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+The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Call of the Blood, by Robert Smythe
+Hichens, Illustrated by Orson Lowell
+
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+
+
+
+Title: The Call of the Blood
+
+
+Author: Robert Smythe Hichens
+
+
+
+Release Date: December 21, 2006  [eBook #20157]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII)
+
+
+***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CALL OF THE BLOOD***
+
+
+E-text prepared by Chris Curnow, Suzanne Shell, and the Project Gutenberg
+Online Distributed Proofreading Team (https://www.pgdp.net/c/)
+
+
+
+Note: Project Gutenberg also has an HTML version of this
+      file which includes the original illustrations.
+      See 20157-h.htm or 20157-h.zip:
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+      or
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+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+      Some minor changes have been made to correct typographical
+      errors and inconsistencies.
+
+
+
+
+
+THE CALL OF THE BLOOD
+
+by
+
+ROBERT HICHENS
+
+Author of
+"The Garden of Allah" Etc.
+
+Illustrated by Orson Lowell
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: See p. 399 "HE STOOD STILL, GAZING AT THEM AS THEY
+PRAYED"]
+
+
+
+New York and London
+Harper & Brothers Publishers
+MCMVI
+Copyright, 1905, 1906, by Harper & Brothers.
+All rights reserved.
+Published October, 1906.
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+   "HE STOOD STILL, GAZING AT THEM AS THEY PRAYED"     _Frontispiece_
+
+   "'SPACE SEEMS TO LIBERATE THE SOUL,' SHE SAID"      _Facing p._ 38
+
+   "HE ... LOOKED DOWN AT THE LIGHT SHINING IN
+   THE HOUSE OF THE SIRENS"                                 "      78
+
+   "HER HEAD WAS THROWN BACK, AS IF SHE WERE
+   DRINKING IN THE BREEZE"                                  "     120
+
+   "'I AM CONTENT WITHOUT ANYTHING, SIGNORINO,'
+   SHE SAID"                                                "     280
+
+   "HE KEPT HIS HAND ON HERS AND HELD IT ON THE
+   WARM GROUND"                                             "     302
+
+   "'BUT I SOON LEARNED TO DELIGHT IN--IN MY
+   SICILIAN,' SHE SAID, TENDERLY"                           "     366
+
+   "SHE COULD SEE VAGUELY THE SHORE BY THE
+   CAVES WHERE THE FISHERMEN HAD SLEPT IN
+   THE DAWN"                                                "     420
+
+
+
+
+THE
+CALL OF THE BLOOD
+
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+On a dreary afternoon of November, when London was closely wrapped in a
+yellow fog, Hermione Lester was sitting by the fire in her house in Eaton
+Place reading a bundle of letters, which she had just taken out of her
+writing-table drawer. She was expecting a visit from the writer of the
+letters, Emile Artois, who had wired to her on the previous day that he
+was coming over from Paris by the night train and boat.
+
+Miss Lester was a woman of thirty-four, five feet ten in height, flat,
+thin, but strongly built, with a large waist and limbs which, though
+vigorous, were rather unwieldy. Her face was plain: rather square and
+harsh in outline, with blunt, almost coarse features, but a good
+complexion, clear and healthy, and large, interesting, and slightly
+prominent brown eyes, full of kindness, sympathy, and brightness, full,
+too, of eager intelligence and of energy, eyes of a woman who was
+intensely alive both in body and in mind. The look of swiftness, a look
+most attractive in either human being or in animal, was absent from her
+body but was present in her eyes, which showed forth the spirit in her
+with a glorious frankness and a keen intensity. Nevertheless, despite
+these eyes and her thickly growing, warm-colored, and wavy brown hair,
+she was a plain, almost an ugly woman, whose attractive force issued from
+within, inviting inquiry and advance, as the flame of a fire does,
+playing on the blurred glass of a window with many flaws in it.
+
+Hermione was, in fact, found very attractive by a great many people of
+varying temperaments and abilities, who were captured by her spirit and
+by her intellect, the soul of the woman and the brains, and who, while
+seeing clearly and acknowledging frankly the plainness of her face and
+the almost masculine ruggedness of her form, said, with a good deal of
+truth, that "somehow they didn't seem to matter in Hermione." Whether
+Hermione herself was of this opinion not many knew. Her general
+popularity, perhaps, made the world incurious about the subject.
+
+The room in which Hermione was reading the letters of Artois was small
+and crammed with books. There were books in cases uncovered by glass from
+floor to ceiling, some in beautiful bindings, but many in tattered paper
+covers, books that looked as if they had been very much read. On several
+tables, among photographs and vases of flowers, were more books and many
+magazines, both English and foreign. A large writing-table was littered
+with notes and letters. An upright grand-piano stood open, with a
+quantity of music upon it. On the thick Persian carpet before the fire
+was stretched a very large St. Bernard dog, with his muzzle resting on
+his paws and his eyes blinking drowsily in serene contentment.
+
+As Hermione read the letters one by one her face showed a panorama of
+expressions, almost laughably indicative of her swiftly passing thoughts.
+Sometimes she smiled. Once or twice she laughed aloud, startling the dog,
+who lifted his massive head and gazed at her with profound inquiry. Then
+she shook her head, looked grave, even sad, or earnest and full of
+sympathy, which seemed longing to express itself in a torrent of
+comforting words. Presently she put the letters together, tied them up
+carelessly with a piece of twine, and put them back into the drawer from
+which she had taken them. Just as she had finished doing this the door of
+the room, which was ajar, was pushed softly open, and a dark-eyed,
+Eastern-looking boy dressed in livery appeared.
+
+"What is it, Selim?" asked Hermione, in French.
+
+"Monsieur Artois, madame."
+
+"Emile!" cried Hermione, getting up out of her chair with a sort of eager
+slowness. "Where is he?"
+
+"He is here!" said a loud voice, also speaking French.
+
+Selim stood gracefully aside, and a big man stepped into the room and
+took the two hands which Hermione stretched out in his.
+
+"Don't let any one else in, Selim," said Hermione to the boy.
+
+"Especially the little Townly," said Artois, menacingly.
+
+"Hush, Emile! Not even Miss Townly if she calls, Selim."
+
+Selim smiled with grave intelligence at the big man, said, "I understand,
+madame," and glided out.
+
+"Why, in Heaven's name, have you--you, pilgrim of the Orient--insulted
+the East by putting Selim into a coat with buttons and cloth trousers?"
+exclaimed Artois, still holding Hermione's hands.
+
+"It's an outrage, I know. But I had to. He was stared at and followed,
+and he actually minded it. As soon as I found out that, I trampled on all
+my artistic prejudices, and behold him--horrible but happy! Thank you for
+coming--thank you."
+
+She let his hands go, and they stood for a moment looking at each other
+in the firelight.
+
+Artois was a tall man of about forty-three, with large, almost Herculean
+limbs, a handsome face, with regular but rather heavy features, and very
+big gray eyes, that always looked penetrating and often melancholy. His
+forehead was noble and markedly intellectual, and his well-shaped,
+massive head was covered with thick, short, mouse-colored hair. He wore a
+mustache and a magnificent beard. His barber, who was partly responsible
+for the latter, always said of it that it was the "most beautiful
+fan-shaped beard in Paris," and regarded it with a pride which was
+probably shared by its owner. His hands and feet were good,
+capable-looking, but not clumsy, and his whole appearance gave an
+impression of power, both physical and intellectual, and of indomitable
+will combined with subtlety. He was well dressed, fashionably not
+artistically, yet he suggested an artist, not necessarily a painter. As
+he looked at Hermione the smile which had played about his lips when he
+entered the little room died away.
+
+"I've come to hear about it all," he said, in his resonant voice--a voice
+which matched his appearance. "Do you know"--and here his accent was
+grave, almost reproachful--"that in all your letters to me--I looked them
+over before I left Paris--there is no allusion, not one, to this Monsieur
+Delarey."
+
+"Why should there be?" she answered.
+
+She sat down, but Artois continued to stand.
+
+"We seldom wrote of persons, I think. We wrote of events, ideas, of work,
+of conditions of life; of man, woman, child--yes--but not often of
+special men, women, children. I am almost sure--in fact, quite sure, for
+I've just been reading them--that in your letters to me there is very
+little discussion of our mutual friends, less of friends who weren't
+common to us both."
+
+As she spoke she stretched out a long, thin arm, and pulled open the
+drawer into which she had put the bundle tied with twine.
+
+"They're all in here."
+
+"You don't lock that drawer?"
+
+"Never."
+
+He looked at her with a sort of severity.
+
+"I lock the door of the room, or, rather, it locks itself. You haven't
+noticed it?"
+
+"No."
+
+"It's the same as the outer door of a flat. I have a latch-key to it."
+
+He said nothing, but smiled. All the sudden grimness had gone out of his
+face.
+
+Hermione withdrew her hand from the drawer holding the letters.
+
+"Here they are!"
+
+"My complaints, my egoism, my ambitions, my views--Mon Dieu! Hermione,
+what a good friend you've been!"
+
+"And some people say you're not modest!"
+
+"I--modest! What is modesty? I know my own value as compared with that of
+others, and that knowledge to others must often seem conceit."
+
+She began to untie the packet, but he stretched out his hand and stopped
+her.
+
+"No, I didn't come from Paris to read my letters, or even to hear you
+read them! I came to hear about this Monsieur Delarey."
+
+Selim stole in with tea and stole out silently, shutting the door this
+time. As soon as he had gone, Artois drew a case from his pocket, took
+out of it a pipe, filled it, and lit it. Meanwhile, Hermione poured out
+tea, and, putting three lumps of sugar into one of the cups, handed it to
+Artois.
+
+"I haven't come to protest. You know we both worship individual freedom.
+How often in those letters haven't we written it--our respect of the
+right of the individual to act for him or herself, without the
+interference of outsiders? No, I've come to hear about it all, to hear
+how you managed to get into the pleasant state of mania."
+
+On the last words his deep voice sounded sarcastic, almost patronizing.
+Hermione fired up at once.
+
+"None of that from you, Emile!" she exclaimed.
+
+Artois stirred his tea rather more than was necessary, but did not begin
+to drink it.
+
+"You mustn't look down on me from a height," she continued. "I won't have
+it. We're all on a level when we're doing certain things, when we're
+truly living, simply, frankly, following our fates, and when we're dying.
+You feel that. Drop the analyst, dear Emile, drop the professional point
+of view. I see right through it into your warm old heart. I never was
+afraid of you, although I place you high, higher than your critics,
+higher than your public, higher than you place yourself. Every woman
+ought to be able to love, and every man. There's nothing at all absurd in
+the fact, though there may be infinite absurdities in the manifestation
+of it. But those you haven't yet had an opportunity of seeing in me, so
+you've nothing yet to laugh at or label. Now drink your tea."
+
+He laughed a loud, roaring laugh, drank some of his tea, puffed out a
+cloud of smoke, and said:
+
+"Whom will you ever respect?"
+
+"Every one who is sincere--myself included."
+
+"Be sincere with me now, and I'll go back to Paris to-morrow like a shorn
+lamb. Be sincere about Monsieur Delarey."
+
+Hermione sat quite still for a moment with the bundle of letters in her
+lap. At last she said:
+
+"It's difficult sometimes to tell the truth about a feeling, isn't it?"
+
+"Ah, you don't know yourself what the truth is."
+
+"I'm not sure that I do. The history of the growth of a feeling may be
+almost more complicated than the history of France."
+
+Artois, who was a novelist, nodded his head with the air of a man who
+knew all about that.
+
+"Maurice--Maurice Delarey has cared for me, in that way, for a long time.
+I was very much surprised when I first found it out."
+
+"Why, in the name of Heaven?"
+
+"Well, he's wonderfully good-looking."
+
+"No explanation of your astonishment."
+
+"Isn't it? I think, though, it was that fact which astonished me, the
+fact of a very handsome man loving me."
+
+"Now, what's your theory?"
+
+He bent down his head a little towards her, and fixed his great, gray
+eyes on her face.
+
+"Theory! Look here, Emile, I dare say it's difficult for a man like you,
+genius, insight, and all, thoroughly to understand how an ugly woman
+regards beauty, an ugly woman like me, who's got intellect and passion
+and intense feeling for form, color, every manifestation of beauty. When
+I look at beauty I feel rather like a dirty little beggar staring at an
+angel. My intellect doesn't seem to help me at all. In me, perhaps, the
+sensation arises from an inward conviction that humanity was meant
+originally to be beautiful, and that the ugly ones among us are--well,
+like sins among virtues. You remember that book of yours which was and
+deserved to be your one artistic failure, because you hadn't put yourself
+really into it?"
+
+Artois made a wry face.
+
+"Eventually you paid a lot of money to prevent it from being published
+any more. You withdrew it from circulation. I sometimes feel that we ugly
+ones ought to be withdrawn from circulation. It's silly, perhaps, and I
+hope I never show it, but there the feeling is. So when the handsomest
+man I had ever seen loved me, I was simply amazed. It seemed to me
+ridiculous and impossible. And then, when I was convinced it was
+possible, very wonderful, and, I confess it to you, very splendid. It
+seemed to help to reconcile me with myself in a way in which I had never
+been reconciled before."
+
+"And that was the beginning?"
+
+"I dare say. There were other things, too. Maurice Delarey isn't at all
+stupid, but he's not nearly so intelligent as I am."
+
+"That doesn't surprise me."
+
+"The fact of this physical perfection being humble with me, looking up to
+me, seemed to mean a great deal. I think Maurice feels about intellect
+rather as I do about beauty. He made me understand that he must. And that
+seemed to open my heart to him in an extraordinary way. Can you
+understand?"
+
+"Yes. Give me some more tea, please."
+
+He held out his cup. She filled it, talking while she did so. She had
+become absorbed in what she was saying, and spoke without any
+self-consciousness.
+
+"I knew my gift, such as it is, the gift of brains, could do something
+for him, though his gift of beauty could do nothing for me--in the way of
+development. And that, too, seemed to lead me a step towards him.
+Finally--well, one day I knew I wanted to marry him. And so, Emile, I'm
+going to marry him. Here!"
+
+She held out to him his cup full of tea.
+
+"There's no sugar," he said.
+
+"Oh--the first time I've forgotten."
+
+"Yes."
+
+The tone of his voice made her look up at him quickly and exclaim:
+
+"No, it won't make any difference!"
+
+"But it has. You've forgotten for the first time. Cursed be the egotism
+of man."
+
+He sat down in an arm-chair on the other side of the tea-table.
+
+"It ought to make a difference. Maurice Delarey, if he is a man--and if
+you are going to marry him he must be--will not allow you to be the
+Egeria of a fellow who has shocked even Paris by telling it the naked
+truth."
+
+"Yes, he will. I shall drop no friendship for him, and he knows it.
+There is not one that is not honest and innocent. Thank God I can say
+that. If you care for it, Emile, we can both add to the size of the
+letter bundles."
+
+He looked at her meditatively, even rather sadly.
+
+"You are capable of everything in the way of friendship, I believe," he
+said. "Even of making the bundle bigger with a husband's consent. A
+husband's--I suppose the little Townly's upset? But she always is."
+
+"When you're there. You don't know Evelyn. You never will. She's at her
+worst with you because you terrify her. Your talent frightens her, but
+your appearance frightens her even more."
+
+"I am as God made me."
+
+"With the help of the barber. It's your beard as much as anything else."
+
+"What does she say of this affair? What do all your innumerable adorers
+say?"
+
+"What should they say? Why should anybody be surprised? It's surely the
+most natural thing in the world for a woman, even a very plain woman, to
+marry. I have always heard that marriage is woman's destiny, and though I
+don't altogether believe that, still I see no special reason why I should
+never marry if I wish to. And I do wish to."
+
+"That's what will surprise the little Townly and the gaping crowd."
+
+"I shall begin to think I've seemed unwomanly all these years."
+
+"No. You're an extraordinary woman who astonishes because she is going to
+do a very important thing that is very ordinary."
+
+"It doesn't seem at all ordinary to me."
+
+Emile Artois began to stroke his beard. He was determined not to feel
+jealous. He had never wished to marry Hermione, and did not wish to marry
+her now, but he had come over from Paris secretly a man of wrath.
+
+"You needn't tell me that," he said. "Of course it is the great event to
+you. Otherwise you would never have thought of doing it."
+
+"Exactly. Are you astonished?"
+
+"I suppose I am. Yes, I am."
+
+"I should have thought you were far too clever to be so."
+
+"Exactly what I should have thought. But what living man is too clever to
+be an idiot? I never met the gentleman and never hope to."
+
+"You looked upon me as the eternal spinster?"
+
+"I looked upon you as Hermione Lester, a great creature, an extraordinary
+creature, free from the prejudices of your sex and from its pettinesses,
+unconventional, big brained, generous hearted, free as the wind in a
+world of monkey slaves, careless of all opinion save your own, but humbly
+obedient to the truth that is in you, human as very few human beings are,
+one who ought to have been an artist but who apparently preferred to be
+simply a woman."
+
+Hermione laughed, winking away two tears.
+
+"Well, Emile dear, I'm being very simply a woman now, I assure you."
+
+"And why should I be surprised? You're right. What is it makes me
+surprised?"
+
+He sat considering.
+
+"Perhaps it is that you are so unusual, so individual, that my
+imagination refuses to project the man on whom your choice could fall. I
+project the snuffy professor--Impossible! I project the Greek god--again
+my mind cries, 'Impossible!' Yet, behold, it is in very truth the Greek
+god, the ideal of the ordinary woman."
+
+"You know nothing about it. You're shooting arrows into the air."
+
+"Tell me more then. Hold up a torch in the darkness."
+
+"I can't. You pretend to know a woman, and you ask her coldly to explain
+to you the attraction of the man she loves, to dissect it. I won't try
+to."
+
+"But," he said, with now a sort of joking persistence, which was only a
+mask for an almost irritable curiosity, "I want to know."
+
+"And you shall. Maurice and I are dining to-night at Caminiti's in
+Peathill Street, just off Regent Street. Come and meet us there, and
+we'll all three spend the evening together. Half-past eight, of course no
+evening dress, and the most delicious Turkish coffee in London."
+
+"Does Monsieur Delarey like Turkish coffee?"
+
+"Loves it."
+
+"Intelligently?"
+
+"How do you mean?"
+
+"Does he love it inherently, or because you do?"
+
+"You can find that out to-night."
+
+"I shall come."
+
+He got up, put his pipe into a case, and the case into his pocket, and
+said:
+
+"Hermione, if the analyst may have a word--"
+
+"Yes--now."
+
+"Don't let Monsieur Delarey, whatever his character, see now, or in the
+future, the dirty little beggar staring at the angel. I use your own
+preposterously inflated phrase. Men can't stand certain things and remain
+true to the good in their characters. Humble adoration from a woman like
+you would be destructive of blessed virtues in Antinous. Think well of
+yourself, my friend, think well of your sphinxlike eyes. Haven't they
+beauty? Doesn't intellect shoot its fires from them? Mon Dieu! Don't let
+me see any prostration to-night, or I shall put three grains of something
+I know--I always call it Turkish delight--into the Turkish coffee of
+Monsieur Delarey, and send him to sleep with his fathers."
+
+Hermione got up and held out her hands to him impulsively.
+
+"Bless you, Emile!" she said. "You're a--"
+
+There was a gentle tap on the door. Hermione went to it and opened it.
+Selim stood outside with a pencil note on a salver.
+
+"Ha! The little Townly has been!" said Artois.
+
+"Yes, it's from her. You told her, Selim, that I was with Monsieur
+Artois?"
+
+"Yes, madame."
+
+"Did she say anything?"
+
+"She said, 'Very well,' madame, and then she wrote this. Then she said
+again, 'Very well,' and then she went away."
+
+"All right, Selim."
+
+Selim departed.
+
+"Delicious!" said Artois. "I can hear her speaking and see her drifting
+away consumed by jealousy, in the fog."
+
+"Hush, Emile, don't be so malicious."
+
+"P'f! I must be to-day, for I too am--"
+
+"Nonsense. Be good this evening, be very good."
+
+"I will try."
+
+He kissed her hand, bending his great form down with a slightly burlesque
+air, and strode out without another word. Hermione sat down to read Miss
+Townly's note:
+
+       "Dearest, never mind. I know that I must now accustom myself to be
+     nothing in your life. It is difficult at first, but what is
+     existence but a struggle? I feel that I am going to have another of
+     my neuralgic seizures. I wonder what it all means?--Your,    EVELYN."
+
+Hermione laid the note down, with a sigh and a little laugh.
+
+"I wonder what it all means? Poor, dear Evelyn! Thank God, it sometimes
+means--" She did not finish the sentence, but knelt down on the carpet
+and took the St. Bernard's great head in her hands.
+
+"You don't bother, do you, old boy, as long as you have your bone. Ah,
+I'm a selfish wretch. But I am going to have my bone, and I can't help
+feeling happy--gloriously, supremely happy!"
+
+And she kissed the dog's cold nose and repeated:
+
+"Supremely--supremely happy!"
+
+
+
+II
+
+Miss Townly, gracefully turned away from Hermione's door by Selim, did,
+as Artois had surmised, drift away in the fog to the house of her friend
+Mrs. Creswick, who lived in Sloane Street. She felt she must unburden
+herself to somebody, and Mrs. Creswick's tea, a blend of China tea with
+another whose origin was a closely guarded secret, was the most delicious
+in London. There are merciful dispensations of Providence even for Miss
+Townlys, and Mrs. Creswick was at home with a blazing fire. When she saw
+Miss Townly coming sideways into the room with a slightly drooping head,
+she said, briskly:
+
+"Comfort me with crumpets, for I am sick with love! Cheer up, my dear
+Evelyn. Fogs will pass and even neuralgia has its limits. I don't ask you
+what is the matter, because I know perfectly well."
+
+Miss Townly went into a very large arm-chair and waveringly selected a
+crumpet.
+
+"What does it all mean?" she murmured, looking obliquely at her friend's
+parquet.
+
+"Ask the baker, No. 5 Allitch Street. I always get them from there. And
+he's a remarkably well-informed man."
+
+"No, I mean life with its extraordinary changes, things you never
+expected, never dreamed of--and all coming so abruptly. I don't think I'm
+a stupid person, but I certainly never looked for this."
+
+"For what?"
+
+"This most extraordinary engagement of Hermione's."
+
+Mrs. Creswick, who was a short woman who looked tall, with a briskly
+conceited but not unkind manner, and a decisive and very English nose,
+rejoined:
+
+"I don't know why we should call it extraordinary. Everybody gets engaged
+at some time or other, and Hermione's a woman like the rest of us and
+subject to aberration. But I confess I never thought she would marry
+Maurice Delarey. He never seemed to mean more to her than any one else,
+so far as I could see."
+
+"Everybody seems to mean so much to Hermione that it makes things
+difficult to outsiders," replied Miss Townly, plaintively. "She is so
+wide-minded and has so many interests that she dwarfs everybody else. I
+always feel quite squeezed when I compare my poor little life with hers.
+But then she has such physical endurance. She breaks the ice, you know,
+in her bath in the winter--of course I mean when there is ice."
+
+"It isn't only in her bath that she breaks the ice," said Mrs. Creswick.
+
+"I perfectly understand," Miss Townly said, vaguely. "You mean--yes,
+you're right. Well, I prefer my bath warmed for me, but my circulation
+was never of the best."
+
+"Hermione is extraordinary," said Mrs. Creswick, trying to look at her
+profile in the glass and making her face as Roman as she could, "I know
+all London, but I never met another Hermione. She can do things that
+other women can't dream of even, and nobody minds."
+
+"Well, now she is going to do a thing we all dream of and a great many of
+us do. Will it answer? He's ten years younger than she is. Can it
+answer?"
+
+"One can never tell whether a union of two human mysteries will answer,"
+said Mrs. Creswick, judicially. "Maurice Delarey is wonderfully
+good-looking."
+
+"Yes, and Hermione isn't."
+
+"That has never mattered in the least."
+
+"I know. I didn't say it had. But will it now?"
+
+"Why should it?"
+
+"Men care so much for looks. Do you think Hermione loves Mr. Delarey for
+his?"
+
+"She dives deep."
+
+"Yes, as a rule."
+
+"Why not now? She ought to have dived deeper than ever this time."
+
+"She ought, of course. I perfectly understand that. But it's very odd, I
+think we often marry the man we understand less than any one else in the
+world. Mystery is so very attractive."
+
+Miss Townly sighed. She was emaciated, dark, and always dressed to look
+mysterious.
+
+"Maurice Delarey is scarcely my idea of a mystery," said Mrs. Creswick,
+taking joyously a marron glace. "In my opinion he's an ordinarily
+intelligent but an extraordinarily handsome man. Hermione is exactly the
+reverse, extraordinarily intelligent and almost ugly."
+
+"Oh no, not ugly!" said Miss Townly, with unexpected warmth.
+
+Though of a tepid personality, she was a worshipper at Hermione's shrine.
+
+"Her eyes are beautiful," she added.
+
+"Good eyes don't make a beauty," said Mrs. Creswick again, looking at her
+three-quarters face in the glass. "Hermione is too large, and her face is
+too square, and--but as I said before, it doesn't matter the least.
+Hermione's got a temperament that carries all before it."
+
+"I do wish I had a temperament," said Miss Townly. "I try to cultivate
+one."
+
+"You might as well try to cultivate a mustache," Mrs. Creswick rather
+brutally rejoined. "If it's there, it's there, but if it isn't one prays
+in vain."
+
+"I used to think Hermione would do something," continued Miss Townly,
+finishing her second cup of tea with thirsty languor.
+
+"Do something?"
+
+"Something important, great, something that would make her famous, but of
+course now"--she paused--"now it's too late," she concluded. "Marriage
+destroys, not creates talent. Some celebrated man--I forget which--has
+said something like that."
+
+"Perhaps he'd destroyed his wife's. I think Hermione might be a great
+mother."
+
+Miss Townly blushed faintly. She did nearly everything faintly. That was
+partly why she admired Hermione.
+
+"And a great mother is rare," continued Mrs. Creswick. "Good mothers are,
+thank God, quite common even in London, whatever those foolish people who
+rail at the society they can't get into may say. But great mothers are
+seldom met with. I don't know one."
+
+"What do you mean by a great mother?" inquired Miss Townly.
+
+"A mother who makes seeds grow. Hermione has a genius for friendship and
+a special gift for inspiring others. If she ever has a child, I can
+imagine that she will make of that child something wonderful."
+
+"Do you mean an infant prodigy?" asked Miss Townly, innocently.
+
+"No, dear, I don't!" said Mrs. Creswick; "I mean nothing of the sort.
+Never mind!"
+
+When Mrs. Creswick said "Never mind!" Miss Townly usually got up to go.
+She got up to go now, and went forth into Sloane Street meditating, as
+she would have expressed it, "profoundly."
+
+Meanwhile Artois went back to the Hans Crescent Hotel on foot. He walked
+slowly along the greasy pavement through the yellow November fog, trying
+to combat a sensation of dreariness which had floated round his spirit,
+as the fog floated round his body, directly he stepped into the street.
+He often felt depressed without a special cause, but this afternoon
+there was a special cause for his melancholy. Hermione was going to be
+married.
+
+She often came to Paris, where she had many friends, and some years ago
+they had met at a dinner given by a brilliant Jewess, who delighted in
+clever people, not because she was stupid, but for the opposite reason.
+Artois was already famous, though not loved, as a novelist. He had
+published two books; works of art, cruel, piercing, brutal, true.
+Hermione had read them. Her intellect had revelled in them, but they had
+set ice about her heart, and when Madame Enthoven told her who was going
+to take her in to dinner, she very nearly begged to be given another
+partner. She felt that her nature must be in opposition to this man's.
+
+Artois was not eager for the honor of her company. He was a careful
+dissecter of women, and, therefore, understood how mysterious women are;
+but in his intimate life they counted for little. He regarded them there
+rather as the European traveller regards the Mousmes of Japan, as
+playthings, and insisted on one thing only--that they must be pretty. A
+Frenchman, despite his unusual intellectual power, he was not wholly
+emancipated from the la petite femme tradition, which will never be
+outmoded in Paris while Paris hums with life, and, therefore, when he was
+informed that he was to take in to dinner the tall, solidly built,
+big-waisted, rugged-faced woman, whom he had been observing from a
+distance ever since he came into the drawing-room, he felt that he was
+being badly treated by his hostess.
+
+Yet he had been observing this woman closely.
+
+Something unusual, something vital in her had drawn his attention, fixed
+it, held it. He knew that, but said to himself that it was the attention
+of the novelist that had been grasped by an uncommon human specimen, and
+that the man of the world, the diner-out, did not want to eat in company
+with a specimen, but to throw off professional cares with a gay little
+chatterbox of the Mousme type. Therefore he came over to be presented to
+Hermione with rather a bad grace.
+
+And that introduction was the beginning of the great friendship which was
+now troubling him in the fog.
+
+By the end of that evening Hermione and he had entirely rid themselves of
+their preconceived notions of each other. She had ceased from imagining
+him a walking intellect devoid of sympathies, he from considering her a
+possibly interesting specimen, but not the type of woman who could be
+agreeable in a man's life. Her naturalness amounted almost to genius. She
+was generally unable to be anything but natural, unable not to speak as
+she was feeling, unable to feel unsympathetic. She always showed keen
+interest when she felt it, and, with transparent sincerity, she at once
+began to show to Artois how much interested she was in him. By doing so
+she captivated him at once. He would not, perhaps, have been captivated
+by the heart without the brains, but the two in combination took
+possession of him with an ease which, when the evening was over, but only
+then, caused him some astonishment.
+
+Hermione had a divining-rod to discover the heart in another, and she
+found out at once that Artois had a big heart as well as a fine
+intellect. He was deceptive because he was always ready to show the
+latter, and almost always determined to conceal the former. Even to
+himself he was not quite frank about his heart, but often strove to
+minimize its influence upon him, if not to ignore totally its promptings
+and its utterances. Why this was so he could not perhaps have explained
+even to himself. It was one of the mysteries of his temperament. From the
+first moment of their intercourse Hermione showed to him her conviction
+that he had a warm heart, and that it could be relied upon without
+hesitation. This piqued but presently delighted, and also soothed
+Artois, who was accustomed to be misunderstood, and had often thought he
+liked to be misunderstood, but who now found out how pleasant a brilliant
+woman's intuition may be, even at a Parisian dinner. Before the evening
+was over they knew that they were friends; and friends they had remained
+ever since.
+
+Artois was a reserved man, but, like many reserved people, if once he
+showed himself as he really was, he could continue to be singularly
+frank. He was singularly frank with Hermione. She became his confidante,
+often at a distance. He scarcely ever came to London, which he disliked
+exceedingly, but from Paris or from the many lands in which he
+wandered--he was no pavement lounger, although he loved Paris rather as a
+man may love a very chic cocotte--he wrote to Hermione long letters, into
+which he put his mind and heart, his aspirations, struggles, failures,
+triumphs. They were human documents, and contained much of his secret
+history.
+
+It was of this history that he was now thinking, and of Hermione's
+comments upon it, tied up with a ribbon in Paris. The news of her
+approaching marriage with a man whom he had never seen had given him a
+rude shock, had awakened in him a strange feeling of jealousy. He had
+grown accustomed to the thought that Hermione was in a certain sense his
+property. He realized thoroughly the egotism, the dog-in-the-manger
+spirit which was alive in him, and hated but could not banish it. As a
+friend he certainly loved Hermione. She knew that. But he did not love
+her as a man loves the woman he wishes to make his wife. She must know
+that, too. He loved her but was not in love with her, and she loved but
+was not in love with him. Why, then, should this marriage make a
+difference in their friendship? She said that it would not, but he felt
+that it must. He thought of her as a wife, then as a mother. The latter
+thought made his egotism shudder. She would be involved in the happy
+turmoil of a family existence, while he would remain without in that
+loneliness which is the artist's breath of life and martyrdom. Yes, his
+egotism shuddered, and he was angry at the weakness. He chastised the
+frailties of others, but must be the victim of his own. A feeling of
+helplessness came to him, of being governed, lashed, driven. How unworthy
+was his sensation of hostility against Delarey, his sensation that
+Hermione was wronging him by entering into this alliance, and how
+powerless he was to rid himself of either sensation! There was good cause
+for his melancholy--his own folly. He must try to conquer it, and, if
+that were impossible, to rein it in before the evening.
+
+When he reached the hotel he went into his sitting-room and worked for an
+hour and a half, producing a short paragraph, which did not please him.
+Then he took a hansom and drove to Peathill Street.
+
+Hermione was already there, sitting at a small table in a corner with her
+back to him, opposite to one of the handsomest men he had ever seen. As
+Artois came in, he fixed his eyes on this man with a scrutiny that was
+passionate, trying to determine at a glance whether he had any right to
+the success he had achieved, any fitness for the companionship that was
+to be his, companionship of an unusual intellect and a still more unusual
+spirit.
+
+He saw a man obviously much younger than Hermione, not tall, athletic in
+build but also graceful, with the grace that is shed through a frame by
+perfectly developed, not over-developed muscles and accurately trained
+limbs, a man of the Mercury rather than of the Hercules type, with thick,
+low-growing black hair, vivid, enthusiastic black eyes, set rather wide
+apart under curved brows, and very perfectly proportioned, small,
+straight features, which were not undecided, yet which suggested the
+features of a boy. In the complexion there was a tinge of brown that
+denoted health and an out-door life--an out-door life in the south,
+Artois thought.
+
+As Artois, standing quite still, unconsciously, in the doorway of the
+restaurant, looked at this man, he felt for a moment as if he himself
+were a splendid specimen of a cart-horse faced by a splendid specimen of
+a race-horse. The comparison he was making was only one of physical
+endowments, but it pained him. Thinking with an extraordinary rapidity,
+he asked himself why it was that this man struck him at once as very much
+handsomer than other men with equally good features and figures whom he
+had seen, and he found at once the answer to his question. It was the
+look of Mercury in him that made him beautiful, a look of radiant
+readiness for swift movement that suggested the happy messenger poised
+for flight to the gods, his mission accomplished, the expression of an
+intensely vivid activity that could be exquisitely obedient. There was an
+extraordinary fascination in it. Artois realized that, for he was
+fascinated even in this bitter moment that he told himself ought not to
+be bitter. While he gazed at Delarey he was conscious of a feeling that
+had sometimes come upon him when he had watched Sicilian peasant boys
+dancing the tarantella under the stars by the Ionian sea, a feeling that
+one thing in creation ought to be immortal on earth, the passionate,
+leaping flame of joyous youth, physically careless, physically rapturous,
+unconscious of death and of decay. Delarey seemed to him like a
+tarantella in repose, if such a thing could be.
+
+Suddenly Hermione turned round, as if conscious that he was there. When
+she did so he understood in the very depths of him why such a man as
+Delarey attracted, must attract, such a woman as Hermione. That which she
+had in the soul Delarey seemed to express in the body--sympathy,
+enthusiasm, swiftness, courage. He was like a statue of her feelings, but
+a statue endowed with life. And the fact that her physique was a sort of
+contradiction of her inner self must make more powerful the charm of a
+Delarey for her. As Hermione looked round at him, turning her tall figure
+rather slowly in the chair, Artois made up his mind that she had been
+captured by the physique of this man. He could not be surprised, but he
+still felt angry.
+
+Hermione introduced Delarey to him eagerly, not attempting to hide her
+anxiety for the two men to make friends at once. Her desire was so
+transparent and so warm that for a moment Artois felt touched, and
+inclined to trample upon his evil mood and leave no trace of it. He was
+also secretly too human to remain wholly unmoved by Delarey's reception
+of him. Delarey had a rare charm of manner whose source was a happy, but
+not foolishly shy, modesty, which made him eager to please, and convinced
+that in order to do so he must bestir himself and make an effort. But in
+this effort there was no labor. It was like the spurt of a willing horse,
+a fine racing pace of the nature that woke pleasure and admiration in
+those who watched it.
+
+Artois felt at once that Delarey had no hostility towards him, but was
+ready to admire and rejoice in him as Hermione's greatest friend. He was
+met more than half-way. Yet when he was beside Delarey, almost touching
+him, the stubborn sensation of furtive dislike within Artois increased,
+and he consciously determined not to yield to the charm of this younger
+man who was going to interfere in his life. Artois did not speak much
+English, but fortunately Delarey talked French fairly well, not with
+great fluency like Hermione, but enough to take a modest share in
+conversation, which was apparently all the share that he desired. Artois
+believed that he was no great talker. His eyes were more eager than was
+his tongue, and seemed to betoken a vivacity of spirit which he could
+not, perhaps, show forth in words. The conversation at first was mainly
+between Hermione and Artois, with an occasional word from
+Delarey--generally interrogative--and was confined to generalities. But
+this could not continue long. Hermione was an enthusiastic talker and
+seldom discussed banalities. From every circle where she found herself
+the inane was speedily banished; pale topics--the spectres that haunt the
+dull and are cherished by them--were whipped away to limbo, and some
+subject full-blooded, alive with either serious or comical possibilities,
+was very soon upon the carpet. By chance Artois happened to speak of two
+people in Paris, common friends of his and of Hermione's, who had been
+very intimate, but who had now quarrelled, and every one said,
+irrevocably. The question arose whose fault was it. Artois, who knew the
+facts of the case, and whose judgment was usually cool and well-balanced,
+said it was the woman's.
+
+"Madame Lagrande," he said, "has a fine nature, but in this instance it
+has failed her, it has been warped by jealousy; not the jealousy that
+often accompanies passion, for she and Robert Meunier were only great
+friends, linked together by similar sympathies, but by a much more subtle
+form of that mental disease. You know, Hermione, that both of them are
+brilliant critics of literature?"
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+"They carried on a sort of happy, but keen rivalry in this walk of
+letters, each striving to be more unerring than the other in dividing the
+sheep from the goats. I am the guilty person who made discord where there
+had been harmony."
+
+"You, Emile! How was that?"
+
+"One day I said, in a bitter mood, 'It is so easy to be a critic, so
+difficult to be a creator. You two, now would you even dare to try to
+create?' They were nettled by my tone, and showed it. I said, 'I have a
+magnificent subject for a conte, no work de longue haleine, a conte. If
+you like I will give it you, and leave you to create--separately, not
+together--what you have so often written about, the perfect conte.' They
+accepted my challenge. I gave them my subject and a month to work it out.
+At the end of that time the two contes were to be submitted to a jury of
+competent literary men, friends of ours. It was all a sort of joke, but
+created great interest in our circle--you know it, Hermione, that dines
+at Reneau's on Thursday nights?"
+
+"Yes. Well, what happened?"
+
+"Madame Lagrande made a failure of hers, but Robert Meunier astonished us
+all. He produced certainly one of the best contes that was ever written
+in the French language."
+
+"And Madame Lagrande?"
+
+"It is not too much to say that from that moment she has almost hated
+Robert."
+
+"And you dare to say she has a noble nature?"
+
+"Yes, a noble nature from which, under some apparently irresistible
+impulse, she has lapsed."
+
+"Maurice," said Hermione, leaning her long arms on the table and leaning
+forward to her fiance, "you're not in literature any more than I am,
+you're an outsider--bless you! What d'you say to that?"
+
+Delarey hesitated and looked modestly at Artois.
+
+"No, no," cried Hermione, "none of that, Maurice! You may be a better
+judge in this than Emile is with all his knowledge of the human heart.
+You're the man in the street, and sometimes I'd give a hundred pounds for
+his opinion and not twopence for the big man's who's in the profession.
+Would--could a noble nature yield to such an impulse?"
+
+"I should hardly have thought so," said Delarey.
+
+"Nor I," said Hermione. "I simply don't believe it's possible. For a
+moment, yes, perhaps. But you say, Emile, that there's an actual breach
+between them."
+
+"There is certainly. Have you ever made any study of jealousy in its
+various forms?"
+
+"Never. I don't know what jealousy is. I can't understand it."
+
+"Yet you must be capable of it."
+
+"You think every one is?"
+
+"Very few who are really alive in the spirit are not. And you, I am
+certain, are."
+
+Hermione laughed, an honest, gay laugh, that rang out wholesomely in the
+narrow room.
+
+"I doubt it, Emile. Perhaps I'm too conceited. For instance, if I cared
+for some one and was cared for--"
+
+"And the caring of the other ceased, because he had only a certain,
+limited faculty of affection and transferred his affection
+elsewhere--what then?"
+
+"I've so much pride, proper or improper, that I believe my affection
+would die. My love subsists on sympathy--take that food from it and it
+would starve and cease to live. I give, but when giving I always ask. If
+I were to be refused I couldn't give any more. And without the love there
+could be no jealousy. But that isn't the point, Emile."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"What is?"
+
+"The point is--can a noble nature lapse like that from its nobility?"
+
+"Yes, it can."
+
+"Then it changes, it ceases to be noble. You would not say that a brave
+man can show cowardice and remain a brave man."
+
+"I would say that a man whose real nature was brave, might, under certain
+circumstances, show fear, without being what is called a coward. Human
+nature is full of extraordinary possibilities, good and evil, of
+extraordinary contradictions. But this point I will concede you, that it
+is like the boomerang, which flies forward, circles, and returns to the
+point from which it started. The inherently noble nature will, because it
+must, return eventually to its nobility. Then comes the really tragic
+moment with the passion of remorse."
+
+He spoke quietly, almost coldly. Hermione looked at him with shining
+eyes. She had quite forgotten Madame Lagrande and Robert Meunier, had
+lost the sense of the special in her love of the general.
+
+"That's a grand theory," she said. "That we must come back to the good
+that is in us in the end, that we must be true to that somehow, almost
+whether we will or no. I shall try to think of that when I am sinning."
+
+"You--sinning!" exclaimed Delarey.
+
+"Maurice, dear, you think too well of me."
+
+Delarey flushed like a boy, and glanced quickly at Artois, who did not
+return his gaze.
+
+"But if that's true, Emile," Hermione continued, "Madame Lagrande and
+Robert Meunier will be friends again."
+
+"Some day I know she will hold out the olive-branch, but what if he
+refuses it?"
+
+"You literary people are dreadfully difficile."
+
+"True. Our jealousies are ferocious, but so are the jealousies of
+thousands who can neither read nor write."
