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 Ciccio: he had 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.
Ciccio 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, unseizable beauty? Unseizable, for ever unseizable! 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 shall be more than an hour.”
He put on his hat 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.