to meet them at the station. Chichio collected his bundles and put his hat straight and peered out of the window into the steep mountains of the afternoon. There was a town in the opening between steep hills, a town on a flat plain that ran into the mountains like a gulf.

The train drew up. They had arrived. Alvina was so tired she could hardly climb down to the platform. It was about four o'clock. Chicho looked up and down for Pangratio, but could not see him. So he put his luggage into a pile on the platform, told Alvina to stand by it, whilst he went off for the registered boxes. A porter came and asked her questions, of which she understood nothing. Then at last came Chicho, shouldering one small trunk, whilst a porter followed,

shouldering another. Out they trotted, leaving Alvina abandoned with the pile of hand luggage. She waited. The train drew out. Cheecho and the porter came bustling back. They took her out through the little gate to where, in the flat desert space behind the railway, stood two great drab motor omnibuses and a rank of open carriages. Chichael was handing up the handbags to the roof of one of the big post-oomnibuses. When it was finished, the man on the roof came down, and Chichael gave him and the station porter each sixpence. The station porter immediately threw his coin on the ground, with a gesture of indignant contempt, spread his arms wide and expostulated violently. Chichot expostulated back again, and they pecked at each other verbally, like two birds.

It ended by the rolling up of the burly, black-moustached driver of the omnibus, whereupon Chichot quite amicably gave the porter two nickel-tupences, in addition to the sixpence, whereupon the porter quite lovingly wished him, bon vagio. So Alvina was stowed into the body of the omnibus, with Chicho at her side. They were no sooner seated than a voice was heard in beautifully modulated English. You are here. Why, how have I missed you? It was Pancratio, a smallish, rather battered-looking, shabby Italian of sixty or more, with a big moustache and reddish-rimmed eyes and her deeply lined face.

He was presented to Alvina. How have I missed you, he said. I was on this station when the train came, and I did not see you. But it was evident he had taken wine. He had no further opportunity to talk. The compartment was full of large mountain peasants with black hats and big cloaks and overcoats. They found Pancratio a seat at the far end,

and there he sat, with his deeply lined, impassive face and slightly glazed eyes. He had yellow-brown eyes like Chicho, but in the uncle the eyelids dropped in a curious, heavy way. The eyes looked dull like those of some old rakish tom-cat. They were slightly rimmed. with red, a curious person, and his English, though slow, was beautifully pronounced. He glanced at Alvina with slow, impersonal glances, not at all a stare, and he sat for the most part impassive and abstract as a red Indian. At the last moment a large black priest was crammed in and the

door shut behind him. Every available seat was let down and occupied. The second great post-Ombnibus rolled away, and then the one for Mola followed, rolling Alvina and Chico over the next stage of their journey. The sun was already slanting to the mountaintops. Shadows were falling on the gulf of the plain. The omnibus charged as to great speed along a straight white road, which cut through the cultivated level straight towards the core of the mountain. By the roadside, peasant men in cloaks, peasant women in full-gathered dresses with white bodices or blouses having great full sleeves, tramped in the ridge of grass, driving cows or goats, or leading, heavily laden asses. The women had coloured kerchiefs on their heads, like the women Alvina remembered at the Sunday school treats,

who used to tell fortunes with green little lovebirds, and they all tramped along towards the blue shadow of the closing-in mountains, leaving the peaks of the town behind on the left. At a branch road the bus suddenly stopped, and there it sat calmly in the road beside an icy brook in the falling twilight. Great moth-white oxen waved past, drawing a long, low load of wood.

The peasants left behind began to come up again in picturesque groups. The icy brook tinkled, goats and pigs and cows wandered and shook their bells along the grassy board, of the road, and the flat, unbroken fields being driven slowly home. Peasants jumped out of the omnibus on the road to chat, and a sharp air came in. High overhead, as the sun went down, was the curious, icy radiance of snow mountains, and a pinkness while shadow deepened in the valley.

At last, after about half an hour, the youth who was conductor of the omnibus came running down the wild side road, everybody clambered in, and away. the vehicle charged, into the neck of the plane. With a growl and a rush it swooped up the first loop of the ascent. Great precipices rose on the right, the ruddiness of sunset above them. The road wound and swirled, trying to get up the pass. The omnibus pegged slowly up, then charged round a corner, swirled into another loop, and pegged heavily once more.

It seemed dark between the closing-in mountains. The rocks rose very high. the road looped and swerved from one side of the wide defile to the other. The vehicle pulsed and persisted. Sometimes there was a house, sometimes a wood of oak trees, sometimes the glimpse of a ravine, then the tall white glisten of snow above the earthy blackness, and still they went on and on, up the darkness. Peering ahead, Alvina thought she saw the hollow between the peaks, which was the top of the pass, and every time the omnibus took a new turn, she thought it was coming out on the top of this hollow between the heights.

But no, the road coiled right away again. A wild little village came in sight. This was the destination. Again, no. Only the tall, handsome mountain youth who had sat across from her, descended grumbling because the bus had brought him past his road, the driver having refused to pull up. Everybody expostulated with him, and he dropped into the shadow.

The big priest squeezed into his place. The bus wound on and on, and always towards that hollow skyline between the high peaks. At last they ran up between buildings, nipped between high rock faces, and out into a little marketplace, the crown of the pass. The luggage was got out and lifted down. Alvina descended. There she was, in a wild centre of an old, unfinished little mountain town. The façade of a church rose from a small eminence. A white road ran to the right, where a great open valley showed faintly beyond and beneath. Low, squalid sort of buildings stood around, with some high buildings, and there were bare little trees. The stars were in the sky, the air was icy. People stood

darkly, excited about. Women with an odd shell-pattern headdress of gophered linen, something like a parlor-maid's cap, came and stared hard. They were hard-faced mountain women. Pancraccio was talking to Ciccio in dialect. I couldn't get a cart to come down, he said in English, but I shall find one here. Now what will you do? Put the luggage in Gratzi's place while you wait? They went across the open place to a sort of shop called the post-restraunt. It was a little hole with an earthen floor and a smell of cats. Three crones were sitting over a low brass brazier in which charcoal and ashes smouldered. Men were drinking. Cheecho ordered coffee with rum, and the hard-faced gratzia in her unfresh headdress, dabbled the little dirty coffee cups in

dirty water, took the coffee pot out of the ashes, poured in the old black boiling coffee three parts full, and slopped the cup over with rum. Then she dashed in a spoonful of sugar to add to the pool in the saucer, and her customers were served. however chicho drank up so alvena did likewise burning her lips smartly chicho paid and ducked his way out now what will you buy asked pancratzio buy said chichio food said pancratzio have you brought food no said so they trailed up stony dark ways to a butcher and got a big red slice of meat to a baker and got enormous flat loaves sugar and coffee they bought and pancratio lamented in his elegant english that no butter was to be obtained everywhere the hard-faced women came and stared into alvinas face asking questions and both chicho and pancratio answered rather coldly with some hauteur There was evidently not too much intimacy between the people of Pesco Calasio and these semi-town folk of Osona. Alvina felt as if she were in a strange, hostile country in the darkness of the savage little mountain town.

At last they were ready. They mounted into a two-wheeled cart. Alvina and Chicho behind, Pancratio and the driver in front, the luggage promiscuous. The bigger things were left for the morrow. It was icy cold, with a flashed, darkness. The moon would not rise till later. And so, without any light but that of the stars, the cart went spanking and rattling downhill, down the pale road which wound down the head of the valley to the gulf of darkness below. Down in the darkness, into the darkness they rattled, wildly and without heed, the young driver making strange noises to his dim horse, cracking a whip and asking endless questions of pancratio.

Alvina sat close to Chicho. He remained almost impassive. The wind was cold, the stars flashed, and they rattled down the rough, broad road under the rocks, down and down in the darkness. Chichael sat crouching forwards, staring ahead. Alvina was aware of mountains, rocks and stars. I didn't know it was so wild, she said.

"'It is not much,' she said. "'There was a sad, plangent note in his voice. "'He put his hand upon her. "'You don't like it,' he said. "'I think it's lovely. "'Wonderful,' she said, dazed. "'He held her passionately, "'but she did not feel she needed protecting.

"'It was all wonderful and amazing to her. "'She could not understand why he seemed upset "'and in a sort of despair. "'To her there was magnificence "'in the lustrous stars and the steepnesses, magic rather terrible and grand. They came down to the level valley bed and went rolling along. There was a house and a lurid red fire burning outside against the wall and dark figures about it. What is that, she said. What are they doing? I don't know, said Chicho.

Whata, Fano il buga, said the driver. They are doing some washing, said Pancratio, explanatory. "'washing,' said Alvina. "'Boiling the clothes,' said Chichot. "'On the cart rattled and bumped, in the cold night, down the highway in the valley. "'Alvina could make out the darkness of the slopes. "'Overhead she saw the brilliance of Orion. "'She felt she was quite, quite lost.

"'She had gone out of the world, over the border, into some place of mystery. "'She was lost to Woodhouse, to Lancaster, to England, all lost. They passed through a darkness of woods with a swift sound of cold water, and then suddenly the cart pulled up. Someone came out of a lighted doorway in the darkness. We must get down here. The cart doesn't go any further, said Pancratio. Are we there? said Alvina. No, it is about a mile, but we must leave the cart. Chicho asked questions in Italian.