+
+"Jealousy," she said, forgetting to eat in her keen interest in the
+subject. "I told you I didn't believe myself capable of it, but I don't
+know. The jealousy that is born of passion I might understand and suffer,
+perhaps, but jealousy of a talent greater than my own, or of one that I
+didn't possess--that seems to me inexplicable. I could never be jealous
+of a talent."
+
+"You mean that you could never hate a person for a talent in them?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Suppose that some one, by means of a talent which you had not, won from
+you a love which you had? Talent is a weapon, you know."
+
+"You think it is a weapon to conquer the affections! Ah, Emile, after all
+you don't know us!"
+
+"You go too fast. I did not say a weapon to conquer the affection of a
+woman."
+
+"You're speaking of men?"
+
+"I know," Delarey said, suddenly, forgetting to be modest for once, "you
+mean that a man might be won away from one woman by a talent in another.
+Isn't that it?"
+
+"Ah," said Hermione, "a man--I see."
+
+She sat for a moment considering deeply, with her luminous eyes fixed on
+the food in her plate, food which she did not see.
+
+"What horrible ideas you sometimes have, Emile," she said, at last.
+
+"You mean what horrible truths exist," he answered, quietly.
+
+"Could a man be won so? Yes, I suppose he might be if there were a
+combination."
+
+"Exactly," said Artois.
+
+"I see now. Suppose a man had two strains in him, say: the adoration of
+beauty, of the physical; and the adoration of talent, of the mental. He
+might fall in love with a merely beautiful woman and transfer his
+affections if he came across an equally beautiful woman who had some
+great talent."
+
+"Or he might fall in love with a plain, talented woman, and be taken from
+her by one in whom talent was allied with beauty. But in either case are
+you sure that the woman deserted could never be jealous, bitterly
+jealous, of the talent possessed by the other woman? I think talent often
+creates jealousy in your sex."
+
+"But beauty much oftener, oh, much! Every woman, I feel sure, could more
+easily be jealous of physical beauty in another woman than of mental
+gifts. There's something so personal in beauty."
+
+"And is genius not equally personal?"
+
+"I suppose it is, but I doubt if it seems so."
+
+"I think you leave out of account the advance of civilization, which is
+greatly changing men and women in our day. The tragedies of the mind are
+increasing."
+
+"And the tragedies of the heart--are they diminishing in consequence? Oh,
+Emile!" And she laughed.
+
+"Hermione--your food! You are not eating anything!" said Delarey, gently,
+pointing to her plate. "And it's all getting cold."
+
+"Thank you, Maurice."
+
+She began to eat at once with an air of happy submission, which made
+Artois understand a good deal about her feeling for Delarey.
+
+"The heart will always rule the head, I dare say, in this world where the
+majority will always be thoughtless," said Artois. "But the greatest
+jealousy, the jealousy which is most difficult to resist and to govern,
+is that in which both heart and brain are concerned. That is, indeed, a
+full-fledged monster."
+
+Artois generally spoke with a good deal of authority, often without
+meaning to do so. He thought so clearly, knew so exactly what he was
+thinking and what he meant, that he felt very safe in conversation, and
+from this sense of safety sprang his air of masterfulness. It was an air
+that was always impressive, but to-night it specially struck Hermione.
+Now she laid down her knife and fork once more, to Delarey's half-amused
+despair, and exclaimed:
+
+"I shall never forget the way you said that. Even if it were nonsense one
+would have to believe it for the moment, and of course it's dreadfully
+true. Intellect and heart suffering in combination must be far more
+terrible than the one suffering without the other. No, Maurice, I've
+really finished. I don't want any more. Let's have our coffee."
+
+"The Turkish coffee," said Artois, with a smile. "Do you like Turkish
+coffee, Monsieur Delarey?"
+
+"Yes, monsieur. Hermione has taught me to."
+
+"Ah!"
+
+"At first it seemed to me too full of grounds," he explained.
+
+"Perhaps a taste for it must be an acquired one among Europeans. Do we
+have it here?"
+
+"No, no," said Hermione, "Caminiti has taken my advice, and now there's a
+charming smoke-room behind this. Come along."
+
+She got up and led the way out. The two men followed her, Artois coming
+last. He noticed now more definitely the very great contrast between
+Hermione and her future husband. Delarey, when in movement, looked more
+than ever like a Mercury. His footstep was light and elastic, and his
+whole body seemed to breathe out a gay activity, a fulness of the joy of
+life. Again Artois thought of Sicilian boys dancing the tarantella, and
+when they were in the small smoke-room, which Caminiti had fitted up in
+what he believed to be Oriental style, and which, though scarcely
+accurate, was quite cosey, he was moved to inquire:
+
+"Pardon me, monsieur, but are you entirely English?"
+
+"No, monsieur. My mother has Sicilian blood in her veins. But I have
+never been in Sicily or Italy."
+
+"Ah, Emile," said Hermione, "how clever of you to find that out. I notice
+it, too, sometimes, that touch of the blessed South. I shall take him
+there some day, and see if the Southern blood doesn't wake up in his
+veins when he's in the rays of the real sun we never see in England."
+
+"She'll take you to Italy, you fortunate, damned dog!" thought Artois.
+"What luck for you to go there with such a companion!"
+
+They sat down and the two men began to smoke. Hermione never smoked
+because she had tried smoking and knew she hated it. They were alone in
+the room, which was warm, but not too warm, and faintly lit by shaded
+lamps. Artois began to feel more genial, he scarcely knew why. Perhaps
+the good dinner had comforted him, or perhaps he was beginning to yield
+to the charm of Delarey's gay and boyish modesty, which was untainted and
+unspoiled by any awkward shyness.
+
+Artois did not know or seek to know, but he was aware that he was more
+ready to be happy with the flying moment than he had been, or had
+expected to be that evening. Something almost paternal shone in his gray
+eyes as he stretched his large limbs on Caminiti's notion of a Turkish
+divan, and watched the first smoke-wreaths rise from his cigar, a light
+which made his face most pleasantly expressive to Hermione.
+
+"He likes Maurice," she thought, with a glow of pleasure, and with the
+thought came into her heart an even deeper love for Maurice. For it was a
+triumph, indeed, if Artois were captured speedily by any one. It seemed
+to her just then as if she had never known what perfect happiness was
+till now, when she sat between her best friend and her lover, and
+sensitively felt that in the room there were not three separate persons
+but a Trinity. For a moment there was a comfortable silence. Then an
+Italian boy brought in the coffee. Artois spoke to him in Italian. His
+eyes lit up as he answered with the accent of Naples, lit up still more
+when Artois spoke to him again in his own dialect. When he had served the
+coffee he went out, glowing.
+
+"Is your honeymoon to be Italian?" asked Artois.
+
+"Whatever Hermione likes," answered Delarey. "I--it doesn't matter to me.
+Wherever it is will be the same to me."
+
+"Happiness makes every land an Italy, eh?" said Artois. "I expect that's
+profoundly true."
+
+"Don't you--don't you know?" ventured Delarey.
+
+"I! My friend, one cannot be proficient in every branch of knowledge."
+
+He spoke the words without bitterness, with a calm that had in it
+something more sad than bitterness. It struck both Hermione and Delarey
+as almost monstrous that anybody with whom they were connected should be
+feeling coldly unhappy at this moment. Life presented itself to them in a
+glorious radiance of sunshine, in a passionate light, in a torrent of
+color. Their knowledge of life's uncertainties was rocked asleep by their
+dual sensation of personal joy, and they felt as if every one ought to be
+as happy as they were, almost as if every one could be as happy as they
+were.
+
+"Emile," said Hermione, led by this feeling, "you can't mean to say that
+you have never known the happiness that makes of every place--Clapham,
+Lippe-Detmold, a West African swamp, a Siberian convict settlement--an
+Italy? You have had a wonderful life. You have worked, you have wandered,
+had your ambition and your freedom--"
+
+"But my eyes have been always wide open," he interrupted, "wide open on
+life watching the manifestations of life."
+
+"Haven't you ever been able to shut them for a minute to everything but
+your own happiness? Oh, it's selfish, I know, but it does one good,
+Emile, any amount of good, to be selfish like that now and then. It
+reconciles one so splendidly to existence. It's like a spring cleaning of
+the soul. And then, I think, when one opens one's eyes again one
+sees--one must see--everything more rightly, not dressed up in frippery,
+not horribly naked either, but truly, accurately, neither overlooking
+graces nor dwelling on distortions. D'you understand what I mean? Perhaps
+I don't put it well, but--"
+
+"I do understand," he said. "There's truth in what you say."
+
+"Yes, isn't there?" said Delarey.
+
+His eyes were fixed on Hermione with an intense eagerness of admiration
+and love.
+
+Suddenly Artois felt immensely old, as he sometimes felt when he saw
+children playing with frantic happiness at mud-pies or snowballing. A
+desire, which his true self condemned, came to him to use his
+intellectual powers cruelly, and he yielded to it, forgetting the benign
+spirit which had paid him a moment's visit and vanished almost ere it had
+arrived.
+
+"There's truth in what you say. But there's another truth, too, which you
+bring to my mind at this moment."
+
+"What's that, Emile?"
+
+"The payment that is exacted from great happiness. These intense joys of
+which you speak--what are they followed by? Haven't you observed that any
+violence in one direction is usually, almost, indeed, inevitably,
+followed by a violence in the opposite direction? Humanity is treading a
+beaten track, the crowd of humanity, and keeps, as a crowd, to this
+highway. But individuals leave the crowd, searchers, those who need the
+great changes, the great fortunes that are dangerous. On one side of the
+track is a garden of paradise; on the other a deadly swamp. The man or
+woman who, leaving the highway, enters the garden of paradise is almost
+certain in the fulness of time to be struggling in the deadly swamp."
+
+"Do you really mean that misery is born of happiness?"
+
+"Of what other parent can it be the child? In my opinion those who are
+said to be 'born in misery' never know what real misery is. It is only
+those who have drunk deep of the cup of joy who can drink deep of the cup
+of sorrow."
+
+Hermione was about to speak, but Delarey suddenly burst in with the
+vehement exclamation:
+
+"Where's the courage in keeping to the beaten track? Where's the courage
+in avoiding the garden for fear of the swamp?"
+
+"That's exactly what I was going to say," said Hermione, her whole face
+lighting up. "I never expected to hear a counsel of cowardice from you,
+Emile."
+
+"Or is it a counsel of prudence?"
+
+He looked at them both steadily, feeling still as if he were face to face
+with children. For a man he was unusually intuitive, and to-night
+suddenly, and after he had begun to yield to his desire to be cruel, to
+say something that would cloud this dual happiness in which he had no
+share, he felt a strange, an almost prophetic conviction that out of the
+joy he now contemplated would be born the gaunt offspring, misery, of
+which he had just spoken. With the coming of this conviction, which he
+did not even try to explain to himself or to combat, came an abrupt
+change in his feelings. Bitterness gave place to an anxiety that was far
+more human, to a desire to afford some protection to these two people
+with whom he was sitting. But how? And against what? He did not know. His
+intuition stopped short when he strove to urge it on.
+
+"Prudence," said Hermione. "You think it prudent to avoid the joy life
+throws at your feet?"
+
+Abruptly provoked by his own limitations, angry, too, with his erratic
+mental departure from the realm of reason into the realm of fantasy--for
+so he called the debatable land over which intuition held sway--Artois
+hounded out his mood and turned upon himself.
+
+"Don't listen to me," he said. "I am the professional analyst of life. As
+I sit over a sentence, examining, selecting, rejecting, replacing its
+words, so do I sit over the emotions of myself and others till I cease
+really to live, and could almost find it in my head to try to prevent
+them from living, too. Live, live--enter into the garden of paradise and
+never mind what comes after."
+
+"I could not do anything else," said Hermione. "It is unnatural to me to
+look forward. The 'now' nearly always has complete possession of me."
+
+"And I," said Artois, lightly, "am always trying to peer round the corner
+to see what is coming. And you, Monsieur Delarey?"
+
+"I!" said Delarey.
+
+He had not expected to be addressed just then, and for a moment looked
+confused.
+
+"I don't know if I can say," he answered, at last. "But I think if the
+present was happy I should try to live in that, and if it was sad I
+should have a shot at looking forward to something better."
+
+"That's one of the best philosophies I ever heard," said Hermione, "and
+after my own heart. Long live the philosophy of Maurice Delarey!"
+
+Delarey blushed with pleasure like a boy. Just then three men came in
+smoking cigars. Hermione looked at her watch.
+
+"Past eleven," she said. "I think I'd better go. Emile, will you drive
+with me home?"
+
+"I!" he said, with an unusual diffidence. "May I?"
+
+He glanced at Delarey.
+
+"I want to have a talk with you. Maurice quite understands. He knows you
+go back to Paris to-morrow."
+
+They all got up, and Delarey at once held out his hand to Artois.
+
+"I am glad to have been allowed to meet Hermione's best friend," he said,
+simply. "I know how much you are to her, and I hope you'll let me be a
+friend, too, perhaps, some day."
+
+He wrung Artois's hand warmly.
+
+"Thank you, monsieur," replied Artois.
+
+He strove hard to speak as cordially as Delarey.
+
+Two or three minutes later Hermione and he were in a hansom driving down
+Regent Street. The fog had lifted, and it was possible to see to right
+and left of the greasy thoroughfare.
+
+"Need we go straight back?" said Hermione. "Why not tell him to drive
+down to the Embankment? It's quiet there at night, and open and fine--one
+of the few fine things in dreary old London. And I want to have a last
+talk with you, Emile."
+
+Artois pushed up the little door in the roof with his stick.
+
+"The Embankment--Thames," he said to the cabman, with a strong foreign
+accent.
+
+"Right, sir," replied the man, in the purest cockney.
+
+As soon as the trap was shut down above her head Hermione exclaimed:
+
+"Emile, I'm so happy, so--so happy! I think you must understand why now.
+You don't wonder any more, do you?"
+
+"No, I don't wonder. But did I ever express any wonder?"
+
+"I think you felt some. But I knew when you saw him it would go. He's got
+one beautiful quality that's very rare in these days, I think--reverence.
+I love that in him. He really reverences everything that is fine, every
+one who has fine and noble aspirations and powers. He reverences you."
+
+"If that is the case he shows very little insight."
+
+"Don't abuse yourself to me to-night. There's nothing the matter now, is
+there?"
+
+Her intonation demanded a negative, but Artois did not hasten to give it.
+Instead he turned the conversation once more to Delarey.
+
+"Tell me something more about him," he said. "What sort of family does he
+come from?"
+
+"Oh, a very ordinary family, well off, but not what is called specially
+well-born. His father has a large shipping business. He's a cultivated
+man, and went to Eton and Oxford, as Maurice did. Maurice's mother is
+very handsome, not at all intellectual, but fascinating. The Southern
+blood comes from her side."
+
+"Oh--how?"
+
+"Her mother was a Sicilian."
+
+"Of the aristocracy, or of the people?"
+
+"She was a lovely contadina. But what does it matter? I am not marrying
+Maurice's grandmother."
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+"You mean that our ancestors live in us. Well, I can't bother. If Maurice
+were a crossing-sweeper, and his grandmother had been an evilly disposed
+charwoman, who could never get any one to trust her to char, I'd marry
+him to-morrow if he'd have me."
+
+"I'm quite sure you would."
+
+"Besides, probably the grandmother was a delicious old dear. But didn't
+you like Maurice, Emile? I felt so sure you did."
+
+"I--yes, I liked him. I see his fascination. It is almost absurdly
+obvious, and yet it is quite natural. He is handsome and he is charming."
+
+"And he's good, too."
+
+"Why not? He does not look evil. I thought of him as a Mercury."
+
+"The messenger of the gods--yes, he is like that."
+
+She laid her hand on his arm, as if her happiness and longing for
+sympathy in it impelled her to draw very near to a human being.
+
+"A bearer of good tidings--that is what he has been to me. I want you to
+like and understand him so much, Emile; you more, far more, than any one
+else."
+
+The cab was now in a steep and narrow street leading down from the Strand
+to the Thames Embankment--a street that was obscure and that looked sad
+and evil by night. Artois glanced out at it, and Hermione, seeing that he
+did so, followed his eyes. They saw a man and a woman quarrelling under a
+gas-lamp. The woman was cursing and crying. The man put out his hand and
+pushed her roughly. She fell up against some railings, caught hold of
+them, turned her head and shrieked at the man, opening her mouth wide.
+
+"Poor things!" Hermione said. "Poor things! If we could only all be good
+to each other! It seems as if it ought to be so simple."
+
+"It's too difficult for us, nevertheless."
+
+"Not for some of us, thank God. Many people have been good to me--you for
+one, you most of all my friends. Ah, how blessed it is to be out here!"
+
+She leaned over the wooden apron of the cab, stretching out her hands
+instinctively as if to grasp the space, the airy darkness of the
+spreading night.
+
+"Space seems to liberate the soul," she said. "It's wrong to live in
+cities, but we shall have to a good deal, I suppose. Maurice needn't
+work, but I'm glad to say he does."
+
+"What does he do?"
+
+"I don't know exactly, but he's in his father's shipping business. I'm an
+awful idiot at understanding anything of that sort, but I understand
+Maurice, and that's the important matter."
+
+[Illustration: "'SPACE SEEMS TO LIBERATE THE SOUL,' SHE SAID"]
+
+They were now on the Thames Embankment, driving slowly along the broad
+and almost deserted road. Far off lights, green, red, and yellow, shone
+faintly upon the drifting and uneasy waters of the river on the one side;
+on the other gleamed the lights from the houses and hotels, in which
+people were supping after the theatres. Artois, who, like most fine
+artists, was extremely susceptible to the influence of place and of the
+hour, with its gift of light or darkness, began to lose in this larger
+atmosphere of mystery and vaguely visible movement the hitherto
+dominating sense of himself, to regain the more valuable and more
+mystical sense of life and its strange and pathetic relation with nature
+and the spirit behind nature, which often floated upon him like a tide
+when he was creating, but which he was accustomed to hold sternly in
+leash. Now he was not in the mood to rein it in. Maurice Delarey and his
+business, Hermione, her understanding of him and happiness in him, Artois
+himself in his sharply realized solitude of the third person, melted into
+the crowd of beings who made up life, whose background was the vast and
+infinitely various panorama of nature, and Hermione's last words, "the
+important matter," seemed for the moment false to him. What was, what
+could be, important in the immensity and the baffling complexity of
+existence?
+
+"Look at those lights," he said, pointing to those that gleamed across
+the water through the London haze that sometimes makes for a melancholy
+beauty, "and that movement of the river in the night, tremulous and
+cryptic like our thoughts. Is anything important?"
+
+"Almost everything, I think, certainly everything in us. If I didn't feel
+so, I could scarcely go on living. And you must really feel so, too. You
+do. I have your letters to prove it. Why, how often have I written
+begging you not to lash yourself into fury over the follies of men!"
+
+"Yes, my temperament betrays the citadel of my brain. That happens in
+many."
+
+"You trust too much to your brain and too little to your heart."
+
+"And you do the contrary, my friend. You are too easily carried away by
+your impulses."
+
+She was silent for a moment. The cabman was driving slowly. She watched a
+distant barge drifting, like a great shadow, at the mercy of the tide.
+Then she turned a little, looked at Artois's shadowy profile, and said:
+
+"Don't ever be afraid to speak to me quite frankly--don't be afraid now.
+What is it?"
+
+He did not answer.
+
+"Imagine you are in Paris sitting down to write to me in your little
+red-and-yellow room, the morocco slipper of a room."
+
+"And if it were the Sicilian grandmother?"
+
+He spoke half-lightly, as if he were inclined to laugh with her at
+himself if she began to laugh.
+
+But she said, gravely:
+
+"Go on."
+
+"I have a feeling to-night that out of this happiness of yours misery
+will be born."
+
+"Yes? What sort of misery?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Misery to myself or to the sharer of my happiness?"
+
+"To you."
+
+"That was why you spoke of the garden of paradise and the deadly swamp?"
+
+"I think it must have been."
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I love the South. You know that. But I distrust what I love, and I see
+the South in him."
+
+"The grace, the charm, the enticement of the South."
+
+"All that, certainly. You said he had reverence. Probably he has, but has
+he faithfulness?"
+
+"Oh, Emile!"
+
+"You told me to be frank."
+
+"And I wish you to be. Go on, say everything."
+
+"I've only seen Delarey once, and I'll confess that I came prepared to
+see faults as clearly as, perhaps more clearly than, virtues. I don't
+pretend to read character at a glance. Only fools can do that--I am
+relying on their frequent assertion that they can. He strikes me as a man
+of great charm, with an unusual faculty of admiration for the gifts of
+others and a modest estimate of himself. I believe he's sincere."
+
+"He is, through and through."
+
+"I think so--now. But does he know his own blood? Our blood governs us
+when the time comes. He is modest about his intellect. I think it quick,
+but I doubt its being strong enough to prove a good restraining
+influence."
+
+"Against what?"
+
+"The possible call of the blood that he doesn't understand."
+
+"You speak almost as if he were a child," Hermione said. "He's much
+younger than I am, but he's twenty-four."
+
+"He is very young looking, and you are at least twenty years ahead of him
+in all essentials. Don't you feel it?"
+
+"I suppose--yes, I do."
+
+"Mercury--he should be mercurial."
+
+"He is. That's partly why I love him, perhaps. He is full of swiftness."
+
+"So is the butterfly when it comes out into the sun."
+
+"Emile, forgive me, but sometimes you seem to me deliberately to lie down
+and roll in pessimism rather as a horse--"
+
+"Why not say an ass?"
+
+She laughed.
+
+"An ass, then, my dear, lies down sometimes and rolls in dust. I think
+you are doing it to-night. I think you were preparing to do it this
+afternoon. Perhaps it is the effect of London upon you?"
+
+"London--by-the-way, where are you going for your honeymoon? I am sure
+you know, though Monsieur Delarey may not."
+
+"Why are you sure?"
+
+"Your face to-night when I asked if it was to be Italian."
+
+She laid her hand again upon his arm and spoke eagerly, forgetting in a
+moment his pessimism and the little cloud it had brought across her
+happiness.
+
+"You're right; I've decided."
+
+"Italy--and hotels?"
+
+"No, a thousand times no!"
+
+"Where then?"
+
+"Sicily, and my peasant's cottage."
+
+"The cottage on Monte Amato where you spent a summer four or five years
+ago contemplating Etna?"
+
+"Yes. I've not said a word to Maurice, but I've taken it again. All the
+little furniture I had--beds, straw chairs, folding-tables--is stored in
+a big room in the village at the foot of the mountain. Gaspare, the
+Sicilian boy who was my servant, will superintend the carrying up of it
+on women's heads--his dear old grandmother takes the heaviest things,
+arm-chairs and so on--and it will all be got ready in no time. I'm having
+the house whitewashed again, and the shutters painted, and the stone
+vases on the terrace will be filled with scarlet geraniums, and--oh,
+Emile, I shall hear the piping of the shepherds in the ravine at twilight
+again with him, and see the boys dance the tarantella under the moon
+again with him, and--and--"
+
+She stopped with a break in her voice.
+
+"Put away your pessimism, dear Emile," she continued, after a moment.
+"Tell me you think we shall be happy in our garden of paradise--tell me
+that!"
+
+But he only said, even more gravely:
+
+"So you're taking him to the real South?"
+
+"Yes, to the blue and the genuine gold, and the quivering heat, and the
+balmy nights when Etna sends up its plume of ivory smoke to the moon.
+He's got the south in his blood. Well, he shall see the south first with
+me, and he shall love it as I love it."
+
+He said nothing. No spark of her enthusiasm called forth a spark from
+him. And now she saw that, and said again:
+
+"London is making you horrible to-night. You are doing London and
+yourself an injustice, and Maurice, too."
+
+"It's very possible," he replied. "But--I can say it to you--I have a
+certain gift of--shall I call it divination?--where men and women are
+concerned. It is not merely that I am observant of what is, but that I
+can often instinctively feel that which must be inevitably produced by
+what is. Very few people can read the future in the present. I often can,
+almost as clearly as I can read the present. Even pessimism, accentuated
+by the influence of the Infernal City, may contain some grains of truth."
+
+"What do you see for us, Emile? Don't you think we shall be happy
+together, then? Don't you think that we are suited to be happy together?"
+
+When she asked Artois this direct question he was suddenly aware of a
+vagueness brooding in his mind, and knew that he had no definite answer
+to make.
+
+"I see nothing," he said, abruptly. "I know nothing. It may be London. It
+may be my own egoism."
+
+And then he suddenly explained himself to Hermione with the extraordinary
+frankness of which he was only capable when he was with her, or was
+writing to her.
+
+"I am the dog in the manger," he concluded. "Don't let my growling
+distress you. Your happiness has made me envious."
+
+"I'll never believe it," she exclaimed. "You are too good a friend and
+too great a man for that. Why can't you be happy, too? Why can't you find
+some one?"
+
+"Married life wouldn't suit me. I dislike loneliness yet I couldn't do
+without it. In it I find my liberty as an artist."
+
+"Sometimes I think it must be a curse to be an artist, and yet I have
+often longed to be one."
+
+"Why have you never tried to be one?"
+
+"I hardly know. Perhaps in my inmost being I feel I never could be. I am
+too impulsive, too unrestrained, too shapeless in mind. If I wrote a book
+it might be interesting, human, heart-felt, true to life, I hope, not
+stupid, I believe; but it would be a chaos. You--how it would shock your
+critical mind! I could never select and prune and blend and graft. I
+should have to throw my mind and heart down on the paper and just leave
+them there."
+
+"If you did that you might produce a human document that would live
+almost as long as literature, that even just criticism would be powerless
+to destroy."
+
+"I shall never write that book, but I dare say I shall live it."
+
+"Yes," he said. "You will live it, perhaps with Monsieur Delarey."
+
+And he smiled.
+
+"When is the wedding to be?"
+
+"In January, I think."
+
+"Ah! When you are in your garden of paradise I shall not be very far
+off--just across your blue sea on the African shore."
+
+"Why, where are you going, Emile?"
+
+"I shall spend the spring at the sacred city of Kairouan, among the
+pilgrims and the mosques, making some studies, taking some notes."
+
+"For a book? Come over to Sicily and see us."
+
+"I don't think you will want me there."
+
+The trap in the roof was opened, and a beery eye, with a luscious smile
+in it, peered down upon them.
+
+"'Ad enough of the river, sir?"
+
+"Comment?" said Artois.
+
+"We'd better go home, I suppose," Hermione said.
+
+She gave her address to the cabman, and they drove in silence to Eaton
+Place.
+
+
+
+III
+
+Lucrezia Gabbi came out onto the terrace of the Casa del Prete on Monte
+Amato, shaded her eyes with her brown hands, and gazed down across the
+ravine over the olive-trees and the vines to the mountain-side opposite,
+along which, among rocks and Barbary figs, wound a tiny track trodden by
+the few contadini whose stone cottages, some of them scarcely more than
+huts, were scattered here and there upon the surrounding heights that
+looked towards Etna and the sea. Lucrezia was dressed in her best. She
+wore a dark-stuff gown covered in the front by a long blue-and-white
+apron. Although really happiest in her mind when her feet were bare, she
+had donned a pair of white stockings and low slippers, and over her
+thick, dark hair was tied a handkerchief gay with a pattern of brilliant
+yellow flowers on a white ground. This was a present from Gaspare bought
+at the town of Cattaro at the foot of the mountains, and worn now for the
+first time in honor of a great occasion.
+
+To-day Lucrezia was in the service of distinguished forestieri, and she
+was gazing now across the ravine straining her eyes to see a procession
+winding up from the sea: donkeys laden with luggage, and her new padrone
+and padrona pioneered by the radiant Gaspare towards their mountain home.
+It was a good day for their arrival. Nobody could deny that. Even
+Lucrezia, who was accustomed to fine weather, having lived all her life
+in Sicily, was struck to a certain blinking admiration as she stepped out
+on to the terrace, and murmured to herself and a cat which was basking
+on the stone seat that faced the cottage between broken columns, round
+which roses twined:
+
+"Che tempo fa oggi! Santa Madonna, che bel tempo!"
+
+On this morning of February the clearness of the atmosphere was in truth
+almost African. Under the cloudless sky every detail of the great view
+from the terrace stood out with a magical distinctness. The lines of the
+mountains were sharply defined against the profound blue. The forms of
+the gray rocks scattered upon their slopes, of the peasants' houses, of
+the olive and oak trees which grew thickly on the left flank of Monte
+Amato below the priest's house, showed themselves in the sunshine with
+the bold frankness which is part of the glory of all things in the south.
+The figures of stationary or moving goatherds and laborers, watching
+their flocks or toiling among the vineyards and the orchards, were
+relieved against the face of nature in the shimmer of the glad gold in
+this Eden, with a mingling of delicacy and significance which had in it
+something ethereal and mysterious, a hint of fairy-land. Far off, rising
+calmly in an immense slope, a slope that was classical in its dignity,
+profound in its sobriety, remote, yet neither cold nor sad, Etna soared
+towards the heaven, sending from its summit, on which the snows still
+lingered, a steady plume of ivory smoke. In the nearer foreground, upon a
+jagged crest of beetling rock, the ruins of a Saracenic castle dominated
+a huddled village, whose houses seemed to cling frantically to the cliff,
+as if each one were in fear of being separated from its brethren and
+tossed into the sea. And far below that sea spread forth its waveless,
+silent wonder to a horizon-line so distant that the eyes which looked
+upon it could scarcely distinguish sea from sky--a line which surely
+united not divided two shades of flawless blue, linking them in a
+brotherhood which should be everlasting. Few sounds, and these but
+slight ones, stirred in the breast of the ardent silence; some little
+notes of birds, fragmentary and wandering, wayward as pilgrims who had
+forgotten to what shrine they bent their steps, some little notes of
+bells swinging beneath the tufted chins of goats, the wail of a woman's
+song, old in its quiet melancholy, Oriental in its strange irregularity
+of rhythm, and the careless twitter of a tarantella, played upon a
+reed-flute by a secluded shepherd-boy beneath the bending silver green of
+tressy olives beside a tiny stream.
+
+Lucrezia was accustomed to it all. She had been born beside that sea.
+Etna had looked down upon her as she sucked and cried, toddled and
+played, grew to a lusty girlhood, and on into young womanhood with its
+gayety and unreason, its work and hopes and dreams. That Oriental
+song--she had sung it often on the mountain-sides, as she set her bare,
+brown feet on the warm stones, and lifted her head with a native pride
+beneath its burdening pannier or its jar of water from the well. And she
+had many a time danced to the tarantella that the shepherd-boy was
+fluting, clapping her strong hands and swinging her broad hips, while the
+great rings in her ears shook to and fro, and her whole healthy body
+quivered to the spirit of the tune. She knew it all. It was and had
+always been part of her life.
+
+Hermione's garden of paradise generally seemed homely enough to Lucrezia.
+Yet to-day, perhaps because she was dressed in her best on a day that was
+not a festa, and wore a silver chain with a coral charm on it, and had
+shoes on her feet, there seemed to her a newness, almost a strangeness in
+the wideness and the silence, in the sunshine and the music, something
+that made her breathe out a sigh, and stare with almost wondering eyes on
+Etna and the sea. She soon lost her vague sensation that her life lay,
+perhaps, in a home of magic, however, when she looked again at the mule
+track which wound upward from the distant town, in which the train from
+Messina must by this time have deposited her forestieri, and began to
+think more naturally of the days that lay before her, of her novel and
+important duties, and of the unusual sums of money that her activities
+were to earn her.
+
+Gaspare, who, as major-domo, had chosen her imperiously for his assistant
+and underling in the house of the priest, had informed her that she was
+to receive twenty-five lire a month for her services, besides food and
+lodging, and plenty of the good, red wine of Amato. To Lucrezia such
+wages seemed prodigal. She had never yet earned more than the half of
+them. But it was not only this prospect of riches which now moved and
+excited her.
+
+She was to live in a splendidly furnished house with wealthy and
+distinguished people; she was to sleep in a room all to herself, in a bed
+that no one had a right to except herself. This was an experience that in
+her most sanguine moments she had never anticipated. All her life had
+been passed en famille in the village of Marechiaro, which lay on a
+table-land at the foot of Monte Amato, half-way down to the sea. The
+Gabbis were numerous, and they all lived in one room, to which cats,
+hens, and turkeys resorted with much freedom and in considerable numbers.
+Lucrezia had never known, perhaps had never desired, a moment of privacy,
+but now she began to awake to the fact that privacy and daintiness and
+pretty furniture were very interesting, and even touching, as well as
+very phenomenal additions to a young woman's existence. What could the
+people who had the power to provide them be like? She scanned the
+mule-track with growing eagerness, but the procession did not appear. She
+saw only an old contadino in a long woollen cap riding slowly into the
+recesses of the hills on a donkey, and a small boy leading his goats to
+pasture. The train must have been late. She turned round from the view
+and examined her new home once more. Already she knew it by heart, yet
+the wonder of it still encompassed her spirit.
+
+Hermione's cottage, the eyrie to which she was bringing Maurice Delarey,
+was only a cottage, although to Lucrezia it seemed almost a palace. It
+was whitewashed, with a sloping roof of tiles, and windows with green
+Venetian shutters. Although it now belonged to a contadino, it had
+originally been built by a priest, who had possessed vineyards on the
+mountain-side, and who wished to have a home to which he could escape
+from the town where he lived when the burning heats of the summer set in.
+Above his vineyards, some hundreds of yards from the summit of the
+mountain, and close to a grove of oaks and olive-trees, which grew among
+a turmoil of mighty boulders, he had terraced out the slope and set his
+country home. At the edge of the rough path which led to the cottage from
+the ravine below was a ruined Norman arch. This served as a portal of
+entrance. Between it and the cottage was a well surrounded by crumbling
+walls, with stone seats built into them. Passing that, one came at once
+to the terrace of earth, fronted by a low wall with narrow seats covered
+with white tiles, and divided by broken columns that edged the ravine and
+commanded the great view on which Lucrezia had been gazing. On the wall
+of this terrace were stone vases, in which scarlet geraniums were
+growing. Red roses twined around the columns, and, beneath, the steep
+side of the ravine was clothed with a tangle of vegetation, olive and
+peach, pear and apple trees. Behind the cottage rose the bare
+mountain-side, covered with loose stones and rocks, among which in every
+available interstice the diligent peasants had sown corn and barley. Here
+and there upon the mountains distant cottages were visible, but on Monte
+Amato Hermione's was the last, the most intrepid. None other ventured to
+cling to the warm earth so high above the sea and in a place so
+solitary. That was why Hermione loved it, because it was near the sky
+and very far away.
+
+Now, after an earnest, ruminating glance at the cottage, Lucrezia walked
+across the terrace and reverently entered it by a door which opened onto
+a flight of three steps leading down to the terrace. Already she knew the
+interior by heart, but she had not lost her awe of it, her sense almost
+of being in a church when she stood among the furniture, the hangings,
+and the pictures which she had helped to arrange under Gaspare's orders.
+The room she now stood in was the parlor of the cottage, serving as
+dining-room, drawing-room, boudoir, and den. Although it must be put to
+so many purposes, it was only a small, square chamber, and very simply
+furnished. The walls, like all the walls of the cottage inside and out,
+were whitewashed. On the floor was a carpet that had been woven in
+Kairouan, the sacred African town where Artois was now staying and making
+notes for his new book. It was thick and rough, and many-colored almost
+as Joseph's coat; brilliant but not garish, for the African has a strange
+art of making colors friends instead of enemies, of blending them into
+harmonies that are gay yet touched with peace. On the walls hung a few
+reproductions of fine pictures: an old woman of Rembrandt, in whose
+wrinkled face and glittering dark eyes the past pleasures and past
+sorrows of life seemed tenderly, pensively united, mellowed by the years
+into a soft bloom, a quiet beauty; an allegory of Watts, fierce with
+inspiration like fire mounting up to an opening heaven; a landscape of
+Frederick Walker's, the romance of harvest in an autumn land;
+Burne-Jones's "The Mill," and a copy in oils of a knight of Gustave
+Moreau's, riding in armor over the summit of a hill into an unseen
+country of errantry, some fairy-land forlorn. There was, too, an old
+Venetian mirror in a curiously twisted golden frame.
+
+At the two small windows on either side of the door, which was half
+glass, half white-painted wood, were thin curtains of pale gray-blue and
+white, bought in the bazaars of Tunis. For furniture there were a
+folding-table of brown, polished wood, a large divan with many cushions,
+two deck-chairs of the telescope species, that can be made long or short
+at will, a writing-table, a cottage piano, and four round wicker chairs
+with arms. In one corner of the room stood a tall clock with a burnished
+copper face, and in another a cupboard containing glass and china. A door
+at the back, which led into the kitchen, was covered with an Oriental
+portiere. On the writing-table, and on some dwarf bookcases already
+filled with books left behind by Hermione on her last visit to Sicily,
+stood rough jars of blue, yellow, and white pottery, filled with roses
+and geraniums arranged by Gaspare. To the left of the room, as Lucrezia
+faced it, was a door leading into the bedroom, of the master and
+mistress.
+
+After a long moment of admiring contemplation, Lucrezia went into this
+bedroom, in which she was specially interested, as it was to be her
+special care. All was white here, walls, ceiling, wooden beds, tables,
+the toilet service, the bookcases. For there were books here, too, books
+which Lucrezia examined with an awful wonder, not knowing how to read. In
+the window-seat were white cushions. On the chest of drawers were more
+red roses and geraniums. It was a virginal room, into which the bright,
+golden sunbeams stole under the striped awning outside the low window
+with surely a hesitating modesty, as if afraid to find themselves
+intruders. The whiteness, the intense quietness of the room, through
+whose window could be seen a space of far-off sea, a space of
+mountain-flank, and, when one came near to it, and the awning was drawn
+up, the snowy cone of Etna, struck now to the soul of Lucrezia a sense of
+half-puzzled peace. Her large eyes opened wider, and she laid her hands
+on her hips and fell into a sort of dream as she stood there, hearing
+only the faint and regular ticking of the clock in the sitting-room. She
+was well accustomed to the silence of the mountain world and never heeded
+it, but peace within four walls was almost unknown to her. Here no hens
+fluttered, no turkeys went to and fro elongating their necks, no children
+played and squalled, no women argued and gossiped, quarrelled and worked,
+no men tramped in and out, grumbled and spat. A perfectly clean and
+perfectly peaceful room--it was marvellous, it was--she sighed again.
+What must it be like to be gentlefolk, to have the money to buy calm and
+cleanliness?
+
+Suddenly she moved, took her hands from her hips, settled her yellow
+handkerchief, and smiled. The silence had been broken by a sound all true
+Sicilians love, the buzz and the drowsy wail of the ceramella, the
+bagpipes which the shepherds play as they come down from the hills to the
+villages when the festival of the Natale is approaching. It was as yet
+very faint and distant, coming from the mountain-side behind the cottage,
+but Lucrezia knew the tune. It was part of her existence, part of Etna,
+the olive groves, the vineyards, and the sea, part of that old, old
+Sicily which dwells in the blood and shines in the eyes, and is alive in
+the songs and the dances of these children of the sun, and of legends and
+of mingled races from many lands. It was the "Pastorale," and she knew
+who was playing it--Sebastiano, the shepherd, who had lived with the
+brigands in the forests that look down upon the Isles of Lipari, who now
+kept his father's goats among the rocks, and knew every stone and every
+cave on Etna, and who had a chest and arms of iron, and legs that no
+climbing could fatigue, and whose great, brown fingers, that could break
+a man's wrist, drew such delicate tones from the reed pipe that, when he
+played it, even the old man's thoughts were turned to dancing and the
+old woman's to love. But now he was being important, he was playing the
+ceramella, into which no shepherd could pour such a volume of breath as
+he, from which none could bring such a volume of warm and lusty music. It
+was Sebastiano coming down from the top of Monte Amato to welcome the
+forestieri.
+
+The music grew louder, and presently a dog barked outside on the terrace.
+Lucrezia ran to the window. A great white-and-yellow, blunt-faced,
+pale-eyed dog, his neck surrounded by a spiked collar, stood there
+sniffing and looking savage, his feathery tail cocked up pugnaciously
+over his back.
+
+"Sebastiano!" called Lucrezia, leaning out of the window under the
+awning--"Sebastiano!"
+
+Then she drew back laughing, and squatted down on the floor, concealed by
+the window-seat. The sound of the pipes increased till their rough drone
+seemed to be in the room, bidding a rustic defiance to its whiteness and
+its silence. Still squatting on the floor, Lucrezia called out once more:
+
+"Sebastiano!"
+
+Abruptly the tune ceased and the silence returned, emphasized by the
+vanished music. Lucrezia scarcely breathed. Her face was flushed, for she
+was struggling against an impulse to laugh, which almost overmastered
+her. After a minute she heard the dog's short bark again, then a man's
+foot shifting on the terrace, then suddenly a noise of breathing above
+her head close to her hair. With a little scream she shrank back and
+looked up. A man's face was gazing down at her. It was a very brown and
+very masculine face, roughened by wind and toughened by sun, with keen,
+steady, almost insolent eyes, black and shining, stiff, black hair, that
+looked as if it had been crimped, a mustache sprouting above a wide,
+slightly animal mouth full of splendid teeth, and a square, brutal, but
+very manly chin. On the head was a Sicilian cap, long and hanging down
+at the left side. There were ear-rings in the man's large, well-shaped
+ears, and over the window-ledge protruded the swollen bladder, like a
+dead, bloated monster, from which he had been drawing his antique tune.
+
+He stared down at Lucrezia with a half-contemptuous humor, and she up at
+him with a wide-eyed, unconcealed adoration. Then he looked curiously
+round the room, with a sharp intelligence that took in every detail in a
+moment.
+
+"Per Dio!" he ejaculated. "Per Dio!"
+
+He looked at Lucrezia, folded his brawny arms on the window-sill, and
+said:
+
+"They've got plenty of soldi."
+
+Lucrezia nodded, not without personal pride.
+
+"Gaspare says--"
+
+"Oh, I know as much as Gaspare," interrupted Sebastiano, brusquely. "The
+signora is my friend. When she was here before I saw her many times. But
+for me she would never have taken the Casa del Prete."
