“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 are 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 twin 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!”