Alvina climbed down. Good evening. Are you cold? came a loud, raucous, American-Italian female voice. It was another relation of Chichos. Alvina stared and looked at the handsome, sinister, raucous-voiced young woman who stood in the light of the doorway. "'Rather cold,' she said. "'Come in and warm yourself,' said the young woman. "'My sister's husband lives here,' explained Pancratio. Alvina went through the doorway into the room. It was a sort of inn. On the earthen floor glowed a great round,

pan of charcoal, which looked like a flat pool of fire. Men in hats and cloaks sat at a table playing cards by the light of a small lamp. A man was pouring wine. The room seemed like a cave. Warm yourself, said the young woman, pointing to the flat disc of fire on the floor. She put a chair up to it, and Alvina sat down. The men in the room stared, but went on noisily with their cards. Chicho came in with luggage. Men got up and greeted him. effusively, watching Alvina between whiles as if she was some alien creature. Words of American sounded among the Italian dialect. There seemed to be a confab of some sort, aside.

Chicho came and said to her, They want to know if we will stay the night here. I would rather go on home, she said. He averted his face at the word home. You see, said Pancratio, I think you might be more comfortable here than in my poor house. You see, I have no woman to care for. for it. Alvina glanced round the cave of a room at the rough fellows in their black hats. She was thinking how she would be more comfortable here. I would rather go on, she said.

Then we will get the donkey, said Pancratio, stoically, and Alvina followed him out onto the high road. From a shed issued a smallish, brigand-looking fellow carrying a lantern. He had his cloak over his nose and his hat over his eyes. His legs were bundled with white rag, crossed and crossed with hide straps, and he was shod in silent skin sandals. This is my brother, Giovanni, said Pancratio. He is not quite sensible. Then he broke into a loud flood of dialect. Giovanni touched his hat to Alvina and gave the lantern to Pancratio. Then he disappeared, returning in a few moments with the ass. Chichio came out with the baggage, and by the light of the lantern, the things were slung on either side of the ass, in a rather precarious

heap. Pancratio tested the rope again. There, go on and I shall come in a minute. Ayaya! cried Giovanni at the ass, striking the flank of the beast. Then he took the leading rope and led up on the dark highway, stalking with his dingy white legs under his muffled cloak, leading the ass. Alvina noticed the shuffle of his skin-sandled feet, the quiet step of the ass. She walked with Chichot near the side of the road. He carried the lantern. The ass with its load plodded a few steps ahead. There were trees on the roadside and a small channel of invisible but noisy water. Big rocks jutted sometimes. It was freezing. The mountain high road was congealed. High stars flashed overhead. "'How strange it is,' said Alvina to Chicho.

are you glad you've come home? It isn't my home, he replied, as if the word fretted him. Yes, I'd like to see it again, but it isn't the place for young people to live in. You will see how you like it. She wondered at his uneasiness. It was the same in Pancratio. The latter now came running to catch them up. I think you will be tired, he said.

You ought to have stayed at my relations house down there. No, I'm not tired, said Alvina, but I'm hungry. "'Well, we shall eat something when we come to my house.' They plodded in the darkness of the valley high road. Pancraccio took the lantern and went to examine the load, hitching the ropes. A great flat loaf fell out and rolled away, and smack came a little valise. Pancratio broke into a flood of dialect to Giovanni, handing him the lantern. Chicho picked up the bread and put it under his arm.

"'Break me a little piece,' said Alvina. and in the darkness they both chewed bread. After a while, Pancratio halted with the ass just ahead and took the lantern from Giovanni. We must leave the road here, he said. And with the lantern he carefully, courteously showed Alvina a small track descending in the side of the bank between bushes. Alvina ventured down the steep descent,

Pancratio following showing a light. In the rear was Giovanni, making noises at the ass. They all picked their way down into the great, white, bouldered bed of a mountain river. It was a wide, strange bed of dry boulders, pallid under the stars. There was a sound of a rushing river, glacial sounding. The place seemed wild and desolate. In the distance was a darkness of bushes along the far shore. Pancrasio, swinging the lantern, they threaded their way through the uneven boulders

till they came to the river itself. not very wide but rushing fast. A long, slender, drooping plank crossed over. Alvina crossed, rather tremulous, followed by Pancratio with the light and Chicho with the bread and the valise. They could hear the click of the ass and the ejaculations of Giovanni.

Pancratio went back over the stream with the light. Alvina saw the dim ass come up, wander uneasily to the stream, plant his forelegs and sniff the water. water, his nose right down. "'Eh, e'er!' cried Pancratio, striking the beast on the flank. But it only lifted its nose and turned aside. It would not take the stream.

Pancratio seized the leading rope angrily and turned upstream. "'Why, were donkeys made? They are beast without sense.' His voice floated angrily across the chill darkness. Chicho laughed. He and Alvina stood in the wide, stony riverbed, in the strong starlight, watching the dim figures of the ass and the men crawl upstream with the lantern. Again the same performance, the white muzzle of the ass stooping down to sniff the water

suspiciously, his hind quarters tilted up with the load. Again the angry yells and blows from Pancratio, and the ass seemed to be taking the water, but no, after a long deliberation he drew back. Angry language sounded through the crystal air. The group with the lantern moved again upstream, becoming smaller. Alvina and Chicho stood and watched. The lantern looked small up the distance, but there a clocking, shouting, splashing sound. He is going over, said Chicho. Pancratio came hurrying back to the plank with the lantern. Oh, the stupid beast, I could kill him, cried he. Isn't he used to the water, said Alvina. Yes, he is, but he won't go except where he thinks he will go. You might kill him before he should go. They picked their way across the riverbed

to the wild scrub and bushes of the farther side. There they waited for the ass, which came up clicking over the boulders, led by the patient Giovanni. And then they took a difficult, rocky track ascending between banks. Alvina felt the uneven scramble a great effort, but she got up. Again they waited for the ass, and then again they struck off to the right. under some trees. A house appeared dimly. Is that it? said Alvina. No, it belongs to me, but that is not my house. A few steps further. Now we are on my land. They were treading a rough sort of grassland, and still climbing. It ended in a sudden little scramble between big stones, and suddenly they were on the threshold of a quite important-looking house, but it was all dark. Oh, exclaimed Prancratzio,

"'They have done nothing that I told them.' He made queer noises of exasperation. "'What?' said Alvina. "'Neither made a fire nor anything. "'Wait a minute.' The ass came up. Chicho, Alvina, Giovanni, and the ass waited in the frosty starlight under the wild house. Pancratio disappeared round the back.

Chichos talked to Giovanni. He seemed uneasy as if he felt depressed. Pancratio returned with the lantern and opened the big doork. door. Alvina followed him into a stone-floored, wide passage, where stood farm implements, where a little of straw and beans lay in a corner, and whence rose bare wooden stairs. So much she saw in the glimpse of lanternlight, as Pancratio pulled the string and entered the kitchen, a dim-walled room with a vaulted roof and a great, dark, open hearth, fireless, a bare room with a little rough dark furniture, an unswept, stone.

stone floor, iron-barred windows, rather small, in the deep thickness of the wall, one half-shut with a drab shutter. It was rather like a room on the stage, gloomy, not meant to be lived in. I will make a light, said Pancratio, taking a lamp from the mantelpiece and proceeding to wind it up. Chichos stood behind Alvina, silent. He had put down the bread and valise on a wooden chest. She turned to him. It's a beautiful room, she said. with its high vaulted roof, its dirty whitewash, its great black chimney, it really was. But Chicho did not understand. He smiled gloomily. The lamp was lighted. Alvina looked round in wonder. Now I will make a fire. You, Chicho, will help Giovanni with the donkey, said Pancratio,

scuttling with the lantern. Alvina looked at the room. There was a wooden settle in front of the hearth, stretching its back to the room. There was a little table under a square recessed window on whose sloping ledge were newspapers, scattered letters, nails and a hammer. On the table were dried beans and two maize cobs. In a corner were shelves, with two chipped enamel plates and a small table underneath, on which stood a bucket of water with a dipper. Then there was a wooden chest, two little chairs and a litter of faggots, cane, vine twigs, bearers, berries, Mare maze hubs, oak twigs filling the corner by the hearth. Pancratzio came scrambling in with fresh faggots. "'They have not done what I told them the tiresome people,' he said.

"'I told them to make a fire and prepare the house. You will be uncomfortable in my poor home. I have no woman, nothing. Everything is wrong.' He broke the pieces of cane and kindled them in the hearth. Soon there was a good blaze. Chichio came in with the bags and the food. I had better go upstairs and take my thing, off, said Alvina. I'm so hungry. You had better keep your coat on, said Pancratio. The room is cold, which it was, ice cold. She shuddered a little. She took off her hat and fur. Shall we fry some meat? said Pancratio. He took a frying pan, found lard in the wooden chest. It was the food chest, and proceeded to fry pieces of meat in a frying pan over the fire.