+
+"Why was that?" asked Lucrezia, with reverence.
+
+"They told her in Marechiaro that it was not safe for a lady to live up
+here alone, that when the night came no one could tell what would
+happen."
+
+"But, Gaspare--"
+
+"Does Gaspare know every grotto on Etna? Has Gaspare lived eight years
+with the briganti? And the Mafia--has Gaspare--"
+
+He paused, laughed, pulled his mustache, and added:
+
+"If the signora had not been assured of my protection she would never
+have come up here."
+
+"But now she has a husband."
+
+"Yes."
+
+He glanced again round the room.
+
+"One can see that. Per Dio, it is like the snow on the top of Etna."
+
+Lucrezia got up actively from the floor and came close to Sebastiano.
+
+"What is the padrona like, Sebastiano?" she asked. "I have seen her, but
+I have never spoken to her."
+
+"She is simpatica--she will do you no harm."
+
+"And is she generous?"
+
+"Ready to give soldi to every one who is in trouble. But if you once
+deceive her she will never look at you again."
+
+"Then I will not deceive her," said Lucrezia, knitting her brows.
+
+"Better not. She is not like us. She thinks to tell a lie is a sin
+against the Madonna, I believe."
+
+"But then what will the padrone do?" asked Lucrezia, innocently.
+
+"Tell his woman the truth, like all husbands," replied Sebastiano, with a
+broadly satirical grin. "As your man will some day, Lucrezia mia. All
+husbands are good and faithful. Don't you know that?"
+
+"Macche!"
+
+She laughed loudly, with an incredulity quite free from bitterness.
+
+"Men are not like us," she added. "They tell us whatever they please, and
+do always whatever they like. We must sit in the doorway and keep our
+back to the street for fear a man should smile at us, and they can stay
+out all night, and come back in the morning, and say they've been fishing
+at Isola Bella, or sleeping out to guard the vines, and we've got to say,
+'Si, Salvatore!' or 'Si, Guido!' when we know very well--"
+
+"What, Lucrezia?"
+
+She looked into his twinkling eyes and reddened slightly, sticking out
+her under lip.
+
+"I'm not going to tell you."
+
+"You have no business to know."
+
+"And how can I help--they're coming!"
+
+Sebastiano's dog had barked again on the terrace. Sebastiano lifted the
+ceramalla quickly from the window-sill and turned round, while Lucrezia
+darted out through the door, across the sitting-room, and out onto the
+terrace.
+
+"Are they there, Sebastiano? Are they there?"
+
+He stood by the terrace wall, shading his eyes with his hand.
+
+"Ecco!" he said, pointing across the ravine.
+
+Far off, winding up from the sea slowly among the rocks and the
+olive-trees, was a procession of donkeys, faintly relieved in the
+brilliant sunshine against the mountain-side.
+
+"One," counted Sebastiano, "two, three, four--there are four. The signore
+is walking, the signora is riding. Whose donkeys have they got? Gaspare's
+father's, of course. I told Gaspare to take Ciccio's, and--it is too far
+to see, but I'll soon make them hear me. The signora loves the
+'Pastorale.' She says there is all Sicily in it. She loves it more than
+the tarantella, for she is good, Lucrezia--don't forget that--though she
+is not a Catholic, and perhaps it makes her think of the coming of the
+Bambino and of the Madonna. Ah! She will smile now and clap her hands
+when she hears."
+
+He put the pipe to his lips, puffed out his cheeks, and began to play the
+"Pastorale" with all his might, while Lucrezia listened, staring across
+the ravine at the creeping donkey, which was bearing Hermione upward to
+her garden of paradise near the sky.
+
+
+
+IV
+
+"And then, signora, I said to Lucrezia, 'the padrona loves Zampaglione,
+and you must be sure to--'"
+
+"Wait, Gaspare! I thought I heard--Yes, it is, it is! Hush!
+Maurice--listen!"
+
+Hermione pulled up her donkey, which was the last of the little
+procession, laid her hand on her husband's arm, and held her breath,
+looking upward across the ravine to the opposite slope where, made tiny
+by distance, she saw the white line of the low terrace wall of the Casa
+del Prete, the black dots, which were the heads of Sebastiano and
+Lucrezia. The other donkeys tripped on among the stones and vanished,
+with their attendant boys, Gaspare's friends, round the angle of a great
+rock, but Gaspare stood still beside his padrona, with his brown hand on
+her donkey's neck, and Maurice Delarey, following her eyes, looked and
+listened like a statue of that Mercury to which Artois had compared him.
+
+"It's the 'Pastorale,'" Hermione whispered. "The 'Pastorale'!"
+
+Her lips parted. Tears came into her eyes, those tears that come to a
+woman in a moment of supreme joy that seems to wipe out all the sorrows
+of the past. She felt as if she were in a great dream, one of those rare
+and exquisite dreams that sometimes bathe the human spirit, as a warm
+wave of the Ionian Sea bathes the Sicilian shore in the shadow of an
+orange grove, murmuring peace. In that old tune of the "Pastorale" all
+her thoughts of Sicily, and her knowledge of Sicily, and her
+imaginations, and her deep and passionately tender and even ecstatic
+love of Sicily seemed folded and cherished like birds in a nest. She
+could never have explained, she could only feel how. In the melody, with
+its drone bass, the very history of the enchanted island was surely
+breathed out. Ulysses stood to listen among the flocks of Polyphemus.
+Empedocles stayed his feet among the groves of Etna to hear it. And
+Persephone, wandering among the fields of asphodel, paused with her white
+hands out-stretched to catch its drowsy beauty; and Arethusa, turned into
+a fountain, hushed her music to let it have its way. And Hermione heard
+in it the voice of the Bambino, the Christ-child, to whose manger-cradle
+the shepherds followed the star, and the voice of the Madonna, Maria
+stella del mare, whom the peasants love in Sicily as the child loves its
+mother. And those peasants were in it, too, people of the lava wastes and
+the lava terraces where the vines are green against the black, people of
+the hazel and the beech forests, where the little owl cries at eve,
+people of the plains where, beneath the yellow lemons, spring the yellow
+flowers that are like their joyous reflection in the grasses, people of
+the sea, that wonderful purple sea in whose depth of color eternity seems
+caught. The altars of the pagan world were in it, and the wayside shrines
+before which the little lamps are lit by night upon the lonely
+mountain-sides, the old faith and the new, and the love of a land that
+lives on from generation to generation in the pulsing breasts of men.
+
+And Maurice was in it, too, and Hermione and her love for him and his for
+her.
+
+Gaspare did not move. He loved the "Pastorale" almost without knowing
+that he loved it. It reminded him of the festa of Natale, when, as a
+child, dressed in a long, white garment, he had carried a blazing torch
+of straw down the steps of the church of San Pancrazio before the canopy
+that sheltered the Bambino. It was a part of his life, as his mother
+was, and Tito the donkey, and the vineyards, the sea, the sun. It pleased
+him to hear it, and to feel that his padrona from a far country loved it,
+and his isle, his "Paese" in which it sounded. So, though he had been
+impatient to reach the Casa del Prete and enjoy the reward of praise
+which he considered was his due for his forethought and his labors, he
+stood very still by Tito, with his great, brown eyes fixed, and the
+donkey switch drooping in the hand that hung at his side.
+
+And Hermione for a moment gave herself entirely to her dream.
+
+She had carried out the plan which she had made. She and Maurice Delarey
+had been married quietly, early one morning in London, and had caught the
+boat-train at Victoria, and travelled through to Sicily without stopping
+on the way to rest. She wanted to plunge Maurice in the south at once,
+not to lead him slowly, step by step, towards it. And so, after three
+nights in the train, they had opened their eyes to the quiet sea near
+Reggio, to the clustering houses under the mountains of Messina, to the
+high-prowed fishermen's boats painted blue and yellow, to the coast-line
+which wound away from the straits till it stole out to that almost
+phantasmal point where Siracusa lies, to the slope of Etna, to the orange
+gardens and the olives, and the great, dry water courses like giant
+highways leading up into the mountains. And from the train they had come
+up here into the recesses of the hills to hear their welcome of the
+"Pastorale." It was a contrast to make a dream, the roar of ceaseless
+travel melting into this radiant silence, this inmost heart of peace.
+They had rushed through great cities to this old land of mountains and of
+legends, and up there on the height from which the droning music dropped
+to them through the sunshine was their home, the solitary house which was
+to shelter their true marriage.
+
+Delarey was almost confused by it all. Half dazed by the noise of the
+journey, he was now half dazed by the wonder of the quiet as he stood
+near Gaspare and listened to Sebastiano's music, and looked upward to the
+white terrace wall.
+
+Hermione was to be his possession here, in this strange and far-off land,
+among these simple peasant people. So he thought of them, not versed yet
+in the complex Sicilian character. He listened, and he looked at Gaspare.
+He saw a boy of eighteen, short as are most Sicilians, but straight as an
+arrow, well made, active as a cat, rather of the Greek than of the Arab
+type so often met with in Sicily, with bold, well-cut features,
+wonderfully regular and wonderfully small, square, white teeth, thick,
+black eyebrows, and enormous brown eyes sheltered by the largest lashes
+he had ever seen. The very low forehead was edged by a mass of hair that
+had small gleams of bright gold here and there in the front, but that
+farther back on the head was of a brown so dark as to look nearly black.
+Gaspare was dressed in a homely suit of light-colored linen with no
+collar and a shirt open at the throat, showing a section of chest tanned
+by the sun. Stout mountain boots were on his feet, and a white linen hat
+was tipped carelessly to the back of his head, leaving his expressive,
+ardently audacious, but not unpleasantly impudent face exposed to the
+golden rays of which he had no fear.
+
+As Delarey looked at him he felt oddly at home with him, almost as if he
+stood beside a young brother. Yet he could scarcely speak Gaspare's
+language, and knew nothing of his thoughts, his feelings, his hopes, his
+way of life. It was an odd sensation, a subtle sympathy not founded upon
+knowledge. It seemed to now into Delarey's heart out of the heart of the
+sun, to steal into it with the music of the "Pastorale."
+
+"I feel--I feel almost as if I belonged here," he whispered to Hermione,
+at last.
+
+She turned her head and looked down on him from her donkey. The tears
+were still in her eyes.
+
+"I always knew you belonged to the blessed, blessed south," she said, in
+a low voice. "Do you care for that?"
+
+She pointed towards the terrace.
+
+"That music?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Tremendously, but I don't know why. Is it very beautiful?"
+
+"I sometimes think it is the most beautiful music I have ever heard. At
+any rate, I have always loved it more than all other music, and
+now--well, you can guess if I love it now."
+
+She dropped one hand against the donkey's warm shoulder. Maurice took it
+in his warm hand.
+
+"All Sicily, all the real, wild Sicily seems to be in it. They play it in
+the churches on the night of the Natale," she went on, after a moment. "I
+shall never forget hearing it for the first time. I felt as if it took
+hold of my very soul with hands like the hands of the Bambino."
+
+She broke off. A tear had fallen down upon her cheek.
+
+"Avanti Gaspare!" she said.
+
+Gaspare lifted his switch and gave Tito a tap, calling out "Ah!" in a
+loud, manly voice. The donkey moved on, tripping carefully among the
+stones. They mounted slowly up towards the "Pastorale." Presently
+Hermione said to Maurice, who kept beside her in spite of the narrowness
+of the path:
+
+"Everything seems very strange to me to-day. Can you guess why?"
+
+"I don't know. Tell me," he answered.
+
+"It's this. I never expected to be perfectly happy. We all have our
+dreams, I suppose. We all think now and then, 'If only I could have this
+with that, this person in that place, I could be happy.' And perhaps we
+have sometimes a part of our dream turned into reality, though even that
+comes seldom. But to have the two, to have the two halves of our dream
+fitted together and made reality--isn't that rare? Long ago, when I was a
+girl, I always used to think--'If I could ever be with the one I loved in
+the south--alone, quite alone, quite away from the world, I could be
+perfectly happy.' Well, years after I thought that I came here. I knew at
+once I had found my ideal place. One-half of my dream was made real and
+was mine. That was much, wasn't it? But getting this part of what I
+longed for sometimes made me feel unutterably sad. I had never seen you
+then, but often when I sat on that little terrace up there I felt a
+passionate desire to have a human being whom I loved beside me. I loved
+no one then, but I wanted, I needed to love. Do men ever feel that? Women
+do, often, nearly always I think. The beauty made me want to love.
+Sometimes, as I leaned over the wall, I heard a shepherd-boy below in the
+ravine play on his pipe, or I heard the goat-bells ringing under the
+olives. Sometimes at night I saw distant lights, like fire-flies, lamps
+carried by peasants going to their homes in the mountains from a festa in
+honor of some saint, stealing upward through the darkness, or I saw the
+fishermen's lights burning in the boats far off upon the sea. Then--then
+I knew that I had only half my dream, and I was ungrateful, Maurice. I
+almost wished that I had never had this half, because it made me realize
+what it would be to have the whole. It made me realize the mutilation,
+the incompleteness of being in perfect beauty without love. And now--now
+I've actually got all I ever wanted, and much more, because I didn't know
+then at all what it would really mean to me to have it. And, besides, I
+never thought that God would select me for perfect happiness. Why should
+he? What have I ever done to be worthy of such a gift?"
+
+"You've been yourself," he answered.
+
+At this moment the path narrowed and he had to fall behind, and they did
+not speak again till they had clambered up the last bit of the way, steep
+almost as the side of a house, passed through the old ruined arch, and
+came out upon the terrace before the Casa del Prete.
+
+Sebastiano met them, still playing lustily upon his pipe, while the sweat
+dripped from his sunburned face; but Lucrezia, suddenly overcome by
+shyness, had disappeared round the corner of the cottage to the kitchen.
+The donkey boys were resting on the stone seats in easy attitudes,
+waiting for Gaspare's orders to unload, and looking forward to a drink of
+the Monte Amato wine. When they had had it they meant to carry out a plan
+devised by the radiant Gaspare, to dance a tarantella for the forestieri
+while Sebastiano played the flute. But no hint of this intention was to
+be given till the luggage had been taken down and carried into the house.
+Their bright faces were all twinkling with the knowledge of their secret.
+When at length Sebastiano had put down the ceramella and shaken Hermione
+and Maurice warmly by the hand, and Gaspare had roughly, but with roars
+of laughter, dragged Lucrezia into the light of day to be presented,
+Hermione took her husband in to see their home. On the table in the
+sitting-room lay a letter.
+
+"A letter already!" she said.
+
+There was a sound almost of vexation in her voice. The little white thing
+lying there seemed to bring a breath of the world she wanted to forget
+into their solitude.
+
+"Who can have written?"
+
+She took it up and felt contrition.
+
+"It's from Emile!" she exclaimed. "How good of him to remember! This must
+be his welcome."
+
+"Read it, Hermione," said Maurice. "I'll look after Gaspare."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"Better not. He's here to look after us. But you'll soon understand him,
+very soon, and he you. You speak different languages, but you both belong
+to the south. Let him alone, Maurice. We'll read this together. I'm sure
+it's for you as well as me."
+
+And while Gaspare and the boys carried in the trunks she sat down by the
+table and opened Emile's letter. It was very short, and was addressed
+from Kairouan, where Artois had established himself for the spring in an
+Arab house. She began reading it aloud in French:
+
+     "This is a word--perhaps unwelcome, for I think I understand, dear
+     friend, something of what you are feeling and of what you desire
+     just now--a word of welcome to your garden of paradise. May there
+     never be an angel with a flaming sword to keep the gate against
+     you. Listen to the shepherds fluting, dream, or, better, live, as
+     you are grandly capable of living, under the old olives of Sicily.
+     Take your golden time boldly with both hands. Life may seem to most
+     of us who think in the main a melancholy, even a tortured thing,
+     but when it is not so for a while to one who can think as you can
+     think, the power of thought, of deep thought, intensifies its
+     glory. You will never enjoy as might a pagan, perhaps never as
+     might a saint. But you will enjoy as a generous-blooded woman with
+     a heart that only your friends--I should like to dare to say only
+     one friend--know in its rare entirety. There is an egoist here, in
+     the shadow of the mosques, who turns his face towards Mecca, and
+     prays that you may never leave your garden.
+                                                               E. A."
+
+     "Does the Sicilian grandmother respond to the magic of the south?"
+
+When she drew near to the end of this letter Hermione hesitated.
+
+"He--there's something," she said, "that is too kind to me. I don't think
+I'll read it."
+
+"Don't," said Delarey. "But it can't be too kind."
+
+She saw the postscript and smiled.
+
+"And quite at the end there's an allusion to you."
+
+"Is there?"
+
+"I must read that."
+
+And she read it.
+
+"He needn't be afraid of the grandmother's not responding, need he,
+Maurice?"
+
+"No," he said, smiling too. "But is that it, do you think? Why should it
+be? Who wouldn't love this place?"
+
+And he went to the open door and looked out towards the sea.
+
+"Who wouldn't?" he repeated.
+
+"Oh, I have met an Englishman who was angry with Etna for being the shape
+it is."
+
+"What an ass!"
+
+"I thought so, too. But, seriously, I expect the grandmother has
+something to say in that matter of your feeling already, as if you
+belonged here."
+
+"Perhaps."
+
+He was still looking towards the distant sea far down below them.
+
+"Is that an island?" he asked.
+
+"Where?" said Hermione, getting up and coming towards him. "Oh, that--no,
+it is a promontory, but it's almost surrounded by the sea. There is only
+a narrow ledge of rock, like a wall, connecting it with the main-land,
+and in the rock there's a sort of natural tunnel through which the sea
+flows. I've sometimes been to picnic there. On the plateau hidden among
+the trees there's a ruined house. I have spent many hours reading and
+writing in it. They call it, in Marechiaro, Casa delle Sirene--the house
+of the sirens."
+
+               "Questo vino e bello e fino,"
+
+cried Gaspare's voice outside.
+
+"A Brindisi!" said Hermione. "Gaspare's treating the boys. Questo
+vino--oh, how glorious to be here in Sicily!"
+
+She put her arm through Delarey's, and drew him out onto the terrace.
+Gaspare, Lucrezia, Sebastiano, and the three boys stood there with
+glasses of red wine in their hands raised high above their heads.
+
+               "Questo vino e bello e fino,
+               E portato da Castel Perini,
+               Faccio brindisi alla Signora Ermini,"
+
+continued Gaspare, joyously, and with an obvious pride in his poetical
+powers.
+
+They all drank simultaneously, Lucrezia spluttering a little out of
+shyness.
+
+"Monte Amato, Gaspare, not Castel Perini. But that doesn't rhyme, eh?
+Bravo! But we must drink, too."
+
+Gaspare hastened to fill two more glasses.
+
+"Now it's our turn," cried Hermione.
+
+               "Questo vino e bello e fino,
+               E portato da Castello a mare,
+               Faccio brindisi al Signor Gaspare."
+
+The boys burst into a hearty laugh, and Gaspare's eyes gleamed with
+pleasure while Hermione and Maurice drank. Then Sebastiano drew from the
+inner pocket of his old jacket a little flute, smiling with an air of
+intense and comic slyness which contorted his face.
+
+"Ah," said Hermione, "I know--it's the tarantella!"
+
+She clapped her hands.
+
+"It only wanted that," she said to Maurice. "Only that--the tarantella!"
+
+"Guai Lucrezia!" cried Gaspare, tyrannically.
+
+Lucrezia bounded to one side, bent her body inward, and giggled with all
+her heart. Sebastiano leaned his back against a column and put the flute
+to his lips.
+
+"Here, Maurice, here!" said Hermione.
+
+She made him sit down on one of the seats under the parlor window, facing
+the view, while the four boys took their places, one couple opposite to
+the other. Then Sebastiano began to twitter the tune familiar to the
+Sicilians of Marechiaro, in which all the careless pagan joy of life in
+the sun seems caught and flung out upon a laughing, dancing world.
+Delarey laid his hands on the warm tiles of the seat, leaned forward, and
+watched with eager eyes. He had never seen the tarantella, yet now with
+his sensation of expectation there was blended another feeling. It seemed
+to him as if he were going to see something he had known once, perhaps
+very long ago, something that he had forgotten and that was now going to
+be recalled to his memory. Some nerve in his body responded to
+Sebastiano's lively tune. A desire of movement came to him as he saw the
+gay boys waiting on the terrace, their eyes already dancing, although
+their bodies were still.
+
+Gaspare bent forward, lifted his hands above his head, and began to snap
+his fingers in time to the music. A look of joyous invitation had come
+into his eyes--an expression that was almost coquettish, like the
+expression of a child who has conceived some lively, innocent design of
+which he thinks that no one knows except himself. His young figure surely
+quivered with a passion of merry mischief which was communicated to his
+companions. In it there began to flame a spirit that suggested undying
+youth. Even before they began to dance the boys were transformed. If they
+had ever known cares those cares had fled, for in the breasts of those
+who can really dance the tarantella there is no room for the smallest
+sorrow, in their hearts no place for the most minute regret, anxiety, or
+wonder, when the rapture of the measure is upon them. Away goes
+everything but the pagan joy of life, the pagan ecstasy of swift
+movement, and the leaping blood that is quick as the motes in a sunray
+falling from a southern sky. Delarey began to smile as he watched them,
+and their expression was reflected in his eyes. Hermione glanced at him
+and thought what a boy he looked. His eyes made her feel almost as if
+she were sitting with a child.
+
+The mischief, the coquettish joy of the boys increased. They snapped
+their fingers more loudly, swayed their bodies, poised themselves first
+on one foot, then on the other, then abruptly, and with a wildness that
+was like the sudden crash of all the instruments in an orchestra breaking
+in upon the melody of a solitary flute, burst into the full frenzy of the
+dance. And in the dance each seemed to be sportively creative, ruled by
+his own sweet will.
+
+"That's why I love the tarantella more than any other dance," Hermione
+murmured to her husband, "because it seems to be the invention of the
+moment, as if they were wild with joy and had to show it somehow, and
+showed it beautifully by dancing. Look at Gaspare now."
+
+With his hands held high above his head, and linked together, Gaspare was
+springing into the air, as if propelled by one of those boards which are
+used by acrobats in circuses for leaping over horses. He had thrown off
+his hat, and his low-growing hair, which was rather long on the forehead,
+moved as he sprang upward, as if his excitement, penetrating through
+every nerve in his body, had filled it with electricity. While Hermione
+watched him she almost expected to see its golden tufts give off sparks
+in response to the sparkling radiance that flashed from his laughing
+eyes. For in all the wild activity of his changing movements Gaspare
+never lost his coquettish expression, the look of seductive mischief that
+seemed to invite the whole world to be merry and mad as he was. His
+ever-smiling lips and ever-smiling eyes defied fatigue, and his young
+body--grace made a living, pulsing, aspiring reality--suggested the
+tireless intensity of a flame. The other boys danced well, but Gaspare
+outdid them all, for they only looked gay while he looked mad with joy.
+And to-day, at this moment, he felt exultant. He had a padrona to whom he
+was devoted with that peculiar sensitive devotion of the Sicilian which,
+once it is fully aroused, is tremendous in its strength and jealous in
+its doggedness. He was in command of Lucrezia, and was respectfully
+looked up to by all his boy friends of Marechiaro as one who could
+dispense patronage, being a sort of purse-bearer and conductor of rich
+forestieri in a strange land. Even Sebastiano, a personage rather apt to
+be a little haughty in his physical strength, and, though no longer a
+brigand, no great respecter of others, showed him to-day a certain
+deference which elated his boyish spirit. And all his elation, all his
+joy in the present and hopes for the future, he let out in the dance. To
+dance the tarantella almost intoxicated him, even when he only danced it
+in the village among the contadini, but to-day the admiring eyes of his
+padrona were upon him. He knew how she loved the tarantella. He knew,
+too, that she wanted the padrone, her husband, to love it as she did.
+Gaspare was very shrewd to read a woman's thoughts so long as her love
+ran in them. Though but eighteen, he was a man in certain knowledge. He
+understood, almost unconsciously, a good deal of what Hermione was
+feeling as she watched, and he put his whole soul into the effort to
+shine, to dazzle, to rouse gayety and wonder in the padrone, who saw him
+dance for the first time. He was untiring in his variety and his
+invention. Sometimes, light-footed in his mountain boots, with an almost
+incredible swiftness and vim, he rushed from end to end of the terrace.
+His feet twinkled in steps so complicated and various that he made the
+eyes that watched him wink as at a play of sparks in a furnace, and his
+arms and hands were never still, yet never, even for a second, fell into
+a curve that was ungraceful. Sometimes his head was bent whimsically
+forward as if in invitation. Sometimes he threw his whole body backward,
+exposing his brown throat, and staring up at the sun like a sun
+worshipper dancing to his divinity. Sometimes he crouched on his
+haunches, clapping his hands together rhythmically, and, with bent knees,
+shooting out his legs like some jovially grotesque dwarf promenading
+among a crowd of Follies. And always the spirit of the dance seemed to
+increase within him, and the intoxication of it to take more hold upon
+him, and his eyes grew brighter and his face more radiant, and his body
+more active, more utterly untiring, till he was the living embodiment
+surely of all the youth and all the gladness of the world.
+
+Hermione had kept Artois's letter in her hand, and now, as she danced in
+spirit with Gaspare, and rejoiced not only in her own joy, but in his,
+she thought suddenly of that sentence in it--"Life may seem to most of us
+who think in the main a melancholy, even a tortured, thing." Life a
+tortured thing! She was thinking now, exultantly thinking. Her thoughts
+were leaping, spinning, crouching, whirling, rushing with Gaspare in the
+sunshine. But life was a happy, a radiant reality. No dream, it was more
+beautiful than any dream, as the clear, when lovely, is more lovely than
+even that which is exquisite and vague. She had, of course, always known
+that in the world there is much joy. Now she felt it, she felt all the
+joy of the world. She felt the joy of sunshine and of blue, the joy of
+love and of sympathy, the joy of health and of activity, the joy of sane
+passion that fights not against any law of God or man, the joy of liberty
+in a joyous land where the climate is kindly, and, despite poverty and
+toil, there are songs upon the lips of men, there are tarantellas in
+their sun-browned bodies, there are the fires of gayety in their bold,
+dark eyes. Joy, joy twittered in the reed-flute of Sebastiano, and the
+boys were joys made manifest. Hermione's eyes had filled with tears of
+joy when among the olives she had heard the far-off drone of the
+"Pastorale." Now they shone with a joy that was different, less subtly
+sweet, perhaps, but more buoyant, more fearless, more careless. The glory
+of the pagan world was round about her, and for a moment her heart was
+like the heart of a nymph scattering roses in a Bacchic triumph.
+
+Maurice moved beside her, and she heard him breathing quickly.
+
+"What is it, Maurice?" she asked. "You--do you--"
+
+"Yes," he answered, understanding the question she had not fully asked.
+"It drives me almost mad to sit still and see those boys. Gaspare's like
+a merry devil tempting one."
+
+As if Gaspare had understood what Maurice said, he suddenly spun round
+from his companions, and began to dance in front of Maurice and Hermione,
+provocatively, invitingly, bending his head towards them, and laughing
+almost in their faces, but without a trace of impertinence. He did not
+speak, though his lips were parted, showing two rows of even, tiny teeth,
+but his radiant eyes called to them, scolded them for their inactivity,
+chaffed them for it, wondered how long it would last, and seemed to deny
+that it could last forever.
+
+"What eyes!" said Hermione. "Did you ever see anything so expressive?"
+
+Maurice did not answer. He was watching Gaspare, fascinated, completely
+under the spell of the dance. The blood was beginning to boil in his
+veins, warm blood of the south that he had never before felt in his body.
+Artois had spoken to Hermione of "the call of the blood." Maurice began
+to hear it now, to long to obey it.
+
+Gaspare clapped his hands alternately in front of him and behind him,
+leaping from side to side, with a step in which one foot crossed over the
+other, and holding his body slightly curved inward. And all the time he
+kept his eyes on Delarey, and the wily, merry invitation grew stronger in
+them.
+
+"Venga!" he whispered, always dancing. "Venga, signorino, venga--venga!"
+
+He spun round, clapped his hands furiously, snapped his fingers, and
+jumped back. Then he held out his hands to Delarey, with a gay authority
+that was irresistible.
+
+"Venga, venga, signorino! Venga, venga!"
+
+All the blood in Delarey responded, chasing away something--was it a
+shyness, a self-consciousness of love--that till now had held him back
+from the gratification of his desire? He sprang up and he danced the
+tarantella, danced it almost as if he had danced it all his life, with a
+natural grace, a frolicsome abandon that no pure-blooded Englishman could
+ever achieve, danced it as perhaps once the Sicilian grandmother had
+danced it under the shadow of Etna. Whatever Gaspare did he imitated,
+with a swiftness and a certainty that were amazing, and Gaspare,
+intoxicated by having such a pupil, outdid himself in countless changing
+activities. It was like a game and like a duel, for Gaspare presently
+began almost to fight for supremacy as he watched Delarey's startling
+aptitude in the tarantella, which, till this moment, he had considered
+the possession of those born in Sicily and of Sicilian blood. He seemed
+to feel that this pupil might in time become the master, and to be put
+upon his mettle, and he put forth all his cunning to be too much for
+Delarey.
+
+And Hermione was left alone, watching, for Lucrezia had disappeared,
+suddenly mindful of some household duty.
+
+When Delarey sprang up she felt a thrill of responsive excitement, and
+when she watched his first steps, and noted the look of youth in him, the
+supple southern grace that rivalled the boyish grace of Gaspare, she was
+filled with that warm, that almost yearning admiration which is the
+child of love. But another feeling followed--a feeling of melancholy. As
+she watched him dancing with the four boys, a gulf seemed to yawn between
+her and them. She was alone on her side of this gulf, quite alone. They
+were remote from her. She suddenly realized that Delarey belonged to the
+south, and that she did not. Despite all her understanding of the beauty
+of the south, all her sympathy for the spirit of the south, all her
+passionate love of the south, she was not of it. She came to it as a
+guest. But Delarey was of it. She had never realized that absolutely till
+this moment. Despite his English parentage and upbringing, the southern
+strain in his ancestry had been revived in him. The drop of southern
+blood in his veins was his master. She had not married an Englishman.
+
+Once again, and in all the glowing sunshine, with Etna and the sea before
+her, and the sound of Sebastiano's flute in her ears, she was on the
+Thames Embankment in the night with Artois, and heard his deep voice
+speaking to her.
+
+"Does he know his own blood?" said the voice. "Our blood governs us when
+the time comes."
+
+And again the voice said:
+
+"The possible call of the blood that he doesn't understand."
+
+"The call of the blood." There was now something almost terrible to
+Hermione in that phrase, something menacing and irresistible. Were men,
+then, governed irrevocably, dominated by the blood that was in them?
+Artois had certainly seemed to imply that they were, and he knew men as
+few knew them. His powerful intellect, like a search-light, illumined the
+hidden places, discovering the concealed things of the souls of men. But
+Artois was not a religious man, and Hermione had a strong sense of
+religion, though she did not cling, as many do, to any one creed. If the
+call of the blood were irresistible in a man, then man was only a slave.
+The criminal must not be condemned, nor the saint exalted. Conduct was
+but obedience in one who had no choice but to obey. Could she believe
+that?
+
+The dance grew wilder, swifter. Sebastiano quickened the time till he was
+playing it prestissimo. One of the boys, Giulio, dropped out exhausted.
+Then another, Alfio, fell against the terrace wall, laughing and wiping
+his streaming face. Finally Giuseppe gave in, too, obviously against his
+will. But Gaspare and Maurice still kept on. The game was certainly a
+duel now--a duel which would not cease till Sebastiano put an end to it
+by laying down his flute. But he, too, was on his mettle and would not
+own fatigue. Suddenly Hermione felt that she could not bear the dance any
+more. It was, perhaps, absurd of her. Her brain, fatigued by travel, was
+perhaps playing her tricks. But she felt as if Maurice were escaping from
+her in this wild tarantella, like a man escaping through a fantastic
+grotto from some one who called to him near its entrance. A faint
+sensation of something that was surely jealousy, the first she had ever
+known, stirred in her heart--jealousy of a tarantella.
+
+"Maurice!" she said.
+
+He did not hear her.
+
+"Maurice!" she called. "Sebastiano--Gaspare--stop! You'll kill
+yourselves!"
+
+Sebastiano caught her eye, finished the tune, and took the flute from his
+lips. In truth he was not sorry to be commanded to do the thing his pride
+of music forbade him to do of his own will. Gaspare gave a wild, boyish
+shout, and flung himself down on Giuseppe's knees, clasping him round the
+neck jokingly. And Maurice--he stood still on the terrace for a moment
+looking dazed. Then the hot blood surged up to his head, making it tingle
+under his hair, and he came over slowly, almost shamefacedly, and sat
+down by Hermione.
+
+"This sun's made me mad, I think," he said, looking at her. "Why, how
+pale you are, Hermione!"
+
+"Am I? No, it must be the shadow of the awning makes me look so. Oh,
+Maurice, you are indeed a southerner! Do you know, I feel--I feel as if I
+had never really seen you till now, here on this terrace, as if I had
+never known you as you are till now, now that I've watched you dance the
+tarantella."
+
+"I can't dance it, of course. It was absurd of me to try."
+
+"Ask Gaspare! No, I'll ask him. Gaspare, can the padrone dance the
+tarantella?"
+
+"Eh--altro!" said Gaspare, with admiring conviction.
+
+He got off Giuseppe's knee, where he had been curled up almost like a big
+kitten, came and stood by Hermione, and added:
+
+"Per Dio, signora, but the padrone is like one of us!"
+
+Hermione laughed. Now that the dance was over and the twittering flute
+was silent, her sense of loneliness and melancholy was departing. Soon,
+no doubt, she would be able to look back upon it and laugh at it as one
+laughs at moods that have passed away.
+
+"This is his first day in Sicily, Gaspare."
+
+"There are forestieri who come here every year, and who stay for months,
+and who can talk our language--yes, and can even swear in dialetto as we
+can--but they are not like the padrone. Not one of them could dance the
+tarantella like that. Per Dio!"
+
+A radiant look of pleasure came into Maurice's face.
+
+"I'm glad you've brought me here," he said. "Ah, when you chose this
+place for our honeymoon you understood me better than I understand
+myself, Hermione."
+
+"Did I?" she said, slowly. "But no, Maurice, I think I chose a little
+selfishly. I was thinking of what I wanted. Oh, the boys are going, and
+Sebastiano."
+
+That evening, when they had finished supper--they did not wish to test
+Lucrezia's powers too severely by dining the first day--they came out
+onto the terrace. Lucrezia and Gaspare were busily talking in the
+kitchen. Tito, the donkey, was munching his hay under the low-pitched
+roof of the out-house. Now and then they could faintly hear the sound of
+his moving jaws, Lucrezia's laughter, or Gaspare's eager voice. These
+fragmentary noises scarcely disturbed the great silence that lay about
+them, the night hush of the mountains and the sea. Hermione sat down on
+the seat in the terrace wall looking over the ravine. It was a moonless
+night, but the sky was clear and spangled with stars. There was a cool
+breeze blowing from Etna. Here and there upon the mountains shone
+solitary lights, and one was moving slowly through the darkness along the
+crest of a hill opposite to them, a torch carried by some peasant going
+to his hidden cottage among the olive-trees.
+
+Maurice lit his cigar and stood by Hermione, who was sitting sideways and
+leaning her arms on the wall, and looking out into the wide dimness in
+which, somewhere, lay the ravine. He did not want to talk just then, and
+she kept silence. This was really their wedding night, and both of them
+were unusually conscious, but in different ways, of the mystery that lay
+about them, and that lay, too, within them. It was strange to be together
+up here, far up in the mountains, isolated in their love. Below the wall,
+on the side of the ravine, the leaves of the olives rustled faintly as
+the wind passed by. And this whisper of the leaves seemed to be meant for
+them, to be addressed to them. They were surely being told something by
+the little voices of the night.
+
+"Maurice," Hermione said, at last, "does this silence of the mountains
+make you wish for anything?"
+
+"Wish?" he said. "I don't know--no, I think not. I have got what I
+wanted. I have got you. Why should I wish for anything more? And I feel
+at home here. It's extraordinary how I feel at home."
+
+"You! No, it isn't extraordinary at all."
+
+She looked up at him, still keeping her arms on the terrace wall. His
+physical beauty, which had always fascinated her, moved her more than
+ever in the south, seemed to her to become greater, to have more meaning
+in this setting of beauty and romance. She thought of the old pagan gods.
+He was, indeed, suited to be their happy messenger. At that moment
+something within her more than loved him, worshipped him, felt for him an
+idolatry that had something in it of pain. A number of thoughts ran
+through her mind swiftly. One was this: "Can it be possible that he will
+die some day, that he will be dead?" And the awfulness, the unspeakable
+horror of the death of the body gripped her and shook her in the dark.
+
+"Oh, Maurice!" she said. "Maurice!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+She held out her hands to him. He took them and sat down by her.
+
+"What is it, Hermione?" he said again.
+
+"If beauty were only deathless!"
+
+"But--but all this is, for us. It was here for the old Greeks to see, and
+I suppose it will be here--"
+
+"I didn't mean that."
+
+"I've been stupid," he said, humbly.
+
+"No, my dearest--my dearest one. Oh, how did you ever love me?"
+
+She had forgotten the warning of Artois. The dirty little beggar was
+staring at the angel and wanted the angel to know it.
+
+"Hermione! What do you mean?"
+
+He looked at her, and there was genuine surprise in his face and in his
+voice.
+
+"How can you love me? I'm so ugly. Oh, I feel it here, I feel it horribly
+in the midst of--of all this loveliness, with you."
+
+She hid her face against his shoulder almost like one afraid.
+
+"But you are not ugly! What nonsense! Hermione!"
+
+He put his hand under her face and raised it, and the touch of his hand
+against her cheek made her tremble. To-night she more than loved, she
+worshipped him. Her intellect did not speak any more. Its voice was
+silenced by the voice of the heart, by the voices of the senses. She felt
+as if she would like to go down on her knees to him and thank him for
+having loved her, for loving her. Abasement would have been a joy to her
+just then, was almost a necessity, and yet there was pride in her, the
+decent pride of a pure-natured woman who has never let herself be soiled.
+
+"Hermione," he said, looking into her face. "Don't speak to me like that.
+It's all wrong. It puts me in the wrong place, I a fool and you--what you
+are. If that friend of yours could hear you--by Jove!"
+
+There was something so boyish, so simple in his voice that Hermione
+suddenly threw her arms round his neck and kissed him, as she might have
+kissed a delightful child. She began to laugh through tears.
+
+"Thank God you're not conceited!" she exclaimed.
+
+"What about?" he asked.
+
+But she did not answer. Presently they heard Gaspare's step on the
+terrace. He came to them bareheaded, with shining eyes, to ask if they
+were satisfied with Lucrezia. About himself he did not ask. He felt that
+he had done all things for his padrona as he alone could have done them,
+knowing her so well.
+
+"Gaspare," Hermione said, "everything is perfect. Tell Lucrezia."
+
+"Better not, signora. I will say you are fairly satisfied, as it is only
+the first day. Then she will try to do better to-morrow. I know
+Lucrezia."
+
+And he gazed at them calmly with his enormous liquid eyes.
+
+"Do not say too much, signora. It makes people proud."
+
+[Illustration: "HE ... LOOKED DOWN AT THE LIGHT SHINING IN THE HOUSE OF
+THE SIRENS"]
+
+She thought that she heard an odd Sicilian echo of Artois. The peasant
+lad's mind reflected the mind of the subtle novelist for a moment.
+
+"Very well, Gaspare," she said, submissively.
+
+He smiled at her with satisfaction.
+
+"I understand girls," he said. "You must keep them down or they will keep
+you down. Every girl in Marechiaro is like that. We keep them down
+therefore."
+
+He spoke calmly, evidently quite without thought that he was speaking to
+a woman.
+
+"May I go to bed, signora?" he added. "I got up at four this morning."
+
+"At four!"
+
+"To be sure all was ready for you and the signore."
+
+"Gaspare! Go at once. We will go to bed, too. Shall we, Maurice?"
+
+"Yes. I'm ready."
+
+Just as they were going up the steps into the house, he turned to take a
+last look at the night. Far down below him over the terrace wall he saw a
+bright, steady light.
+
+"Is that on the sea, Hermione?" he asked, pointing to it. "Do they fish
+there at night?"
+
+"Oh yes. No doubt it is a fisherman."
+
+Gaspare shook his head.
+
+"You understand?" said Hermione to him in Italian.
+
+"Si, signora. That is the light in the Casa delle Sirene."
+
+"But no one lives there."
+
+"Oh, it has been built up now, and Salvatore Buonavista lives there with
+Maddalena. Buon riposo, signora. Buon riposo, signore."
+
+"Buon riposo, Gaspare."
+
+And Maurice echoed it:
+
+"Buon riposo."
+
+As Gaspare went away round the angle of the cottage to his room near
+Tito's stable, Maurice added:
+
+"Buon riposo. It's an awfully nice way of saying good-night. I feel as if
+I'd said it before, somehow."
+
+"Your blood has said it without your knowing it, perhaps many times. Are
+you coming, Maurice?"
+
+He turned once more, looked down at the light shining in the house of the
+sirens, then followed Hermione in through the open door.
+
+
+
+V
+
+That spring-time in Sicily seemed to Hermione touched with a glamour such
+as the imaginative dreamer connects with an earlier world--a world that
+never existed save in the souls of dreamers, who weave tissues of gold to
+hide naked realities, and call down the stars to sparkle upon the
+dust-heaps of the actual. Hermione at first tried to make her husband see
+it with her eyes, live in it with her mind, enjoy it, or at least seem to
+enjoy it, with her heart. Did he not love her? But he did more; he looked
+up to her with reverence. In her love for him there was a yearning of
+worship, such as one gifted with the sense of the ideal is conscious of
+when he stands before one of the masterpieces of art, a perfect bronze or
+a supreme creation in marble. Something of what Hermione had felt in past
+years when she looked at "The Listening Mercury," or at the statue of a
+youth from Hadrian's Villa in the Capitoline Museum at Rome, she felt
+when she looked at Maurice, but the breath of life in him increased,
+instead of diminishing, her passion of admiration. And this sometimes
+surprised her. For she had thought till now that the dead sculptors of
+Greece and Rome had in their works succeeded in transcending humanity,
+had shown what God might have created instead of what He had created, and
+had never expected, scarcely ever even desired, to be moved by a living
+being as she was moved by certain representations of life in a material.
