Ciccio 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. “Quoi faire, ah, quoi faire! Que ferez-vous, mes pauvres, sans votre Kishwégin. Que vais-je faire, mourir dans un tel pays! La bonne demoiselle—la bonne demoiselle—elle a du coeur. Elle pourrait aussi être belle, s’il y avait un peu plus de chair. Max, liebster, schau ich sehr elend aus? Ach, oh jeh, oh jeh!”
“Ach nein, Madame, ach nein. Nicht so furchtbar elend,” said Max.
“Manca il cuore solamente al Ciccio,” moaned Madame. “Che natura povera, senza sentimento—niente di bello. Ahimé, che amico, che ragazzo duro, aspero—”
“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 arm-chair. Usually she spoke in French only, with her young men. But this was an extra occasion.
“La pauvre Kishwégin!” murmured Madame. “Elle va finir au monde. Elle passe—la pauvre Kishwégin.”
Kishwégin 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 Ciccio 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 eau de Cologne. She spoke an appropriate good-night, to each of them.