Alvina wanted to lay the table, but there was no cloth. We were sit here, as I do to eat, said Pancratio. He produced two enamel plates and one soup plate, three penny-iron forks and two old knives and a little grey coarse salt in a wooden bowl. These he placed on the seat of the settle in front of the fire. Chicho was silent. The settle was dark and greasy. Alvina feared for her clothes, but she sat with her enamel plate and her impossible fork, a piece of meat and a chunk of bread and ate. It was difficult, but the food was good, and the fire blazed, only there was a film of wood smoke in the room, rather smarting. Chicho sat on the settle beside her, and ate in large mouthfuls. I think it's fun, said Alvina. He looked at her with dark,

haunted, gloomy eyes. She wondered what was the matter with him. Don't you think it's fun, she said, smiling. He smiled slowly. You won't like it, he said. "'Why not?' she cried, in panic, lest he prophesied truly. Pancratio scuttled in and out with the lantern. He brought wrinkled pears and green round grapes and walnuts on a white cloth and presented them. "'I think my pears are still good,' he said. "'You must eat them, and excuse my uncomfortable house.' Giovanni came in with a big bowl of soup and a bottle of milk.

There was room only for three on the settle before the hearth. He pushed his chair among the litter of firekins. and sat down. He had bright, bluish eyes and a fattish face, was a man of about fifty, but had a simple, kindly, slightly imbecile face. All the men kept their hats on. The soup was from Giovanni's cottage. It was for Pancratio and him, but there was only one spoon, so Pancratio ate a dozen spoonfuls and handed the bowl to Giovanni, who protested and tried to refuse, but accepted, and ate ten spoonfuls, then handed the bowl back to his brother with the spoon. So they finished the bowl between them.

Then Pancratio found wine, a whitish wine, not very good, for which he apologised, and he invited Alvina to coffee, which she accepted gladly. For though the fire was warm in front, behind was very cold, Pancratio stuck a long pointed stick down the handle of a saucepan, and gave this utensil to Ciccio. to hold over the fire and scald the milk, whilst he put the tin coffee pot in the ashes. He took a long iron tube or blowpipe, which rested on two little feet at the far end. This he gave to Giovanni to blow the fire.

Giovanni was a fire-worshipper. His eyes sparkled as he took the blowing tube. He put fresh faggots behind the fire, though Pancratio forbade him. He arranged the burning faggots, and then softly he blew a red-hot fire for the coffee. "'Basta, Basta,' said Cichio. But Giovanni blew on, his eyes sparkling, looking to Alvina. He was making the fire beautiful for her. There was one cup, one enameled mug, one little bowl. This was the coffee service.

Pancratio noisily ground the coffee. He seemed to do everything, old, stooping as he was. At last Giovanni took his leave. The kettle which hung on the hook over the fire was boiling over. Cheecho burnt his hand, lifting it off, and at last, at last, Alvina could go to bed. Pancratio went first with the candle, then Chicho with the black kettle, then Alvina. The men still had their hats on, their boots tramped noisily on the bare stairs. The bedroom was very cold.

It was a fair-sized room with a concrete floor and white walls and window door opening on a little balcony. There were two high white beds on opposite sides of the room. The washstand was a little tripod thing. The air was very cold, freezing. The stone floor was dead cold to the feet. Chicho sat down on a chair and began to take off his boots. She went to the window. The moon had risen.

There was a flood of light on dazzling white snow-tots, glimmering and marvellous in the evanescent night. She went out for a moment onto the balcony. It was a wonder world. The moon over the snow heights, the pallid valley bed. away below. The river, hoarse and round about her, scrubby blue, dark foothills with twiggy trees. Magical it all was, but so cold. You had better shut the door, said Chichot. She came indoors.

She was dead tired and stunned with cold and hopelessly dirty after that journey. Chichot had gone to bed without washing. Why does the bed rustle? she asked him. It was stuffed with dry maize leaves, the dry sheaths from the cobs, stuffed enormously high. He rustled like a snake among dead foliage. Alvina washed her hands. There was nothing to do with the water but throw it out of the door. Then she washed her face thoroughly in good hot water. What a blessed relief. She sighed as she dried herself. It does one good, she sighed. Cheecho watched her as she quickly brushed her hair. she was almost stupefied with weariness and the cold, bruising air. Blindly she crept into the high rustling bed,

but it was made high in the middle and it was icy cold. It shocked her almost as if she had fallen into water. She shuddered and became semi-conscious with fatigue. The blankets were heavy, heavy. She was dazed with excitement and wonder. She felt vaguely that Chicho was miserable and wondered why. She woke with a start an hour or so later. The moon was in the room.

She did not know where she was, and she was frightened, and she was cold. A real terror took hold of her. Chicho in his bed was quite still. Everything seemed electric with horror. She felt she would die instantly. Everything was so terrible around her. She could not move. She felt that everything around her was horrific, extinguishing her, putting her out.

her very being was threatened. In another instant she would be transfixed. Making a violent effort, she sat up. The silence of Chicho in his bed was as horrible as the rest of the night. She had a horror of him also. What would she do? Where would she flee? She was lost, lost, lost, lost utterly. The knowledge sank into her like ice. Then deliberately she got out of bed and went across to him. He was horrible and frightening, but he was warm. She felt his power and his warmth invade her and extinguish her. The mad and desperate passion that was in him sent her completely unconscious again, completely unconscious. End of Chapter 14, read by Tony Foster.

Chapter 15 of The Lost Girl by D.H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. the place called Califano There is no mistake about it. Alvina was a lost girl. She was cut off from everything she belonged to. Ovid, isolated in Thrace, might well lament. The soul itself needs its own mysterious nourishment.

This nourishment lacking, nothing is well. At Pesco Calasio, it was the mysterious influence of the mountains and valleys themselves, which seemed always to be annihilating the English woman, nay, not only her, but the very natives themselves. Chicho and Pancratio clung to her, essentially, as if she saved them also from extinction. It needed all her courage. Truly, she had to support the souls of the two men.

At first she did not realize. She was only stunned with the strangeness of it all. Startled, half enraptured with the terrific beauty of the place, half horrified by its savage annihilation of her, but she was stunned. The days went by. It seems there are places which resist us, which have the power to overthrow our psychic being. It seems as if every country has its potent negative centres, localities which savagely and triumphantly refuse our living culture, and Alvina had struck one of them, here on the edge of the Abruzzi.

She was not in the village of Pesco Calatio itself, that was a long hour's walk away. Pancratio's house was the chief of a tiny hamlet of three houses, called Califano, because the Califanos had made it. There was the ancient, savage hole of a house, quite windowless, where Pancracio and Chichot's mother had been born, the family home. Then there was Pancratio's villa, and then, a little below, another newish, modern house in a sort of wild meadow,

inhabited by the peasants who worked the land. Ten minutes walk away was another cluster of seven or eight houses where Giovanni lived, but there was no shop, no post nearer than Pesco Colasio, an hour's heavy road up deep and rocky, wearying tracks. And yet, what could be more lovely than the sunny days, pure, hot, blue days among the mountain foothills, Irregular, steep little hills, half wild with twiggy brown oak trees and marshes and broomheaths, half cultivated in a wild, scattered fashion.

Lovely in the lost hollows beyond a marsh to see Chicho, slowly ploughing with two great white oxen. Lovely to go with Pancratio down to the wild scrub that bordered the riverbed, then over the white-boldered, massive desert, and across stream to the other, the scrubby savage shore, and so up to the high road. Pancraccio was very happy if Alvina would accompany him. He liked it that she was not afraid, and her sense of the beauty of the place was an infinite relief to him. Nothing could have been more marvellous than the winter twilight. Sometimes Alvina and Pancraccio were late returning with the ass, and then gingerly the ass would step down the steep banks, already beginning to freeze when the sun went down, and

Again and again he would balk the stream, while a violet blue dusk descended on the white, wide stream bed, and the scrub and lower hills became dark, and in heaven. Oh, almost unbearably lovely, the snow of the near mountains was burning rose against the dark blue heavens. How unspeakably lovely it was! No one could ever tell. The grand, pagan twilight of the valleys, savage, cold, with a sense of ancient gods who knew the right for human sacrifice. It stole away the soul of Alvina. She felt transfigured in it, clairvoyant in another mystery of life. A savage hardness came in her heart. The gods who had demanded human sacrifice were quite right, immutably right. The fierce, savage gods who dipped their lips in blood, these were the true gods.

terror, the agony, the nostalgia of the heathen past was a constant torture to her mediumistic soul. She did not know what it was, but it was a kind of neuralgia in the very soul, never to be located in the human body and yet physical. Coming over the brow of a heathy, rocky hillock, and seeing Chicho beyond leaning deep over the plough in his white shirt-sleeves, following the slow, waving, moth-pail oxen across a small track of land turned up in the heathen hollow, her soul would go all faint. She would almost swoon with realization of the world that had gone before. And Chicho was so silent, there seemed so much dumb magic and anguish in him, as if he were forever afraid of himself and the thing he was. He seemed, in his silence, to concentrate upon her so terribly.

She believed she would not live. sometimes she would go gathering acorns large fine acorns a precious crop in that land where the fat pig was almost an object of veneration silently she would crouch filling the pannier and far off she would hear the sound of giovanni chopping wood of chicho calling to the oxen or pancratio making noises to the ass or the sound of a peasant's over all the constant speech of the passing river and the real breathing presence of the upper snows and a wild terrible happiness would take hold of her beyond despair but very like despair No one would ever find her. She had gone beyond the world, into the pre-world. She had reopened on the old eternity. And then Maria, the little elvish old wife of Giovanni, would come up with the cows. One cow she held by a rope round its horns, and she hauled it from the patches of young corn into the rough grass, from the little plantation of trees in among the heath. Maria wore the full, pleated, white-sleeved dress of the peasants, and a red couture. on her head, but her dress was dirty and her face was dirty, and the big gold rings of her

ears hung from ears which perhaps had never been washed. She was rather smoke-dried, too, from perpetual wood-smoke. Maria in her red kerchief, hauling the white cow, and screaming at it, would come laughing towards Alvina, who was rather afraid of cows, and then, screaming high in dialect Maria would talk to her. Alvina smiled and tried to understand. Impossible. It was not strictly a human speech. It was rather like the crying of half-articulate animals. It certainly was not Italian. And yet Alvina, by dint of constant hearing, began to pick up the coagulated phrases. She liked Maria. She liked them all. They were all very kind to her, as far as they knew. But they did not know, and they were kind with each other.