+Yet now she was so moved. There seemed to her in her husband's beauty
+something strange, something ideal, almost an other-worldliness, as if
+he had been before this age in which she loved him, had had an existence
+in the fabled world that the modern pagan loves to recall when he walks
+in a land where legend trembles in the flowers, and whispers in the
+trees, and is carried on the winds across the hill-sides, and lives again
+in the silver of the moon. Often she thought of him listening in a green
+glade to the piping of Pan, or feeding his flocks on Mount Latmos, like
+Endymion, and falling asleep to receive the kisses of Selene. Or she
+imagined him visiting Psyche in the hours of darkness, and fleeing,
+light-footed, before the coming of the dawn. He seemed to her ardent
+spirit to have stepped into her life from some Attic frieze out of a
+"fairy legend of old Greece," and the contact of daily companionship did
+not destroy in her the curious, almost mystical sensation roused in her
+by the peculiar, and essentially youthful charm which even Artois had
+been struck by in a London restaurant.
+
+This charm increased in Sicily. In London Maurice Delarey had seemed a
+handsome youth, with a delightfully fresh and almost woodland aspect that
+set him apart from the English people by whom he was surrounded. In
+Sicily he seemed at once to be in his right setting. He had said when he
+arrived that he felt as if he belonged to Sicily, and each day Sicily and
+he seemed to Hermione to be more dear to each other, more suited to each
+other. With a loving woman's fondness, which breeds fancies deliciously
+absurd, laughably touching, she thought of Sicily as having wanted this
+son of hers who was not in her bosom, as sinking into a golden calm of
+satisfaction now that he was there, hearing her "Pastorale," wandering
+upon her mountain-sides, filling his nostrils with the scent of her
+orange blossoms, swimming through the liquid silver of her cherishing
+seas.
+
+"I think Sicily's very glad that you are here," she said to him on one
+morning of peculiar radiance, when there was a freshness as of the
+world's first day in the air, and the shining on the sea was as the
+shining that came in answer to the words--"Let there be light!"
+
+In her worship, however, Hermione was not wholly blind. Because of the
+wakefulness of her powerful heart her powerful mind did not cease to be
+busy, but its work was supplementary to the work of her heart. She had
+realized in London that the man she loved was not a clever man, that
+there was nothing remarkable in his intellect. In Sicily she did not
+cease from realizing this, but she felt about it differently. In Sicily
+she actually loved and rejoiced in Delarey's mental shortcomings because
+they seemed to make for freshness, for boyishness, to link him more
+closely with the spring in their Eden. She adored in him something that
+was pagan, some spirit that seemed to shine on her from a dancing,
+playful, light-hearted world. And here in Sicily she presently grew to
+know that she would be a little saddened were her husband to change, to
+grow more thoughtful, more like herself. She had spoken to Artois of
+possible development in Maurice, of what she might do for him, and at
+first, just at first, she had instinctively exerted her influence over
+him to bring him nearer to her subtle ways of thought. And he had eagerly
+striven to respond, stirred by his love for her, and his reverence--not a
+very clever, but certainly a very affectionate reverence--for her
+brilliant qualities of brain. In those very first days together, isolated
+in their eyrie of the mountains, Hermione had let herself go--as she
+herself would have said. In her perfect happiness she felt that her mind
+was on fire because her heart was at peace. Wakeful, but not anxious,
+love woke imagination. The stirring of spring in this delicious land
+stirred all her eager faculties, and almost as naturally as a bird pours
+forth its treasure of music she poured forth her treasure, not only of
+love but of thought. For in such a nature as hers love prompts thought,
+not stifles it. In their long mountain walks, in their rides on muleback
+to distant villages, hidden in the recesses, or perched upon the crests
+of the rocks, in their quiet hours under the oak-trees when the noon
+wrapped all things in its cloak of gold, or on the terrace when the stars
+came out, and the shepherds led their flocks down to the valleys with
+little happy tunes, Hermione gave out all the sensitive thoughts,
+desires, aspirations, all the wonder, all the rest that beauty and
+solitude and nearness to nature in this isle of the south woke in her.
+She did not fear to be subtle, she did not fear to be trivial. Everything
+she noticed she spoke of, everything that the things she noticed
+suggested to her, she related. The sound of the morning breeze in the
+olive-trees seemed to her different from the sound of the breeze of
+evening. She tried to make Maurice hear, with her, the changing of the
+music, to make him listen, as she listened, to every sound, not only with
+the ears but with the imagination. The flush of the almond blossoms upon
+the lower slopes of the hills about Marechiaro, a virginal tint of joy
+against gray walls, gray rocks, made her look into the soul of the spring
+as her first lover alone looks into the soul of a maiden. She asked
+Maurice to look with her into that place of dreams, and to ponder with
+her over the mystery of the everlasting renewal of life. The sight of the
+sea took her away into a fairy-land of thought. Far down below, seen over
+rocks and tree-tops and downward falling mountain flanks, it spread away
+towards Africa in a plain that seemed to slope upward to a horizon-line
+immensely distant. Often it was empty of ships, but when a sail came,
+like a feather on the blue, moving imperceptibly, growing clearer, then
+fading until taken softly by eternity--that was Hermione's feeling--that
+sail was to her like a voice from the worlds we never know, but can
+imagine, some of us, worlds of mystery that is not sad, and of joys
+elusive but ineffable, sweet and strange as the cry of echo at twilight,
+when the first shadows clasp each other by the hand, and the horn of the
+little moon floats with a shy radiance out of its hiding-place in the
+bosom of the sky. She tried to take Maurice with her whence the sail
+came, whither it went. She saw Sicily perhaps as it was, but also as she
+was. She felt the spring in Sicily, but not only as that spring, spring
+of one year, but as all the springs that have dawned on loving women, and
+laughed with green growing things about their feet. Her passionate
+imagination now threw gossamers before, now drew gossamers away from a
+holy of holies that no man could ever enter. And she tried to make that
+holy of holies Maurice's habitual sitting-room. It was a tender, glorious
+attempt to compass the impossible.
+
+All this was at first. But Hermione was generally too clear-brained to be
+long tricked even by her own enthusiasms. She soon began to understand
+that though Maurice might wish to see, to feel all things as she saw and
+felt them, his effort to do so was but a gallant attempt of love in a man
+who thought he had married his superior. Really his outlook on Sicily and
+the spring was naturally far more like Gaspare's. She watched in a
+rapture of wonder, enjoyed with a passion of gratitude. But Gaspare was
+in and was of all that she was wondering about, thanking God for, part of
+the phenomenon, a dancer in the exquisite tarantella. And Maurice, too,
+on that first day had he not obeyed Sebastiano's call? Soon she knew that
+when she had sat alone on the terrace seat, and seen the dancers losing
+all thought of time and the hour in the joy of their moving bodies, while
+hers was still, the scene had been prophetic. In that moment Maurice had
+instinctively taken his place in the mask of the spring and she hers.
+Their bodies had uttered their minds. She was the passionate watcher, but
+he was the passionate performer. Therefore she was his audience. She had
+travelled out to be in Sicily, but he, without knowing it, had travelled
+out to be Sicily.
+
+There was a great difference between them, but, having realized it
+thoroughly, Hermione was able not to regret but to delight in it. She did
+not wish to change her lover, and she soon understood that were Maurice
+to see with her eyes, hear with her ears, and understand with her heart,
+he would be completely changed, and into something not natural, like a
+performing dog or a child prodigy, something that rouses perhaps
+amazement, combined too often with a faint disgust. And ceasing to desire
+she ceased to endeavor.
+
+"I shall never develop Maurice," she thought, remembering her
+conversation with Artois. "And, thank God, I don't want to now."
+
+And then she set herself to watch her Sicilian, as she loved to call him,
+enjoying the spring in Sicily in his own way, dancing the tarantella with
+surely the spirit of eternal youth. He had, she thought, heard the call
+of the blood and responded to it fully and openly, fearless and
+unashamed. Day by day, seeing his boyish happiness in this life of the
+mountains and the sea, she laughed at the creeping, momentary sense of
+apprehension that had been roused in her during her conversation with
+Artois upon the Thames Embankment. Artois had said that he distrusted
+what he loved. That was the flaw in an over-intellectual man. The mind
+was too alert, too restless, dogging the steps of the heart like a spy,
+troubling the heart with an eternal uneasiness. But she could trust where
+she loved. Maurice was open as a boy in these early days in the garden of
+paradise. He danced the tarantella while she watched him, then threw
+himself down beside her, laughing, to rest.
+
+The strain of Sicilian blood that was in him worked in him curiously,
+making her sometimes marvel at the mysterious power of race, at the
+stubborn and almost tyrannical domination some dead have over some
+living, those who are dust over those who are quick with animation and
+passion. Everything that was connected with Sicily and with Sicilian life
+not only reached his senses and sank easily into his heart, but seemed
+also to rouse his mind to an activity that astonished her. In connection
+with Sicily he showed a swiftness, almost a cleverness, she never noted
+in him when things Sicilian were not in question.
+
+For instance, like most Englishmen, Maurice had no great talent for
+languages. He spoke French fairly well, having had a French nurse when he
+was a child, and his mother had taught him a little Italian. But till now
+he had never had any desire to be proficient in any language except his
+own. Hermione, on the other hand, was gifted as a linguist, loving
+languages and learning them easily. Yet Maurice picked up--in his case
+the expression, usually ridiculous, was absolutely applicable--Sicilian
+with a readiness that seemed to Hermione almost miraculous. He showed no
+delight in the musical beauty of Italian. What he wanted, and what his
+mind--or was it rather what his ears and his tongue and his lips?--took,
+and held and revelled in, was the Sicilian dialect spoken by Lucrezia and
+Gaspare when they were together, spoken by the peasants of Marechiaro and
+of the mountains. To Hermione Gaspare had always talked Italian,
+incorrect, but still Italian, and she spoke no dialect, although she
+could often guess at what the Sicilians meant when they addressed her in
+their vigorous but uncouth jargon, different from Italian almost as
+Gaelic is from English. But Maurice very soon began to speak a few words
+of Sicilian. Hermione laughed at him and discouraged him jokingly,
+telling him that he must learn Italian thoroughly, the language of love,
+the most melodious language in the world.
+
+"Italian!" he said. "What's the use of it? I want to talk to the people.
+A grammar! I won't open it. Gaspare's my professor. Gaspare! Gaspare!"
+
+Gaspare came rushing bareheaded to them in the sun.
+
+"The signora says I'm to learn Italian, but I say that I've Sicilian
+blood in my veins and must talk as you do."
+
+"But I, signore, can speak Italian!" said Gaspare, with twinkling pride.
+
+"As a bear dances. No, professor, you and I, we'll be good patriots.
+We'll speak in our mother-tongue. You rascal, you know we've begun
+already."
+
+And looking mischievously at Hermione, he began to sing in a loud, warm
+voice:
+
+               "Cu Gabbi e Jochi e Parti e Mascarati,
+               Si fa lu giubileu universali.
+               Tiripi-tumpiti, tumpiti, tumpiti,
+               Milli cardubuli 'n culu ti puncinu!"
+
+Gaspare burst into a roar of delighted laughter.
+
+"It's the tarantella over again," Hermione said. "You're a hopeless
+Sicilian. I give you up."
+
+That same day she said to him:
+
+"You love the peasants, don't you, Maurice?"
+
+"Yes. Are you surprised?"
+
+"No; at least I'm not surprised at your loving them."
+
+"Well, then, Hermione?"
+
+"Perhaps a little at the way you love them."
+
+"What way's that?"
+
+"Almost as they love each other--that's to say, when they love each other
+at all. Gaspare now! I believe you feel more as if he were a young
+brother of yours than as if he were your servant."
+
+"Perhaps I do. Gaspare is terrible, a regular donna[1] of a boy in spite
+of all his mischief and fun. You should hear him talk of you. He'd die
+for his padrona."
+
+[Footnote: 1. The Sicilians use the word "donna" to express the meaning
+we convey by the word "trump."]
+
+"I believe he would. In love, the love that means being in love, I think
+Sicilians, though tremendously jealous, are very fickle, but if they take
+a devotion to any one, without being in love, they're rocks. It's a
+splendid quality."
+
+"If they've got faults, I love their faults," he said. "They're a lovable
+race."
+
+"Praising yourself!" she said, laughing at him, but with tender eyes.
+
+"Myself?"
+
+"Never mind. What is it, Gaspare?"
+
+Gaspare had come upon the terrace, his eyes shining with happiness and a
+box under his arm.
+
+"The signore knows."
+
+"Revolver practice," said Maurice. "I promised him he should have a try
+to-day. We're going to a place close by on the mountain. He's warned off
+Ciccio and his goats. Got the paper, Gaspare?"
+
+Gaspare pointed to a bulging pocket.
+
+"Enough to write a novel on. Well--will you come, Hermione?"
+
+"It's too hot in the sun, and I know you're going into the eye of the
+sun."
+
+"You see, it's the best place up at the top. There's that stone wall,
+and--"
+
+"I'll stay here and listen to your music."
+
+They went off together, climbing swiftly upward into the heart of the
+gold, and singing as they went:
+
+               "Ciao, ciao, ciao,
+               Morettina bella, ciao--"
+
+Their voices died away, and with them the dry noise of stones falling
+downward from their feet on the sunbaked mountain-side. Hermione sat
+still on the seat by the ravine.
+
+               "Ciao, ciao, ciao!"
+
+She thought of the young peasants going off to be soldiers, and singing
+that song to keep their hearts up. Some day, perhaps, Gaspare would have
+to go. He was the eldest of his family, and had brothers. Maurice sang
+that song like a Sicilian lad. She thought, she began to think, that even
+the timbre of his voice was Sicilian. There was the warm, and yet
+plaintive, sometimes almost whining sound in it that she had often heard
+coming up from the vineyards and the olive groves. Why was she always
+comparing him with the peasants? He was not of their rank. She had met
+many Sicilians of the nobility in Palermo--princes, senators, young men
+of fashion, who gambled and danced and drove in the Giardino Inglese.
+Maurice did not remind her at all of them. No, it was of the Sicilian
+peasants that he reminded her, and yet he was a gentleman. She wondered
+what Maurice's grandmother had been like. She was long since dead.
+Maurice had never seen her. Yet how alive she, and perhaps brothers of
+hers, and their children, were in him, how almost miraculously alive!
+Things that had doubtless stirred in them--instincts, desires,
+repugnances, joys--were stirring in him, dominating his English
+inheritance. It was like a new birth in the sun of Sicily, and she was
+assisting at it. Very, very strange it was. And strange, too, it was to
+be so near to one so different from herself, to be joined to him by the
+greatest of all links, the link that is forged by the free will of a man
+and a woman. Again, in thought, she went back to her comparison of things
+in him with things in the peasants of Sicily. She remembered that she had
+once heard a brilliant man, not a Sicilian, say of them, "With all their
+faults, and they are many, every Sicilian, even though he wear the long
+cap and live in a hut with the pigs, is a gentleman." So the peasant, if
+there were peasant in Maurice, could never disturb, never offend her. And
+she loved the primitive man in him and in all men who had it. There was a
+good deal that was primitive in her. She never called herself democrat,
+socialist, radical, never christened herself with any name to describe
+her mental leanings, but she knew that, for a well-born woman--and she
+was that, child of an old English family of pure blood and high
+traditions--she was remarkably indifferent to rank, its claims, its
+pride. She felt absolutely "in her bones," as she would have said, that
+all men and women are just human beings, brothers and sisters of a great
+family. In judging of individuals she could never be influenced by
+anything except physical qualities, and qualities of the heart and mind,
+qualities that might belong to any man. She was affected by habits,
+manners--what woman of breeding is not?--but even these could scarcely
+warp her judgment if they covered anything fine. She could find gold
+beneath mud and forget the mud.
+
+Maurice was like the peasants, not like the Palermitan aristocracy. He
+was near to the breast of Sicily, of that mother of many nations, who had
+come to conquer, and had fought, and bled, and died, or been expelled,
+but had left indefaceable traces behind them, traces of Norman of Greek
+of Arab. He was no cosmopolitan with characteristics blurred; he was of
+the soil. Well, she loved the soil dearly. The almond blossomed from it.
+The olive gave its fruit, and the vine its generous blood, and the orange
+its gold, at the word of the soil, the dear, warm earth of Sicily. She
+thought of Maurice's warm hands, brown now as Gaspare's. How she loved
+his hands, and his eyes that shone with the lustre of the south! Had not
+this soil, in very truth, given those hands and those eyes to her? She
+felt that it had. She loved it more for the gift. She had reaped and
+garnered in her blessed Sicilian harvest.
+
+Lucrezia came to her round the angle of the cottage, knowing she was
+alone. Lucrezia was mending a hole in a sock for Gaspare. Now she sat
+down on the seat under the window, divided from Hermione by the terrace,
+but able to see her, to feel companionship. Had the padrone been there
+Lucrezia would not have ventured to come. Gaspare had often explained to
+her her very humble position in the household. But Gaspare and the
+padrone were away on the mountain-top, and she could not resist being
+near to her padrona, for whom she already felt a very real affection and
+admiration.
+
+"Is it a big hole, Lucrezia?" said Hermione, smiling at her.
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+Lucrezia put her thumb through it, holding it up on her fist.
+
+"Gaspare's holes are always big."
+
+She spoke as if in praise.
+
+"Gaspare is strong," she added. "But Sebastiano is stronger."
+
+As she said the last words a dreamy look came into her round face, and
+she dropped the hand that held the stocking into her lap.
+
+"Sebastiano is hard like the rocks, signora."
+
+"Hard-hearted, Lucrezia."
+
+Lucrezia said nothing.
+
+"You like Sebastiano, Lucrezia?"
+
+Lucrezia reddened under her brown skin.
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+"So do I. He's always been a good friend of mine."
+
+Lucrezia shifted along the seat until she was nearly opposite to where
+Hermione was sitting.
+
+"How old is he?"
+
+"Twenty-five, signora."
+
+"I suppose he will be marrying soon, won't he? The men all marry young
+round about Marechiaro."
+
+Lucrezia began to darn.
+
+"His father, Chinetti Urbano, wishes him to marry at once. It is better
+for a man."
+
+"You understand men, Lucrezia?"
+
+"Si, signora. They are all alike."
+
+"And what are they like?"
+
+"Oh, signora, you know as well as I do. They must have their own way and
+we must not think to have ours. They must roam where they like, love
+where they choose, day or night, and we must sit in the doorway and get
+to bed at dark, and not bother where they've been or what they've done.
+They say we've no right, except one or two. There's Francesco, to be
+sure. He's a lamb with Maria. She can sit with her face to the street.
+But she wouldn't sit any other way, and he knows it. But the rest! Eh,
+gia!"
+
+"You don't think much of men, Lucrezia!"
+
+"Oh, signora, they're just as God made them. They can't help it any more
+than we can help--"
+
+She stopped and pursed her lips suddenly, as if checking some words that
+were almost on them.
+
+"Lucrezia, come here and sit by me."
+
+Lucrezia looked up with a sort of doubtful pleasure and surprise.
+
+"Signora?"
+
+"Come here."
+
+Lucrezia got up and came slowly to the seat by the ravine. Hermione took
+her hand.
+
+"You like Sebastiano very much, don't you?"
+
+Lucrezia hung her head.
+
+"Si, signora," she whispered.
+
+"Do you think he'd be good to a woman if she loved him?"
+
+"I shouldn't care. Bad or good, I'd--I'd--"
+
+Suddenly, with a sort of childish violence, she put her two hands on
+Hermione's arms.
+
+"I want Sebastiano, signora; I want him!" she cried. "I've prayed to the
+Madonna della Rocca to give him to me; all last year I've prayed, and
+this. D'you think the Madonna's going to do it? Do you? Do you?"
+
+Heat came out of her two hands, and heat flashed in her eyes. Her broad
+bosom heaved, and her lips, still parted when she had done speaking,
+seemed to interrogate Hermione fiercely in the silence. Before Hermione
+could reply two sounds came to them: from below in the ravine the distant
+drone of the ceramella, from above on the mountain-top the dry crack of a
+pistol-shot.
+
+Swiftly Lucrezia turned and looked downward, but Hermione looked upward
+towards the bare flank that rose behind the cottage.
+
+"It's Sebastiano, signora."
+
+The ceramella droned on, moving slowly with its player on the hidden path
+beneath the olive-trees.
+
+A second pistol-shot rang out sharply.
+
+"Go down and meet him, Lucrezia."
+
+"May I--may I, really, signora?"
+
+"Yes; go quickly."
+
+Lucrezia bent down and kissed her padrona's hand.
+
+"Bacio la mano, bacio la mano a Lei!"
+
+Then, bareheaded, she went out from the awning into the glare of the
+sunshine, passed through the ruined archway, and disappeared among the
+rocks. She had gone to her music. Hermione stayed to listen to hers, the
+crack of the pistol up there near the blue sky.
+
+Sebastiano was playing the tune she loved, the "Pastorale," but to-day
+she did not heed it. Indeed, now that she was left alone she was not
+conscious that she heard it. Her heart was on the hill-top near the blue.
+
+Again and again the shots rang out. It seemed to Hermione that she knew
+which were fired by Maurice and which by Gaspare, and she whispered to
+herself "That's Maurice!" when she fancied one was his. Presently she was
+aware of some slight change and wondered what it was. Something had
+ceased, and its cessation recalled her mind to her surroundings. She
+looked round her, then down to the ravine, and then at once she
+understood. There was no more music from the ceramella. Lucrezia had met
+Sebastiano under the olives. That was certain. Hermione smiled. Her
+woman's imagination pictured easily enough why the player had stopped.
+She hoped Lucrezia was happy. Her first words, still more her manner, had
+shown Hermione the depth of her heart. There was fire there, fire that
+burned before a shrine when she prayed to the Madonna della Rocca. She
+was ready even to be badly treated if only she might have Sebastiano. It
+seemed to be all one to her. She had no illusions, but her heart knew
+what it needed.
+
+Crack went the pistol up on the mountain-top.
+
+"That's not Maurice!" Hermione thought.
+
+There was another report, then another.
+
+"That last one was Maurice!"
+
+Lucrezia did not seem even to expect a man to be true and faithful.
+Perhaps she knew the Sicilian character too well. Hermione lifted her
+face up and looked towards the mountain. Her mind had gone once more to
+the Thames Embankment. As once she had mentally put Gaspare beside
+Artois, so now she mentally put Lucrezia. Lucrezia distrusted the south,
+and she was of it. Men must be as God had made them, she said, and
+evidently she thought that God had made them to run wild, careless of
+woman's feelings, careless of everything save their own vagrant desires.
+The tarantella--that was the dance of the soil here, the dance of the
+blood. And in the tarantella each of the dancers seemed governed by his
+own sweet will, possessed by a merry, mad devil, whose promptings he
+followed with a sort of gracious and charming violence, giving himself up
+joyously, eagerly, utterly--to what? To his whim. Was the tarantella an
+allegory of life here? How strangely well Maurice had danced it on that
+first day of their arrival. She felt again that sense of separation which
+brought with it a faint and creeping melancholy.
+
+"Crack! Crack!"
+
+She got up from the seat by the ravine. Suddenly the sound of the firing
+was distressing to her, almost sinister, and she liked Lucrezia's music
+better. For it suggested tenderness of the soil, and tenderness of faith,
+and a glory of antique things both pagan and Christian. But the
+reiterated pistol-shots suggested violence, death, ugly things.
+
+"Maurice!" she called, going out into the sun and gazing up towards the
+mountain-top. "Maurice!"
+
+The pistol made reply. They had not heard her. They were too far or were
+too intent upon their sport to hear.
+
+"Maurice!" she called again, in a louder voice, almost as a person calls
+for help. Another pistol-shot answered her, mocking at her in the sun.
+Then she heard a distant peal of laughter. It did not seem to her to be
+either Maurice's or Gaspare's laughter. It was like the laughter of
+something she could not personify, of some jeering spirit of the
+mountain. It died away at last, and she stood there, shivering in the
+sunshine.
+
+"Signora! Signora!"
+
+Sebastiano's lusty voice came to her from below. She turned and saw him
+standing with Lucrezia on the terrace, and his arm was round Lucrezia's
+waist. He took off his cap and waved it, but he still kept one arm round
+Lucrezia.
+
+Hermione hesitated, looking once more towards the mountain-top. But
+something within her held her back from climbing up to the distant
+laughter, a feeling, an idiotic feeling she called it to herself
+afterwards. She had shivered in the sunshine, but it was not a feeling of
+fear.
+
+"Am I wanted up there?"
+
+That was what something within her said. And the answer was made by her
+body. She turned and began to descend towards the terrace.
+
+And at that moment, for the first time in her life, she was conscious of
+a little stab of pain such as she had never known before. It was pain of
+the mind and of the heart, and yet it was like bodily pain, too. It made
+her angry with herself. It was like a betrayal, a betrayal of herself by
+her own intellect, she thought.
+
+She stopped once more on the mountain-side.
+
+"Am I going to be ridiculous?" she said to herself. "Am I going to be one
+of the women I despise?"
+
+Just then she realized that love may become a tyrant, ministering to the
+soul with persecutions.
+
+
+
+VI
+
+Sebastiano took his arm from Lucrezia's waist as Hermione came down to
+the terrace, and said:
+
+"Buona sera, signora. Is the signore coming down yet?"
+
+He flung out his arm towards the mountain.
+
+"I don't know, Sebastiano. Why?"
+
+"I've come with a message for him."
+
+"Not for Lucrezia?"
+
+Sebastiano laughed boldly, but Lucrezia, blushing red, disappeared into
+the kitchen.
+
+"Don't play with her, Sebastiano," said Hermione. "She's a good girl."
+
+"I know that, signora."
+
+"She deserves to be well treated."
+
+Sebastiano went over to the terrace wall, looked into the ravine, turned
+round, and came back.
+
+"Who's treating Lucrezia badly, signora?"
+
+"I did not say anybody was."
+
+"The girls in Marechiaro can take care of themselves, signora. You don't
+know them as I do."
+
+"D'you think any woman can take care of herself, Sebastiano?"
+
+He looked into her face and laughed, but said nothing. Hermione sat down.
+She had a desire to-day, after Lucrezia's conversation with her, to get
+at the Sicilian man's point of view in regard to women.
+
+"Don't you think women want to be protected?" she asked.
+
+"What from, signora?"
+
+There was still laughter in his eyes.
+
+"Not from us, anyway," he added. "Lucrezia there--she wants me for her
+husband. All Marechiaro knows it."
+
+Hermione felt that under the circumstances it was useless to blush for
+Lucrezia, useless to meet blatant frankness with sensitive delicacy.
+
+"Do you want Lucrezia for your wife?" she said.
+
+"Well, signora, I'm strong. A stick or a knife in my hand and no man can
+touch me. You've never seen me do the scherma con coltello? One day I'll
+show you with Gaspare. And I can play better even than the men from
+Bronte on the ceramella. You've heard me. Lucrezia knows I can have any
+girl I like."
+
+There was a simplicity in his immense superiority to women that robbed it
+of offensiveness and almost made Hermione laugh. In it, too, she felt the
+touch of the East. Arabs had been in Sicily and left their traces there,
+not only in the buildings of Sicily, but in its people's songs, and in
+the treatment of the women by the men.
+
+"And are you going to choose Lucrezia?" she asked, gravely.
+
+"Signora, I wasn't sure. But yesterday, I had a letter from Messina. They
+want me there. I've got a job that'll pay me well to go to the Lipari
+Islands with a cargo."
+
+"Are you a sailor, too?"
+
+"Signora, I can do anything."
+
+"And will you be long away?"
+
+"Who knows, signora? But I told Lucrezia to-day, and when she cried I
+told her something else. We are 'promised.'"
+
+"I am glad," Hermione said, holding out her hand to him.
+
+He took it in an iron grip.
+
+"Be very good to her when you're married, won't you?"
+
+"Oh, she'll be all right with me," he answered, carelessly. "And I won't
+give her the slap in the face on the wedding-day."
+
+"Hi--yi--yi--yi--yi!"
+
+There was a shrill cry from the mountain and Maurice and Gaspare came
+leaping down, scattering the stones, the revolvers still in their hands.
+
+"Look, signora, look!" cried Gaspare, pulling a sheet of paper from his
+pocket and holding it proudly up. "Do you see the holes? One, two,
+three--"
+
+He began to count.
+
+"And I made five. Didn't I, signore?"
+
+"You're a dead shot, Gasparino. Did you hear us, Hermione?"
+
+"Yes," she said. "But you didn't hear me."
+
+"You? Did you call?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Sebastiano's got a message for you," Hermione said.
+
+She could not tell him now the absurd impulse that had made her call him.
+
+"What's the message, Sebastiano?" asked Maurice, in his stumbling
+Sicilian-Italian that was very imperfect, but that nevertheless had
+already the true accent of the peasants about Marechiaro.
+
+"Signore, there will be a moon to-night."
+
+"Gia. Lo so."
+
+"Are you sleepy, signorino?"
+
+He touched his eyes with his sinewy hands and made his face look drowsy.
+Maurice laughed.
+
+"No."
+
+"Are you afraid of being naked in the sea at night? But you need not
+enter it. Are you afraid of sleeping at dawn in a cave upon the sands?"
+
+"What is it all?" asked Maurice. "Gaspare, I understand you best."
+
+"I know," said Gaspare, joyously. "It's the fishing. Nito has sent. I
+told him to. Is it Nito, Sebastiano?"
+
+Sebastiano nodded. Gaspare turned eagerly to Maurice.
+
+"Oh, signore, you must come, you will come!"
+
+"Where? In a boat?"
+
+"No. We go down to the shore, to Isola Bella. We take food, wine, red
+wine, and a net. Between twenty-two and twenty-three o'clock is the time
+to begin. And the sea must be calm. Is the sea calm to-day, Sebastiano?"
+
+"Like that."
+
+Sebastiano moved his hand to and fro in the air, keeping it absolutely
+level. Gaspare continued to explain with gathering excitement and
+persuasiveness, talking to his master as much by gesture as by the words
+that Maurice could only partially understand.
+
+"The sea is calm. Nito has the net, but he will not go into the sea. Per
+Dio, he is birbante. He will say he has the rheumatism, I know, and walk
+like that." (Gaspare hobbled to and fro before them, making a face of
+acute suffering.) "He has asked for me. Hasn't Nito asked for me,
+Sebastiano?"
+
+Here Gaspare made a grimace at Sebastiano, who answered, calmly:
+
+"Yes, he has asked for you to come with the padrone."
+
+"I knew it. Then I shall undress. I shall take one end of the net while
+Nito holds the other, and I shall go out into the sea. I shall go up to
+here." (He put his hands up to his chin, stretching his neck like one
+avoiding a rising wave.) "And I shall wade, you'll see!--and if I come to
+a hole I shall swim. I can swim for hours, all day if I choose."
+
+"And all night too?" said Hermione, smiling at his excitement.
+
+"Davvero! But at night I must drink wine to keep out the cold. I come out
+like this." (He shivered violently, making his teeth chatter.) "Then I
+drink a glass and I am warm, and when they have taken the fish I go in
+again. We fish all along the shore from Isola Bella round by the point
+there, where there's the Casa delle Sirene, and to the caves beyond the
+Caffe Berardi. And when we've got enough--many fish--at dawn we sleep on
+the sand. And when the sun is up Carmela will take the fish and make a
+frittura, and we all eat it and drink more wine, and then--"
+
+"And then--you're ready for the Campo Santo?" said Hermione.
+
+"No, signora. Then we will dance the tarantella, and come home up the
+mountain singing, 'O sole mio!' and 'A mezzanotte a punto,' and the song
+of the Mafioso, and--"
+
+Hermione began to laugh unrestrainedly. Gaspare, by his voice, his face,
+his gestures, had made them assist at a veritable orgie of labor,
+feasting, sleep, and mirth, all mingled together and chasing one another
+like performers in a revel. Even his suggestion of slumber on the sands
+was violent, as if they were to sleep with a kind of fury of excitement
+and determination.
+
+"Signora!" he cried, staring as if ready to be offended.
+
+Then he looked at Maurice, who was laughing, too, threw himself back
+against the wall, opened his mouth, and joined in with all his heart. But
+suddenly he stopped. His face changed, became very serious.
+
+"I may go, signora?" he asked. "No one can fish as I can. The others will
+not go in far, and they soon get cold and want to put on their clothes.
+And the padrone! I must take care of the padrone! Guglielmo, the
+contadino, will sleep in the house, I know. Shall I call him? Guglielmo!
+Guglielmo!"
+
+He vanished like a flash, they scarcely knew in what direction.
+
+"He's alive!" exclaimed Maurice. "By Jove, he's alive, that boy!
+Glorious, glorious life! Oh, there's something here that--"
+
+He broke off, looked down at the broad sea shimmering in the sun, then
+said:
+
+"The sun, the sea, the music, the people, the liberty--it goes to my
+head, it intoxicates me."
+
+"You'll go to-night?" she said.
+
+"D'you mind if I do?"
+
+"Mind? No. I want you to go. I want you to revel in this happy time, this
+splendid, innocent, golden time. And to-morrow we'll watch for you,
+Lucrezia and I, watch for you down there on the path. But--you'll bring
+us some of the fish, Maurice? You won't forget us?"
+
+"Forget you!" he said. "You shall have all--"
+
+"No, no. Only the little fish, the babies that Carmela rejects from the
+frittura."
+
+"I'll go into the sea with Gaspare," said Maurice.
+
+"I'm sure you will, and farther out even than he does."
+
+"Ah, he'll never allow that. He'd swim to Africa first!"
+
+That night, at twenty-one o'clock, Hermione and Lucrezia stood under the
+arch, and watched Maurice and Gaspare springing down the mountain-side as
+if in seven-leagued boots. Soon they disappeared into the darkness of the
+ravine, but for some time their loud voices could be heard singing
+lustily:
+
+                    "Ciao, ciao, ciao,
+                    Morettina bella ciao,
+                    Prima di partire
+                    Un bacio ti voglio da';
+                    Un bacio al papa,
+                    Un bacio alla mamma,
+                    Cinquanta alla mia fidanzata,
+                    Che vado a far solda'."
+
+"I wish I were a man, Lucrezia," said Hermione, when the voices at length
+died away towards the sea.
+
+"Signora, we were made for the men. They weren't made for us. But I like
+being a girl."
+
+"To-night. I know why, Lucrezia."
+
+And then the padrona and the cameriera sat down together on the terrace
+under the stars, and talked together about the man the cameriera loved,
+and his exceeding glory.
+
+Meanwhile, Maurice and Gaspare were giving themselves joyously to the
+glory of the night. The glamour of the moon, which lay full upon the
+terrace where the two women sat, was softened, changed to a shadowy
+magic, in the ravine where the trees grew thickly, but the pilgrims did
+not lower their voices in obedience to the message of the twilight of the
+night. The joy of life which was leaping within them defied the subtle
+suggestions of mystery, was careless because it was triumphant, and all
+the way down to the sea they sang, Gaspare changing the song when it
+suited his mood to do so; and Maurice, as in the tarantella, imitating
+him with the swiftness that is born of sympathy. For to-night, despite
+their different ages, ranks, ways of life, their gayety linked them
+together, ruled out the differences, and made them closely akin, as they
+had been in Hermione's eyes when they danced upon the terrace. They did
+not watch the night. They were living too strongly to be watchful. The
+spirit of the dancing faun was upon them, and guided them down among the
+rocks and the olive-trees, across the Messina road, white under the moon,
+to the stony beach of Isola Bella, where Nito was waiting for them with
+the net.
+
+Nito was not alone. He had brought friends of his and of Gaspare's, and a
+boy who staggered proudly beneath a pannier filled with bread and cheese,
+oranges and apples, and dark blocks of a mysterious dolce. The
+wine-bottles were not intrusted to him, but were in the care of Giulio,
+one of the donkey-boys who had carried up the luggage from the station.
+Gaspare and his padrone were welcomed with a lifting of hats, and for a
+moment there was a silence, while the little group regarded the
+"Inglese" searchingly. Had Maurice felt any strangeness, any aloofness,
+the sharp and sensitive Sicilians would have at once been conscious of
+it, and light-hearted gayety might have given way to gravity, though not
+to awkwardness. But he felt, and therefore showed, none. His soft hat
+cocked at an impudent angle over his sparkling, dark eyes, his laughing
+lips, his easy, eager manner, and his pleasant familiarity with Gaspare
+at once reassured everybody, and when he cried out, "Ciao, amici, ciao!"
+and waved a pair of bathing drawers towards the sea, indicating that he
+was prepared to be the first to go in with the net, there was a general
+laugh, and a babel of talk broke forth--talk which he did not fully
+understand, yet which did not make him feel even for a moment a stranger.
+
+Gaspare at once took charge of the proceedings as one born to be a leader
+of fishermen. He began by ordering wine to be poured into the one glass
+provided, placed it in Maurice's hand, and smiled proudly at his pupil's
+quick "Alla vostra salute!" before tossing it off. Then each one in turn,
+with an "Alla sua salute!" to Maurice, took a drink from the great,
+leather bottle; and Nito, shaking out his long coil of net, declared that
+it was time to get to work.
+
+Gaspare cast a sly glance at Maurice, warning him to be prepared for a
+comedy, and Maurice at once remembered the scene on the terrace when
+Gaspare had described Nito's "birbante" character, and looked out for
+rheumatics.
+
+"Who goes into the sea, Nito?" asked Gaspare, very seriously.
+
+Nito's wrinkled and weather-beaten face assumed an expression of
+surprise.
+
+"Who goes into the sea!" he ejaculated. "Why, don't we all know who likes
+wading, and can always tell the best places for the fish?"
+
+He paused, then as Gaspare said nothing, and the others, who had received
+a warning sign from him, stood round with deliberately vacant faces, he
+added, clapping Gaspare on the shoulder, and holding out one end of the
+net:
+
+"Off with your clothes, compare, and we will soon have a fine frittura
+for Carmela."
+
+But Gaspare shook his head.
+
+"In summer I don't mind. But this is early in the year, and, besides--"
+
+"Early in the year! Who told me the signore distinto would--"
+
+"And besides, compare, I've got the stomach-ache."
+
+He deftly doubled himself up and writhed, while the lips of the others
+twitched with suppressed amusement.
+
+"Comparedro, I don't believe it!"
+
+"Haven't I, signorino?" cried Gaspare, undoubling himself, pointing to
+his middleman, and staring hard at Maurice.
+
+"Si, si! E vero, e vero!" cried Maurice.
+
+"I've been eating Zampaglione, and I am full. If I go into the sea
+to-night I shall die."
+
+"Mamma mia!" ejaculated Nito, throwing up his hands towards the stars.
+
+He dared not give the lie to the "signore distinto," yet he had no trust
+in Gaspare's word, and had gained no sort of conviction from his eloquent
+writhings.
+
+"You must go in, Nito," said Gaspare.
+
+"I--Madonna!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Why not?" cried Nito, in a plaintive whine that was almost feminine. "I
+go into the sea with my rheumatism!"
+
+Abruptly one of his legs gave way, and he stood before them in a crooked
+attitude.
+
+"Signore," he said to Maurice. "I would go into the sea, I would stay
+there all night, for I love it, but Dr. Marini has forbidden me to enter
+it. See how I walk!"
+
+And he began to hobble up and down exactly as Gaspare had on the terrace,
+looking over his shoulder at Maurice all the time to see whether his
+deception was working well. Gaspare, seeing that Nito's attention was for
+the moment concentrated, slipped away behind a boat that was drawn up on
+the beach; and Maurice, guessing what he was doing, endeavored to make
+Nito understand his sympathy.
+
+"Molto forte--molto dolore?" he said.
+
+"Si, signore!"
+
+And Nito burst forth into a vehement account of his sufferings,
+accompanied by pantomime.
+
+"It takes me in the night, signore! Madonna, it is like rats gnawing at
+my legs, and nothing will stop it. Pancrazia--she is my wife,
+signore--Pancrazia, she gets out of bed and she heats oil to rub it on,
+but she might as well put it on the top of Etna for all the good it does
+me. And there I lie like a--"
+
+"Hi--yi--yi--yi--yi!"
+
+A wild shriek rent the air, and Gaspare, clad in a pair of bathing
+drawers, bounded out from behind the boat, gave Nito a cuff on the cheek,
+executed some steps of the tarantella, whirled round, snatched up one end
+of the net, and cried:
+
+"Al mare, al mare!"
+
+Nito's rheumatism was no more. His bent leg straightened itself as if by
+magic, and he returned Gaspare's cuff by an affectionate slap on his bare
+shoulder, exclaiming to Maurice:
+
+"Isn't he terribile, signore? Isn't he terribile?"
+
+Nito lifted up the other end of the net and they all went down to the
+shore.
+
+That night it seemed to Delarey as if Sicily drew him closer to her
+breast. He did not know why he had now for the first time the sensation
+that at last he was really in his natural place, was really one with the
+soil from which an ancestor of his had sprung, and with the people who
+had been her people. That Hermione's absence had anything to do with his
+almost wild sense of freedom did not occur to him. All he knew was this,
+that alone among these Sicilian fishermen in the night, not understanding
+much of what they said, guessing at their jokes, and sharing in their
+laughter, without always knowing what had provoked it, he was perfectly
+at home, perfectly happy.
+
+Gaspare went into the sea, wading carefully through the silver waters,
+and Maurice, from the shore, watched his slowly moving form, taking a
+lesson which would be useful to him later. The coast-line looked
+enchanted in the glory of the moon, in the warm silence of the night, but
+the little group of men upon the shore scarcely thought of its
+enchantment. They felt it, perhaps, sometimes faintly in their gayety,
+but they did not savor its wonder and its mystery as Hermione would have
+savored them had she been there.
