"You"re not asking him to stay the night," she blurted.
"Yes. And I"m going back with him to Madame tomorrow. 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 Pinnegar! 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 Pinnegar.
"_I"m_ leaving it for ever," said Alvina.
"I should think so," said Miss Pinnegar.
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 Pinnegar.
"Am I really?" laughed Alvina. It sounded funny.
"Yes, you"re a lost girl," sobbed Miss Pinnegar, on a final note of despair.
"I like being lost," said Alvina.
Miss Pinnegar wept herself into silence. She looked huddled and forlorn. Alvina went to her and laid her hand on her shoulder.
"Don"t fret, Miss Pinnegar," she said. "Don"t be silly. I love to be with Ciccio and Madame. Perhaps in the end I shall marry him. But if I don"t--" her hand suddenly gripped Miss Pinnegar"s heavy arm till it hurt--"I wouldn"t lose a minute of him, no, not for anything would I."
Poor Miss Pinnegar 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 forty 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 Pinnegar, "about opening a little business in Tamworth. You know the Watsons are there."
"I believe you"d be happy," said Alvina.
Miss Pinnegar 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!"
None the less, poor Miss Pinnegar was grey-haired, she was almost a dumpy, odd old woman.
They went downstairs. Miss Pinnegar put on the kettle.
"Would you like to see the house?" said Alvina to Ciccio.
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 Alvina"s 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 Kishwegin"s pieces. He listened, faintly smiling.
"Fine piano--eh?" he said, looking into her face.