For they all seemed lost, like lost, forlorn aborigines, and they treated Alvina as if she were a higher being. They loved her that she would strip maize cobs or pick acorns. But they were all anxious to serve her, and it seemed as if they needed someone to serve. It seemed as if Alvina, the Englishwoman, had a certain magic glamour for them, and as long as she was happy,

it was a supreme joy and relief to them to have her there. But it seemed to her, she would not live. And when she was unhappy, ah, the dreadful days of cold rain mingled with sleet, when the world outside was more than impossible, and the house inside was a horror. The natives kept themselves alive by going about constantly working, dumb and elemental, but what was Alvina to do? For the house was unspeakable. The only two habitable rooms were the kitchen and Alvinas bedroom, and the kitchen, with its little grated windows high up in the wall, one of which had a broken pain, and must keep one half of its shutters closed, was like a dark

cavern, vaulted and bitter with wood smoke. Seated on the settle before the fire, the hard, greasy settle, Alvina could indeed keep the fire going, with faggots of green oak, but the smoke hurt her chest, she was not clean for one moment, and she could do nothing else. The bedroom again was just impossibly cold, and there was no other place, and from far away came the wild braying of an ass, primeval and desperate in the snow. The house was quite large, but uninhabitable. Downstairs, on the left of the wide passage where the ass occasionally stood out of the weather, and where the chickens wandered in search of treasure, was a big, long apartment, where Pancratio

kept implements and tools and potatoes and pumpkins, and where four or five rabbits hopped unexpectedly out of the shadows. Opposite this, on the right, was the canteener, a dark place with wine barrels and more agricultural stores. This was the whole of the downstairs. Going upstairs, halfway up, at the turn of the stairs was the opening of a sort of barn, a great wire netting behind which showed a glow of orange maize cobs and some wheat. Upstairs were four rooms, but Alvina's room alone was furnished. Pancratio slept in the unfurnished bedroom opposite, on a pile of old clothes. Beyond was a room with litter in it, a chest of drawers and rubbish of old books and photographs

Pancratzio had brought from England. There was a battered photograph of Lord Leighton, among others. The fourth room approached to the room. the corn chamber was always locked. Outside was just as hopeless. There had been a little garden within the stone enclosure, but fowls, geese, and the ass had made an end of this. Foul droppings were everywhere, indoors and out.

The ass left his pile of droppings to steam in the winter air on the threshold, while his heart-rending bray rent the air. Roads there were none, only deep tracks, like profound ruts with rocks in them, in the hollows and rocky groove tracks over the brows. The hollow grooves were full of mud and water, and one struggled slipperily from rock to rock, or along narrow grass ledges. What was to be done then on mornings that were dark with sleet?

Pancratio would bring a kettle of hot water at about half-past eight, for had he not travelled Europe with English gentlemen as a sort of model valet? Had he not loved his English gentleman? Even now he was infinitely happier performing these little attentions for Alvina than attending to his wretched domains. Chicho rose early and went about in the haphazard, useless way of Italians all day long, getting nothing done. Alvina came out of the icy bedroom to the black kitchen. Pancratio would be gallantly heating milk for her, at the end of a long stick, so she would sit on the settle and drink her coffee and milk into which she dipped her dry.

bread. Then the day was before her. She washed her cup and her enameled plate, and she tried to clean the kitchen. But Pancratio had on the fire a great black pot, dangling from the chain. He was boiling food for the eternal pig, the only creature for which any cooking was done. Chico was tramping in with faggots. Pancratzio went in and out, back and forth from his pot. Alvinas stroked her brow and decided on a method. Once she was rid of Pancratio, she would wash every cup and plate and utensil in boiling water. Well, at last, Pancratio went off with his great black pan, and she set too. But there were not six pieces of crockery in the house, and not more than six cooking utensils. These were soon scrubbed. Then she scrubbed the two little tables and the shelves.

She lined the food chest with clean paper. She washed the high window ledges, and the narrow mantelpiece that had large mounds of dusty candle wax in deposits. Then she tackled the settle. She scrubbed it also. Then she looked at the floor, and even she, English housewife as she was, realised the futility of trying to wash it. As well tried to wash the earth itself outside. It was just a piece of stone-laid earth.

She swept it as well as she could, and made a little order in the faggot heap in the corner. Then she washed the little, high up windows to try and let in light. And what was the difference? A dank, wet, soapy smell, and not much more. Maria had kept scuffling, admiringly in and out, crying her wonderment and approval. She had most ostentatiously chased out an obtrusive hen from this temple of cleanliness, and that was all. It was hopeless. The same black walls, the same floor, the same cold from behind, the same green oak wood smoke, the same bucket of water from the well,

the same come and go of aimless busy men, the same cackle of wet hens, the same hopeless nothingness. Alvina stood up against it for a time, and then she caught a bad cold and was wretched. Probably it was the wood smoke, but her chest was raw, she felt weak and miserable. She could not sit in her bedroom, for it was too cold. If she sat in the darkness of the kitchen, she was hurt with smoke and perpetually cold behind her neck, and Pancratio rather resented the amount of faggots consumed for nothing. The only hope would have been in work, but there was nothing in that house to be done. How could she even sew?

She was to prepare the midday and evening meals, but with no pots and over a smoking wood fire, what could she prepare? Black and greasy, she boiled potatoes and fried meat in lard, in a large, long-handled frying pan. Then Pancratio decreed that Maria should prepare macaroni with the tomato sauce and thick vegetable soup and sometimes polenta. The coarse, heavy food was wearying beyond words. Alvina began to feel she would die in the awful, comfortless, meaningless of it all. True sunny days returned and some magic, but she was weak and feverish with her cold, which would not get better, so that even in the sunshine,

The crude, comfortlessness and inferior savagery of the place only repelled her. The others were depressed when she was unhappy. Do you wish you were back in England? Chicho asked her, with a little sardonic bitterness in his voice. She looked at him without answering. He ducked and went away. We will make a fireplace in the other bedroom, said Pancrasio. Nor sooner said than done.

Chichio persuaded Alvina to stay in bed a few days. She was thankful to take refuge. Then she heard a rare come and go. Pancratio, Chichio, Giovanni, Maria, and the mason all set about the fireplace. Up and down stairs they went, Maria carrying stone and lime on her head, and swerving in Alvinas doorway with her burden perched aloft to shout a few unintelligible words. In the intervals of lime carrying she brought the invalid her soup or her coffee or her hot milk. It turned out quite a good job, a pleasant room with two,

two windows that would have all the sun in the afternoon and would see the mountains on one hand, the far-off village perched up on the other. When she was well enough, they set off one early Monday morning to the market in Osona. They left the house by starlight, but dawn was coming by the time they reached the river. At the high road, Pancratio harnessed the ass, and after endless delay, they jogged off to Osona. The dawning mountains were wonderful, dim green and morve and rose, The ground rang with frost. Along the roads many peasants were trooping to market. Women in their best dresses,

some of thick, heavy silk, with the white, full-sleeved bodices, dresses green, lavender, dark red, with gay kerchiefs on the head. Men muffled in cloaks, treading silently in their pointed skin sandals, asses with loads, carts full of peasants, a belated cow.

The market was lovely. There in the crown of the pass, in the old town, on the frosty sunny morning. Bulls, cows, sheep, pigs, goats stood and lay about under the bare little trees on the platform, high over the valley. Someone had kindled a great fire of brushwood, and men crowded round, out of the blue frost. From laden asses, vegetables were unloaded, from little carts, all kinds of things, boots, pots, tinware, hats, sweet things and heaps of corn and beans and seeds. By eight o'clock in the December morning the market was in full swing, a great crowd of handsome mountain people,

all peasants, nearly all in costume, with different headdresses. Chichio and Pancratio and Alvina went quietly about. They bought pots and pans and vegetables and sweet things and thick rush matting and two wooden armchairs and one old soft armchair, going quietly and bargaining modestly among the crowd, as anglicised Italians do. The sun came on to the market at about nine o'clock, and then, from the terrace of the town gate, Alvina looked down on the wonderful sight of all the coloured dresses of the peasant women, the black hats of the men, the heaps of goods, the squealing pigs, the pale lovely cattle, the many tethered, and she wondered if she would die before she became one with it altogether.