+
+The naked form of Gaspare, as he waded far out in the shallow sea, was
+like the form of a dream creature rising out of waves of a dream. When he
+called to them across the silver surely something of the magic of the
+night was caught and echoed in his voice. When he lifted the net, and its
+black and dripping meshes slipped down from his ghostly hands into the
+ghostly movement that was flickering about him, and the circles tipped
+with light widened towards sea and shore, there was a miracle of delicate
+and fantastic beauty delivered up tenderly like a marvellous gift to the
+wanderers of the dark hours. But Sicily scarcely wonders at Sicily.
+Gaspare was intent only on the catching of fish, and his companions smote
+the night with their jokes and their merry, almost riotous laughter.
+
+The night wore on. Presently they left Isola Bella, crossed a stony spit
+of land, and came into a second and narrower bay, divided by a turmoil
+of jagged rocks and a bold promontory covered with stunted olive-trees,
+cactus, and seed-sown earth plots, from the wide sweep of coast that
+melted into the dimness towards Messina. Gathered together on the little
+stones of the beach, in the shadow of some drawn-up fishing-boats, they
+took stock of the fish that lay shining in the basket, and broke their
+fast on bread and cheese and more draughts from the generous wine-bottle.
+
+Gaspare was dripping, and his thin body shook as he gulped down the wine.
+
+"Basta Gaspare!" Maurice said to him. "You mustn't go in any more."
+
+"No, no, signore, non basta! I can fish all night. Once the wine has
+warmed me, I can--"
+
+"But I want to try it."
+
+"Oh, signore, what would the signora say? You are a stranger. You will
+take cold, and then the signora will blame me and say I did not take
+proper care of my padrone."
+
+But Delarey was determined. He stripped off his clothes, put on his
+bathing drawers, took up the net, and, carefully directed by the admiring
+though protesting Gaspare, he waded into the sea.
+
+For a moment he shuddered as the calm water rose round him. Then, English
+fashion, he dipped under, with a splash that brought a roar of laughter
+to him from the shore.
+
+"Meglio cosi!" he cried, coming up again in the moonlight. "Adesso sto
+bene!"
+
+The plunge had made him suddenly feel tremendously young and triumphant,
+reckless with a happiness that thrilled with audacity. As he waded out he
+began to sing in a loud voice:
+
+               "Ciao, ciao, ciao,
+               Morettina bella ciao,
+               Prima di partire
+               Un bacio ti voglio da'."
+
+Gaspare, who was hastily dressing by the boats, called out to him that
+his singing would frighten away the fish, and he was obediently silent.
+He imprisoned the song in his heart, but that went on singing bravely. As
+he waded farther he felt splendid, as if he were a lord of life and of
+the sea. The water, now warm to him, seemed to be embracing him as it
+crept upward towards his throat. Nature was clasping him with amorous
+arms. Nature was taking him for her own.
+
+"Nature, nature!" he said to himself. "That's why I'm so gloriously happy
+here, because I'm being right down natural."
+
+His mind made an abrupt turn, like a coursed hare, and he suddenly found
+himself thinking of the night in London, when he had sat in the
+restaurant with Hermione and Artois and listened to their talk,
+reverently listened. Now, as the net tugged at his hand, influenced by
+the resisting sea, that talk, as he remembered it, struck him as
+unnatural, as useless, and the thoughts which he had then admired and
+wondered at, as complicated and extraordinary. Something in him said,
+"That's all unnatural." The touch of the water about his body, the light
+of the moon upon him, the breath of the air in his wet face drove out his
+reverence for what he called "intellectuality," and something savage got
+hold of his soul and shook it, as if to wake up the sleeping self within
+him, the self that was Sicilian.
+
+As he waded in the water, coming ever nearer to the jagged rocks that
+shut out from his sight the wide sea and something else, he felt as if
+thinking and living were in opposition, as if the one were destructive of
+the other; and the desire to be clever, to be talented, which had often
+assailed him since he had known, and especially since he had loved,
+Hermione, died out of him, and he found himself vaguely pitying Artois,
+and almost despising the career and the fame of a writer. What did
+thinking matter? The great thing was to live, to live with your body,
+out-of-doors, close to nature, somewhat as the savages live. When he
+waded to shore for the first time, and saw, as the net was hauled in, the
+fish he had caught gleaming and leaping in the light, he could have
+shouted like a boy.
+
+He seized the net once more, but Gaspare, now clothed, took hold of him
+by the arm with a familiarity that had in it nothing disrespectful.
+
+"Signore, basta, basta! Giulio will go in now."
+
+"Si! si!" cried Giulio, beginning to tug at his waistcoat buttons.
+
+"Once more, Gaspare!" said Maurice. "Only once!"
+
+"But if you take cold, signorino, the signora--"
+
+"I sha'n't catch cold. Only once!"
+
+He broke away, laughing, from Gaspare, and was swiftly in the sea. The
+Sicilians looked at him with admiration.
+
+"E' veramente piu Siciliano di noi!" exclaimed Nito.
+
+The others murmured their assent. Gaspare glowed with pride in his pupil.
+
+"I shall make the signore one of us," he said, as he deftly let out the
+coils of the net.
+
+"But how long is he going to stay?" asked Nito. "Will he not soon be
+going back to his own country?"
+
+For a moment Gaspare's countenance fell.
+
+"When the heat comes," he began, doubtfully. Then he cheered up.
+
+"Perhaps he will take me with him to England," he said.
+
+This time Maurice waded with the net into the shadow of the rocks out of
+the light of the moon. The night was waning, and a slight chill began to
+creep into the air. A little breeze, too, sighed over the sea, ruffling
+its surface, died away, then softly came again. As he moved into the
+darkness Maurice was conscious that the buoyancy of his spirits received
+a slight check. The night seemed suddenly to have changed, to have
+become more mysterious. He began to feel its mystery now, to be aware of
+the strangeness of being out in the sea alone at such an hour. Upon the
+shore he saw the forms of his companions, but they looked remote and
+phantom-like. He did not hear their voices. Perhaps the slow approach of
+dawn was beginning to affect them, and the little wind that was springing
+up chilled their merriment and struck them to silence. Before him the
+dense blackness of the rocks rose like a grotesque wall carved in
+diabolic shapes, and as he stared at these shapes he had an odd fancy
+that they were living things, and that they were watching him at his
+labor. He could not get this idea, that he was being watched, out of his
+head, and for a moment he forgot about the fish, and stood still, staring
+at the monsters, whose bulky forms reared themselves up into the
+moonlight from which they banished him.
+
+"Signore! Signorino!"
+
+There came to him a cry of protest from the shore. He started, moved
+forward with the net, and went under water. He had stepped into a deep
+hole. Still holding fast to the net, he came up to the surface, shook his
+head, and struck out. As he did so he heard another cry, sharp yet
+musical. But this cry did not come from the beach where his companions
+were gathered. It rose from the blackness of the rocks close to him, and
+it sounded like the cry of a woman. He winked his eyes to get the water
+out of them, and swam for the rocks, heedless of his duty as a fisherman.
+But the net impeded him, and again there was a shout from the shore:
+
+"Signorino! Signorino! E' pazzo Lei?"
+
+Reluctantly he turned and swam back to the shallow water. But when his
+feet touched bottom he stood still. That cry of a woman from the mystery
+of the rocks had startled, had fascinated his ears. Suddenly he
+remembered that he must be near to that Casa delle Sirene, whose little
+light he had seen from the terrace of the priest's house on his first
+evening in Sicily. He longed to hear that woman's voice again. For a
+moment he thought of it as the voice of a siren, of one of those beings
+of enchantment who lure men on to their destruction, and he listened
+eagerly, almost passionately, while the ruffled water eddied softly about
+his breast. But no music stole to him from the blackness of the rocks,
+and at last he turned slowly and waded to the shore.
+
+He was met with merry protests. Nito declared that the net had nearly
+been torn out of his hands. Gaspare, half undressed to go to his rescue,
+anxiously inquired if he had come to any harm. The rocks were sharp as
+razors near the point, and he might have cut himself to pieces upon them.
+He apologized to Nito and showed Gaspare that he was uninjured. Then,
+while the others began to count the fish, he went to the boats to put on
+his clothes, accompanied by Gaspare.
+
+"Why did you swim towards the rocks, signorino?" asked the boy, looking
+at him with a sharp curiosity.
+
+Delarey hesitated for a moment. He was inclined, he scarcely knew why, to
+keep silence about the cry he had heard. Yet he wanted to ask Gaspare
+something.
+
+"Gaspare," he said, at last, as they reached the boats, "was any one of
+you on the rocks over there just now?"
+
+He had forgotten to number his companions when he reached the shore.
+Perhaps one was missing, and had wandered towards the point to watch him
+fishing.
+
+"No, signore. Why do you ask?"
+
+Again Delarey hesitated. Then he said:
+
+"I heard some one call out to me there."
+
+He began to rub his wet body with a towel.
+
+"Call! What did they call?"
+
+"Nothing; no words. Some one cried out."
+
+"At this hour! Who should be there, signore?"
+
+The action of the rough towel upon his body brought a glow of warmth to
+Delarey, and the sense of mystery began to depart from his mind.
+
+"Perhaps it was a fisherman," he said.
+
+"They do not fish from there, signore. It must have been me you heard.
+When you went under the water I cried out. Drink some wine, signorino."
+
+He held a glass full of wine to Delarey's lips. Delarey drank.
+
+"But you've got a man's voice, Gaspare!" he said, putting down the glass
+and beginning to get into his clothes.
+
+"Per Dio! Would you have me squeak like a woman, signore?"
+
+Delarey laughed and said no more. But he knew it was not Gaspare's voice
+he had heard.
+
+The net was drawn up now for the last time, and as soon as Delarey had
+dressed they set out to walk to the caves on the farther side of the
+rocks, where they meant to sleep till Carmela was about and ready to make
+the frittura. To reach them they had to clamber up from the beach to the
+Messina road, mount a hill, and descend to the Caffe Berardi, a small,
+isolated shanty which stood close to the sea, and was used in summer-time
+by bathers who wanted refreshment. Nito and the rest walked on in front,
+and Delarey followed a few paces behind with Gaspare. When they reached
+the summit of the hill a great sweep of open sea was disclosed to their
+view, stretching away to the Straits of Messina, and bounded in the far
+distance by the vague outlines of the Calabrian Mountains. Here the wind
+met them more sharply, and below them on the pebbles by the caffe they
+could see the foam of breaking waves. But to the right, and nearer to
+them, the sea was still as an inland pool, guarded by the tree-covered
+hump of land on which stood the house of the sirens. This hump, which
+would have been an islet but for the narrow wall of sheer rock which
+joined it to the main-land, ran out into the sea parallel to the road.
+
+On the height, Delarey paused for a moment, as if to look at the wide
+view, dim and ethereal, under the dying moon.
+
+"Is that Calabria?" he asked.
+
+"Si, signore. And there is the caffe. The caves are beyond it. You cannot
+see them from here. But you are not looking, signorino!"
+
+The boy's quick eyes had noticed that Delarey was glancing towards the
+tangle of trees, among which was visible a small section of the gray wall
+of the house of the sirens.
+
+"How calm the sea is there!" Delarey said, swiftly.
+
+"Si, signore. That is where you can see the light in the window from our
+terrace."
+
+"There's no light now."
+
+"How should there be? They are asleep. Andiamo?"
+
+They followed the others, who were now out of sight. When they reached
+the caves, Nito and the boys had already flung themselves down upon the
+sand and were sleeping. Gaspare scooped out a hollow for Delarey, rolled
+up his jacket as a pillow for his padrone's head, murmured a "Buon
+riposo!" lay down near him, buried his face in his arms, and almost
+directly began to breathe with a regularity that told its tale of
+youthful, happy slumber.
+
+It was dark in the cave and quite warm. The sand made a comfortable bed,
+and Delarey was luxuriously tired after the long walk and the wading in
+the sea. When he lay down he thought that he, too, would be asleep in a
+moment, but sleep did not come to him, though he closed his eyes in
+anticipation of it. His mind was busy in his weary body, and that little
+cry of a woman still rang in his ears. He heard it like a song sung by a
+mysterious voice in a place of mystery by the sea. Soon he opened his
+eyes. Turning a little in the sand, away from his companions, he looked
+out from the cave, across the sloping beach and the foam of the waves,
+to the darkness of trees on the island. (So he called the place of the
+siren's house to himself now, and always hereafter.) From the cave he
+could not see the house, but only the trees, a formless, dim mass that
+grew about it. The monotonous sound of wave after wave did not still the
+cry in his ears, but mingled with it, as must have mingled with the song
+of the sirens to Ulysses the murmur of breaking seas ever so long ago.
+And he thought of a siren in the night stealing to a hidden place in the
+rocks to watch him as he drew the net, breast high in the water. There
+was romance in his mind to-night, new-born and strange. Sicily had put it
+there with the wild sense of youth and freedom that still possessed him.
+Something seemed to call him away from this cave of sleep, to bid his
+tired body bestir itself once more. He looked at the dark forms of his
+comrades, stretched in various attitudes of repose, and suddenly he knew
+he could not sleep. He did not want to sleep. He wanted--what? He raised
+himself to a sitting posture, then softly stood up, and with infinite
+precaution stole out of the cave.
+
+The coldness of the coming dawn took hold on him on the shore, and he saw
+in the east a mysterious pallor that was not of the moon, and upon the
+foam of the waves a light that was ghastly and that suggested infinite
+weariness and sickness. But he did not say this to himself. He merely
+felt that the night was quickly departing, and that he must hasten on his
+errand before the day came.
+
+He was going to search for the woman who had cried out to him in the sea.
+And he felt as if she were a creature of the night, of the moon and of
+the shadows, and as if he could never hope to find her in the glory of
+the day.
+
+
+
+VII
+
+Delarey stole along the beach, walking lightly despite his fatigue. He
+felt curiously excited, as if he were on the heels of some adventure. He
+passed the Caffe Berardi almost like a thief in the night, and came to
+the narrow strip of pebbles that edged the still and lakelike water,
+protected by the sirens' isle. There he paused. He meant to gain that
+lonely land, but how? By the water lay two or three boats, but they were
+large and clumsy, impossible to move without aid. Should he climb up to
+the Messina road, traverse the spit of ground that led to the rocky wall,
+and try to make his way across it? The feat would be a difficult one, he
+thought. But it was not that which deterred him. He was impatient of
+delay, and the detour would take time. Between him and the islet was the
+waterway. Already he had been in the sea. Why not go in again? He
+stripped, packed his clothes into a bundle, tied roughly with a rope made
+of his handkerchief and bootlaces, and waded in. For a long way the water
+was shallow. Only when he was near to the island did it rise to his
+breast, to his throat, higher at last. Holding the bundle on his head
+with one hand, he struck out strongly and soon touched bottom again. He
+scrambled out, dressed on a flat rock, then looked for a path leading
+upward.
+
+The ground was very steep, almost precipitous, and thickly covered with
+trees and with undergrowth. This undergrowth concealed innumerable rocks
+and stones which shifted under his feet and rolled down as he began to
+ascend, grasping the bushes and the branches. He could find no path.
+What did it matter? All sense of fatigue had left him. With the activity
+of a cat he mounted. A tree struck him across the face. Another swept off
+his hat. He felt that he had antagonists who wished to beat him back to
+the sea, and his blood rose against them. He tore down a branch that
+impeded him, broke it with his strong hands, and flung it away viciously.
+His teeth were set and his nerves tingled, and he was conscious of the
+almost angry joy of keen bodily exertion. The body--that was his God
+to-night. How he loved it, its health and strength, its willingness, its
+capacities! How he gloried in it! It had bounded down the mountain. It
+had gone into the sea and revelled there. It had fished and swum. Now it
+mounted upward to discovery, defying the weapons that nature launched
+against it. Splendid, splendid body!
+
+He fought with the trees and conquered them. His trampling feet sent the
+stones leaping downward to be drowned in the sea. His swift eyes found
+the likely places for a foothold. His sinewy hands forced his enemies to
+assist him in the enterprise they hated. He came out on to the plateau at
+the summit of the island and stood still, panting, beside the house that
+hid there.
+
+Its blind, gray wall confronted him coldly in the dimness, one shuttered
+window, like a shut eye, concealing the interior, the soul of the house
+that lay inside its body. In this window must have been set the light he
+had seen from the terrace. He wished there were a light burning now. Had
+he swum across the inlet and fought his way up through the wood only to
+see a gray wall, a shuttered window? That cry had come from the rocks,
+yet he had been driven by something within him to this house,
+connecting--he knew not why--the cry with it and with the far-off light
+that had been like a star caught in the sea. Now he said to himself that
+he should have gone back to the rocks and sought the siren there. Should
+he go now? He hesitated for a moment, leaning against the wall of the
+house.
+
+               "Maju torna, maju veni
+               Cu li belli soi ciureri;
+               Oh chi pompa chi nni fa;
+               Maju torna, maju e cca!
+
+               "Maju torna, maju vinni,
+               Duna isca a li disinni;
+               Vinni riccu e ricchi fa,
+               Maju viva! Maju e cca!"
+
+He heard a girl's voice singing near him, whether inside the house or
+among the trees he could not at first tell. It sang softly yet gayly, as
+if the sun were up and the world were awake, and when it died away
+Delarey felt as if the singer must be in the dawn, though he stood still
+in the night. He put his ear to the shuttered window and listened.
+
+"L'haju; nun l'haju?"
+
+The voice was speaking now with a sort of whimsical and half-pathetic
+merriment, as if inclined to break into laughter at its own childish
+wistfulness.
+
+"M'ama; nun m'ama?"
+
+It broke off. He heard a little laugh. Then the song began again:
+
+               "Maju viju, e maju cogghiu,
+               Bona sorti di Diu vogghiu;
+               Ciuri di maju cogghiu a la campia,
+               Diu, pinzaticci vu a la sorti mia!"
+
+The voice was not in the house. Delarey was sure of that now. He was
+almost sure, too, that it was the same voice which had cried out to him
+from the rocks. Moving with precaution, he stole round the house to the
+farther side, which looked out upon the open sea, keeping among the
+trees, which grew thickly about the house on three sides, but which left
+it unprotected to the sea-winds on the fourth.
+
+A girl was standing in this open space, alone, looking seaward, with one
+arm out-stretched, one hand laid lightly, almost caressingly, upon the
+gnarled trunk of a solitary old olive-tree, the other arm hanging at her
+side. She was dressed in some dark, coarse stuff, with a short skirt, and
+a red handkerchief tied round her head, and seemed in the pale and almost
+ghastly light in which night and day were drawing near to each other to
+be tall and slim of waist. Her head was thrown back, as if she were
+drinking in the breeze that heralded the dawn--drinking it in like a
+voluptuary.
+
+Delarey stood and watched her. He could not see her face.
+
+She spoke some words in dialect in a clear voice. There was no one else
+visible. Evidently she was talking to herself. Presently she laughed
+again, and began to sing once more:
+
+               "Maju viju, e maju cogghiu,
+               A la me'casa guaj nu' nni vogghiu;
+               Ciuri di maju cogghiu a la campia,
+               Oru ed argentu a la sacchetta mia!"
+
+There was an African sound in the girl's voice--a sound of mystery that
+suggested heat and a force that could be languorous and stretch itself at
+ease. She was singing the song the Sicilian peasant girls join in on the
+first of May, when the ciuri di maju is in blossom, and the young
+countrywomen go forth in merry bands to pick the flower of May, and,
+turning their eyes to the wayside shrine, or, if there be none near, to
+the east and the rising sun, lift their hands full of the flowers above
+their heads, and, making the sign of the cross, murmur devoutly:
+
+               "Divina Pruvidenza, pruvviditimi;
+               Divina Pruvidenza, cunsulatimi;
+               Divina Pruvidenza e granni assai;
+               Cu' teni fidi a Diu, 'un pirisci mai!"
+
+[Illustration: "HER HEAD WAS THROWN BACK, AS IF SHE WERE DRINKING IN THE
+BREEZE"]
+
+Delarey knew neither song nor custom, but his ears were fascinated by the
+voice and the melody. Both sounded remote and yet familiar to him, as if
+once, in some distant land--perhaps of dreams--he had heard them before.
+He wished the girl to go on singing, to sing on and on into the dawn
+while he listened in his hiding-place, but she suddenly turned round and
+stood looking towards him, as if something had told her that she was not
+alone. He kept quite still. He knew she could not see him, yet he felt as
+if she was aware that he was there, and instinctively he held his breath
+and leaned backward into deeper shadow. After a minute the girl took a
+step forward, and, still staring in his direction, called out:
+
+"Padre?"
+
+Then Delarey knew that it was her voice that he had heard when he was in
+the sea, and he suddenly changed his desire. Now he no longer wished to
+remain unseen, and without hesitation he came out from the trees. The
+girl stood where she was, watching him as he came. Her attitude showed
+neither surprise nor alarm, and when he was close to her, and could at
+last see her face, he found that its expression was one of simple, bold
+questioning. It seemed to be saying to him quietly, "Well, what do you
+want of me?"
+
+Delarey was not acquainted with the Arab type of face. Had he been he
+would have at once been struck by the Eastern look in the girl's long,
+black eyes, by the Eastern cast of her regular, slightly aquiline
+features. Above her eyes were thin, jet-black eyebrows that looked almost
+as if they were painted. Her chin was full and her face oval in shape.
+She had hair like Gaspare's, black-brown, immensely thick and wavy, with
+tiny feathers of gold about the temples. She was tall, and had the
+contours of a strong though graceful girl just blooming into womanhood.
+Her hands were as brown as Delarey's, well shaped, but the hands of a
+worker. She was perhaps eighteen or nineteen, and brimful of lusty life.
+
+After a minute of silence Delarey's memory recalled some words of
+Gaspare's, till then forgotten.
+
+"You are Maddalena!" he said, in Italian.
+
+The girl nodded.
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+She uttered the words softly, then fell into silence again, staring at
+him with her lustrous eyes, that were like black jewels.
+
+"You live here with Salvatore?"
+
+She nodded once more and began to smile, as if with pleasure at his
+knowledge of her.
+
+Delarey smiled too, and made with his arms the motion of swimming. At
+that she laughed outright and broke into quick speech. She spoke
+vivaciously, moving her hands and her whole body. Delarey could not
+understand much of what she said, but he caught the words mare and
+pescatore, and by her gestures knew that she was telling him she had been
+on the rocks and had seen his mishap. Suddenly in the midst of her talk
+she uttered the little cry of surprise or alarm which he had heard as he
+came up above water, pointed to her lips to indicate that she had given
+vent to it, and laughed again with all her heart. Delarey laughed too. He
+felt happy and at ease with his siren, and was secretly amused at his
+thought in the sea of the magical being full of enchantment who sang to
+lure men to their destruction. This girl was simply a pretty, but not
+specially uncommon, type of the Sicilian contadina--young, gay, quite
+free from timidity, though gentle, full of the joy of life and of the
+nascent passion of womanhood, blossoming out carelessly in the sunshine
+of the season of flowers. She could sing, this island siren, but probably
+she could not read or write. She could dance, could perhaps innocently
+give and receive love. But there was in her face, in her manner, nothing
+deliberately provocative. Indeed, she looked warmly pure, like a bright,
+eager young animal of the woods, full of a blithe readiness to enjoy,
+full of hope and of unself-conscious animation.
+
+Delarey wondered why she was not sleeping, and strove to ask her,
+speaking carefully his best Sicilian, and using eloquent gestures, which
+set her smiling, then laughing again. In reply to him she pointed towards
+the sea, then towards the house, then towards the sea once more. He
+guessed that some fisherman had risen early to go to his work, and that
+she had got up to see him off, and had been too wakeful to return to bed.
+
+"Niente piu sonno!" he said, opening wide his eyes.
+
+"Niente! Niente!"
+
+He feigned fatigue. She took his travesty seriously, and pointed to the
+house, inviting him by gesture to go in and rest there. Evidently she
+believed that, being a stranger, he could not speak or understand much of
+her language. He did not even try to undeceive her. It amused him to
+watch her dumb show, for her face spoke eloquently and her pretty, brown
+hands knew a language that was delicious. He had no longer any thought of
+sleep, but he felt curious to see the interior of the cottage, and he
+nodded his head in response to her invitation. At once she became the
+hospitable peasant hostess. Her eyes sparkled with eagerness and
+pleasure, and she went quickly by him to the door, which stood half open,
+pushed it back, and beckoned to him to enter.
+
+He obeyed her, went in, and found himself almost in darkness, for the big
+windows on either side of the door were shuttered, and only a tiny flame,
+like a spark, burned somewhere among the dense shadows of the interior at
+some distance from him. Pretending to be alarmed at the obscurity, he put
+out his hand gropingly, and let it light on her arm, then slip down to
+her warm, strong young hand.
+
+"I am afraid!" he exclaimed.
+
+He heard her merry laugh and felt her trying to pull her hand away, but
+he held it fast, prolonging a joke that he found a pleasant one. In that
+moment he was almost as simple as she was, obeying his impulses
+carelessly, gayly, without a thought of wrong--indeed, almost without
+thought at all. His body was still tingling and damp with the sea-water.
+Her face was fresh with the sea-wind. He had never felt more wholesome or
+as if life were a saner thing.
+
+She dragged her hand out of his at last; he heard a grating noise, and a
+faint light sputtered up, then grew steady as she moved away and set a
+match to a candle, shielding it from the breeze that entered through the
+open door with her body.
+
+"What a beautiful house!" he cried, looking curiously around.
+
+He saw such a dwelling as one may see in any part of Sicily where the
+inhabitants are not sunk in the direst poverty and squalor, a modest home
+consisting of two fair-sized rooms, one opening into the other. In each
+room was a mighty bed, high and white, with fat pillows, and a
+counterpane of many colors. At the head of each was pinned a crucifix and
+a little picture of the Virgin, Maria Addolorata, with a palm branch that
+had been blessed, and beneath the picture in the inner room a tiny light,
+rather like an English night-light near its end, was burning. It was this
+that Delarey had seen like a spark in the distance. At the foot of each
+bed stood a big box of walnut wood, carved into arabesques and grotesque
+faces. There were a few straw chairs and kitchen utensils. An old gun
+stood in a corner with a bundle of wood. Not far off was a pan of
+charcoal. There were also two or three common deal-tables, on one of
+which stood the remains of a meal, a big jar containing wine, a flat loaf
+of coarse brown bread, with a knife lying beside it, some green stuff in
+a plate, and a slab of hard, yellow cheese.
+
+Delarey was less interested in these things than in the display of
+photographs, picture-cards, and figures of saints that adorned the
+walls, carefully arranged in patterns to show to the best advantage. Here
+were colored reproductions of actresses in languid attitudes, of peasants
+dancing, of babies smiling, of elaborate young people with carefully
+dressed hair making love with "Molti Saluti!" "Una stretta di Mano!"
+"Mando un bacio!" "Amicizia eterna!" and other expressions of friendship
+and affection, scribbled in awkward handwritings across and around them.
+And mingled with them were representations of saints, such as are sold at
+the fairs and festivals of Sicily, and are reverently treasured by the
+pious and superstitious contadine; San Pancrazio, Santa Leocanda, the
+protector of child-bearing women; Sant Aloe, the patron saint of the
+beasts of burden; San Biagio, Santo Vito, the patron saint of dogs; and
+many others, with the Bambino, the Immacolata, the Madonna di Loreto, the
+Madonna della Rocca.
+
+In the faint light cast by the flickering candle, the faces of saints and
+actresses, of smiling babies, of lovers and Madonnas peered at Delarey as
+if curious to know why at such an hour he ventured to intrude among them,
+why he thus dared to examine them when all the world was sleeping. He
+drew back from them at length and looked again at the great bed with its
+fat pillows that stood in the farther room secluded from the sea-breeze.
+Suddenly he felt a longing to throw himself down and rest.
+
+The girl smiled at him with sympathy.
+
+"That is my bed," she said, simply. "Lie down and sleep, signorino."
+
+Delarey hesitated for a moment. He thought of his companions. If they
+should wake in the cave and miss him what would they think, what would
+they do? Then he looked again at the bed. The longing to lie down on it
+was irresistible. He pointed to the open door.
+
+"When the sun comes will you wake me?" he said.
+
+He took hold of his arm with one hand, and made the motion of shaking
+himself.
+
+"Sole," he said. "Quando c'e il sole."
+
+The girl laughed and nodded.
+
+"Si, signore--non dubiti!"
+
+Delarey climbed up on to the mountainous bed.
+
+"Buona notte, Maddalena!" he said, smiling at her from the pillow like a
+boy.
+
+"Buon riposo, signorino!"
+
+That was the last thing he heard. The last thing he saw was the dark,
+eager face of the girl lit up by the candle-flame watching him from the
+farther room. Her slight figure was framed by the doorway, through which
+a faint, sad light was stealing with the soft wind from the sea. Her
+lustrous eyes were looking towards him curiously, as if he were something
+of a phenomenon, as if she longed to understand his mystery.
+
+Soon, very soon, he saw those eyes no more. He was asleep in the midst of
+the Madonnas and the saints, with the blessed palm branch and the
+crucifix and Maria Addolorata above his head.
+
+The girl sat down on a chair just outside the door, and began to sing to
+herself once more in a low voice:
+
+               "Divina Pruvidenza, pruvviditimi;
+               Divina Pruvidenza, consulatimi;
+               Divina Pruvidenza e granni assai;
+               Cu' teni fidi a Diu, 'un pirisci mai!"
+
+Once, in his sleep, Delarey must surely have heard her song, for he began
+to dream that he was Ulysses sailing across the purple seas along the
+shores of an enchanted coast, and that he heard far off the sirens
+singing, and saw their shadowy forms sitting among the rocks and
+reclining upon the yellow sands. Then he bade his mariners steer the bark
+towards the shore. But when he drew near the sirens changed into devout
+peasant women, and their alluring songs into prayers uttered to the
+Bambino and the Virgin. But one watched him with eyes that gleamed like
+black jewels, and her lips smiled while they uttered prayers, as if they
+could murmur love words and kiss the lips of men.
+
+"Signorino! Signorino!"
+
+Delarey stirred on the great, white bed. A hand grasped him firmly, shook
+him ruthlessly.
+
+"Signorino! C'e il sole!"
+
+He opened his eyes reluctantly. Maddalena was leaning over him. He saw
+her bright face and curious young eyes, then the faces of the saints and
+the actresses upon the wall, and he wondered where he was and where
+Hermione was.
+
+"Hermione!" he said.
+
+"Cosa?" said Maddalena.
+
+She shook him again gently. He stretched himself, yawned, and began to
+smile. She smiled back at him.
+
+"C'e il sole!"
+
+Now he remembered, lifted himself up, and looked towards the doorway. The
+first rays of the sun were filtering in and sparkling in the distance
+upon the sea. The east was barred with red.
+
+He slipped down from the bed.
+
+"The frittura!" he said, in English. "I must make haste!"
+
+Maddalena laughed. She had never heard English before.
+
+"Ditelo ancora!" she cried, eagerly.
+
+They went but together on to the plateau and stood looking seaward.
+
+"I--must--make--haste!" he said, speaking slowly and dividing the words.
+
+"Hi--maust--maiki--'ai--isti!" she repeated, trying to imitate his
+accent.
+
+He burst out laughing. She pouted. Then she laughed, too, peal upon peal,
+while the sunlight grew stronger about them. How fresh the wind was! It
+played with her hair, from which she had now removed the handkerchief,
+and ruffled the little feathers of gold upon her brow. It blew about her
+smooth, young face as if it loved to touch the soft cheeks, the innocent
+lips, the candid, unlined brow. The leaves of the olive-trees rustled and
+the brambles and the grasses swayed. Everything was in movement, stirring
+gayly into life to greet the coming day. Maurice opened his mouth and
+drew in the air to his lungs, expanding his chest. He felt inclined to
+dance, to sing, and very much inclined to eat.
+
+"Addio, Maddalena!" he said, holding out his hand.
+
+He looked into her eyes and added:
+
+"Addio, Maddalena mia!"
+
+She smiled and looked down, then up at him again.
+
+"A rivederci, signorino!"
+
+She took his hand warmly in hers.
+
+"Yes, that's better. A rivederci!"
+
+He held her hand for a moment, looking into her long and laughing eyes,
+and thinking how like a young animal's they were in their unwinking
+candor. And yet they were not like an animal's. For now, when he gazed
+into them, they did not look away from him, but continued to regard him,
+and always with an eager shining of curiosity. That curiosity stirred his
+manhood, fired him. He longed to reply to it, to give a quick answer to
+its eager question, its "what are you?" He glanced round, saw only the
+trees, the sea all alight with sun-rays, the red east now changing slowly
+into gold. Then he bent down, kissed the lips of Maddalena with a laugh,
+turned and descended through the trees by the way he had come. He had no
+feeling that he had done any wrong to Hermione, any wrong to Maddalena.
+His spirits were high, and he sang as he leaped down, agile as a goat, to
+the sea. He meant to return as he had come, and at the water's edge he
+stripped off his clothes once more, tied them into a bundle, plunged into
+the sea, and struck out for the beach opposite. As he did so, as the
+cold, bracing water seized him, he heard far above him the musical cry
+of the siren of the night. He answered it with a loud, exultant call.
+
+That was her farewell and his--this rustic Hero's good-bye to her
+Leander.
+
+When he reached the Caffe Berardi its door stood open, and a middle-aged
+woman was looking out seaward. Beyond, by the caves, he saw figures
+moving. His companions were awake. He hastened towards them. His morning
+plunge in the sea had given him a wild appetite.
+
+"Frittura! Frittura!" he shouted, taking off his hat and waving it.
+
+Gaspare came running towards him.
+
+"Where have you been, signorino?"
+
+"For a walk along the shore."
+
+He still kept his hat in his hand.
+
+"Why, your face is all wet, and so is your hair."
+
+"I washed them in the sea. Mangiamo! Mangiamo!"
+
+"You did not sleep?"
+
+Gaspare spoke curiously, regarded him with inquisitive, searching eyes.
+
+"I couldn't. I'll sleep up there when we get home."
+
+He pointed to the mountain. His eyes were dancing with gayety.
+
+"The frittura, Gasparino, the frittura! And then the tarantella, and then
+'O sole mio'!"
+
+He looked towards the rising sun, and began to sing at the top of his
+voice:
+
+               "O sole, o sole mio,
+               Sta 'n fronte a te,
+               Sta 'n fronte a te!"
+
+Gaspare joined in lustily, and Carmela in the doorway of the Caffe
+Berardi waved a frying-pan at them in time to the music.
+
+"Per Dio, Gaspare!" exclaimed Maurice, as they raced towards the house,
+each striving to be first there--"Per Dio, I never knew what life was
+till I came to Sicily! I never knew what happiness was till this
+morning!"
+
+"The frittura! The frittura!" shouted Gaspare. "I'll be first!"
+
+Neck and neck they reached the caffe as Nito poured the shining fish into
+Madre Carmela's frying-pan.
+
+
+
+VIII
+
+"They are coming, signora, they are coming! Don't you hear them?"
+
+Lucrezia was by the terrace wall looking over into the ravine. She could
+not see any moving figures, but she heard far down among the olives and
+the fruit trees Gaspare's voice singing "O sole mio!" and while she
+listened another voice joined in, the voice of the padrone:
+
+"Dio mio, but they are merry!" she added, as the song was broken by a
+distant peal of laughter.
+
+Hermione came out upon the steps. She had been in the sitting-room
+writing a letter to Miss Townly, who sent her long and tearful effusions
+from London almost every day.
+
+"Have you got the frying-pan ready, Lucrezia?" she asked.
+
+"The frying-pan, signora!"
+
+"Yes, for the fish they are bringing us."
+
+Lucrezia looked knowing.
+
+"Oh, signora, they will bring no fish."
+
+"Why not? They promised last night. Didn't you hear?"
+
+"They promised, yes, but they won't remember. Men promise at night and
+forget in the morning."
+
+Hermione laughed. She had been feeling a little dull, but now the sound
+of the lusty voices and the laughter from the ravine filled her with a
+sudden cheerfulness, and sent a glow of anticipation into her heart.
+
+"Lucrezia, you are a cynic."
+
+"What is a cinico, signora?"
+
+"A Lucrezia. But you don't know your padrone. He won't forget us."
+
+Lucrezia reddened. She feared she had perhaps said something that seemed
+disrespectful.
+
+"Oh, signora, there is not another like the padrone. Every one says so.
+Ask Gaspare and Sebastiano. I only meant that--"
+
+"I know. Well, to-day you will understand that all men are not forgetful,
+when you eat your fish."
+
+Lucrezia still looked very doubtful, but she said nothing more.
+
+"There they are!" exclaimed Hermione.
+
+She waved her hand and cried out. Life suddenly seemed quite different to
+her. These moving figures peopled gloriously the desert waste, these
+ringing voices filled with music the brooding silence of it. She murmured
+to herself a verse of scripture, "Sorrow may endure for a night, but joy
+cometh with the morning," and she realized for the first time how
+absurdly sad and deserted she had been feeling, how unreasonably forlorn.
+By her present joy she measured her past--not sorrow exactly; she could
+not call it that--her past dreariness, and she said to herself with a
+little shock almost of fear, "How terribly dependent I am!"
+
+"Mamma mia!" cried Lucrezia, as another shout of laughter came up from
+the ravine, "how merry and mad they are! They have had a good night's
+fishing."
+
+Hermione heard the laughter, but now it sounded a little harsh in her
+ears.
+
+"I wonder," she thought, as she leaned upon the terrace wall--"I wonder
+if he has missed me at all? I wonder if men ever miss us as we miss
+them?"
+
+Her call, it seemed, had not been heard, nor her gesture of welcome seen,
+but now Maurice looked up, waved his cap, and shouted. Gaspare, too, took
+off his linen hat with a stentorian cry of "Buon giorno, signora."
+
+"Signora!" said Lucrezia.
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Look! Was not I right? Are they carrying anything?"
+
+Hermione looked eagerly, almost passionately, at the two figures now
+drawing near to the last ascent up the bare mountain flank. Maurice had a
+stick in one hand, the other hung empty at his side. Gaspare still waved
+his hat wildly, holding it with both hands as a sailor holds the
+signalling-flag.
+
+"Perhaps," she said--"perhaps it wasn't a good night, and they've caught
+nothing."
+
+"Oh, signora, the sea was calm. They must have taken--"
+
+"Perhaps their pockets are full of fish. I am sure they are."
+
+She spoke with a cheerful assurance.
+
+"If they have caught any fish, I know your frying-pan will be wanted,"
+she said.
+
+"Chi lo sa?" said Lucrezia, with rather perfunctory politeness.
+
+Secretly she thought that the padrona had only one fault. She was a
+little obstinate sometimes, and disinclined to be told the truth. And
+certainly she did not know very much about men, although she had a
+husband.
+
+Through the old Norman arch came Delarey and Gaspare, with hot faces and
+gay, shining eyes, splendidly tired with their exertions and happy in the
+thought of rest. Delarey took Hermione's hand in his. He would have
+kissed her before Lucrezia and Gaspare, quite naturally, but he felt that
+her hand stiffened slightly in his as he leaned forward, and he forbore.
+She longed for his kiss, but to receive it there would have spoiled a
+joy. And kind and familiar though she was with those beneath her, she
+could not bear to show the deeps of her heart before them. To her his
+kiss after her lonely night would be an event. Did he know that? She
+wondered.
+
+He still kept her hand in his as he began to tell her about their
+expedition.
+
+"Did you enjoy it?" she asked, thinking what a boy he looked in his
+eager, physical happiness.
+
+"Ask Gaspare!"
+
+"I don't think I need. Your eyes tell me."
+
+"I never enjoyed any night so much before, out there under the moon. Why
+don't we always sleep out-of-doors?"
+
+"Shall we try some night on the terrace?"
+
+"By Jove, we will! What a lark!"
+
+"Did you go into the sea?"
+
+"I should think so! Ask Gaspare if I didn't beat them all. I had to swim,
+too."
+
+"And the fish?" she said, trying to speak, carelessly.
+
+"They were stunning. We caught an awful lot, and Mother Carmela cooked
+them to a T. I had an appetite, I can tell you, Hermione, after being in
+the sea."
+
+She was silent for a moment. Her hand had dropped out of his. When she
+spoke again, she said:
+
+"And you slept in the caves?"
+
+"The others did."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I couldn't sleep, so I went out on to the beach. But I'll tell you all
+that presently. You won't be shocked, Hermione, if I take a siesta now?
+I'm pretty well done--grandly tired, don't you know. I think I could get
+a lovely nap before collazione."
+
+"Come in, my dearest," she said. "Collazione a little late, Lucrezia, not
+till half-past one."
+
+"And the fish, signora?" asked Lucrezia.
+
+"We've got quite enough without fish," said Hermione, turning away.
+
+"Oh, by Jove!" Delarey said, as they went into the cottage, putting his
+hand into his jacket-pocket, "I've got something for you, Hermione."
+
+"Fish!" she cried, eagerly, her whole face brightening. "Lucre--"
+
+"Fish in my coat!" he interrupted, still not remembering. "No, a letter.
+They gave it me from the village as we came up. Here it is."
+
+He drew out a letter, gave it to her, and went into the bedroom, while
+Hermione stood in the sitting-room by the dining-table with the letter in
+her hand.
+
+It was from Artois, with the Kairouan postmark.
+
+"It's from Emile," she said.
+
+Maurice was closing the shutters, to make the bedroom dark.
+
+"Is he still in Africa?" he asked, letting down the bar with a clatter.
+
+"Yes," she said, opening the envelope. "Go to bed like a good boy while I
+read it."
+
+She wanted his kiss so much that she did not go near to him, and spoke
+with a lightness that was almost like a feigned indifference. He thrust
+his gay face through the doorway into the sunshine, and she saw the beads
+of perspiration on his smooth brow above his laughing, yet half-sleepy
+eyes.
+
+"Come and tuck me up afterwards!" he said, and vanished.
+
+Hermione made a little movement as if to follow him, but checked it and
+unfolded the letter.
+
+
+                                 "4, RUE D'ABDUL KADER, KAIROUAN.
+
+     MY DEAR FRIEND,--This will be one of my dreary notes, but you must
+     forgive me. Do you ever feel a heavy cloud of apprehension lowering
+     over you, a sensation of approaching calamity, as if you heard the
+     footsteps of a deadly enemy stealthily approaching you? Do you know
+     what it is to lose courage, to fear yourself, life, the future, to
+     long to hear a word of sympathy from a friendly voice, to long to
+     lay hold of a friendly hand? Are you ever like a child in the dark,
+     your intellect no weapon against the dread of formless things? The
+     African sun is shining here as I sit under a palm-tree writing,
+     with my servant, Zerzour, squatting beside me. It is so clear that
+     I can almost count the veins in the leaves of the palms, so warm
+     that Zerzour has thrown off his burnous and kept on only his linen
+     shirt. And yet I am cold and seem to be in blackness. I write to
+     you to gain some courage if I can. But I have gained none yet. I
+     believe there must be a physical cause for my malaise, and that I
+     am going to have some dreadful illness, and perhaps lay my bones
+     here in the shadow of the mosques among the sons of Islam. Write to
+     me. Is the garden of paradise blooming with flowers? Is the tree of
+     knowledge of good weighed down with fruit, and do you pluck the
+     fruit boldly and eat it every day? You told me in London to come
+     over and see you. I am not coming. Do not fear. But how I wish that
+     I could now, at this instant, see your strong face, touch your
+     courageous hand! There is a sensation of doom upon me. Laugh at me
+     as much as you like, but write to me. I feel cold--cold in the sun.
+
+                                                          EMILE."
+
+When she had finished reading this letter, Hermione stood quite still
+with it in her hand, gazing at the white paper on which this cry from
+Africa was traced. It seemed to her that--a cry from across the sea for
+help against some impending fate. She had often had melancholy letters
+from Artois in the past, expressing pessimistic views about life and
+literature, anxiety about some book which he was writing and which he
+thought was going to be a failure, anger against the follies of men, the
+turn of French politics, or the degeneration of the arts in modern times.
+Diatribes she was accustomed to, and a definite melancholy from one who
+had not a gay temperament. But this letter was different from all the
+others. She sat down and read it again. For the moment she had forgotten
+Maurice, and did not hear his movements in the adjoining room. She was in
+Africa under a palm-tree, looking into the face of a friend with keen
+anxiety, trying to read the immediate future for him there.
+
+"Maurice!" she called, presently, without getting up from her seat,
+"I've had such a strange letter from Emile. I'm afraid--I feel as if he
+were going to be dreadfully ill or have an accident."
+
+There was no reply.
+
+"Maurice!" she called again.
+
+Then she got up and looked into the bedroom. It was nearly dark, but she
+could see her husband's black head on the pillow and hear a sound of
+regular breathing. He was asleep already; she had not received his kiss
+or tucked him up. She felt absurdly unhappy, as if she had missed a
+pleasure that could never come to her again. That, she thought, is one of
+the penalties of a great love, the passionate regret it spends on the
+tiny things it has failed of. At this moment she fancied--no, she felt
+sure--that there would always be a shadow in her life. She had lost
+Maurice's kiss after his return from his first absence since their
+marriage. And a kiss from his lips still seemed to her a wonderful,
+almost a sacred thing, not only a physical act, but an emblem of that
+which was mysterious and lay behind the physical. Why had she not let him
+kiss her on the terrace? Her sensitive reserve had made her loss. For a
+moment she thought she wished she had the careless mind of a peasant.
+Lucrezia loved Sebastiano with passion, but she would have let him kiss
+her in public and been proud of it. What was the use of delicacy, of
+sensitiveness, in the great, coarse thing called life? Even Maurice had
+not shared her feeling. He was open as a boy, almost as a peasant boy.
+
+She began to wonder about him. She often wondered about him now in
+Sicily. In England she never had. She had thought there that she knew him
+as he, perhaps, could never know her. It seemed to her that she had been
+almost arrogant, filled with a pride of intellect. She was beginning to
+be humbler here, face to face with Etna.
+
+Let him sleep, mystery wrapped in the mystery of slumber!
+
+She sat down in the twilight, waiting till he should wake, watching the
+darkness of his hair upon the pillow.
+
+Some time passed, and presently she heard a noise upon the terrace. She
+got up softly, went into the sitting-room, and looked out. Lucrezia was
+laying the table for collazione.
+
+"Is it half-past one already?" she asked.
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+"But the padrone is still asleep!"
+
+"So is Gaspare in the hay. Come and see, signora."
+
+Lucrezia took Hermione by the hand and led her round the angle of the
+cottage. There, under the low roof of the out-house, dressed only in his
+shirt and trousers with his brown arms bare and his hair tumbled over his
+damp forehead, lay Gaspare on a heap of hay close to Tito, the donkey.
+Some hens were tripping and pecking by his legs, and a black cat was
+curled up in the hollow of his left armpit. He looked infinitely young,
+healthy, and comfortable, like an embodied carelessness that had flung
+itself down to its need.
+
+"I wish I could sleep like that," said Hermione.
+
+"Signora!" said Lucrezia, shocked. "You in the stable with that white
+dress! Mamma mia! And the hens!"
+
+"Hens, donkey, cat, hay, and all--I should love it. But I'm too old ever
+to sleep like that. Don't wake him!"
+
+Lucrezia was stepping over to Gaspare.
+
+"And I won't wake the padrone. Let them both sleep. They've been up all
+night. I'll eat alone. When they wake we'll manage something for them.
+Perhaps they'll sleep till evening, till dinner-time."
+
+"Gaspare will, signora. He can sleep the clock round when he's tired."
+
+"And the padrone too, I dare say. All the better."
+
+She spoke cheerfully, then went to sit down to her solitary meal.
+
+The letter of Artois was her only company. She read it again as she ate,
+and again felt as if it had been written by a man over whom some real
+misfortune was impending. The thought of his isolation in that remote
+African city pained her warm heart. She compared it with her own
+momentary solitude, and chided herself for minding--and she did mind--the
+lonely meal. How much she had--everything almost! And Artois, with his
+genius, his fame, his liberty--how little he had! An Arab servant for his
+companion, while she for hers had Maurice! Her heart glowed with
+thankfulness, and, feeling how rich she was, she felt a longing to give
+to others--a longing to make every one happy, a longing specially to make
+Emile happy. His letter was horribly sad. Each time she looked at it she
+was made sad by it, even apprehensive. She remembered their long and
+close friendship, how she had sympathized with all his struggles, how she
+had been proud of possessing his confidence and of being asked to advise
+him on points connected with his work. The past returned to her, kindling
+fires in her heart, till she longed to be near him and to shed their
+warmth on him. The African sun shone upon him and left him cold, numb.
+How wonderful it was, she thought, that the touch of a true friend's
+hand, the smile of the eyes of a friend, could succeed where the sun
+failed. Sometimes she thought of herself, of all human beings, as
+pygmies. Now she felt that she came of a race of giants, whose powers
+were illimitable. If only she could be under that palm-tree for a moment
+beside Emile, she would be able to test the power she knew was within
+her, the glorious power that the sun lacked, to shed light and heat
+through a human soul. With an instinctive gesture she stretched out her
+hand as if to give Artois the touch he longed for. It encountered only
+the air and dropped to her side. She got up with a sigh.
+
+"Poor old Emile!" she said to herself. "If only I could do something for
+him!"
+
+The thought of Maurice sleeping calmly close to her made her long to say
+"Thank you" for her great happiness by performing some action of
+usefulness, some action that would help another--Emile for choice--to
+happiness, or, at least, to calm.
+
+This longing was for a moment so keen in her that it was almost like an
+unconscious petition, like an unuttered prayer in the heart, "Give me an
+opportunity to show my gratitude."
+
+She stood by the wall for a moment, looking over into the ravine and at
+the mountain flank opposite. Etna was startlingly clear to-day. She
+fancied that if a fly were to settle upon the snow on its summit she
+would be able to see it. The sea was like a mirror in which lay the
+reflection of the unclouded sky. It was not far to Africa. She watched a
+bird pass towards the sea. Perhaps it was flying to Kairouan, and would
+settle at last on one of the white cupolas of the great mosque there, the
+Mosque of Djama Kebir.
+
+What could she do for Emile? She could at least write to him. She could
+renew her invitation to him to come to Sicily.
+
+"Lucrezia!" she called, softly, lest she might waken Maurice.
+
+"Signora?" said Lucrezia, appearing round the corner of the cottage.
+
+"Please bring me out a pen and ink and writing-paper, will you?"
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+Lucrezia was standing beside Hermione. Now she turned to go into the
+house. As she did so she said:
+
+"Ecco, Antonino from the post-office!"
+
+"Where?" asked Hermione.
+
+Lucrezia pointed to a little figure that was moving quickly along the
+mountain-path towards the cottage.
+
+"There, signora. But why should he come? It is not the hour for the post
+yet."
+
+"No. Perhaps it is a telegram. Yes, it must be a telegram."
+
+She glanced at the letter in her hand.
+
+"It's a telegram from Africa," she said, as if she knew.
+
+And at that moment she felt that she did know.
+
+Lucrezia regarded her with round-eyed amazement.
+
+"But, signora, how can you--"
+
+"There, Antonino has disappeared under the trees! We shall see him in a
+minute among the rocks. I'll go to meet him."
+
+And she went quickly to the archway, and looked down the path where the
+lizards were darting to and fro in the sunshine. Almost directly Antonino
+reappeared, a small boy climbing steadily up the steep pathway, with a
+leather bag slung over his shoulder.
+
+"Antonino!" she called to him. "Is it a telegram?"
+
+"Si, signora!" he cried out.
+
+He came up to her, panting, opened the bag, and gave her the folded
+paper.
+
+"Go and get something to drink," she said. "To eat, too, if you're
+hungry."
+
+Antonino ran off eagerly, while Hermione tore open the paper and read
+these words in French:
+
+     "Monsieur Artois dangerously ill; fear may not recover; he wished
+     you to know.
+
+                          MAX BERTON, Docteur Medecin, Kairouan."
+
+Hermione dropped the telegram. She did not feel at all surprised. Indeed,
+she felt that she had been expecting almost these very words, telling her
+of a tragedy at which the letter she still held in her hand had hinted.
+For a moment she stood there without being conscious of any special
+sensation. Then she stooped, picked up the telegram, and read it again.
+This time it seemed like an answer to that unuttered prayer in her heart:
+"Give me an opportunity to show my gratitude." She did not hesitate for
+a moment as to what she would do. She would go to Kairouan, to close the
+eyes of her friend if he must die, if not to nurse him back to life.
+
+Antonino was munching some bread and cheese and had one hand round a
+glass full of red wine.
+
+"I'm going to write an answer," she said to him, "and you must run with
+it."
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+"Was it from Africa, signora?" asked Lucrezia.
+
+"Yes."
+
+Lucrezia's jaw fell, and she stared in superstitious amazement.
+
+"I wonder," Hermione thought, "if Maurice--"
+
+She went gently to the bedroom. He was still sleeping calmly. His
+attitude of luxurious repose, the sound of his quiet breathing, seemed
+strange to her eyes and ears at this moment, strange and almost horrible.
+For an instant she thought of waking him in order to tell him her news
+and consult with him about the journey. It never occurred to her to ask
+him whether there should be a journey. But something held her back, as
+one is held back from disturbing the slumber of a tired child, and she
+returned to the sitting-room, wrote out the following telegram:
+
+     "Shall start for Kairouan at once; wire me Tunisia Palace Hotel,
+     Tunis,
+                                                MADAME DELAREY."
+
+and sent Antonino with it flying down the hill. Then she got time-tables
+and a guide-book of Tunisia, and sat down at her writing-table to make
+out the journey; while Lucrezia, conscious that something unusual was
+afoot, watched her with solemn eyes.
+
+Hermione found that she would gain nothing by starting that night. By
+leaving early the next morning she would arrive at Trapani in time to
+catch a steamer which left at midnight for Tunis, reaching Africa at
+nine on the following morning. From Tunis a day's journey by train would
+bring her to Kairouan. If the steamer were punctual she might be able to
+catch a train immediately on her arrival at Tunis. If not, she would have
+to spend one day there.
+
+Already she felt as if she were travelling. All sense of peace had left
+her. She seemed to hear the shriek of engines, the roar of trains in
+tunnels and under bridges, to shake with the oscillation of the carriage,
+to sway with the dip and rise of the action of the steamer.
+
+Swiftly, as one in haste, she wrote down times of departure and arrival:
+Cattaro to Messina, Messina to Palermo, Palermo to Trapani, Trapani to
+Tunis, Tunis to Kairouan, with the price of the ticket--a return ticket.
+When that was done and she had laid down her pen, she began for the first
+time to realize the change a morsel of paper had made in her life, to
+realize the fact of the closeness of her new knowledge of what was and
+what was coming to Maurice's ignorance. The travelling sensation within
+her, an intense interior restlessness, made her long for action, for some
+ardent occupation in which the body could take part. She would have liked
+to begin at once to pack, but all her things were in the bedroom where
+Maurice was sleeping. Would he sleep forever? She longed for him to wake,
+but she would not wake him. Everything could be packed in an hour. There
+was no reason to begin now. But how could she remain just sitting there
+in the great tranquillity of this afternoon of spring, looking at the
+long, calm line of Etna rising from the sea, while Emile, perhaps, lay
+dying?
+
+She got up, went once more to the terrace, and began to pace up and down
+under the awning. She had not told Lucrezia that she was going on the
+morrow. Maurice must know first. What would he say? How would he take it?
+And what would he do? Even in the midst of her now growing sorrow--for
+at first she had hardly felt sorry, had hardly felt anything but that
+intense restlessness which still possessed her--she was preoccupied with
+that. She meant, when he woke, to give him the telegram, and say simply
+that she must go at once to Artois. That was all. She would not ask, hint
+at anything else. She would just tell Maurice that she could not leave
+her dearest friend to die alone in an African city, tended only by an
+Arab, and a doctor who came to earn his fee.
+
+And Maurice--what would he say? What would he--do?
+
+If only he would wake! There was something terrible to her in the
+contrast between his condition and hers at this moment.
+
+And what ought she to do if Maurice--?
+
+She broke off short in her mental arrangement of possible happenings when
+Maurice should wake.
+
+The afternoon waned and still he slept. As she watched the light changing
+on the sea, growing softer, more wistful, and the long outline of Etna
+becoming darker against the sky, Hermione felt a sort of unreasonable
+despair taking possession of her. So few hours of the day were left now,
+and on the morrow this Sicilian life--a life that had been ideal--must
+come to an end for a time, and perhaps forever. The abruptness of the
+blow which had fallen had wakened in her sensitive heart a painful,
+almost an exaggerated sense of the uncertainty of the human fate. It
+seemed to her that the joy which had been hers in these tranquil Sicilian
+days, a joy more perfect than any she had conceived of, was being broken
+off short, as if it could never be renewed. With her anxiety for her
+friend mingled another anxiety, more formless, but black and horrible in
+its vagueness.
+
+"If this should be our last day together in Sicily!" she thought, as she
+watched the light softening among the hills and the shadows of the
+olive-trees lengthening upon the ground.
+
+"If this should be our last night together in the house of the priest!"
+
+It seemed to her that even with Maurice in another place she could never
+know again such perfect peace and joy, and her heart ached at the thought
+of leaving it.
+
+"To-morrow!" she thought. "Only a few hours and this will all be over!"
+
+It seemed almost incredible. She felt that she could not realize it
+thoroughly and yet that she realized it too much, as in a nightmare one
+seems to feel both less and more than in any tragedy of a wakeful hour.
+
+A few hours and it would all be over--and through those hours Maurice
+slept.
+
+The twilight was falling when he stirred, muttered some broken words, and
+opened his eyes. He heard no sound, and thought it was early morning.
+
+"Hermione!" he said, softly.
+
+Then he lay still for a moment and remembered.
+
+"By Jove! it must be long past time for dejeuner!" he thought.
+
+He sprang up and put his head into the sitting-room.
+
+"Hermione!" he called.
+
+"Yes," she answered, from the terrace.
+
+"What's the time?"
+
+"Nearly dinner-time."
+
+He burst out laughing.
+
+"Didn't you think I was going to sleep forever?" he said.
+
+"Almost," her voice said.
+
+He wondered a little why she did not come to him, but only answered him
+from a distance.
+
+"I'll dress and be out in a moment," he called.
+
+"All right!"
+
+Now that Maurice was awake at last, Hermione's grief at the lost
+afternoon became much more acute, but she was determined to conceal it.
+She remained where she was just then because she had been startled by the
+sound of her husband's voice, and was not sure of her power of
+self-control. When, a few minutes later, he came out upon the terrace
+with a half-amused, half-apologetic look on his face, she felt safer. She
+resolved to waste no time, but to tell him at once.
+
+"Maurice," she said, "while you've been sleeping I've been living very
+fast and travelling very far."
+
+"How, Hermione? What do you mean?" he asked, sitting down by the wall and
+looking at her with eyes that still held shadows of sleep.
+
+"Something's happened to-day that's--that's going to alter everything."
+
+He looked astonished.
+
+"Why, how grave you are! But what? What could happen here?"
+
+"This came."
+
+She gave him the doctor's telegram. He read it slowly aloud.
+
+"Artois!" he said. "Poor fellow! And out there in Africa all alone!"
+
+He stopped speaking, looked at her, then leaned forward, put his arm
+round her shoulder, and kissed her gently.
+
+"I'm awfully sorry for you, Hermione," he said. "Awfully sorry, I know
+how you must be feeling. When did it come?"
+
+"Some hours ago."
+
+"And I've been sleeping! I feel a brute."
+
+He kissed her again.
+
+"Why didn't you wake me?"
+
+"Just to share a grief? That would have been horrid of me, Maurice!"
+
+He looked again at the telegram.
+
+"Did you wire?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Of course. Perhaps to-morrow, or in a day or two, we shall have better
+news, that he's turned the corner. He's a strong man, Hermione; he ought
+to recover. I believe he'll recover."
+
+"Maurice," she said. "I want to tell you something."
+
+"What, dear?"
+
+"I feel I must--I can't wait here for news."
+
+"But then--what will you do?"
+
+"While you've been sleeping I've been looking out trains."
+
+"Trains! You don't mean--"
+
+"I must start for Kairouan to-morrow morning. Read this, too."
+
+And she gave him Emile's letter.
+
+"Doesn't that make you feel his loneliness?" she said, when he had
+finished it. "And think of it now--now when perhaps he knows that he is
+dying."
+
+"You are going away," he said--"going away from here!"
+
+His voice sounded as if he could not believe it.
+
+"To-morrow morning!" he added, more incredulously.
+
+"If I waited I might be too late."
+
+She was watching him with intent eyes, in which there seemed to flame a
+great anxiety.
+
+"You know what friends we've been," she continued. "Don't you think I
+ought to go?"
+
+"I--perhaps--yes, I see how you feel. Yes, I see. But"--he got up--"to
+leave here to-morrow! I felt as if--almost as if we'd been here always
+and should live here for the rest of our lives."
+
+"I wish to Heaven we could!" she exclaimed, her voice changing. "Oh,
+Maurice, if you knew how dreadful it is to me to go!"
+
+"How far is Kairouan?"
+
+"If I catch the train at Tunis I can be there the day after to-morrow."
+
+"And you are going to nurse him, of course?"
+
+"Yes, if--if I'm in time. Now I ought to pack before dinner."
+
+"How beastly!" he said, just like a boy. "How utterly beastly! I don't
+feel as if I could believe it all. But you--what a trump you are,
+Hermione! To leave this and travel all that way--not one woman in a
+hundred would do it."
+
+"Wouldn't you for a friend?"
+
+"I!" he said, simply. "I don't know whether I understand friendship as
+you do. I've had lots of friends, of course, but one seemed to me very
+like another, as long as they were jolly."
+
+"How Sicilian!" she thought.
+
+She had heard Gaspare speak of his boy friends in much the same way.
+
+"Emile is more to me than any one in the world but you," she said.
+
+Her voice changed, faltered on the last word, and she walked along the
+terrace to the sitting-room window.
+
+"I must pack now," she said. "Then we can have one more quiet time
+together after dinner."
+
+Her last words seemed to strike him, for he followed her, and as she was
+going into the bedroom, he said:
+
+"Perhaps--why shouldn't I--"
+
+But then he stopped.
+
+"Yes, Maurice!" she said, quickly.
+
+"Where's Gaspare?" he asked. "We'll make him help with the packing. But
+you won't take much, will you? It'll only be for a few days, I suppose."
+
+"Who knows?"
+
+"Gaspare! Gaspare!" he called.
+
+"Che vuole?" answered a sleepy voice.
+
+"Come here."
+
+In a moment a languid figure appeared round the corner. Maurice explained
+matters. Instantly Gaspare became a thing of quicksilver. He darted to
+help Hermione. Every nerve seemed quivering to be useful.
+
+"And the signore?" he said, presently, as he carried a trunk into the
+room.
+
+"The signore!" said Hermione.
+
+"Is he going, too?"
+
+"No, no!" said Hermione, swiftly.
+
+She put her finger to her lips. Delarey was just coming into the room.
+
+Gaspare said no more, but he shot a curious glance from padrona to
+padrone as he knelt down to lay some things in the trunk.
+
+By dinner-time Hermione's preparations were completed. The one trunk she
+meant to take was packed. How hateful it looked standing there in the
+white room with the label hanging from the handle! She washed her face
+and hands in cold water, and came out onto the terrace where the
+dinner-table was laid. It was a warm, still night, like the night of the
+fishing, and the moon hung low in a clear sky.
+
+"How exquisite it is here!" she said to Maurice, as they sat down. "We
+are in the very heart of calm, majestic calm. Look at that one star over
+Etna, and the outlines of the hills and of that old castle--"
+
+She stopped.
+
+"It brings a lump into my throat," she said, after a little pause. "It's
+too beautiful and too still to-night."
+
+"I love being here," he said.
+
+They ate their dinner in silence for some time. Presently Maurice began
+to crumble his bread.
+
+"Hermione," he said. "Look here--"
+
+"Yes, Maurice."
+
+"I've been thinking--of course I scarcely know Artois, and I could be of
+no earthly use, but I've been thinking whether it would not be better for
+me to come to Kairouan with you."
+
+For a moment Hermione's rugged face was lit up by a fire of joy that
+made her look beautiful. Maurice went on crumbling his bread.
+
+"I didn't say anything at first," he continued, "because I--well, somehow
+I felt so fixed here, almost part of the place, and I had never thought
+of going till it got too hot, and especially not now, when the best time
+is only just beginning. And then it all came so suddenly. I was still
+more than half asleep, too, I believe," he added, with a little laugh,
+"when you told me. But now I've had time, and--why shouldn't I come, too,
+to look after you?"
+
+As he went on speaking the light in Hermione's face flickered and died
+out. It was when he laughed that it vanished quite away.
+
+"Thank you, Maurice," she said, quietly. "Thank you, dear. I should love
+to have you with me, but it would be a shame!"
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why? Why--the best time here is only just beginning, as you say. It
+would be selfish to drag you across the sea to a sick-bed, or perhaps to
+a death-bed."
+
+"But the journey?"
+
+"Oh, I am accustomed to being a lonely woman. Think how short a time
+we've been married! I've nearly always travelled alone."
+
+"Yes, I know," he said. "Of course there's no danger. I didn't mean that,
+only--"
+
+"Only you were ready to be unselfish," she said. "Bless you for it. But
+this time I want to be unselfish. You must stay here to keep house, and
+I'll come back the first moment I can--the very first. Let's try to think
+of that--of the day when I come up the mountain again to my--to our
+garden of paradise. All the time I'm away I shall pray for the moment
+when I see these columns of the terrace above me, and the geraniums,
+and--and the white wall of our little--home."
+
+She stopped. Then she added:
+
+"And you."
+
+"Yes," he said. "But you won't see me on the terrace."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because, of course, I shall come to the station to meet you. That day
+will be a festa."
+
+She said nothing more. Her heart was very full, and of conflicting
+feelings and of voices that spoke in contradiction one of another. One or
+two of these voices she longed to hush to silence, but they were
+persistent. Then she tried not to listen to what they were saying. But
+they were pitilessly distinct.
+
+Dinner was soon over, and Gaspare came to clear away. His face was very
+grave, even troubled. He did not like this abrupt departure of his
+padrona.
+
+"You will come back, signora?" he said, as he drew away the cloth and
+prepared to fold up the table and carry it in-doors.
+
+Hermione managed to laugh.
+
+"Why, of course, Gaspare! Did you think I was going away forever?"
+
+"Africa is a long way off."
+
+"Only nine hours from Trapani. I may be back very soon. Will you forget
+me?"
+
+"Did I forget my padrona when she was in England?" the boy replied, his
+expressive face suddenly hardening and his great eyes glittering with
+sullen fires.
+
+Hermione quickly laid her hand on his.
+
+"I was only laughing. You know your padrona trusts you to remember her as
+she remembers you."
+
+Gaspare lifted up her hand quickly, kissed it, and hurried away, lifting
+his own hand to his eyes.
+
+"These Sicilians know how to make one love them," said Hermione, with a
+little catch in her voice. "I believe that boy would die for me if
+necessary."
+
+"I'm sure he would," said Maurice. "But one doesn't find a padrona like
+you every day."
+
+"Let us walk to the arch," she said. "I must take my last look at the
+mountains with you."
+
+Beyond the archway there was a large, flat rock, a natural seat from
+which could be seen a range of mountains that was invisible from the
+terrace. Hermione often sat on this rock alone, looking at the distant
+peaks, whose outlines stirred her imagination like a wild and barbarous
+music. Now she drew down Maurice beside her and kept his hand in hers.
+She was thinking of many things, among others of the little episode that
+had just taken place with Gaspare. His outburst of feeling, like fire
+bursting up through a suddenly opened fissure in the crust of the earth,
+had touched her and something more. It had comforted her, and removed
+from her a shadowy figure that had been approaching her, the figure of a
+fear. She fixed her eyes on the mountains, dark under the silver of the
+moon.
+
+"Maurice," she said. "Do you often try to read people?"
+
+The pleasant look of almost deprecating modesty that Artois had noticed
+on the night when they dined together in London came to Delarey's face.
+
+"I don't know that I do, Hermione," he said. "Is it easy?"
+
+"I think--I'm thinking it especially to-night--that it is horribly
+difficult. One's imagination seizes hold of trifles, and magnifies them
+and distorts them. From little things, little natural things, one
+deduces--I mean one takes a midget and makes of it a monster. How one
+ought to pray to see clear in people one loves! It's very strange, but I
+think that sometimes, just because one loves, one is ready to be afraid,
+to doubt, to exaggerate, to think a thing is gone when it is there. In
+friendship one is more ready to give things their proper value--perhaps
+because everything is of less value. Do you know that to-night I realize
+for the first time the enormous difference there is between the love one
+gives in love and the love one gives in friendship?"
+
+"Why, Hermione?" he asked, simply.
+
+He was looking a little puzzled, but still reverential.
+
+"I love Emile as a friend. You know that."
+
+"Yes. Would you go to Kairouan if you didn't?"
+
+"If he were to die it would be a great sorrow, a great loss to me. I pray
+that he may live. And yet--"
+
+Suddenly she took his other hand in hers.
+
+"Oh, Maurice, I've been thinking to-day, I'm thinking now--suppose it
+were you who lay ill, perhaps dying! Oh, the difference in my feeling, in
+my dread! If you were to be taken from me, the gap in my life! There
+would be nothing--nothing left."
+
+He put his arm round her, and was going to speak, but she went on:
+
+"And if you were to be taken from me how terrible it would be to feel
+that I'd ever had one unkind thought of you, that I'd ever misinterpreted
+one look or word or action of yours, that I'd ever, in my egoism or my
+greed, striven to thwart one natural impulse of yours, or to force you
+into travesty away from simplicity! Don't--don't ever be unnatural or
+insincere with me, Maurice, even for a moment, even for fear of hurting
+me. Be always yourself, be the boy that you still are and that I love you
+for being."
+
+She put her head on his shoulder, and he felt her body trembling.
+
+"I think I'm always natural with you," he said.
+
+"You're as natural as Gaspare. Only once, and--and that was my fault, I
+know; but you mean so much to me, everything, and your honesty with me is
+like God walking with me."
+
+She lifted her head and stood up.
+
+"Please God we'll have many more nights together here," she said--"many
+more blessed, blessed nights. The stillness of the hills is like all the
+truth of the world, sifted from the falsehood and made into one beautiful
+whole. Oh, Maurice, there is a Heaven on earth--when two people love
+each other in the midst of such a silence as this."
+
+They went slowly back through the archway to the terrace. Far below them
+the sea gleamed delicately, almost like a pearl. In the distance,
+towering above the sea, the snow of Etna gleamed more coldly, with a
+bleaker purity, a suggestion of remote mysteries and of untrodden
+heights. Above the snow of Etna shone the star of evening. Beside the sea
+shone the little light in the house of the sirens.
+
+And as they stood for a moment before the cottage in the deep silence of
+the night, Hermione looked up at the star above the snow. But Maurice
+looked down at the little light beside the sea.
+
+
+
+IX
+
+Only when Hermione was gone, when the train from which she waved her hand
+had vanished along the line that skirted the sea, and he saw Gaspare
+winking away two tears that were about to fall on his brown cheeks, did
+Maurice begin to realize the largeness of the change that fate had
+wrought in his Sicilian life. He realized it more sharply when he had
+climbed the mountain and stood once more upon the terrace before the
+house of the priest. Hermione's personality was so strong, so aboundingly
+vital, that its withdrawal made an impression such as that made by an
+intense silence suddenly succeeding a powerful burst of music. Just at
+first Maurice felt startled, almost puzzled like a child, inclined to
+knit his brows and stare with wide eyes and wonder what could be going to
+happen to him in a world that was altered. Now he was conscious of being
+far away from the land where he had been born and brought up, conscious
+of it as he had not been before, even on his first day in Sicily. He did
+not feel an alien. He had no sensation of exile. But he felt, as he had
+not felt when with Hermione, the glory of this world of sea and
+mountains, of olive-trees and vineyards, the strangeness of its great
+welcome to him, the magic of his readiness to give himself to it.
+
+He had been like a dancing faun in the sunshine and the moonlight of
+Sicily. Now, for a moment, he stood still, very still, and watched and
+listened, and was grave, and was aware of himself, the figure in the
+foreground of a picture that was marvellous.
+
+The enthusiasm of Hermione for Sicily, the flood of understanding of it,
+and feeling for it that she had poured out in the past days of spring,
+instead of teaching Maurice to see and to feel, seemed to have kept him
+back from the comprehension to which they had been meant to lead him.
+With Hermione, the watcher, he had been but as a Sicilian, another
+Gaspare in a different rank of life. Without Hermione he was Gaspare and
+something more. It was as if he still danced in the tarantella, but had
+now for the moment the power to stand and watch his performance and see
+that it was wonderful.
+
+This was just at first, in the silence that followed the music.
+
+He gazed at Etna, and thought: "How extraordinary that I'm living up here
+on a mountain and looking at the smoke from Etna, and that there's no
+English-speaking person here but me!" He looked at Gaspare and at
+Lucrezia, and thought: "What a queer trio of companions we are! How
+strange and picturesque those two would look in England, how different
+they are from the English, and yet how at home with them I feel! By Jove,
+it's wonderful!" And then he was thrilled by a sense of romance, of
+adventure, that had never been his when his English wife was there beside
+him, calling his mind to walk with hers, his heart to beat with hers,
+calling with the great sincerity of a very perfect love.
+
+"The poor signora!" said Gaspare. "I saw her beginning to cry when the
+train went away. She loves my country and cannot bear to leave it. She
+ought to live here always, as I do."
+
+"Courage, Gaspare!" said Maurice, putting his hand on the boy's shoulder.
+"She'll come back very soon."
+
+Gaspare lifted his hand to his eyes, then drew out a red-and-yellow
+handkerchief with "Caro mio" embroidered on it and frankly wiped them.
+
+"The poor signora!" he repeated. "She did not like to leave us."
+
+"Let's think of her return," said Maurice.
+
+He turned away suddenly from the terrace and went into the house.
+
+When he was there, looking at the pictures and books, at the open piano
+with some music on it, at a piece of embroidery with a needle stuck
+through the half-finished petal of a flower, he began to feel deserted.
+The day was before him. What was he going to do? What was there for him
+to do? For a moment he felt what he would have called "stranded." He was
+immensely accustomed to Hermione, and her splendid vitality of mind and
+body filled up the interstices of a day with such ease that one did not
+notice that interstices existed, or think they could exist. Her physical
+health and her ardent mind worked hand-in-hand to create around her an
+atmosphere into which boredom could not come, yet from which bustle was
+excluded. Maurice felt the silence within the house to be rather dreary
+than peaceful. He touched the piano, endeavoring to play with one finger
+the tune of "O sole mio!" He took up two or three books, pulled the
+needle out of Hermione's embroidery, then stuck it in again. The feeling
+of loss began to grow upon him. Oddly enough, he thought, he had not felt
+it very strongly at the station when the train ran out. Nor had it been
+with him upon the terrace. There he had been rather conscious of change
+than of loss--of change that was not without excitement. But now--He
+began to think of the days ahead of him with a faint apprehension.
+
+"But I'll live out-of-doors," he said to himself. "It's only in the house
+that I feel bad like this. I'll live out-of-doors and take lots of
+exercise, and I shall be all right."
+
+He had again taken up a book, almost without knowing it, and now, holding
+it in his hand, he went to the head of the steps leading to the terrace
+and looked out. Gaspare was sitting by the wall with a very dismal face.
+He stared silently at his master for a minute. Then he said:
+
+"The signora should have taken us with her to Africa. It would have been
+better."
+
+"It was impossible, Gaspare," Maurice said, rather hastily. "She is going
+to a poor signore who is ill."
+
+"I know."
+
+The boy paused for a moment. Then he said:
+
+"Is the signore her brother?"
+
+"Her brother! No."
+
+"Is he a relation?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Is he very old?"
+
+"Certainly not."
+
+Gaspare repeated:
+
+"The signora should have taken us with her to Africa."
+
+This time he spoke with a certain doggedness. Maurice, he scarcely knew
+why, felt slightly uncomfortable and longed to create a diversion. He
+looked at the book he was holding in his hand and saw that it was _The
+Thousand and One Nights_, in Italian. He wanted to do something definite,
+to distract his thoughts--more than ever now after his conversation with
+Gaspare. An idea occurred to him.
+
+"Come under the oak-trees, Gaspare," he said, "and I'll read to you. It
+will be a lesson in accent. You shall be my professore."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+The response was listless, and Gaspare followed his master with listless
+footsteps down the little path that led to the grove of oak-trees that
+grew among giant rocks, on which the lizards were basking.
+
+"There are stories of Africa in this book," said Maurice, opening it.
+
+Gaspare looked more alert.
+
+"Of where the signora will be?"
+
+"Chi lo sa?"
+
+He lay down on the warm ground, set his back against a rock, opened the
+book at hazard, and began to read slowly and carefully, while Gaspare,
+stretched on the grass, listened, with his chin in the palm of his hand.
+The story was of the fisherman and the Genie who was confined in a
+casket, and soon Gaspare was entirely absorbed by it. He kept his
+enormous brown eyes fixed upon Maurice's face, and moved his lips,
+silently forming, after him, the words of the tale. When it was finished
+he said:
+
+"I should not like to be kept shut up like that, signore. If I could not
+be free I would kill myself. I will always be free."
+
+He stretched himself on the warm ground like a young animal, then added:
+
+"I shall not take a wife--ever."
+
+Maurice shut the book and stretched himself, too, then moved away from
+the rock, and lay at full length with his hands clasped behind his head
+and his eyes, nearly shut, fixed upon the glimmer of the sea.
+
+"Why not, Gasparino?"
+
+"Because if one has a wife one is not free."
+
+"Hm!"
+
+"If I had a wife I should be like the Mago Africano when he was shut up
+in the box."
+
+"And I?" Maurice said, suddenly sitting up. "What about me?"
+
+For the first time it seemed to occur to Gaspare that he was speaking to
+a married man. He sat up, too.
+
+"Oh, but you--you are a signore and rich. It is different. I am poor. I
+shall have many loves, first one and then another, but I shall never take
+a wife. My father wishes me to when I have finished the military service,
+but"--and he laughed at his own ingenious comparison--"I am like the Mago
+Africano when he was let out of the casket. I am free, and I will never
+let myself be stoppered-up as he did. Per Dio!"
+
+Suddenly Maurice frowned.
+
+"It isn't like--" he began.
+
+Then he stopped. The lines in his forehead disappeared, and he laughed.
+
+"I am pretty free here, too," he said. "At least, I feel so."
+
+The dreariness that had come upon him inside the cottage had disappeared
+now that he was in the open air. As he looked down over the sloping
+mountain flank--dotted with trees near him, but farther away bare and
+sunbaked--to the sea with its magic coast-line, that seemed to promise
+enchantments to wilful travellers passing by upon the purple waters, as
+he turned his eyes to the distant plain with its lemon groves, its
+winding river, its little vague towns of narrow houses from which thin
+trails of smoke went up, and let them journey on to the great, smoking
+mountain lifting its snows into the blue, and its grave, not insolent,
+panache, he felt an immense sense of happy-go-lucky freedom with the
+empty days before him. His intellect was loose like a colt on a prairie.
+There was no one near to catch it, to lead it to any special object, to
+harness it and drive it onward in any fixed direction. He need no longer
+feel respect for a cleverness greater than his own, or try to understand
+subtleties of thought and sensation that were really outside of his
+capacities. He did not say this to himself, but whence sprang this new
+and dancing feeling of emancipation that was coming upon him? Why did he
+remember the story he had just been reading, and think of himself for a
+moment as a Genie emerging cloudily into the light of day from a narrow
+prison which had been sunk beneath the sea? Why? For, till now, he had
+never had any consciousness of imprisonment. One only becomes conscious
+of some things when one is freed from them. Maurice's happy efforts to
+walk on the heights with the enthusiasms of Hermione had surely never
+tired him, but rather braced him. Yet, left alone with peasants, with
+Lucrezia and Gaspare, there was something in him, some part of his
+nature, which began to frolic like a child let out of school. He felt
+more utterly at his ease than he had ever felt before. With these
+peasants he could let his mind be perfectly lazy. To them he seemed
+instructed, almost a god of knowledge.
+
+Suddenly Maurice laughed, showing his white teeth. He stretched up his
+arms to the blue heaven and the sun that sent its rays filtering down to
+him through the leaves of the oak-trees, and he laughed again gently.
+
+"What is it, signore?"
+
+"It is good to live, Gaspare. It is good to be young out here on the
+mountain-side, and to send learning and problems and questions of
+conscience to the devil. After all, real life is simple enough if only
+you'll let it be. I believe the complications of life, half of them, and
+its miseries too, more than half of them, are the inventions of the
+brains of the men and women we call clever. They can't let anything
+alone. They bother about themselves and everybody else. By Jove, if you
+knew how they talk about life in London! They'd make you think it was the
+most complicated, rotten, intriguing business imaginable; all
+misunderstandings and cross-purposes, and the Lord knows what. But it
+isn't. It's jolly simple, or it can be. Here we are, you and I, and we
+aren't at loggerheads, and we've got enough to eat and a pair of boots
+apiece, and the sun, and the sea, and old Etna behaving nicely--and what
+more do we want?"
+
+"Signore--"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"I don't understand English."
+
+"Mamma mia!" Delarey roared with laughter. "And I've been talking
+English. Well, Gaspare, I can't say it in Sicilian--can I? Let's see."
+
+He thought a minute. Then he said:
+
+"It's something like this. Life is simple and splendid if you let it
+alone. But if you worry it--well, then, like a dog, it bites you."
+
+He imitated a dog biting. Gaspare nodded seriously.
+
+"Mi piace la vita," he remarked, calmly.
+
+"E anche mi piace a me," said Maurice. "Now I'll give you a lesson in
+English, and when the signora comes back you can talk to her."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+The afternoon had gone in a flash. Evening came while they were still
+under the oak-trees, and the voice of Lucrezia was heard calling from the
+terrace, with the peculiar baaing intonation that is characteristic of
+southern women of the lower classes.
+
+Gaspare baaed ironically in reply.
+
+"It isn't dinner-time already?" said Maurice, getting up reluctantly.
+
+"Yes, meester sir, eef you pleesi," said Gaspare, with conscious pride.
+"We go way."
+
+"Bravo. Well, I'm getting hungry."
+
+As Maurice sat alone at dinner on the terrace, while Gaspare and Lucrezia
+ate and chattered in the kitchen, he saw presently far down below the
+shining of the light in the house of the sirens. It came out when the
+stars came out, this tiny star of the sea. He felt a little lonely as he
+sat there eating all by himself, and when the light was kindled near the
+water, that lay like a dream waiting to be sweetly disturbed by the moon,
+he was pleased as by the greeting of a friend. The light was company. He
+watched it while he ate. It was a friendly light, more friendly than the
+light of the stars to him. For he connected it with earthly
+things--things a man could understand. He imagined Maddalena in the
+cottage where he had slept preparing the supper for Salvatore, who was
+presently going off to sea to spear fish, or net them, or take them with
+lines for the market on the morrow. There was bread and cheese on the
+table, and the good red wine that could harm nobody, wine that had all
+the laughter of the sun-rays in it. And the cottage door was open to the
+sea. The breeze came in and made the little lamp that burned beneath the
+Madonna flicker. He saw the big, white bed, and the faces of the saints,
+of the actresses, of the smiling babies that had watched him while he
+slept. And he saw the face of his peasant hostess, the face he had kissed
+in the dawn, ere he ran down among the olive-trees to plunge into the
+sea. He saw the eyes that were like black jewels, the little feathers of
+gold in the hair about her brow. She was a pretty, simple girl. He liked
+the look of curiosity in her eyes. To her he was something touched with
+wonder, a man from a far-off land. Yet she was at ease with him and he
+with her. That drop of Sicilian blood in his veins was worth something to
+him in this isle of the south. It made him one with so much, with the
+sunburned sons of the hills and of the sea-shore, with the sunburned
+daughters of the soil. It made him one with them--or more--one of them.
+He had had a kiss from Sicily now--a kiss in the dawn by the sea, from
+lips fresh with the sea wind and warm with the life that is young. And
+what had it meant to him? He had taken it carelessly with a laugh. He had
+washed it from his lips in the sea. Now he remembered it, and, in
+thought, he took the kiss again, but more slowly, more seriously. And he
+took it at evening, at the coming of night, instead of at dawn, at the
+coming of day--his kiss from Sicily.
+
+He took it at evening.
+
+He had finished dinner now, and he pushed back his chair and drew a cigar
+from his pocket. Then he struck a match. As he was putting it to the
+cigar he looked again towards the sea and saw the light.
+
+"Damn!"
+
+"Signore!"
+
+Gaspare came running.
+
+"I didn't call, Gaspare, I only said 'Mamma mia!' because I burned my
+fingers."
+
+He struck another match and lit the cigar.
+
+"Signore--" Gaspare began, and stopped.
+
+"Yes? What is it?"
+
+"Signore, I--Lucrezia, you know, has relatives at Castel Vecchio."
+
+Castel Vecchio was the nearest village, perched on the hill-top opposite,
+twenty minutes' walk from the cottage.
+
+"Ebbene?"
+
+"Ebbene, signorino, to-night there is a festa in their house. It is the
+festa of Pancrazio, her cousin. Sebastiano will be there to play, and
+they will dance, and--"
+
+"Lucrezia wants to go?"
+
+"Si, signore, but she is afraid to ask."
+
+"Afraid! Of course she can go, she must go. Tell her. But at night can
+she come back alone?"
+
+"Signore, I am invited, but I said--I did not like the first evening that
+the padrona is away--if you would come they would take it as a great
+honor."
+
+"Go, Gaspare, take Lucrezia, and bring her back safely."
+
+"And you, signore?"
+
+"I would come, too, but I think a stranger would spoil the festa."
+
+"Oh no, signore, on the contrary--"
+
+"I know--you think I shall be sad alone."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+"You are good to think of your padrone, but I shall be quite content. You
+go with Lucrezia and come back as late as you like. Tell Lucrezia! Off
+with you!"
+
+Gaspare hesitated no longer. In a few minutes he had put on his best
+clothes and a soft hat, and stuck a large, red rose above each ear. He
+came to say good-bye with Lucrezia on his arm. Her head was wrapped in a
+brilliant yellow-and-white shawl with saffron-colored fringes. They went
+off together laughing and skipping down the stony path like two children.
+
+When their footsteps died away Delarey, who had walked to the archway to
+see them off, returned slowly to the terrace and began to pace up and
+down, puffing at his cigar. The silence was profound. The rising moon
+cast its pale beams upon the white walls of the cottage, the white seats
+of the terrace. There was no wind. The leaves of the oaks and the
+olive-trees beneath the wall were motionless. Nothing stirred. Above the
+cottage the moonlight struck on the rocks, showed the nakedness of the
+mountain-side. A curious sense of solitude, such as he had never known
+before, took possession of Delarey. It did not make him feel sad at
+first, but only emancipated, free as he had never yet felt free, like one
+free in a world that was curiously young, curiously unfettered by any
+chains of civilization, almost savagely, primitively free. So might an
+animal feel ranging to and fro in a land where man had not set foot. But
+he was an animal without its mate in the wonderful breathless night. And
+the moonlight grew about him as he walked, treading softly he scarce knew
+why, to and fro, to and fro.
+
+Hermione was nearing the coast now. Soon she would be on board the
+steamer and on her way across the sea to Africa. She would be on her way
+to Africa--and to Artois.
+
+Delarey recalled his conversation with Gaspare, when the boy had asked
+him whether Artois was Hermione's brother, or a relation, or whether he
+was old. He remembered Gaspare's intonation when he said, almost sternly,
+"The signora should have taken us with her to Africa." Evidently he was
+astonished. Why? It must have been because he--Delarey--had let his wife
+go to visit a man in a distant city alone. Sicilians did not understand
+certain things. He had realized his own freedom--now he began to realize
+Hermione's. How quickly she had made up her mind. While he was sleeping
+she had decided everything. She had even looked out the trains. It had
+never occurred to her to ask him what to do. And she had not asked him to
+go with her. Did he wish she had?
+
+A new feeling began to stir within him, unreasonable, absurd. It had come
+to him with the night and his absolute solitude in the night. It was not
+anger as yet. It was a faint, dawning sense of injury, but so faint that
+it did not rouse, but only touched gently, almost furtively, some spirit
+drowsing within him, like a hand that touches, then withdraws itself,
+then steals forward to touch again.
+
+He began to walk a little faster up and down, always keeping along the
+terrace wall.
+
+He was primitive man to-night, and primitive feelings were astir in him.
+He had not known he possessed them, yet he--the secret soul of him--did
+not shrink from them in any surprise. To something in him, some part of
+him, they came as things not unfamiliar.
+
+Suppose he had shown surprise at Hermione's project? Suppose he had asked
+her not to go? Suppose he had told her not to go? What would she have
+said? What would she have done? He had never thought of objecting to this
+journey, but he might have objected. Many a man would have objected. This
+was their honeymoon--hers and his. To many it would seem strange that a
+wife should leave her husband during their honeymoon, to travel across
+the sea to another man, a friend, even if he were ill, perhaps dying. He
+did not doubt Hermione. No one who knew her as he did could doubt her,
+yet nevertheless, now that he was quite companionless in the night, he
+felt deserted, he felt as if every one else were linked with life, while
+he stood entirely alone. Hermione was travelling to her friend. Lucrezia
+and Gaspare had gone to their festa, to dance, to sing, to joke, to make
+merry, to make love--who knew? Down in the village the people were
+gossiping at one another's doors, were lounging together in the piazza,
+were playing cards in the caffes, were singing and striking the guitars
+under the pepper-trees bathed in the rays of the moon. And he--what was
+there for him in this night that woke up desires for joy, for the
+sweetness of the life that sings in the passionate aisles of the south?
+
+He stood still by the wall. Two or three lights twinkled on the height
+where Castel Vecchio perched clinging to its rock above the sea.
+Sebastiano was there setting his lips to the ceramella, and shooting bold
+glances of tyrannical love at Lucrezia out of his audacious eyes. The
+peasants, dressed in their gala clothes, were forming in a circle for the
+country dance. The master of the ceremonies was shouting out his commands
+in bastard French: "Tournez!" "A votre place!" "Prenez la donne!" "Dansez
+toutes!" Eyes were sparkling, cheeks were flushing, lips were parting as
+gay activity created warmth in bodies and hearts. Then would come the
+tarantella, with Gaspare spinning like a top and tripping like a Folly in
+a veritable madness of movement. And as the night wore on the dance would
+become wilder, the laughter louder, the fire of jokes more fierce.
+Healths would be drunk with clinking glasses, brindisi shouted, tricks
+played. Cards would be got out. There would be a group intent on "Scopa,"
+another calling "Mi staio!" "Carta da vente!" throwing down the soldi and
+picking them up greedily in "Sette e mezzo." Stories would be told, bets
+given and taken. The smoke would curl up from the long, black cigars the
+Sicilians love. Dark-browed men and women, wild-haired boys, and girls in
+gay shawls, with great rings swinging from their ears, would give
+themselves up as only southerners can to the joy of the passing moment,
+forgetting poverty, hardship, and toil, grinding taxation, all the cares
+and the sorrows that encompass the peasant's life, forgetting the flight
+of the hours, forgetting everything in the passion of the festa, the
+dedication of all their powers to the laughing worship of fun.
+
+Yes, the passing hour would be forgotten. That was certain. It would be
+dawn ere Lucrezia and Gaspare returned.
+
+Delarey's cigar was burned to a stump. He took it from his lips and threw
+it with all his force over the wall towards the sea. Then he put his
+hands on the wall and leaned over it, fixing his eyes on the sea. The
+sense of injury grew in him. He resented the joys of others in this
+beautiful night, and he felt as if all the world were at a festa, as if
+all the world were doing wonderful things in the wonderful night, while
+he was left solitary to eat out his heart beneath the moon. He did not
+reason against his feelings and tell himself they were absurd. The
+dancing faun does not reason in his moments of ennui. He rebels. Delarey
+rebelled.
+
+He had been invited to the festa and he had refused to go--almost eagerly
+he had refused. Why? There had been something secret in his mind which
+had prompted him. He had said--and even to himself--that he did not go
+lest his presence might bring a disturbing element into the peasants'
+gayety. But was that his reason?
+
+Leaning over the wall he looked down upon the sea. The star that seemed
+caught in the sea smiled at him, summoned him. Its gold was like the
+gold, the little feathers of gold in the dark hair of a Sicilian girl
+singing the song of the May beside the sea:
+
+               "Maju torna, maju veni
+               Cu li belli soi ciureri--"
+
+He tried to hum the tune, but it had left his memory. He longed to hear
+it once more under the olive-trees of the Sirens' Isle.
+
+Again his thought went to Hermione. Very soon she would be out there, far
+out on the silver of the sea. Had she wanted him to go with her? He knew
+that she had. Yet she had not asked him to go, had not hinted at his
+going. Even she had refused to let him go. And he had not pressed it.
+Something had held him back from insisting, something secret, and
+something secret had kept her from accepting his suggestion. She was
+going to her greatest friend, to the man she had known intimately, long
+before she had known him--Delarey--and he was left alone. In England he
+had never had a passing moment of jealousy of Artois; but now, to-night,
+mingled with his creeping resentment against the joys of the peasants, of
+those not far from him under the moon of Sicily, there was a sensation of
+jealousy which came from the knowledge that his wife was travelling to
+her friend. That friend might be dead, or she might nurse him back to
+life. Delarey thought of her by his bedside, ministering to him,
+performing the intimate offices of the attendant on a sick man, raising
+him up on his pillows, putting a cool hand on his burning forehead,
+sitting by him at night in the silence of a shadowy room, and quite
+alone.
+
+He thought of all this, and the Sicilian that was in him grew suddenly
+hot with a burning sense of anger, a burning desire for action,
+preventive or revengeful. It was quite unreasonable, as unreasonable as
+the vagrant impulse of a child, but it was strong as the full-grown
+determination of a man. Hermione had belonged to him. She was his. And
+the old Sicilian blood in him protested against that which would be if
+Artois were still alive when she reached Africa.
+
+But it was too late now. He could do nothing. He could only look at the
+shining sea on which the ship would bear her that very night.
+
+His inaction and solitude began to torture him. If he went in he knew he
+could not sleep. The mere thought of the festa would prevent him from
+sleeping. Again he looked at the lights of Castel Vecchio. He saw only
+one now, and imagined it set in the window of Pancrazio's house. He even
+fancied that down the mountain-side and across the ravine there floated
+to him the faint wail of the ceramella playing a dance measure.
+
+Suddenly he knew that he could not remain all night alone on the
+mountain-side.
+
+He went quickly into the cottage, got his soft hat, then went from room
+to room, closing the windows and barring the wooden shutters. When he had
+come out again upon the steps and locked the cottage door he stood for a
+moment hesitating with the large door-key in his hand. He said to himself
+that he was going to the festa at Castel Vecchio. Of course he was going
+there, to dance the country dances and join in the songs of Sicily. He
+slipped the key into his pocket and went down the steps to the terrace.
+But there he hesitated again. He took the key out of his pocket, looked
+at it as it lay in his hand, then put it down on the sill of the
+sitting-room window.
+
+"If any one comes, there isn't very much to steal," he thought. "And,
+perhaps--" Again he looked at the lights of Castel Vecchio, then down
+towards the sea. The star of the sea shone steadily and seemed to summon
+him. He left the key on the window-sill, with a quick gesture pulled his
+hat-brim down farther over his eyes, hastened along the terrace, and,
+turning to the left beyond the archway, took the path that led through
+the olive-trees towards Isola Bella and the sea.
+
+Through the wonderful silence of the night among the hills there came now
+a voice that was thrilling to his ears--the voice of youth by the sea
+calling to the youth that was in him.
+
+Hermione was travelling to her friend. Must he remain quite friendless?
+
+All the way down to the sea he heard the calling of the voice.
+
+
+
+X
+
+As dawn was breaking, Lucrezia and Gaspare climbed slowly up the
+mountain-side towards the cottage. Lucrezia's eyes were red, for she had
+just bidden good-bye to Sebastiano, who was sailing that day for the
+Lipari Isles, and she did not know how soon he would be back. Sebastiano
+had not cried. He loved change, and was radiant at the prospect of his
+voyage. But Lucrezia's heart was torn. She knew Sebastiano, knew his wild
+and adventurous spirit, his reckless passion for life, and the gifts it
+scatters at the feet of lusty youth. There were maidens in the Lipari
+Isles. They might be beautiful. She had scarcely been jealous of
+Sebastiano before her betrothal to him, for then she had had no rights
+over him, and she was filled with the spirit of humbleness that still
+dwells in the women of Sicily, the spirit that whispers "Man may do what
+he will." But now something had arisen within her to do battle with that
+spirit. She wanted Sebastiano for her very own, and the thought of his
+freedom when away tormented her.
+
+Gaspare comforted her in perfunctory fashion.
+
+"What does it matter?" he said. "When you are married you can keep him in
+the house, and make him spin the flax for you."
+
+And he laughed aloud. But when they drew near to the cottage he said:
+
+"Zitta, Lucrezia! The padrone is asleep. We must steal in softly and not
+waken him."
+
+On tiptoe they crept along the terrace.
+
+"He will have left the door open for us," whispered Gaspare. "He has the
+revolver beside him and will not have been afraid."
+
+But when they stood before the steps the door was shut. Gaspare tried it
+gently. It was locked.
+
+"Phew!" he whistled. "We cannot get in, for we cannot wake him."
+
+Lucrezia shivered. Sorrow had made her feel cold.
+
+"Mamma mia!" she began.
+
+But Gaspare's sharp eyes had spied the key lying on the window-sill. He
+darted to it and picked it up. Then he stared at the locked door and at
+Lucrezia.
+
+"But where is the padrone?" he said. "Oh, I know! He locked the door on
+the inside and then put the key out of the window. But why is the bedroom
+window shut? He always sleeps with it open!"
+
+Quickly he thrust the key into the lock, opened the door, and entered the
+dark sitting-room. Holding up a warning hand to keep Lucrezia quiet, he
+tiptoed to the bedroom door, opened it without noise, and disappeared,
+leaving Lucrezia outside. After a minute or two he came back.
+
+"It is all right. He is sleeping. Go to bed."
+
+Lucrezia turned to go.
+
+"And never mind getting up early to make the padrone's coffee," Gaspare
+added. "I will do it. I am not sleepy. I shall take the gun and go out
+after the birds."
+
+Lucrezia looked surprised. Gaspare was not in the habit of relieving her
+of her duties. On the contrary, he was a strict taskmaster. But she was
+tired and preoccupied. So she made no remark and went off to her room
+behind the house, walking heavily and untying the handkerchief that was
+round her head.
+
+When she had gone, Gaspare stood by the table, thinking deeply. He had
+lied to Lucrezia. The padrone was not asleep. His bed had not been slept
+in. Where had he gone? Where was he now?
+
+The Sicilian servant, if he cares for his padrone, feels as if he had a
+proprietor's interest in him. He belongs to his padrone and his padrone
+belongs to him. He will allow nobody to interfere with his possession. He
+is intensely jealous of any one who seeks to disturb the intimacy between
+his padrone and himself, or to enter into his padrone's life without
+frankly letting him know it and the reason for it. The departure of
+Hermione had given an additional impetus to Gaspare's always lively sense
+of proprietorship in Maurice. He felt as if he had been left in charge of
+his padrone, and had an almost sacred responsibility to deliver him up to
+Hermione happy and safe when she returned. This absence, therefore,
+startled and perturbed him--more--made him feel guilty of a lapse from
+his duty. Perhaps he should not have gone to the festa. True, he had
+asked the padrone to accompany him. But still--
+
+He went out onto the terrace and looked around him. The dawn was faint
+and pale. Wreaths of mist, like smoke trails, hung below him, obscuring
+the sea. The ghostly cone of Etna loomed into the sky, extricating itself
+from swaddling bands of clouds which shrouded its lower flanks. The air
+was chilly upon this height, and the aspect of things was gray and
+desolate, without temptation, without enchantment, to lure men out from
+their dwellings.
+
+What could have kept the padrone from his sleep till this hour?
+
+Gaspare shivered a little as he stared over the wall. He was
+thinking--thinking furiously. Although scarcely educated at all, he was
+exceedingly sharp-witted, and could read character almost as swiftly and
+surely as an Arab. At this moment he was busily recalling the book he had
+been reading for many weeks in Sicily, the book of his padrone's
+character, written out for him in words, in glances, in gestures, in
+likes and dislikes, most clearly in actions. Mentally he turned the
+leaves until he came to the night of the fishing, to the waning of the
+night, to the journey to the caves, to the dawn when he woke upon the
+sand and found that the padrone was not beside him. His brown hand
+tightened on the stick he held, his brown eyes stared with the glittering
+acuteness of a great bird's at the cloud trails hiding the sea below
+him--hiding the sea, and all that lay beside the sea.
+
+There was no one on the terrace. But there was a figure for a moment on
+the mountain-side, leaping downward. The ravine took it and hid it in a
+dark embrace. Gaspare had found what he sought, a clew to guide him. His
+hesitation was gone. In his uneducated and intuitive mind there was no
+longer any room for a doubt. He knew that his padrone was where he had
+been in that other dawn, when he slipped away from the cave where his
+companions were sleeping.
+
+Surefooted as a goat, and incited to abnormal activity by a driving
+spirit within him that throbbed with closely mingled curiosity, jealousy,
+and anger, Gaspare made short work of the path in the ravine. In a few
+minutes he came out on to the road by Isola Bella. On the shore was a
+group of fishermen, all of them friends of his, getting ready their
+fishing-tackle, and hauling down the boats to the gray sea for the
+morning's work. Some of them hailed him, but he took no notice, only
+pulled his soft hat down sideways over his cheek, and hurried on in the
+direction of Messina, keeping to the left side of the road and away from
+the shore, till he gained the summit of the hill from which the Caffe
+Berardi and the caves were visible. There he stopped for a moment and
+looked down. He saw no one upon the shore, but at some distance upon the
+sea there was a black dot, a fishing-boat. It was stationary. Gaspare
+knew that its occupant must be hauling in his net.
+
+"Salvatore is out then!" he muttered to himself, as he turned aside from
+the road onto the promontory, which was connected by the black wall of
+rock with the land where stood the house of the sirens. This wall,
+forbidding though it was, and descending sheer into the deep sea on
+either side, had no terrors for him. He dropped down to it with a sort of
+skilful carelessness, then squatted on a stone, and quickly unlaced his
+mountain boots, pulled his stockings off, slung them with the boots round
+his neck, and stood up on his bare feet. Then, balancing himself with his
+out-stretched arms, he stepped boldly upon the wall. It was very narrow.
+The sea surged through it. There was not space on it to walk
+straight-footed, even with only one foot at a time upon the rock. Gaspare
+was obliged to plant his feet sideways, the toes and heels pointing to
+the sea on either hand. But the length of the wall was short, and he went
+across it almost as quickly as if he had been walking upon the road.
+Heights and depths had no terrors for him in his confident youth. And he
+had been bred up among the rocks, and was a familiar friend of the sea. A
+drop into it would have only meant a morning bath. Having gained the
+farther side, he put on his stockings and boots, grasped his stick, and
+began to climb upward through the thickly growing trees towards the house
+of the sirens. His instinct had told him upon the terrace that the
+padrone was there. Uneducated people have often marvellously retentive
+memories for the things of every-day life. Gaspare remembered the
+padrone's question about the little light beside the sea, his answer to
+it, the way in which the padrone had looked towards the trees when, in
+the dawn, they stood upon the summit of the hill and he pointed out the
+caves where they were going to sleep. He remembered, too, from what
+direction the padrone came towards the caffe when the sun was up--and he
+knew.
+
+As he drew near to the cottage he walked carefully, though still swiftly,
+but when he reached it he paused, bent forward his head, and listened.
+He was in the tangle of coarse grass that grew right up to the north wall
+of the cottage, and close to the angle which hid from him the sea-side
+and the cottage door. At first he heard nothing except the faint murmur
+of the sea upon the rocks. His stillness now was as complete as had been
+his previous activity, and in the one he was as assured as in the other.
+Some five minutes passed. Again and again, with a measured monotony, came
+to him the regular lisp of the waves. The grass rustled against his legs
+as the little wind of morning pushed its way through it gently, and a
+bird chirped above his head in the olive-trees and was answered by
+another bird. And just then, as if in reply to the voices of the birds,
+he heard the sound of human voices. They were distant and faint almost as
+the lisp of the sea, and were surely coming towards him from the sea.
+
+When Gaspare realized that the speakers were not in the cottage he crept
+round the angle of the wall, slipped across the open space that fronted
+the cottage door, and, gaining the trees, stood still in almost exactly
+the place where Maurice had stood when he watched Maddalena in the dawn.
+
+The voices sounded again and nearer. There was a little laugh in a girl's
+voice, then the dry twang of the plucked strings of a guitar, then
+silence. After a minute the guitar strings twanged again, and a girl's
+voice began to sing a peasant song, "Zampagnaro."
+
+At the end of the verse there was an imitation of the ceramella by the
+voice, humming, or rather whining, bouche fermee. As it ceased a man's
+voice said:
+
+"Ancora! Ancora!"
+
+The girl's voice began the imitation again, and the man's voice joined in
+grotesquely, exaggerating the imitation farcically and closing it with a
+boyish shout.
+
+In response, standing under the trees, Gaspare shouted. He had meant to
+keep silence; but the twang of the guitar, with its suggestion of a
+festa, the singing voices, the youthful laughter, and the final
+exclamation ringing out in the dawn, overcame the angry and suspicious
+spirit that had hitherto dominated him. The boy's imp of fun was up and
+dancing within him. He could not drive it out or lay it to rest.
+
+"Hi--yi--yi--yi--yi!"
+
+His voice died away, and was answered by a silence that seemed like a
+startled thing holding its breath.
+
+"Hi--yi--yi--yi--yi!"
+
+He called again, lustily, leaped out from the trees, and went running
+across the open space to the edge of the plateau by the sea. A tiny path
+wound steeply down from here to the rocks below, and on it, just under
+the concealing crest of the land, stood the padrone with Maddalena. Their
+hands were linked together, as if they had caught at each other sharply
+for sympathy or help. Their faces were tense and their lips parted. But
+as they saw Gaspare's light figure leaping over the hill edge, his
+dancing eyes fixed shrewdly, with a sort of boyish scolding, upon them,
+their hands fell apart, their faces relaxed.
+
+"Gasparino!" said Maurice. "It was you who called!"
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+He came up to them. Maddalena's oval face had flushed, and she dropped
+the full lids over her black eyes as she said:
+
+"Buon giorno, Gaspare."
+
+"Buon giorno, Donna Maddalena."
+
+Then they stood there for a moment in silence. Maurice was the first to
+speak again.
+
+"But why did you come here?" he said. "How did you know?"
+
+Already the sparkle of merriment had dropped out of Gaspare's face as the
+feeling of jealousy, of not having been completely trusted, returned to
+his mind.
+
+"Did not the signore wish me to know?" he said, almost gruffly, with a
+sort of sullen violence. "I am sorry."
+
+Maurice touched the back of his hand, giving it a gentle, half-humorous
+slap.
+
+"Don't be an ass, Gaspare. But how could you guess where I had gone?"
+
+"Where did you go before, signore, when you could not sleep?"
+
+At this thrust Maurice imitated Maddalena and reddened slightly. It
+seemed to him as if he had been living under glass while he had fancied
+himself enclosed in rock that was impenetrable by human eyes. He tried to
+laugh away his slight confusion.
+
+"Gaspare, you are the most birbante boy in Sicily!" he said. "You are
+like a Mago Africano."
+
+"Signorino, you should trust me," returned the boy, sullenly.
+
+His own words seemed to move him, as if their sound revealed to him the
+whole of the injury that had been inflicted upon his amour propre, and
+suddenly angry tears started into his eyes.
+
+"I thought I was a servant of confidence" (un servitore di confidenza),
+he added, bitterly.
+
+Maurice was amazed at the depth of feeling thus abruptly shown to him.
+This was the first time he had been permitted to look for a moment deep
+down into that strange volcano, a young and passionate Sicilian heart. As
+he looked, swift and short as was his glance, his amazement died away.
+Narcissus saw himself in the stream. Maurice saw, or believed he saw, his
+heart's image, trembling perhaps and indistinct, far down in the passion
+of Gaspare. So could he have been with a padrone had fate made his
+situation in life a different one. So could he have felt had something
+been concealed from him.
+
+Maurice said nothing in reply. Maddalena was there. They walked in
+silence to the cottage door, and there, rather like a detected
+school-boy, he bade her good-bye, and set out through the trees with
+Gaspare.
+
+"That's not the way, is it?" Maurice said, presently, as the boy turned
+to the left.
+
+"How did you come, signore?"
+
+"I!"
+
+He hesitated. Then he saw the uselessness of striving to keep up a
+master's pose with this servant of the sea and of the hills.
+
+"I came by water," he said, smiling. "I swam, Gasparino."
+
+The boy answered the smile, and suddenly the tension between them was
+broken, and they were at their ease again.
+
+"I will show you another way, signore, if you are not afraid."
+
+Maurice laughed out gayly.
+
+"The way of the rocks?" he said.
+
+"Si, signore. But you must go barefooted and be as nimble as a goat."
+
+"Do you doubt me, Gasparino?"
+
+He looked at the boy hard, with a deliberately quizzing kindness, that
+was gay but asked forgiveness, too, and surely promised amendment.
+
+"I have never doubted my padrone."
+
+They said nothing more till they were at the wall of rock. Then Gaspare
+seemed struck by hesitation.
+
+"Perhaps--" he began. "You are not accustomed to the rocks, signore,
+and--"
+
+"Silenzio!" cried Maurice, bending down and pulling off his boots and
+stockings.
+
+"Do like this, signore!"
+
+Gaspare slung his boots and stockings round his neck. Maurice imitated
+him.
+
+"And now give me your hand--so--without pulling."
+
+"But you hadn't--"
+
+"Give me your hand, signore!"
+
+It was an order. Maurice obeyed it, feeling that in these matters Gaspare
+had the right to command.
+
+"Walk as I do, signore, and keep step with me."
+
+"Bene!"
+
+"And look before you. Don't look down at the sea."
+
+"Va bene."
+
+A moment, and they were across. Maurice blew out his breath.
+
+"By Jove!" he said, in English.
+
+He sat down on the grass, put his hand on his knees, and looked back at
+the rock and at the precipices.
+
+"I'm glad I can do that!" he said.
+
+Something within him was revelling, was dancing a tarantella as the sun
+came up, lifting its blood-red rim above the sea-line in the east. He
+looked over the trees.
+
+"Maddalena saw us!" he cried.
+
+He had caught sight of her among the olive-trees watching them, with her
+two hands held flat against her breast.
+
+"Addio, Maddalena!"
+
+The girl started, waved her hand, drew back, and disappeared.
+
+"I'm glad she saw us."
+
+Gaspare laughed, but said nothing. They put on their boots and stockings,
+and started briskly off towards Monte Amato. When they had crossed the
+road, and gained the winding path that led eventually into the ravine,
+Maurice said:
+
+"Well, Gaspare?"
+
+"Well, signorino?"
+
+"Have you forgiven me?"
+
+"It is not for a servant to forgive his padrone, signorino," said the
+boy, but rather proudly.
+
+Maurice feared that his sense of injury was returning, and continued,
+hastily:
+
+"It was like this, Gaspare. When you and Lucrezia had gone I felt so dull
+all alone, and I thought, 'every one is singing and dancing and laughing
+except me.'"
+
+"But I asked you to accompany us, signorino," Gaspare exclaimed,
+reproachfully.
+
+"Yes, I know, but--"
+
+"But you thought we did not want you. Well, then, you do not know us!"
+
+"Now, Gaspare, don't be angry again. Remember that the padrona has gone
+away and that I depend on you for everything."
+
+At the last words Gaspare's face, which had been lowering, brightened up
+a little. But he was not yet entirely appeased.
+
+"You have Maddalena," he said.
+
+"She is only a girl."
+
+"Oh, girls are very nice."
+
+"Don't be ridiculous, Gaspare. I hardly know Maddalena."
+
+Gaspare laughed; not rudely, but as a boy laughs who is sure he knows the
+world from the outer shell to inner kernel.
+
+"Oh, signore, why did you go down to the sea instead of coming to the
+festa?"
+
+Maurice did not answer at once. He was asking himself Gaspare's question.
+Why had he gone to the Sirens' Isle? Gaspare continued:
+
+"May I say what I think, signore? You know I am Sicilian, and I know the
+Sicilians."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Strangers should be careful what they do in my country."
+
+"Madonna! You call me a stranger?"
+
+It was Maurice's turn to be angry. He spoke with sudden heat. The idea
+that he was a stranger--a straniero--in Sicily seemed to him
+ridiculous--almost offensive.
+
+"Well, signore, you have only been here a little while. I was born here
+and have never been anywhere else."
+
+"It is true. Go on then."
+
+"The men of Sicily are not like the English or the Germans. They are
+jealous of their women. I have been told that in your country, on festa
+days, if a man likes a girl and she likes him he can take her for a walk.
+Is it true?"
+
+"Quite true."
+
+"He cannot walk with her here. He cannot even walk with her down the
+street of Marechiaro alone. It would be a shame."
+
+"But there is no harm in it."
+
+"Who knows? It is not our custom. We walk with our friends and the girls
+walk with their friends. If Salvatore, the father of Maddalena, knew--"
+
+He did not finish his sentence, but, with sudden and startling violence,
+made the gesture of drawing out a knife and thrusting it upward into the
+body of an adversary. Maurice stopped on the path. He felt as if he had
+seen a murder.
+
+"Ecco!" said Gaspare, calmly, dropping his hand, and staring into
+Maurice's face with his enormous eyes, which never fell before the gaze
+of another.
+
+"But--but--I mean no harm to Maddalena."
+
+"It does not matter."
+
+"But she did not tell me. She is ready to talk with me."
+
+"She is a silly girl. She is flattered to see a stranger. She does not
+think. Girls never think."
+
+He spoke with utter contempt:
+
+"Have you seen Salvatore, signore?"
+
+"No--yes."
+
+"You have seen him?"
+
+"Not to speak to. When I came down the cottage was shut up. I waited--"
+
+"You hid, signore?"
+
+Maurice's face flushed. An angry word rose to his lips, but he checked it
+and laughed, remembering that he had to deal with a boy, and that
+Gaspare was devoted to him.
+
+"Well, I waited among the trees--birbante!"
+
+"And you saw Salvatore?"
+
+"He came out and went down to the fishing."
+
+"Salvatore is a terrible man. He used to beat his wife Teresa."
+
+"P'f! Would you have me be afraid of him?"
+
+Maurice's blood was up. Even his sense of romance was excited. He felt
+that he was in the coils of an adventure, and his heart leaped, but not
+with fear.
+
+"Fear is not for men. But the padrona has left you with me because she
+trusts me and because I know Sicily."
+
+It seemed to Maurice that he was with an inflexible chaperon, against
+whose dominion it would be difficult, if not useless, to struggle. They
+were walking on again, and had come into the ravine. Water was slipping
+down among the rocks, between the twisted trunks of the olive-trees. Its
+soft sound, and the cool dimness in this secret place, made Maurice
+suddenly realize that he had passed the night without sleep, and that he
+would be glad to rest. It was not the moment for combat, and it was not
+unpleasant, after all--so he phrased it in his mind--to be looked after,
+thought for, educated in the etiquette of the Enchanted Isle by a son of
+its soil, with its wild passions and its firm repressions linked together
+in his heart.
+
+"Gasparino," he said, meekly. "I want you to look after me. But don't be
+unkind to me. I'm older than you, I know, but I feel awfully young here,
+and I do want to have a little fun without doing any harm to anybody, or
+getting any harm myself. One thing I promise you, that I'll always trust
+you and tell you what I'm up to. There! Have you quite forgiven me now?"
+
+Gaspare's face became radiant. He felt that he had done his duty, and
+that he was now properly respected by one whom he looked up to and of
+whom he was not merely the servant, but also the lawful guardian.
+
+They went up to the cottage singing in the morning sunshine.
+
+
+
+XI
+
+"Signorino! Signorino!"
+
+Maurice lifted his head lazily from the hands that served it as a pillow,
+and called out, sleepily:
+
+"Che cosa c'e?"
+
+"Where are you, signorino?"
+
+"Down here under the oak-trees."
+
+He sank back again, and looked up at the section of deep-blue sky that
+was visible through the leaves. How he loved the blue, and gloried in the
+first strong heat that girdled Sicily to-day, and whispered to his happy
+body that summer was near, the true and fearless summer that comes to
+southern lands. Through all his veins there crept a subtle sense of
+well-being, as if every drop of his blood were drowsily rejoicing. Three
+days had passed, had glided by, three radiant nights, warm, still,
+luxurious. And with each his sense of the south had increased, and with
+each his consciousness of being nearer to the breast of Sicily. In those
+days and nights he had not looked into a book or glanced at a paper. What
+had he done? He scarcely knew. He had lived and felt about him the
+fingers of the sun touching him like a lover. And he had chattered idly
+to Gaspare about Sicilian things, always Sicilian things; about the fairs
+and the festivals, Capo d'Anno and Carnevale, martedi grasso with its
+_Tavulata_, the solemn family banquet at which all the relations assemble
+and eat in company, the feasts of the different saints, the peasant
+marriages and baptisms, the superstitions--Gaspare did not call them
+so--that are alive in Sicily, and that will surely live till Sicily is
+no more; the fear of the evil-eye and of spells, and the best means of
+warding them off, the "guaj di lu linu," the interpretation of dreams,
+the power of the Mafia, the legends of the brigands, and the vanished
+glory of Musolino. Gaspare talked without reserve to his padrone, as to
+another Sicilian, and Maurice was never weary of listening. All that was
+of Sicily caught his mind and heart, was full of meaning to him, and of
+irresistible fascination. He had heard the call of the blood once for all
+and had once for all responded to it.
+
+But the nights he had loved best. For then he slept under the stars. When
+ten o'clock struck he and Gaspare carried out one of the white beds onto
+the terrace, and he slipped into it and lay looking up at the clear sky,
+and at the dimness of the mountain flank, and at the still silhouettes of
+the trees, till sleep took him, while Gaspare, rolled up in a rug of many
+colors, snuggled up on the seat by the wall with his head on a cushion
+brought for him by the respectful Lucrezia. And they awoke at dawn to see
+the last star fade above the cone of Etna, and the first spears of the
+sun thrust up out of the stillness of the sea.
+
+"Signorino, ecco la posta!"
+
+And Gaspare came running down from the terrace, the wide brim of his
+white linen hat flapping round his sun-browned face.
+
+"I don't want it, Gaspare. I don't want anything."
+
+"But I think there's a letter from the signora!"
+
+"From Africa?"
+
+Maurice sat up and held out his hand.
+
+"Yes, it is from Kairouan. Sit down, Gaspare, and I'll tell you what the
+padrona says."
+
+Gaspare squatted on his haunches like an Oriental, not touching the
+ground with his body, and looked eagerly at the letter that had come
+across the sea. He adored his padrona, and was longing for news of her.
+Already he had begun to send her picture post-cards, laboriously written
+over. "Tanti saluti carissima Signora Pertruni, a rividici, e suno il suo
+servo fidelisimo per sempre--Martucci Gaspare. Adio! Adio! Ciao! Ciao!"
+What would she say? And what message would she send to him? His eyes
+sparkled with affectionate expectation.
+
+                                      "HOTEL DE FRANCE, KAIROUAN.
+
+     MY DEAREST,--I cannot write very much, for all my moments ought to
+     be given up to nursing Emile. Thank God, I arrived in time. Oh,
+     Maurice, when I saw him I can't tell you how thankful I was that I
+     had not hesitated to make the journey, that I had acted at once on
+     my first impulse to come here. And how I blessed God for having
+     given me an unselfish husband who trusted me completely, and who
+     could understand what true friendship between man and woman means,
+     and what one owes to a friend. You might so easily have
+     misunderstood, and you are so blessedly understanding. Thank you,
+     dearest, for seeing that it was right of me to go, and for thinking
+     of nothing but that. I feel so proud of you, and so proud to be
+     your wife. Well, I caught the train at Tunis mercifully, and got
+     here at evening. He is frightfully ill. I hardly recognized him.
+     But his mind is quite clear, though he suffers terribly. He was
+     poisoned by eating some tinned food, and peritonitis has set in. We
+     can't tell yet whether he will live or die. When he saw me come in
+     he gave me such a look of gratitude, although he was writhing with
+     pain, that I couldn't help crying. It made me feel so ashamed of
+     having had any hesitation in my heart about coming away from our
+     home and our happiness. And it was difficult to give it all up, to
+     come out of paradise. That last night I felt as if I simply
+     couldn't leave you, my darling. But I'm glad and thankful I've done
+     it. I have to do everything for him. The doctor's rather an ass,
+     very French and excitable, but he does his best. But I have to see
+     to everything, and be always there to put on the poultices and the
+     ice, and--poor fellow, he does suffer so, but he's awfully brave
+     and determined to live. He says he will live if it's only to prove
+     that I came in time to save him. And yet, when I look at him, I
+     feel as if--but I won't give up hope. The heat here is terrible,
+     and tries him very much now he is so desperately ill, and the
+     flies--but I don't want to bother you with my troubles. They're not
+     very great--only one. Do you guess what that is? I scarcely dare to
+     think of Sicily. Whenever I do I feel such a horrible ache in my
+     heart. It seems to me as if I had not seen your face or touched
+     your hand for centuries, and sometimes--and that's the worst of
+     all--as if I never should again, as if our time together and our
+     love were a beautiful dream, and God would never allow me to dream
+     it again. That's a little morbid, I know, but I think it's always
+     like that with a great happiness, a happiness that is quite
+     complete. It seems almost a miracle to have had it even for a
+     moment, and one can scarcely believe that one will be allowed to
+     have it again. But, please God, we will. We'll sit on the terrace
+     again together, and see the stars come out, and--The doctor's come
+     and I must stop. I'll write again almost directly. Good-night, my
+     dearest. Buon riposo. Do you remember when you first heard that?
+     Somehow, since then I always connect the words with you. I won't
+     send my love, because it's all in Sicily with you. I'll send it
+     instead to Gaspare. Tell him I feel happy that he is with the
+     padrone, because I know how faithful and devoted he is. Tanti
+     saluti a Lucrezia. Oh, Maurice, pray that I may soon be back. You
+     do want me, don't you?
+                                                     HERMIONE."
+
+Maurice looked up from the letter and met Gaspare's questioning eyes.
+
+"There's something for you," he said.
+
+And he read in Italian Hermione's message. Gaspare beamed with pride and
+pleasure.
+
+"And the sick signore?" he asked. "Is he better?"
+
+Maurice explained how things were.
+
+"The signora is longing to come back to us," he said.
+
+"Of course she is," said Gaspare, calmly.
+
+Then suddenly he jumped up.
+
+"Signorino," he said. "I am going to write a letter to the signora. She
+will like to have a letter from me. She will think she is in Sicily."
+
+"And when you have finished, I will write," said Maurice.
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+And Gaspare ran off up the hill towards the cottage, leaving his master
+alone.
+
+Maurice began to read the letter again, slowly. It made him feel almost
+as if he were with Hermione. He seemed to see her as he read, and he
+smiled. How good she was and true, and how enthusiastic! When he had
+finished the second reading of the letter he laid it down, and put his
+hands behind his head again, and looked up at the quivering blue. Then he
+thought of Artois. He remembered his tall figure, his robust limbs, his
+handsome, powerful face. It was strange to think that he was desperately
+ill, perhaps dying. Death--what must that be like? How deep the blue
+looked, as if there were thousands of miles of it, as if it stretched on
+and on forever! Artois, perhaps, was dying, but he felt as if he could
+never die, never even be ill. He stretched his body on the warm ground.
+The blue seemed to deny the fact of death. He tried to imagine Artois in
+bed in the heat of Africa, with the flies buzzing round him. Then he
+looked again at the letter, and reread that part in which Hermione wrote
+of her duties as sick-nurse.
+
+"I have to see to everything, and be always there to put on the poultices
+and the ice."
+
+He read those words again and again, and once more he was conscious of a
+stirring of anger, of revolt, such as he had felt on the night after
+Hermione's departure when he was alone on the terrace. She was his wife,
+his woman. What right had she to be tending another man? His imagination
+began to work quickly now, and he frowned as he looked up at the blue. He
+forgot all the rest of Hermione's letter, all her love of him and her
+longing to be back in Sicily with him, and thought only of her friendship
+for Artois, of her ministrations to Artois. And something within him
+sickened at the thought of the intimacy between patient and nurse, raged
+against it, till he felt revengeful. The wild unreasonableness of his
+feeling did not occur to him now. He hated that his wife should be
+performing these offices for Artois; he hated that she had chosen to go
+to him, that she had considered it to be her duty to go.
+
+Had it been only a sense of duty that had called her to Africa?
+
+When he asked himself this question he could not hesitate what answer to
+give. Even this new jealousy, this jealousy of the Sicilian within him,
+could not trick him into the belief that Hermione had wanted to leave
+him.
+
+Yet his feeling of bitterness, of being wronged, persisted and grew.
+
+When, after a very long time, Gaspare came to show him a letter written
+in large, round hand, he was still hot with the sense of injury. And a
+new question was beginning to torment him. What must Artois think?
+
+"Aren't you going to write, signorino?" asked Gaspare, when Maurice had
+read his letter and approved it.
+
+"I?" he said.
+
+He saw an expression of surprise on Gaspare's face.
+
+"Yes, of course. I'll write now. Help me up. I feel so lazy!"
+
+Gaspare seized his hands and pulled, laughing. Maurice stood up and
+stretched.
+
+"You are more lazy than I, signore," said Gaspare. "Shall I write for
+you, too?"
+
+"No, no."
+
+He spoke abstractedly.
+
+"Don't you know what to say?"
+
+Maurice looked at him swiftly. The boy had divined the truth. In his
+present mood it would be difficult for him to write to Hermione. Still,
+he must do it. He went up to the cottage and sat down at the
+writing-table with Hermione's letter beside him.
+
+He read it again carefully, then began to write. Now he was faintly aware
+of the unreason of his previous mood and quite resolved not to express
+it, but while he was writing of his every-day life in Sicily a vision of
+the sick-room in Africa came before him again. He saw his wife shut in
+with Artois, tending him. It was night, warm and dark. The sick man was
+hot with fever, and Hermione bent over him and laid her cool hand on his
+forehead.
+
+Abruptly Maurice finished his letter and thrust it into an envelope.
+
+"Here, Gaspare!" he said. "Take the donkey and ride down with these to
+the post."
+
+"How quick you have been, signore! I believe my letter to the signora is
+longer than yours."
+
+"Perhaps it is. I don't know. Off with you!"
+
+When Gaspare was gone, Maurice felt restless, almost as he had felt on
+the night when he had been left alone on the terrace. Then he had been
+companioned by a sensation of desertion, and had longed to break out into
+some new life, to take an ally against the secret enemy who was attacking
+him. He had wanted to have his Emile Artois as Hermione had hers. That
+was the truth of the matter. And his want had led him down to the sea.
+And now again he looked towards the sea, and again there was a call from
+it that summoned him.
+
+He had not seen Maddalena since Gaspare came to seek him in the Sirens'
+Isle. He had scarcely wanted to see her. The days had glided by in the
+company of Gaspare, and no moment of them had been heavy or had lagged
+upon its way.
+
+But now he heard again the call from the sea.
+
+Hermione was with her friend. Why should not he have his? But he did not
+go down the path to the ravine, for he thought of Gaspare. He had tricked
+him once, while he slept in the cave, and once Gaspare had tracked him to
+the sirens' house. They had spoken of the matter of Maddalena. He knew
+Gaspare. If he went off now to see Maddalena the boy would think that the
+sending him to the post was a pretext, that he had been deliberately got
+out of the way. Such a crime could never be forgiven. Maurice knew enough
+about the Sicilian character to be fully aware of that. And what had he
+to hide? Nothing. He must wait for Gaspare, and then he could set out for
+the sea.
+
+It seemed to him a long time before he saw Tito, the donkey, tripping
+among the stones, and heard Gaspare's voice hailing him from below. He
+was impatient to be off, and he shouted out:
+
+"Presto, Gaspare, presto!"
+
+He saw the boy's arm swing as he tapped Tito behind with his switch, and
+the donkey's legs moving in a canter.
+
+"What is it, signorino? Has anything happened?"
+
+"No. But--Gaspare, I'm going down to the sea."
+
+"To bathe?"
+
+"I may bathe. I'm not sure. It depends upon how I go."
+
+"You are going to the Casa delle Sirene?"
+
+Maurice nodded.
+
+"I didn't care to go off while you were away."
+
+"Do you wish me to come with you, signorino?"
+
+The boy's great eyes were searching him, yet he did not feel
+uncomfortable, although he wished to stand well with Gaspare. They were
+near akin, although different in rank and education. Between their minds
+there was a freemasonry of the south.
+
+"Do you want to come?" he said.
+
+"It's as you like, signore."
+
+He was silent for a moment; then he added:
+
+"Salvatore might be there now. Do you want him to see you?"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+A project began to form in his mind. If he took Gaspare with him they
+might go to the cottage more naturally. Gaspare knew Salvatore and could
+introduce him, could say--well, that he wanted sometimes to go out
+fishing and would take Salvatore's boat. Salvatore would see a prospect
+of money. And he--Maurice--did want to go out fishing. Suddenly he knew
+it. His spirits rose and he clapped Gaspare on the back.
+
+"Of course I do. I want to know Salvatore. Come along. We'll take his
+boat one day and go out fishing."
+
+Gaspare's grave face relaxed in a sly smile.
+
+"Signorino!" he said, shaking his hand to and fro close to his nose.
+"Birbante!"
+
+There was a world of meaning in his voice. Maurice laughed joyously. He
+began to feel like an ingenious school-boy who was going to have a lark.
+There was neither thought of evil nor even a secret stirring of desire
+for it in him.
+
+"A rivederci, Lucrezia!" he cried.
+
+And they set off.
+
+When they were not far from the sea, Gaspare said:
+
+"Signorino, why do you like to come here? What is the good of it?"
+
+They had been walking in silence. Evidently these questions were the
+result of a process of thought which had been going on in the boy's mind.
+
+"The good!" said Maurice. "What is the harm?"
+
+"Well, here in Sicily, when a man goes to see a girl it is because he
+wants to love her."
+
+"In England it is different, Gaspare. In England men and women can be
+friends. Why not?"
+
+"You want just to be a friend of Maddalena?"
+
+"Of course. I like to talk to the people. I want to understand them. Why
+shouldn't I be friends with Maddalena as--as I am with Lucrezia?"
+
+"Oh, Lucrezia is your servant."
+
+"It's all the same."
+
+"But perhaps Maddalena doesn't know. We are Sicilians here, signore."
+
+"What do you mean? That Maddalena might--nonsense, Gaspare!"
+
+There was a sound as of sudden pleasure, even sudden triumph, in his
+voice.
+
+"Are you sure you understand our girls, signore?"
+
+"If Maddalena does like me there's no harm in it. She knows who I am now.
+She knows I--she knows there is the signora."
+
+"Si, signore. There is the signora. She is in Africa, but she is coming
+back."
+
+"Of course!"
+
+"When the sick signore gets well?"
+
+Maurice said nothing. He felt sure Gaspare was wondering again, wondering
+that Hermione was in Africa.
+
+"I cannot understand how it is in England," continued the boy. "Here it
+is all quite different."
+
+Again jealousy stirred in Maurice and a sensation almost of shame. For a
+moment he felt like a Sicilian husband at whom his neighbors point the
+two fingers of scorn, and he said something in his wrath which was
+unworthy.
+
+"You see how it is," he said. "If the signora can go to Africa to see her
+friend, I can come down here to see mine. That is how it is with the
+English."
+
+He did not even try to keep the jealousy out of his voice, his manner.
+Gaspare leaped to it.
+
+"You did not like the signora to go to Africa!"
+
+"Oh, she will come back. It's all right," Maurice answered, hastily.
+"But, while she is there, it would be absurd if I might not speak to any
+one."
+
+Gaspare's burden of doubt, perhaps laid on his young shoulders by his
+loyalty to his padrona, was evidently lightened.
+
+"I see, signore," he said. "You can each have a friend. But have you
+explained to Maddalena?"
+
+"If you think it necessary, I will explain."
+
+"It would be better, because she is Sicilian and she must think you love
+her."
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+The boy looked at him keenly and smiled.
+
+"You would like her to think that?"
+
+Maurice denied it vigorously, but Gaspare only shook his head and said:
+
+"I know, I know. Girls are nicest when they think that, because they are
+pleased and they want us to go on. You think I see nothing, signorino,
+but I saw it all in Maddalena's face. Per Dio!"
+
+And he laughed aloud, with the delight of a boy who has discovered
+something, and feels that he is clever and a man. And Maurice laughed
+too, not without a pride that was joyous. The heart of his youth, the
+wild heart, bounded within him, and the glory of the sun, and the
+passionate blue of the sea seemed suddenly deeper, more intense, more
+sympathetic, as if they felt with him, as if they knew the rapture of
+youth, as if they were created to call it forth, to condone its
+carelessness, to urge it to some almost fierce fulfilment.
+
+"Salvatore is there, signorino."
+
+"How do you know?"
+
+"I saw the smoke from his pipe. Look, there it is again!"
+
+A tiny trail of smoke curled up; and faded in the blue.
+
+"I will go first because of Maddalena. Girls are silly. If I do this at
+her she will understand. If not she may show her father you have been
+here before."
+
+He closed one eye in a large and expressive wink.
+
+"Birbante!"
+
+"It is good to be birbante sometimes."
+
+He went out from the trees and Maurice heard his voice, then a man's,
+then Maddalena's. He waited where he was till he heard Gaspare say:
+
+"The padrone is just behind. Signorino, where are you?"
+
+"Here!" he answered, coming into the open with a careless air.
+
+Before the cottage door in the sunshine a great fishing-net was drying,
+fastened to two wooden stakes. Near it stood Salvatore, dressed in a
+dark-blue jersey, with a soft black hat tilted over his left ear, above
+which was stuck a yellow flower. Maddalena was in the doorway looking
+very demure. It was evident that the wink of Gaspare had been seen and
+comprehended. She stole a glance at Maurice but did not move. Her father
+took off his hat with an almost wildly polite gesture, and said, in a
+loud voice:
+
+"Buona sera, signore."
+
+"Buona sera," replied Maurice, holding out his hand.
+
+Salvatore took it in a large grasp.
+
+"You are the signore who lives up on Monte Amato with the English lady?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I know. She has gone to Africa."
+
+He stared at Maurice while he spoke, with small, twinkling eyes, round
+which was a minute and intricate web of wrinkles, and again Maurice felt
+almost--or was it quite?--ashamed. What were these Sicilians thinking of
+him?
+
+"The signora will be back almost directly," he said. "Is this your
+daughter?"
+
+"Yes, Maddalena. Bring a chair for the signore, Maddalena."
+
+Maddalena obeyed. There was a slight flush on her face and she did not
+look at Maurice. Gaspare stood pulling gently at the stretched-out net,
+and smiling. That he enjoyed the mild deceit of the situation was
+evident. Maurice, too, felt amused and quite at his ease now. His
+sensation of shame had fleeted away, leaving only a conviction that
+Hermione's absence gave him a right to snatch all the pleasure he could
+from the hands of the passing hour.
+
+He drew out his cigar-case and offered it to Salvatore.
+
+"One day I want to come fishing with you if you'll take me," he said.
+
+Salvatore looked eager. A prospect of money floated before him:
+
+"I can show you fine sport, signore," he answered, taking one of the long
+Havanas and examining it with almost voluptuous interest as he turned it
+round and round in his salty, brown fingers. "But you should come out at
+dawn, and it is far from the mountain to the sea."
+
+"Couldn't I sleep here, so as to be ready?"
+
+He stole a glance at Maddalena. She was looking at her feet, and twisting
+the front of her short dress, but her lips were twitching with a smile
+which she tried to repress.
+
+"Couldn't I sleep here to-night?" he added, boldly.
+
+Salvatore looked more eager. He loved money almost as an Arab loves it,
+with anxious greed. Doubtless Arab blood ran in his veins. It was easy to
+see from whom Maddalena had inherited her Eastern appearance. She
+reproduced, on a diminished scale, her father's outline of face, but that
+which was gentle, mysterious, and alluring in her, in him was informed
+with a rugged wildness. There was something bird-like and predatory in
+his boldly curving nose with its narrow nostrils, in his hard-lipped
+mouth, full of splendid teeth, in his sharp and pushing chin. His whole
+body, wide-shouldered and deep-chested, as befitted a man of the sea,
+looked savage and fierce, but full of an intensity of manhood that was
+striking, and his gestures and movements, the glance of his penetrating
+eyes, the turn of his well-poised head, revealed a primitive and
+passionate nature, a nature with something of the dagger in it, steely,
+sharp, and deadly.
+
+"But, signore, our home is very poor. Look, signore!"
+
+A turkey strutted out through the doorway, elongating its neck and
+looking nervously intent.
+
+"Ps--sh--sh--sh!"
+
+He shooed it away, furiously waving his arms.
+
+"And what could you eat? There is only bread and wine."
+
+"And the yellow cheese!" said Maurice.
+
+"The--?" Salvatore looked sharply interrogative.
+
+"I mean, there is always cheese, isn't there, in Sicily, cheese and
+macaroni? But if there isn't, it's all right. Anything will do for me,
+and I'll buy all the fish we take from you, and Maddalena here shall cook
+it for us when we come back from the sea. Will you, Maddalena?"
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+The answer came in a very small voice.
+
+"The signore is too good."
+
+Salvatore was looking openly voracious now.
+
+"I can sleep on the floor."
+
+"No, signore. We have beds, we have two fine beds. Come in and see."
+
+With not a little pride he led Maurice into the cottage, and showed him
+the bed on which he had already slept.
+
+"That will be for the signore, Gaspare."
+
+"Si--e molto bello."
+
+"Maddalena and I--we will sleep in the outer room."
+
+"And I, Salvatore?" demanded the boy.
+
+"You! Do you stay too?"
+
+"Of course. Don't I stay, signore?"
+
+"Yes, if Lucrezia won't be frightened."
+
+"It does not matter if she is. When we do not come back she will keep
+Guglielmo, the contadino."
+
+"Of course you must stay. You can sleep with me. And to-night we'll play
+cards and sing and dance. Have you got any cards, Salvatore?"
+
+"Si, signore. They are dirty, but--"
+
+"That's all right. And we'll sit outside and tell stories, stories of
+brigands and the sea. Salvatore, when you know me, you'll know I'm a true
+Sicilian."
+
+He grasped Salvatore's hand, but he looked at Maddalena.
+
+
+
+XII
+
+Night had come to the Sirens' Isle--a night that was warm, gentle, and
+caressing. In the cottage two candles were lit, and the wick was burning
+in the glass before the Madonna. Outside the cottage door, on the flat
+bit of ground that faced the wide sea, Salvatore and his daughter,
+Maurice and Gaspare, were seated round the table finishing their simple
+meal, for which Salvatore had many times apologized. Their merry voices,
+their hearty laughter rang out in the darkness, and below the sea made
+answer, murmuring against the rocks.
+
+At the same moment in an Arab house Hermione bent over a sick man,
+praying against death, whose footsteps she seemed already to hear coming
+into the room and approaching the bed on which he tossed, white with
+agony. And when he was quiet for a little and ceased from moving, she sat
+with her hand on his and thought of Sicily, and pictured her husband
+alone under the stars upon the terrace before the priest's house, and
+imagined him thinking of her. The dry leaves of a palm-tree under the
+window of the room creaked in the light wind that blew over the flats,
+and she strove to hear the delicate rustling of the leaves of
+olive-trees.
+
+Salvatore had little food to offer his guests, only bread, cheese, and
+small, black olives; but there was plenty of good red wine, and when the
+time of brindisi was come Salvatore and Gaspare called for health after
+health, and rivalled each other in wild poetic efforts, improvising
+extravagant compliments to Maurice, to the absent signora, to Maddalena,
+and even to themselves. And with each toast the wine went down till
+Maurice called a halt.
+
+"I am a real Sicilian," he said. "But if I drink any more I shall be
+under the table. Get out the cards, Salvatore. Sette e mezzo, and I'll
+put down the stakes. No one to go above twenty-five centesimi, with fifty
+for the doubling. Gaspare's sure to win. He always does. And I've just
+one cigar apiece. There's no wind. Bring out the candles and let's play
+out here."
+
+Gaspare ran for the candles while Salvatore got the cards, well-thumbed
+and dirty. Maddalena's long eyes were dancing. Such a festa as this was
+rare in her life, for, dwelling far from the village, she seldom went to
+any dance or festivity. Her blood was warm with the wine and with joy,
+and the youth in her seemed to flow like the sea in a flood-tide.
+Scarcely ever before had she seen her harsh father so riotously gay, so
+easy with a stranger, and she knew in her heart that this was her
+festival. Maurice's merry and ardent eyes told her that, and Gaspare's
+smiling glances of boyish understanding. She felt excited, almost
+light-headed, childishly proud of herself. If only some of the girls of
+Marechiaro could see, could know!
+
+When the cards were thrown upon the table, and Maurice had dealt out a
+lira to each one of the players as stakes, and cried, "Maddalena and I'll
+share against you, Salvatore, and Gaspare!" she felt that she had nothing
+more to wish for, that she was perfectly happy. But she was happier still
+when, after a series of games, Maurice pushed back his chair and said:
+
+"I've had enough. Salvatore, you are like Gaspare, you have the devil's
+luck. Together you can't be beaten. But now you play against each other
+and let's see who wins. I'll put down twenty-five lire. Play till one of
+you's won every soldo of it. Play all night if you like."
+
+And he counted out the little paper notes on the table, giving two to
+Salvatore and two to Gaspare, and putting one under a candlestick.
+
+"I'll keep the score," he added, pulling out a pencil and a sheet of
+paper. "No play higher than fifty, with a lira when one of you makes
+'sette e mezzo' with under four cards."
+
+"Per Dio!" cried Gaspare, flushed with excitement. "Avanti, Salvatore!"
+
+"Avanti, Avanti!" cried Salvatore, in answer, pulling his chair close up
+to the table, and leaning forward, looking like a handsome bird of prey
+in the faint candlelight.
+
+They cut for deal and began to play, while Maddalena and Maurice watched.
+
+When Sicilians gamble they forget everything but the game and the money
+which it brings to them or takes from them. Salvatore and Gaspare were at
+once passionately intent on their cards, and as the night drew on and
+fortune favored first one and then the other, they lost all thought of
+everything except the twenty-five lire which were at stake. When
+Maddalena slipped away into the darkness they did not notice her
+departure, and when Maurice laid down the paper on which he had tried to
+keep the score, and followed her, they were indifferent. They needed no
+score-keeper, for they had Sicilian memories for money matters. Over the
+table they leaned, the two candles, now burning low, illuminating their
+intense faces, their violent eyes, their brown hands that dealt and
+gathered up the cards, and held them warily, alert for the cheating that
+in Sicily, when possible, is ever part of the game.
+
+"Carta da cinquanta!"
+
+They had forgotten Maurice's limit for the stakes.
+
+"Carta da cento!"
+
+Their voices died away from Maurice's ears as he stole through the
+darkness seeking Maddalena.
+
+Where had she gone, and why? The last question he could surely answer,
+for as she stole past him silently, her long, mysterious eyes, that
+seemed to hold in their depths some enigma of the East, had rested on his
+with a glance that was an invitation. They had not boldly summoned him.
+They had lured him, as an echo might, pathetic in its thrilling frailty.
+And now, as he walked softly over the dry grass, he thought of those eyes
+as he had first seen them in the pale light that had preceded the dawn.
+Then they had been full of curiosity, like a young animal's. Now surely
+they were changed. Once they had asked a question. They delivered a
+summons to-night. What was in them to-night? The mystery of young
+maidenhood, southern, sunlit, on the threshold of experience, waking to
+curious knowledge, to a definite consciousness of the meaning of its
+dreams, of the truth of its desires.
+
+When he was out of hearing of the card-players Maurice stood still. He
+felt the breath of the sea on his face. He heard the murmur of the sea
+everywhere around him, a murmur that in its level monotony excited him,
+thrilled him, as the level monotony of desert music excites the African
+in the still places of the sand. His pulses were beating, and there was
+an almost savage light in his eyes. Something in the atmosphere of the
+sea-bound retreat made him feel emancipated, as if he had stepped out of
+the prison of civilized life into a larger, more thoughtless existence,
+an existence for which his inner nature fitted him, for which he had
+surely been meant all these years that he had lived, unconscious of what
+he really was and of what he really needed.
+
+"How happy I could have been as a Sicilian fisherman!" he thought. "How
+happy I could be now!"
+
+"St! St!"
+
+He looked round quickly.
+
+"St! St!"
+
+It must be Maddalena, but where was she? He moved forward till he was at
+the edge of the land where the tiny path wound steeply downward to the
+sea. There she was standing with her face turned in his direction, and
+her lips opened to repeat the little summoning sound.
+
+"How did you know I was there?" he said, whispering, as he joined her.
+"Did you hear me come?"
+
+"No, signore."
+
+"Then--"
+
+"Signorino, I felt that you were there."
+
+He smiled. It pleased him to think that he threw out something, some
+invisible thread, perhaps, that reached her and told her of his nearness.
+Such communication made sympathy. He did not say it to himself, but his
+sensation to-night was that everything was in sympathy with him, the
+night with its stars, the sea with its airs and voices, Maddalena with
+her long eyes and her brown hands, and her knowledge of his presence when
+she did not see or hear him.
+
+"Let us go down to the sea," he said.
+
+He longed to be nearer to that low and level sound that moved and excited
+him in the night.
+
+"Father's boat is there," she said. "It is so calm to-night that he did
+not bring it round into the bay."
+
+"If we go out in it for a minute, will he mind?"
+
+A sly look came into her face.
+
+"He will not know," she said. "With all that money Gaspare and he will
+play till dawn. Per Dio, signore, you are birbante!"
+
+She gave a little low laugh.
+
+"So you think I--"
+
+He stopped. What need was there to go on? She had read him and was openly
+rejoicing in what she thought his slyness.
+
+"And my father," she added, "is a fox of the sea, signore. Ask Gaspare if
+there is another who is like him. You will see! When they stop playing at
+dawn the twenty-five lire will be in his pocket!"
+
+She spoke with pride.
+
+"But Gaspare is so lucky," said Maurice.
+
+"Gaspare is only a boy. How can he cheat better than my father?"
+
+"They cheat, then!"
+
+"Of course, when they can. Why not, madonna!"
+
+Maurice burst out laughing.
+
+"And you call me birbante!" he said.
+
+"To know what my father loves best! Signorino! Signorino!"
+
+She shook her out-stretched forefinger to and fro near her nose, smiling,
+with her head a little on one side like a crafty child.
+
+"But why, Maddalena--why should I wish your father to play cards till the
+dawn. Tell me that! Why should not I wish him, all of us, to go to bed?"
+
+"You are not sleepy, signorino!"
+
+"I shall be in the morning when it's time to fish."
+
+"Then perhaps you will not fish."
+
+"But I must. That is why I have stayed here to-night, to be ready to go
+to sea in the morning."
+
+She said nothing, only smiled again. He felt a longing to shake her in
+joke. She was such a child now. And yet a few minutes ago her dark eyes
+had lured him, and he had felt almost as if in seeking her he sought a
+mystery.
+
+"Don't you believe me?" he asked.
+
+But she only answered, with her little gesture of smiling rebuke:
+
+"Signorino! Signorino!"
+
+He did not protest, for now they were down by the sea, and saw the
+fishing-boats swaying gently on the water.
+
+"Get in Maddalena. I will row."
+
+He untied the rope, while she stepped lightly in, then he pushed the boat
+off, jumping in himself from the rocks.
+
+"You are like a fisherman, signore," said Maddalena.
+
+He smiled and drew the great bladed oars slowly through the calm water,
+leaning towards her with each stroke and looking into her eyes.
+
+"I wish I were really a fisherman," he said, "like your father!"
+
+"Why, signore?" she asked, in astonishment.
+
+"Because it's a free life, because it's a life I should love."
+
+She still looked at him with surprise.
+
+"But a fisherman has few soldi, signorino."
+
+"Maddalena," he said, letting the oars drift in the water, "there's only
+one good thing in the world, and that is to be free in a life that is
+natural to one."
+
+He drew up his feet onto the wooden bench and clasped his hands round his
+knees, and sat thus, looking at her while she faced him in the stern of
+the boat. He had not turned the boat round. So Maddalena had her face
+towards the land, while his was set towards the open sea.
+
+"It isn't having many soldi that makes happiness," he went on. "Gaspare
+thinks it is, and Lucrezia, and I dare say your father would--"
+
+"Oh yes, signore! In Sicily we all think so!"
+
+"And so they do in England. But it isn't true."
+
+"But if you have many soldi you can do anything."
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"No you can't. I have plenty of soldi, but I can't always live here, I
+can't always live as I do now. Some day I shall have to go away from
+Sicily--I shall have to go back and live in London."
+
+As he said the last words he seemed to see London rise up before him in
+the night, with shadowy domes and towers and chimneys; he seemed to hear
+through the exquisite silence of night upon the sea the mutter of its
+many voices.
+
+"It's beastly there! It's beastly!"
+
+And he set his teeth almost viciously.
+
+"Why must you go, then, signorino?"
+
+"Why? Oh, I have work to do."
+
+"But if you are rich why must you work?"
+
+"Well--I--I can't explain in Italian. But my father expects me to."
+
+"To get more rich?"
+
+"Yes, I suppose."
+
+"But if you are rich why cannot you live as you please?"
+
+"I don't know, Maddalena. But the rich scarcely ever live really as they
+please, I think. Their soldi won't let them, perhaps."
+
+"I don't understand, signore."
+
+"Well, a man must do something, must get on, and if I lived always here I
+should do nothing but enjoy myself."
+
+He was silent for a minute. Then he said:
+
+"And that's all I want to do, just to enjoy myself here in the sun."
+
+"Are you happy here, signorino?"
+
+"Yes, tremendously happy."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Why--because it's Sicily here! Aren't you happy?"
+
+"I don't know, signorino."
+
+She said it with simplicity and looked at him almost as if she were
+inquiring of him whether she were happy or not. That look tempted him.
+
+"Don't you know whether you are happy to-night?" he asked, putting an
+emphasis on the last word, and looking at her more steadily, almost
+cruelly.
+
+"Oh, to-night--it is a festa."
+
+"A festa? Why?"
+
+"Why? Because it is different from other nights. On other nights I am
+alone with my father."
+
+"And to-night you are alone with me. Does that make it a festa?"
+
+She looked down.
+
+"I don't know, signorino."
+
+The childish merriment and slyness had gone out of her now, and there was
+a softness almost of sentimentality in her attitude, as she drooped her
+head and moved one hand to and fro on the gunwale of the boat, touching
+the wood, now here, now there, as if she were picking up something and
+dropping it gently into the sea.
+
+Suddenly Maurice wondered about Maddalena. He wondered whether she had
+ever had a Sicilian lover, whether she had one now.
+
+"You are not 'promised,' are you, Maddalena?" he asked, leaning a little
+nearer to her. He saw the red come into her brown skin. She shook her
+head without looking up or speaking.
+
+"I wonder why," he said. "I think--I think there must be men who want
+you."
+
+She slightly raised her head.
+
+"Oh yes, there are, signore. But--but I must wait till my father chooses
+one."
+
+"Your father will choose the man who is to be your husband?"
+
+"Of course, signore."
+
+"But perhaps you won't like him."
+
+"Oh, I shall have to like him, signore."
+
+She did not speak with any bitterness or sarcasm, but with perfect
+simplicity. A feeling of pity that was certainly not Sicilian but that
+came from the English blood in him stole into Maurice's heart. Maddalena
+looked so soft and young in the dim beauty of the night, so ready to be
+cherished, to be treated tenderly, or with the ardor that is the tender
+cruelty of passion, that her childlike submission to the Sicilian code
+woke in him an almost hot pugnacity. She would be given, perhaps, to some
+hard brute of a fisherman who had scraped together more soldi than his
+fellows, or to some coarse, avaricious contadino who would make her toil
+till her beauty vanished, and she changed into a bowed, wrinkled
+withered, sun-dried hag, while she was yet young in years.
+
+"I wish," he said--"I wish, when you have to marry, I could choose your
+husband, Maddalena."
+
+She lifted her head quite up and regarded him with wonder.
+
+"You, signorino! Why?"
+
+"Because I would choose a man who would be very good to you, who would
+love you and work for you and always think of you, and never look at
+another woman. That is how your husband should be."
+
+She looked more wondering.
+
+"Are you like that, then, signore?" she asked. "With the signora?"
+
+Maurice unclasped his hands from his knees, and dropped his feet down
+from the bench.
+
+"I!" he said, in a voice that had changed. "Oh--yes--I don't know."
+
+He took the oars again and began to row farther out to sea.
+
+"I was talking about you," he said, almost roughly.
+
+"I have never seen your signora," said Maddalena. "What is she like?"
+Maurice saw Hermione before him in the night, tall, flat, with her long
+arms, her rugged, intelligent face, her enthusiastic brown eyes.
+
+"Is she pretty?" continued Maddalena. "Is she as young as I am?"
+
+"She is good, Maddalena," Maurice answered.
+
+"Is she santa?"
+
+"I don't mean that. But she is good to every one."
+
+"But is she pretty, too?" she persisted. "And young?"
+
+"She is not at all old. Some day you shall see--"
+
+He checked himself. He had been going to say, "Some day you shall see
+her."
+
+"And she is very clever," he said, after a moment.
+
+"Clever?" said Maddalena, evidently not understanding what he meant.
+
+"She can understand many things and she has read many books."
+
+"But what is the good of that? Why should a girl read many books?"
+
+"She is not a girl."
+
+"Not a girl!"
+
+She looked at him with amazed eyes and her voice was full of amazement.
+
+"How old are you, signorino?" she asked.
+
+"How old do you think?"
+
+She considered him carefully for a long time.
+
+"Old enough to make the visit," she said, at length.
+
+"The visit?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What? Oh, do you mean to be a soldier?"
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+"That would be twenty, wouldn't it?"
+
+She nodded.
+
+"I am older than that. I am twenty-four."
+
+"Truly?"
+
+"Truly."
+
+"And is the signora twenty-four, too?"
+
+"Maddalena!" Maurice exclaimed, with a sudden impatience that was almost
+fierce. "Why do you keep on talking about the signora to-night? This is
+your festa. The signora is in Africa, a long way off--there--across the
+sea." He stretched out his arm, and pointed towards the wide waters above
+which the stars were watching. "When she comes back you can see her, if
+you wish--but now--"
+
+"When is she coming back?" asked the girl.
+
+There was an odd pertinacity in her character, almost an obstinacy,
+despite her young softness and gentleness.
+
+"I don't know," Maurice said, with difficulty controlling his gathering
+impatience.
+
+"Why did she go away?"
+
+"To nurse some one who is ill."
+
+"She went all alone across the sea?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+Maddalena turned and looked into the dimness of the sea with a sort of
+awe.
+
+"I should be afraid," she said, after a pause.
+
+And she shivered slightly.
+
+Maurice had let go the oars again. He felt a longing to put his arm round
+her when he saw her shiver. The night created many longings in him, a
+confusion of longings, of which he was just becoming aware.
+
+"You are a child," he said, "and have never been away from your 'paese.'"
+
+"Yes, I have."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"I have been to the fair of San Felice."
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Oh--San Felice! And did you go in the train?"
+
+"Oh no, signore. I went on a donkey. It was last year, in June. It was
+beautiful. There were women there in blue silk dresses with ear-rings as
+long as that"--she measured their length in the air with her brown
+fingers--"and there was a boy from Napoli, a real Napolitano, who sang
+and danced as we do not dance here. I was very happy that day. And I was
+given an image of Sant' Abbondio."
+
+She looked at him with a sort of dignity, as if expecting him to be
+impressed.
+
+"Carissima!" he whispered, almost under his breath.
+
+Her little air of pride, as of a travelled person, enchanted him, even
+touched him, he scarcely knew why, as he had never been enchanted or
+touched by any London beauty.
+
+"I wish I had been at the fair with you. I would have given you--"
+
+"What, signorino?" she interrupted, eagerly.
+
+"A blue silk dress and a pair of ear-rings longer--much longer--than
+those women wore."
+
+"Really, signorino? Really?"
+
+"Really and truly! Do you doubt me?"
+
+"No."
+
+She sighed.
+
+"How I wish you had been there! But this year--"
+
+She stopped, hesitating.
+
+"Yes--this year?"
+
+"In June there will be the fair again."
+
+He moved from his seat, softly and swiftly, turned the boat's prow
+towards the open sea, then went and sat down by her in the stern.
+
+"We will go there," he said, "you and I and Gaspare--"
+
+"And my father."
+
+"All of us together."
+
+"And if the signora is back?"
+
+Maurice was conscious of a desire that startled him like a sudden stab
+from something small and sharp--the desire that on that day Hermione
+should not be with him in Sicily.
+
+"I dare say the signora will not be back."
+
+"But if she is, will she come, too?"
+
+"Do you think you would like it better if she came?"
+
+He was so close to her now that his shoulder touched hers. Their faces
+were set seaward and were kissed by the breath of the sea. Their eyes saw
+the same stars and were kissed by the light of the stars. And the subtle
+murmur of the tide spoke to them both as if they were one.
+
+"Do you?" he repeated. "Do you think so?"
+
+"Chi lo sa?" she responded.
+
+He thought, when she said that, that her voice sounded less simple than
+before.
+
+"You do know!" he said.
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"You do!" he repeated.
+
+He stretched out his hand and took her hand. He had to take it.
+
+"Why don't you tell me?"
+
+She had turned her head away from him, and now, speaking as if to the
+sea, she said:
+
+"Perhaps if she was there you could not give me the blue silk dress and
+the--and the ear-rings. Perhaps she would not like it."
+
+For a moment he thought he was disappointed by her answer. Then he knew
+that he loved it, for its utter naturalness, its laughable naivete. It
+seemed, too, to set him right in his own eyes, to sweep away a creeping
+feeling that had been beginning to trouble him. He was playing with a
+child. That was all. There was no harm in it. And when he had kissed her
+in the dawn he had been kissing a child, playfully, kindly, as a big
+brother might. And if he kissed her now it would mean nothing to her. And
+if it did mean something--just a little more--to him, that did not
+matter.
+
+"Bambina mia!" he said.
+
+"I am not a bambina," she said, turning towards him again.
+
+"Yes you are."
+
+"Then you are a bambino."
+
+"Why not? I feel like a boy to-night, like a naughty little boy."
+
+"Naughty, signorino?"
+
+"Yes, because I want to do something that I ought not to do."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"This, Maddalena."
+
+And he kissed her. It was the first time he had kissed her in darkness,
+for on his second visit to the sirens' house he had only taken her hand
+and held it, and that was nothing. The kiss in the dawn had been light,
+gay, a sort of laughing good-bye to a kind hostess who was of a class
+that, he supposed, thought little of kisses. But this kiss in the night,
+on the sea, was different. Only when he had given it did he understand
+how different it was, how much more it meant to him. For Maddalena
+returned it gently with her warm young lips, and her response stirred
+something at his heart that was surely the very essence of the life
+within him.
+
+He held her hands.
+
+"Maddalena!" he said, and there was in his voice a startled sound.
+"Maddalena!"
+
+Again Hermione had risen up before him in the night, almost as one who
+walked upon the sea. He was conscious of wrong-doing. The innocence of
+his relation with Maddalena seemed suddenly to be tarnished, and the
+happiness of the starry night to be clouded. He felt like one who, in
+summer, becomes aware of a heaviness creeping into the atmosphere, the
+message of a coming tempest that will presently transform the face of
+nature. Surely there was a mist before the faces of the stars.
+
+She said nothing, only looked at him as if she wanted to know many things
+which only he could tell her, which he had begun to tell her. That was
+her fascination for his leaping youth, his wild heart of youth--this
+ignorance and this desire to know. He had sat in spirit at the feet of
+Hermione and loved her with a sort of boyish humbleness. Now one sat at
+his feet. And the attitude woke up in him a desire that was fierce in its
+intensity--the desire to teach Maddalena the great realities of love.
+
+"Hi--yi--yi--yi--yi!"
+
+Faintly there came to them a cry across the sea.
+
+"Gaspare!" Maurice said.
+
+He turned his head. In the darkness, high up, he saw a light, descending,
+ascending, then describing a wild circle.
+
+"Hi--yi--yi--yi!"
+
+"Row back, signorino! They have done playing, and my father will be
+angry."
+
+He moved, took the oars, and sent the boat towards the island. The
+physical exertion calmed him, restored him to himself.
+
+"After all," he thought, "there is no harm in it."
+
+And he laughed.
+
+"Which has won, Maddalena?" he said, looking back at her over his
+shoulder, for he was standing up and rowing with his face towards the
+land.
+
+"I hope it is my father, signorino. If he has got the money he will not
+be angry; but if Gaspare has it--"
+
+"Your father is a fox of the sea, and can cheat better than a boy. Don't
+be frightened."
+
+When they reached the land, Salvatore and Gaspare met them. Gaspare's
+face was glum, but Salvatore's small eyes were sparkling.
+
+"I have won it all--all!" he said. "Ecco!"
+
+And he held out his hand with the notes.
+
+"Salvatore is birbante!" said Gaspare, sullenly. "He did not win it
+fairly. I saw him--"
+
+"Never mind, Gaspare!" said Maurice.
+
+He put his hand on the boy's shoulder.
+
+"To-morrow I'll give you the same," he whispered.
+
+"And now," he added, aloud, "let's go to bed. I've been rowing Maddalena
+round the island and I'm tired. I shall sleep like a top."
+
+As they went up the steep path he took Salvatore familiarly by the arm.
+
+"You are too clever, Salvatore," he said. "You play too well for
+Gaspare."
+
+Salvatore chuckled and handled the five-lire notes voluptuously.
+
+"Cci basu li manu!" he said. "Cci basu li manu!"
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+Maurice lay on the big bed in the inner room of the siren's house, under
+the tiny light that burned before Maria Addolorata. The door of the house
+was shut, and he heard no more the murmur of the sea. Gaspare was curled
+up on the floor, on a bed made of some old sacking, with his head buried
+in his jacket, which he had taken off to use as a pillow. In the far room
+Maddalena and her father were asleep. Maurice could hear their breathing,
+Maddalena's light and faint, Salvatore's heavy and whistling, and
+degenerating now and then into a sort of stifled snore. But sleep did not
+come to Maurice. His eyes were open, and his clasped hands supported his
+head. He was thinking, thinking almost angrily.
+
+He loved joy as few Englishmen love it, but as many southerners love it.
+His nature needed joy, was made to be joyous. And such natures resent the
+intrusion into their existence of any complications which make for
+tragedy as northern natures seldom resent anything. To-night Maurice had
+a grievance against fate, and he was considering it wrathfully and not
+without confusion.
+
+Since he had kissed Maddalena in the night he was disturbed, almost
+unhappy. And yet he was surely face to face with something that was more
+than happiness. The dancing faun was dimly aware that in his nature there
+was not only the capacity for gayety, for the performance of the
+tarantella, but also a capacity for violence which he had never been
+conscious of when he was in England. It had surely been developed within
+him by the sun, by the coming of the heat in this delicious land. It was
+like an intoxication of the blood, something that went to head as well as
+heart. He wondered what it meant, what it might lead him to. Perhaps he
+had been faintly aware of its beginnings on that day when jealousy dawned
+within him as he thought of his wife, his woman, nursing her friend in
+Africa. Now it was gathering strength like a stream flooded by rains, but
+it was taking a different direction in its course.
+
+He turned upon the pillow so that he could see the light burning before
+the Madonna. The face of the Madonna was faintly visible--a long, meek
+face with downcast eyes. Maddalena crossed herself often when she looked
+at that face. Maurice put up his hand to make the sign, then dropped it
+with a heavy sigh. He was not a Catholic. His religion--what was it?
+Sunworship perhaps, the worship of the body, the worship of whim. He did
+not know or care much. He felt so full of life and energy that the far,
+far future after death scarcely interested him. The present was his
+concern, the present after that kiss in the night. He had loved Hermione.
+Surely he loved her now. He did love her now. And yet when he had kissed
+her he had never been shaken by the headstrong sensation that had hold of
+him to-night, the desire to run wild in love. He looked up to Hermione.
+The feeling of reverence had been a governing factor in his love for her.
+Now it seemed to him that a feeling of reverence was a barrier in the
+path of love, something to create awe, admiration, respect, but scarcely
+the passion that irresistibly draws man to woman. And yet he did love
+Hermione. He was confused, horribly confused.
+
+For he knew that his longing was towards Maddalena.
+
+He would like to rise up in the dawn, to take her in his arms, to carry
+her off in a boat upon the sea, or to set her on a mule and lead her up
+far away into the recesses of the mountains. By rocky paths he would lead
+her, beyond the olives and the vines, beyond the last cottage of the
+contadini, up to some eyrie from which they could look down upon the
+sunlit world. He wanted to be in wildness with her, inexorably divided
+from all the trammels of civilization. A desire of savagery had hold upon
+him to-night. He did not go into detail. He did not think of how they
+would pass their days. Everything presented itself to him broadly,
+tumultuously, with a surging, onward movement of almost desperate
+advance.
+
+He wanted to teach those dark, inquiring young eyes all that they asked
+to know, to set in them the light of knowledge, to make them a woman's
+eyes.
+
+And that he could never do.
+
+His whole body was throbbing with heat, and tingling with a desire of
+movement, of activity. The knowledge that all this beating energy was
+doomed to uselessness, was born to do nothing, tortured him.
+
+He tried to think steadily of Hermione, but he found the effort a
+difficult one. She was remote from his body, and that physical remoteness
+seemed to set her far from his spirit, too. In him, though he did not
+know it, was awake to-night the fickleness of the south, of the southern
+spirit that forgets so quickly what is no longer near to the southern
+body. The sun makes bodily men, makes very strong the chariot of the
+flesh. Sight and touch are needful, the actions of the body, to keep the
+truly southern spirit true. Maurice could neither touch nor see Hermione.
+In her unselfishness she had committed the error of dividing herself from
+him. The natural consequences of that self-sacrifice were springing up
+now like the little yellow flowers in the grasses of the lemon groves.
+With all her keen intelligence she made the mistake of the enthusiast,
+that of reading into those whom she loved her own shining qualities, of
+seeing her own sincerities, her own faithfulness, her own strength, her
+own utter loyalty looking out on her from them. She would probably have
+denied that this was so, but so it was. At this very moment in Africa,
+while she watched at the bedside of Artois, she was thinking of her
+husband's love for her, loyalty to her, and silently blessing him for it;
+she was thanking God that she had drawn such a prize in the lottery of
+life. And had she been already separated from Maurice for six months she
+would never have dreamed of doubting his perfect loyalty now that he had
+once loved her and taken her to be his. The "all in all or not at all"
+nature had been given to Hermione. She must live, rejoice, suffer, die,
+according to that nature. She knew much, but she did not know how to hold
+herself back, how to be cautious where she loved, how to dissect the
+thing she delighted in. She would never know that, so she would never
+really know her husband, as Artois might learn to know him, even had
+already known him. She would never fully understand the tremendous
+barriers set up between people by the different strains of blood in them,
+the stern dividing lines that are drawn between the different races of
+the earth. Her nature told her that love can conquer all things. She was
+too enthusiastic to be always far-seeing.
+
+So now, while Maurice lay beneath the tiny light in the house of the
+sirens and was shaken by the wildness of desire, and thought of a
+mountain pilgrimage far up towards the sun with Maddalena in his arms,
+she sat by Artois's bed and smiled to herself as she pictured the house
+of the priest, watched over by the stars of Sicily, and by her many
+prayers. