“Is that Mrs. Tuke?” 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 is going to have a child,” said Alvina to Ciccio. “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.
“Allaye!” 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, Allaye?”