It was impossible for her to become one with it altogether. Chichael would have to take her to England again, or to America. He was always hinting at America. But then Italy might enter the war. Even here it was the great theme of conversation. She looked down on the seethe of the market. The sun was warm on her. Chicho and Pancratio were bargaining for two cow-skin rugs.

she saw Ticho standing with his head rather forward. Her husband! She felt her heart die away within her. All those other peasant women, did they feel as she did, the same sort of acquiescent passion, the same lapse of life? She believed they did, the same helpless passion for the man, the same remoteness from the world's actuality. Probably, under all their tension of money and money-grubbing and vindictive mountain morality, and rather horrible religion, probably they felt the same. She was one with them, but she could never endure it for a lifetime. It was only a test on her. Cheecho must take her to America, or England, to America preferably. And even as he turned to look for her, she felt a strange thrilling in her bowels, a sort of trill strangely within her, yet extraneous

to her. She caught her hand to her flank, and Chicho was looking up for her from the market beneath, searching with that quick, hasty look. He caught sight of her. She seemed to glow with a delicate light for him, there beyond all the women. He came straight towards her, smiling his slow, enigmatic smile. He could not bear it if he lost her. She knew how he loved her, almost inhumanly, elementally, without communication. And she stood with her hand to her side, her face frightened. She hardly noticed him.

It seemed to her she was with child, and yet in the whole marketplace she was aware of nothing but him. We have bought the skins, he said, twenty-seven lire each. She looked at him, his dark skin, his golden eyes, so near to her, so unified with her,

yet so incommunicably remote. How far off was his being from her? I believe I'm going to have a child, she said. He? he ejaculated quickly, but he had understood. His eyes shone weirdly on her. She felt the strange terror and loveliness of his passion, and she wished she could lie down there by that town gate in the sun and swoon forever unconscious. Living was almost too great a demand on her. His yellow, luminous eyes watched her and enveloped her. There was nothing for her but to yield, yield, yield, and yet she could not sink to earth. She saw Pancratio carrying

the skins to the little cart, which was tilted up under a small, pale-stemmed tree on the platform above the valley. Then she saw him making his way quickly back through the crowd to rejoin them. Did you feel something? said Chicho. Yes, here, she said, pressing her hand on her side as the sensation trilled once more upon her consciousness. She looked at him with remote, frightened eyes. That's good, he said, his eyes full of a triumphant, incommunicable meaning. Well, and now, said Pancratio coming up, shall we go and eat something? They jogged home in the little flat cart in the wintry afternoon.

It was almost night before they had got the ass untackled from the shafts, at the wild, lonely house where Pancratio left the cart. Giovanni was there with a lantern. Chicho went on ahead with Alvina, whilst the others stood to load up the ass by the highway. Chichael watched Alvina carefully. When they were over the river and among the dark scrub, he took her in his arms and kissed her with long, terrible passion.

She saw the snow ridges flare with evening beyond his cheek. They had glowed dawn as she crossed the river, outwards. They were white, fiery now, in the dusk sky as she returned. What strange valley of shadow was she threading? What was the terrible man's passion that haunted her like a dark angel? Why was she so much beyond herself? End of Chapter 15. Read by Tony Foster. Chapter 16 of The Lost Girl by D. H. Lawrence. This Librevox recording is in the public domain. Suspense. Christmas was at hand. There was a heap of maize cobs still unstripped. Alvina sat with Ciccio stripping them in the corn place.

Will you be able to stop here till the baby is born? he asked her. She watched the films of the leaves come off from the burning gold maize cob under his fingers, the long ruddy cone of fruition. The heap of maize on one side burned like hot sunshine. She felt it really gave off warmth. It glowed. It burned. On the other side, the filmy, crackly, sear sheaths were also faintly sunny. Again and again the long, red-gold, full ear of corn came clear in his hands and was put gently aside. He looked up at her with his yellow eyes. "'Yes, I think so,' she said. "'Will you?' "'Yes, if they let me. I should like it.

to be born here. Would you like to bring up a child here? she asked. You wouldn't be happy here so long, he said sadly. Would you? He slowly shook his head, indefinite. She was settling down. She had her room upstairs, her cups and plates and spoons, her own things. Pancratio had gone back to his old habit.

He went across and ate with Giovanni and Maria. Chicho and Alvina had their meals in their pleasant room upstairs. They were happy alone, only sometimes the terrible influence of the place preyed on her. However, she had a clean room of her own, where she could sew and read. She had written to the matron and Mrs. Chook, and Mrs. Chook had sent books. Also, she helped Chicho when she could, and Maria was teaching her to spin the white sheep's wool into coarse thread. This morning, Pancratio and Giovanni had gone off somewhere. Alvina and Chicho were alone on the place.

stripping the last maze. Suddenly, in the grey morning air, a wild music burst out, the drone of a bagpipe, and a man's high voice, half singing, half yelling a brief verse, at the end of which a wild flourish on some other reedy wood instrument. Alvina sat still in surprise. It was a strange, high, rapid, yelling music, the very voice of the mountains. Beautiful, in our musical sense of the word it was not. But oh, the magic, the nostalgia of the untamed, heathen past which is evoked. It is for Christmas, said Chicho, they will come every day now. Alvina rose and went round to the little balcony. Two men stood below, amid the crumbling of finely falling snow. One, the elder, had a bagpipe whose bag was patched with shirting. The younger was

dressed in greenish clothes. He had his face lifted and was yelling the verses of the unintelligible Christmas ballad, short, rapid verses, followed by a brilliant flourish on a short wooden pipe he held ready in his hand. Alvina felt he was going to be out of breath, but no, rapid and high came the next verse, verse after verse, with the wild scream on the little new pipe in between, over the roar of the bagpipe. And the crumbs of snow were like a speckled veil, faintly drifting the atmosphere, and powdering the littered threshold where they stood, a threshold littered with faggots, leaves, straw, fowls and geese and ass-droppings, and rag thrown out from the house, and pieces of paper.

The carol suddenly ended. The young man snatched off his hat to Alvina who stood above, and in the same breath he was gone, followed by the bagpipe. Alvina saw them dropping hurriedly the incline between the twiggy, wild oaks. They will come every day now till Christmas, said Chicho. They go to every house. And sure enough, when Alvina went down, in the cold, silent house, and out to the well in the still crumbling snow, she heard the sound far off, strange, yelling, wonderful,

and the same ache for she knew not what overcame her, so that she felt one might go mad. There, in the veiled silence of these mountains, in the great hilly valley cut off from the world. Chicho worked all day on the land or roundabout. He was building a little earth closet also. The obvious and unscreened place outside was impossible. It was curious how little he went to Pesco Calacio,

how little he mixed with the natives. He seemed always to withhold something from them. Only with his relatives, of whom he had many, he was more free, in a kind of family intimacy. yet even here he was guarded. His uncle at the mill, an unwashed fat man with a wife who tinkled with gold and grime, and who shouted a few lost words of American, insisted on giving Alvina wine and a sort of cake made with cheese and rice. Chicho too was feasted in the dark hole of a room, and the two natives seemed to press their cheer on Dalvina and Chicho wholeheartedly.

"'How nice they are,' said Alvina, when she had left. "'They give so freely.' But Chichot smiled a wry smile, silent. "'Why do you make a face?' she said. "'It's because you are a foreigner, and they think you will go away again,' he said. "'But I should have thought that would make them less generous,' she said. "'No, they like to give to foreigners. "'They don't like to give to the people here.

"'Jocomo puts water in the wine which she sells to the people go by. and if I leave the donkey in her shed, I give Martha Maria something, or the next time she won't let me have it. Ha, they are, they are sly ones, the people here. They are like that everywhere, said Alvina. Yes, but nowhere they say so many bad things about people as here. Nowhere where I have ever been. It was strange to Alvina to feel the deep bedrock distrust which all the hill peasants seem to have of one another. They were watchful.

"'Venamous, dangerous.' "'Ah,' said Pancratio, "'I am glad there is a woman in my house once more.' "'But did nobody come in and do for you before?' asked Alvina. "'Why didn't you pay somebody?' "'Nobody will come,' said Pancratio, "'in his slow, aristocratic English, "'Nobody will come, because I am a man,

"'and if somebody should see her at my house, "'they will all talk.' "'Talk!' Alvina looked at the deeply-lined man of sixty-six. but what will they say? Many bad things, many bad things indeed. There are not good people here, all saying bad things and all jealous. They don't like me because I have a house. They think I am too much a signore. They say to me, why do you think you are a signore? Oh, they are bad people, envious, you cannot have anything to do with them. They're nice to me, said Alvina. They think you will go away, but if you stay, they will say bad things. You must wait. Oh, they are evil people,

evil against one another, against everybody but strangers who don't know them. Alvina felt the curious passion in Pancratio's voice, the passion of a man who has lived for many years in England, and known the social confidence of England, and who, coming back, is deeply injured by the ancient malevolence of the remote, somewhat gloomy hill peasantry. She understood also why he was so glad to have her in his house, so proud, why he loved serving her. She seemed to see a fairness, a luminousness in the northern soul, something free, touched with divinity such as these people here lacked entirely. When she went to Osona with him, she knew everybody questioned him about her and Chicho. She began to get the drift of the

questions which Pancratio answered with reserve. And how long are they staying? This was an invariable, envious question, and invariably Pancratio answered with a reserved, some months, as long as they like. And Alvina could feel waves of black envy go out against Pancratio, because she was domiciled with him, and because she sat with him in the flat cart, driving to Osona. Yet Pancraceo himself was a study. He was thin and very shabby and rather out of shape. Only in his yellow eyes lurked a strange sardonic fire and a leer which puzzled her. When Chichael happened to be out in the evening,

he would sit with her and tell her stories of Lord Leighton and Millay and Alma Tedama and other academicians, dead and living. There would sometimes be a strange passivity on his worn face, an impassive, almost red Indian look, and then again he would stir into a curious, arch, malevolent laugh, for all the world like a debauched old Tomcat. His narration was like this, either simple, bare, stoical, with a touch of nobility, or else satiric, malicious, with a strange, rather repellent jeering.

Leighton, he wasn't Lord Leighton then. He wouldn't have me to sit for him, because my figure was too poor, he didn't like it. He liked fair young men, with plenty of flesh. but once when he was doing a picture, I don't know if you know it, it is a crucifixion, with a man on a cross, and he described the picture.

No, well, the model had to be tied up hanging onto a wooden cross, and it made you suffer. Ah, here the odd arch, diabolic yellow flare lit up through the stoicism of Pancratio's eyes, because Leighton, he was cruel to his model. He wouldn't let you rest. Damn you, you've got to keep still,

till I've finished with you, you devil, so he said. Well, for this man on the cross, he couldn't get a model who would do it for him. They all tried it once, but they would not go again. So they said to him, he must try Califano, because Califano was the only man who would stand it. At last then he sent for me. I don't like your damned figure, Califano, he said to me, but nobody will do this if you won't. Now will you do it? Yes, I said. I will. So he tied me up on the cross, and he paid me well, so I stood it. Well, he kept me tied up, hanging, you know, forwards, naked on this cross, for four hours. And then it was luncheon, and after luncheon he would tie me again.

Well, I suffered. I suffered so much that I must lean against the wall to support me, to walk home. And in the night I could not sleep. I could cry with the pains in my arms and my ribs. I had no sleep. You said you'd do it, so now you must, he said to me. And I will do it, I said, and so he tied me up. This cross, you know, was on a little raised place.

I don't know what you call it. A platform, suggested Alvina, a platform. Now one day when he came to do something to me, when I was tied up, he slipped back over this platform, and he pulled me, who was tied on the cross with him. So we all fell down, he with the naked man on top of him, and the heavy cross on top of us both. I could not move, because I was tied,

and it was so, with me on top of him, and the heavy cross, that he could not get out. So he had to lie, shouting underneath me, until someone came to the studio to untie me. No, we were not hurt because the top of the cross fell, so that he did not crush us. Now you have had a taste of the cross, I said to him. Yes, you devil, but I shan't let you off, he said to me.

To make the time go he would ask me questions. Once he said, Now, Califano, what time is it? I give you three guesses, and if you guess right once, I give you sixpence. So I guess three o'clock. That's one. Now then, what time is it?

Again, three o'clock. That's two guesses gone, you silly devil. Now then, what time is it? So now I was obstinate, and I said, Three o'clock. He took out his watch. "'Why, damn you! How did you know? I'd give you a shilling. It was three o'clock, as I said, so he gave me a shilling instead of a sixpence, as he had said. It was strange in the silent winter afternoon,

downstairs in the black kitchen, to sit drinking a cup of tea with Pancratio, and hearing these stories of English painters. It was strange to look at the battered figure of Pancratio, and think how much he had been crucified through the long years in London, for the sake of late Victorian art. It was strangest of all to see through his yellow, often dull, red-rimmed eyes, these blithe and well-conditioned painters. Pancratio looked on them admiringly and contemptuously, as an old rakish tom-cat might look on such frivolous, well-groomed young gentleman. As a matter of fact, Pancratio had never been rakish or debauched,

but mountain moral, timid, so that the queer, half-sinister drop of his eyelids was curious, and the strange, wicked, yellow flare that came into his eyes was almost frightening. There was in the man a sort of sulphur-yellow flame of passion, which would light up in his battered body and give him an almost diabolical look. Alvina felt that if she were left much along with him, she would need all her English ascendancy not to be afraid of him. It was a Sunday morning just before Christmas when Alvina and Chico and Pancratio set off for Pesco Calasio for the first time. Snow had fallen, not much round the house, but deep between the banks as they climbed,

and the sun was very bright, so that the mountains were dazzling. The snow was wet on the roads. They wound between oak trees and under the broom scrub, climbing over the jumbled hills that lay between the mountains until the village came near. They got onto a broader track, where the path from a distant village joined theirs. They were all talking in the bright, clear air of the morning. A little man came down an upper path. As he joined them near the village, he hailed them in English.

Good morning! Nice morning. Does everybody speak English here? asked Alvina. I have been eighteen years in Glasgow. I am only here for a trip. He was a little Italian shopkeeper from Glasgow. He was most friendly, insisted on paying for drinks and coffee and almond biscuits for Alvina. Evidently he also was grateful to Britain. The village was wonderful. It occupied the crown of an eminence in the midst of the wide valley. From the terrace of the high road the valley spread below, with all its jumble of hills and

two rivers set in the walls of the mountains, a wide space but imprisoned. It glistened with snow under the blue sky, but the lowest hollows were brown. In the distance, a so small one. A Jonah hung at the edge of a platform. Many villages clung like pale swarms of birds to the far slopes, or perched on the hills beneath. It was a world within a world, a valley of many hills and townlets and streams shut in beyond access. Pesco Calascio itself was crowded, the roads were sloppy with snow, but nonetheless peasants in full dress, their feet soaked in the skin sandals were trooping in the sun, purchasing, selling, bargaining for cloth, talking all the time. In the shop, which was also a sort of inn, an ancient woman was making coffee over a charcoal brazier,

while a crowd of peasants sat at the tables at the back, eating the food they had brought. Post was due at midday. Chichito went to fetch it, whilst Pancratio took Alvina to the summit, to the castle. There, in the level region, boys were snowboarding. and shouting. The ancient castle, badly cracked by the last earthquake, looked wonderfully down on the valley of many hills beneath, Califano a speck down the left. Osona a blot to the right, suspended, its towers and its castle clear in the light. Behind the castle of Pesco Colasio was a deep, steep valley, almost a gorge at the bottom of which a river ran, and where Pancratio pointed out the electricity works of the village deep in the gloom.

Above this gorge at the end rose the long slopes of the mountains, up to the vivid snow, and across again was the wall of the Abruzzi. They went down, past the ruined houses, broken by the earthquake. Chicho still had not come with the post. A crowd surged at the post-office door in a steep, black, wet side street. Alvinas' feet were sodden. Pancratio took her to the place where she could drink coffee and Estrega to make her warm. On the platform, of the highway, above the valley, people were parading in the hot sun. Alvina noticed some ultra-smart young men. They came up to Pancratio, speaking English. Alvina hated their cockney accent and florid, showy, vulgar presence. They were more models. Pancratzio was cool with them.

Alvina sat apart from the crowd of peasants, on a chair the old crone had ostentatiously dusted for her. Pancraccio ordered beer for himself. Chichio came with letters. letters, long-delayed letters that had been censored. Alvina's heart went down. The first she opened was from Miss Pinnigar, all war and fear and anxiety. The second was a letter, a real insulting letter from Dr. Mitchell. I little thought at the time when I was hoping to make you my wife that you were carrying on with a dirty Italian organ-grinder. So your fair-seeming face covered the schemes and vice of your true nature. I can only thank Providence, which spared me the disgust and shame of marrying you, and I hope that when I meet you on the streets of Leicester Square,

I shall have forgiven you sufficiently to be able to throw you a coin. Here was a pretty little epistle. In spite of herself, she went pale and trembled. She glanced at Chichot. Fortunately he was turning round talking to another man. She rose and went to the ruddy brazier, as if she was, to warm her hands. She threw on the screwed-up letter. The old crone said something unintelligible to her. She watched the letter catch fire, glanced at the peasants at the table, and out at the

wide, wild valley. The world beyond could not help, but it still had the power to injure one here. She felt she had received a bitter blow. A black hatred for the Mitchells of this world filled her. She could hardly bear to open the third letter. It was from Mrs. Chook, and again all war. Would Italy join the Allies? She ought to, her every interest lay that way. Could Alvina bear to be so far off when such terrible events were happening near home? Could she possibly be happy? Nurses were so valuable now. She, Mrs. Chook, had volunteered. She would do whatever she could. She had to leave off nursing Jennifer, who had an excellent Scotch nurse, much better than a mother. Well, Alvina and Mrs. Tuch might yet meet in some hospital in France, so the letter ended.

Alvina sat down, pale and trembling. Pancratio was watching her curiously. Have you bad news? he asked. Only the war. Ah! And the Italian gesture of half-bitter, what can one do? They were talking war, all talking war. The dandy young models had left England because of the war, expecting Italy to come in. and everybody talked, talked, talked. Alvina looked round her. It all seemed alien to her, bruising upon the spirit. Do you think I shall ever be able to come here alone and do my shopping by myself, she asked. You must never come alone, said Pancratio, in his curious, benevolent courtesy. Either Chicho or I will come with you. You must never come so far alone. Why not, she said, you are a stranger here. You are not.

a contadina. Alvina could feel the oriental idea of women, which still leaves its mark on the Mediterranean, threatening her with surveillance and subjection. She sat in her chair with cold, wet feet, looking at the sunshine outside, the wet snow, the moving figures in the strong light, the men drinking at the counter, the cluster of peasant women bargaining for dress material. Chichio was still turning, talking in the rapid way to his neighbour. She knew it was war. She noticed the movement of his finely-modelled cheek, a little sallow this morning.

And she rose hastily. I want to go into the sun, she said. When she stood above the valley in the strong, tiring light, she glanced round. Chicho inside the shop had risen, but he was still turning to his neighbour, and was talking with all his hands and all his body. He did not talk with his mind and lips alone.

His whole physique, his whole living body spoke, and uttered and emphasized itself. A certain weariness possessed her. She was beginning to realize something about him, how he had no sense of home and domestic life, as an Englishman has. Ticho's home would never be his castle. His castle was the piazza of Pesco Calasio. His home was nothing to him but a possession and a hole to sleep in. He didn't live in it. He lived in the open and in the community. When the true Italian came out in him, his veriest home was the piazza of Pesco Colacio, the little sort of marketplace where the roads met in the village, under the castle, and where the men stood in groups and talked, talked, talked. This was where Chicho

belonged, his active, mindful self. His active, mindful self was none of hers. She only had his passive self and his family passion. His masculine mind and intelligence had its home in the little public square of his village. She knew this as she watched him now, with all his body talking politics. He could not break off till he had finished. And then, with a swift, intimate handshake to the group with whom he had been engaged, he came away, putting all his interest off from himself. She tried to make him talk and discuss with her, but he wouldn't. An obstinate spirit made him, made him darkly refuse masculine conversation with her. If Italy goes to war, you will have to join up, she asked him. Yes, he said, with a smile at the futility of the question.

And I shall have to stay here. He nodded, rather gloomily. Do you want to go, she persisted. No, I don't want to go. But you think Italy ought to join in? Yes, I do. Then you do want to go. I want to go if Italy goes in, and she ought to go.

in. Curious, he was somewhat afraid of her. He half venerated her and half despised her. When she tried to make him discuss in the masculine way, he shut obstinately against her, something like a child, and the slow, fine smile of dislike came on his face. Instinctively he shut off all masculine communication from her, particularly politics and religion. He would discuss both violently with other men. In politics he was something of a socialist, in religion a free thinker, but all this had nothing to do with Alvina. He would not enter on a discussion in English. Somewhere in her soul, she knew the finality of his refusal to hold discussion with a woman. So, though at times her heart hardened with indignant anger, she let herself remain outside, the more so as she felt that in matters

intellectual, he was rather stupid. Let him go to the piazza or to the wine shop and talk. To do him justice he went little. Pesco Calasio was only half his own village, the nostalgia, the Campanilismo from which Italians suffer, the craving to be in sight of the native church tower, to stand and talk in the native marketplace or piazza, this was only half formed in Chico, taken away as he had been from Pesco Calacio when so small a boy. He spent most of his time working in the fields and woods, most of his evening, at home, often weaving a special kind of fishnet or net basket from fine, frail strips of cane. It was a work he had learned at Naples long ago. Alvina, meanwhile, would sew for the child,

or spin wool. She became quite clever at drawing the strands of wool from her distaff, rolling them fine and even between her fingers, and keeping her bobbin rapidly spinning away below, dangling at the end of the thread. To tell the truth, She was happy in the quietness with Chicho. Now they had their own pleasant room. She loved his presence. She loved the quality of his silence, so rich and physical. She felt he was never very far away,

that he was a good deal of stranger in Califano, as she was, that he clung to her presence as she to his. Then Pancratio also contrived to serve her and shelter her. He too loved her for being there. They both revered her because she was with child, so that she lived more and more in a little, isolate, illusory, wonderful world then, content, moreover, because the living cost so little.

She had sixty pounds of her own money, always intact in the little case, and after all the highway beyond the river led to Osona, and Osona gave access to the railway, and the railway would take her anywhere. So the month of January passed, with its short days and its bits of snow and bursts of sunshine.

On sunny days Alvina walked down to the desolate riverbed which fascinated her. When Pancraccio was carrying up stone or lime on the ass, she accompanied him, and Pancraceo was always carrying up something, for he loved the extraneous jobs, like building a fireplace, much more than the heavy work of the land. Then she would find little tufts of wild narcissus among the rocks, gold-centred, pale little things, many on one stem. and their scent was powerful and magical, like the sound of the men who came all those days and sang before Christmas. She loved them. There was green hellebore, too, a fascinating plant,

and one or two little treasures, the last of the rose-coloured alpine cyclamons near the earth with snake-skin leaves, and so rose, so rose, like violets for shadowiness. She sat and cried over the first she found, heaven knows why. In February, as the days opened, the first almond trees flowered among grey olives, in warm, level corners between the hills. But it was March before the real flowering began. And then she had continual bowlfuls of white and blue violets. She had sprays of almond blossom, silver-warm and lustrous,

then sprays of peach and apricot, pink and fluttering. It was a great joy to wonder looking for flowers. She came upon a bankside, all wretched. wide with lavender crocuses. The sun was on them for the moment, and they were opened flat, great five-pointed, seven-pointed lilac stars with burning centres, burning with a strange lavender flame, as she had seen some metal burn lilac-flamed in the laboratory of the hospital at Islington. All down the oak-dry bank-side they burned their great exposed stars, and she felt like going down on her knees and bending her forehead to the earth in an

oriental submission they were so royal, so lovely, so supreme. She came again to them in the morning, when the sky was grey, and they were closed, sharp clubs, wonderfully fragile on their stems of sap, among leaves and old grass and wild periwinkle. They had wonderful dark stripes running up their cheeks, the crocuses, like the clear, proud stripes on a badger's face or on some proud cat. She took a handful of the sappy, shut, striped flames. In a room they opened into a grand bowl of lilac fire. March was a lovely month. The men were busy in the hills.

She wandered, extending her range, sometimes with a strange fear, but it was a fear of the elements rather than of man. One day she went along the high road with her letters, towards the village of Casa Latina. The high road was depressing wherever there were houses, for the houses had that sordid ramshackle, slummy look, almost invariable on an Italian high road. They were patched with a hideous, greenish mould colour, blotched as if with leprosy.

It frightened her, till Pancratzio told her it was only the copper sulphate that had sprayed the vines hitched onto the walls. But nonetheless the houses were sordid, unkempt, slummy. One house by itself could make a complete slum. Casa Latina was across the valley in the shadow, approaching it were rows of low cabins, fairly new. There were the one-story dwellings commanded after the earthquake, and hideous they were.

The village itself was old, dark, in perpetual shadow of the mountain. Streams of cold water ran round it. The piazza was gloomy, forsaken, but there was a great twin-towered church, wonderful from outside. She went inside and was almost sick, with repulsion. The place was large, whitewashed, and crowded with figures in glass cases and

ex-voto offerings. The lousy-looking, dressed up dolls, life-size and tinsely that stood in the glass cases. The blood streaked Jesus on the crucifix, the mouldering, mumbling, filthy peasant women on their knees. All the sense of trashy, repulsive, degraded, fetish worship was too much for her. She hurried out, shrinking from the contamination of the dirty leather door curtain. Enough of Casa Latina. She could never go there again. She was beginning to feel that, if she lived in this part of the world at all, she must avoid the inside of it. She must never, if she could help it, enter into any interior but her own. Neither into house nor church, nor even shop or post-office, if she could help it.

The moment she went through a door, the sense of dark-werect. repulsiveness came over her. If she was to save her sanity, she must keep to the open air and avoid any contact with human interiors. When she thought of the insides of the native people, she shuddered with repulsion, as in the great degraded church of Casa Latina. They were horrible. Yet the outside world was so fair. Corn and maize were growing green and silken. Vines were in the small bud. Everywhere little grape hyacinths hung their blue bells. It was a pity they reminded her of the many-breasted Artemis, a picture of whom, or of whose statue she had seen somewhere. Artemis with her cluster of breasts was horrible to her. Now she had come south, nauseating

beyond words, and the milky grape hyacinths reminded her. She turned with thankfulness to the magenta anemones that were so gay. Someone told her that wherever Venus, had shed a tear for Adonis, one of these flowers had sprung. They were not tear-like, and yet their red-purple silkiness had something pre-world about it, at last. The more she wandered, the more the shadow of the bygone pagan world seemed to come over her. Sometimes she felt she would shriek and go mad, so strong was the influence on her. Something pre-world, and it seemed to her now vindictive. She seemed to feel in the air strange furies, the mures things that had haunted her with their tomb frenzied vindictiveness since she was a child and had poured over the illustrated classical dictionary black and cruel presences were in the under air they were furtive and slinking

they bewitched you with loveliness and lurked with fangs to hurt you afterwards there it was the fangs sheathed in beauty the beauty first and then horribly inevitably the fang being a great deal alone in the strange place fancies possessed her people took on strange shapes even chicho and pancratio and it came that she never wandered far from the house from her room after the first months she seemed to hide herself in her room there she sewed and spun wool and read and learnt italian her men were not at all anxious to teach her italian Indeed, her chief teacher, at first, was a young fellow called Busilow. He was a model from London, and he came down to Califano sometimes, hanging about, anxious to speak English. Alvina did not care for him. He was a dandy with pale grey eyes and a heavy figure, yet he had a certain penetrating

intelligence. "'No, this country is a country for old men. It is only for old men,' he said, talking of Pesco Calasio. "'You won't stop here. "'Nobody young can stop here.' The odd, plangent certitude in his voice penetrated her, and all the young people said the same thing. They were all waiting to go away,

but for the moment the war held them up. Chicho and Pancratio were busy with the vines, as she watched them hoeing, crouching, tying, tending, grafting, mindless and utterly absorbed, hour after hour, day after day, thinking vines, living vines, living vines. She wondered they didn't begin to sprout vine buds and vine stems from their own elbows and neck joints. There was something to her unnatural in the quality of the attention the men gave to the

wine. It was a sort of worship, almost a degradation again. And heaven knows, Pancratio's wine was poor enough, his grapes almost invariably bruised with hailstones and half-rotten instead of ripe. The loveliness of April came, with hot sunshine, astonishing the ferocity of the sun, when he really took upon himself to blaze. Alvina was amazed. The burning day quite carried her away. She loved it. It made her quite careless about everything. She was just swept along in the powerful flood of the sunshine. In the end, she felt that intense sunlight had on her at the effect of night, a sort of darkness and a suspension of life. She had to hide in her room till the cold wind blew again.

Meanwhile, the declaration of war drew nearer and became inevitable. She knew Chicho would go, and with him went the chance of her escape. She steeled herself to bear the agony of the knowledge that he would go, and she would be left alone in this place, which sometimes she hated, with a hatred unspeakable. After a spell of hot, intensely dry weather she felt she would die in this valley, wither and go to powder as some exposed April roses withered and dried into dust against a hot wall. Then the cool wind came in a storm. The next day there was grey sky and soft air. The rose-coloured wild gladioli among the young green corn were a dream of beauty.

The morning of the world. The lovely, pristine morning of the world before our epoch began. Rose-red gladioli among corn, in among the rocks and small irises, black purple and yellow blotched with brown, like a wasp, standing low in little desert places that would seem forlorn but for this weird, dark, lustrous magnificence. Then there were the tiny irises, only one finger tall, growing in dry places, frail as crocuses, and much tinier and blue, blue as the eye of the morning heaven. which was a morning earlier, more pristine than ours. The lovely, translucent, pale irises, tiny and morning blue,

they lasted only a few hours, but nothing could be more exquisite, like gods on earth. It was the flowers that brought back to Alvina the passionate nostalgia for the place. The human influence was a bit horrible to her, but the flowers that came out and uttered the earth in magical expression, they cast a spell on her, bewitched her, and stole her own soul away from her. She went down to Chicho where he was weeding armfuls of rose-red gladioli

from the half-grown wheat, and cutting the lushness of the first weedy herbage. He threw down his sheaves of gladioli, and with his sickle began to cut the forest of bright yellow corn-marigolds. He looked intent. He seemed to work feverishly. Must they all be cut, she said, as she went to him. He threw aside the great armful of yellow flowers, took off his cap, and white the sweat from his brow. The sickle dangled loose in his hand.

We have declared war, he said. In an instant she realized that she had seen the figure of the old post-carrier dodging between the rocks. Rose red and gold-yellow of the flowers swam in her eyes. Chichos' dusk yellow eyes were watching her. She sank on her knees on a sheaf of corn-marigolds. Her eyes watching him were vulnerable as if stricken to death. Indeed, she felt she would die. You'll have to go, she said.

Yes, we shall all have to go. There seemed a certain sound of triumph in his voice, cruel. She sank lower on the flowers, and her head dropped, but she would not be beaten. She lifted her face. If you are very long, she said, I shall go to England. I can't stand here very long without you. You will have banquratio.

and the child, he said. Yes, but I shall still be by myself. I can't stay here very long without you. I shall go to England. He watched her narrowly. I don't think they'll let you, he said. Yes, they will. At moments she hated him.

He seemed to want to crush her altogether. She was always making little plans in her mind, how she could get out of that great cruel valley and escape to Rome to English people. She would find the English consul and he would, help her. She would do anything rather than be really crushed. She knew how easy it would be, once her spirit broke, for her to die and be buried in the cemetery at Pesco Calasio. And they would all be so sentimental about her, just as Pancratio was. She felt that in some way Pancratio had killed his

wife, not consciously, but unconsciously, as Ciccio might kill her. Pancratio would tell Alvina about his wife and her ailments, and he seemed always anxious to her. to prove that he had been so good to her. No doubt he had been good to her also, but there was something underneath, malevolent in his spirit, some caged-in sort of cruelty, malignant beyond his control. It crept out in his stories, and it revealed itself in his fear of his dead wife. Alvina knew that in the night the elderly man was afraid of his dead wife, and of her ghost or her avenging spirit. He would huddle over the fire in fear. In the same way the cemetery had a fascination of horror for him, as she noticed for most of the natives.

It was an ugly square place, all stone slabs and wall cupboards, enclosed in four square stone walls, and lying away beneath Pesco Calascio village, obvious as if it were on a plate. "'That is our cemetery,' Pancratio said, pointing it out to her, "'where we shall all be carried some day.' and there was fear horror in his voice he told her how the men had carried his wife there a long journey over the hill-tracks almost two hours these were days of waiting horrible days of waiting for chicho to be called up one batch of young men left the village and there was a lugubrious sort of saturnalia men and women alike got rather drunk the young men left amid howls of lamentation and shrieks of distress crowds accompanied them to the people accompanied them to the young men left amid howls of lamentation and shrieks of distress crowds accompanied them to a sonar whence they were marched towards the railway it was a horrible event a shiver of horror and death went through the valley in a lugubrious way they seemed to enjoy it you'll never be satisfied till you've gone she said to titio why don't they be quick and call you it will be next week he said looking at her darkly in the twilight he came to her when she could hardly see him are you sorry you came here with me allay he asked

There was malice in the very question. She put down the spoon and looked up from the fire. He stood shadowy, his head ducked forward, the firelight faint on his enigmatic, timeless, half-smiling face. I am not sorry, she answered slowly, using all her courage, because I love you. She crouched quite still on the hearth. He turned aside his face.

After a moment or two he went out. She stirred her pot slowly and sadly. She had to go downstairs for something. And there on the landing she saw him standing in the darkness, with his arm over his face, as if fending a blow. What is it, she said, laying her hand on him. He uncovered his face. I would take you away if I could, he said.

I can wait for you, she answered. He threw himself in a chair that stood at a table there on the broad landing and buried his head in his arms. "'Don't wait for me! Don't wait for me!' he cried. His voice muffled. "'Why not?' she said, filled with terror. He made no sign. "'Why not?' she insisted, and she laid her fingers on his head. He got up and turned to her. "'I love you, even if it kills me,' she said. But he only turned aside again, leaned his arm against the wall, and hid his face, utterly noiseless.

"'What is it?' she said. is it? I don't understand. He wiped his sleeve across his face and turned to her. I haven't any hope, he said, in a dull, dogged voice. She felt her heart and the child die within her. Why, she said. Was she to bear a hopeless child? You have hope. Don't make a scene, she snapped, and she went downstairs as she had intended. And when she got into the kitchen, she forgot what she had come for. She sat in the darkness on the seat, with all life gone dark and still, death and eternity settled down on her. Death and eternity were settled down on her as she sat alone, and she seemed to hear him moaning upstairs, I can't come back, I can't come back. She heard it.

She heard it so distinctly that she never knew whether it had been an actual utterance or whether it was her inner ear which had heard the inner, unutterable sound. She wanted to answer, to call to him, but she could not. Heavy, mute, powerless, she sat there like a lump of darkness in that doomed Italian kitchen. I can't come back. She heard it so fatally. She was interrupted by the entrance of Pancratio. Oh, he cried, startled when, having come near the fire, he caught sight of her.

and he said something, frightened in Italian. "'Is it you? Why are you in the darkness?' he said. "'I am just going upstairs again. "'You frightened me.' She went up to finish the preparing of the meal. Chicho came down to Pancratio. The latter had brought a newspaper. The two men sat on the settle with a lamp between them,

reading and talking the news. Chichos' group was called up for the following week, as he had said. The departure hung over them like a do. Those were perhaps the worst days of all, the days of the impending departure. Neither of them spoke about it. But the night before he left her, she could bear the silence no more. You will come back, won't you, she said, as he sat motionless in his chair in the bedroom. It was a hot, luminous night.

There was still a late scent of orange blossom from the garden. The nightingale was shaking the air with his sound. At times other honey scents wafted from the hills. you will come back, she insisted. Who knows? he replied. If you make up your mind to come back, you will come back. We have our fate in our hands, she said. He smiled slowly.

You think so? He said, I know it. If you don't come back, it will be because you don't want to. No other reason. It won't be because you can't. It'll be because you don't want to. Who told you so? he asked, with the same cruel smile. I know it, she said.

said, all right, he answered. But he still sat with his hands abandoned between his knees. So make up your mind, she said. He sat motionless for a long while, while she undressed and brushed her hair and went to bed. And still he sat there, unmoving, like a corpse. It was like having some unnatural, doomed, unbearable presence in the room. She blew out the light that she did not see him. But in the darkness it was worse. At last he stirred, he rose. He came hesitating across to her. I'll come back, Alley, he said quietly.

Be damned to them all. She heard unspeakable pain in his voice. To whom, she said, sitting up. He did not answer, but put his arms round her. I'll come back and we'll go to America, he said. You'll come back to me, she whispered, in an ecstasy of pain and relief. It was not her affair where they should. should go, so long as he really returned to her. I'll come back, he said.

Sure, she whispered, straining him to her. End of Chapter 16. End of the Lost Girl by D.H.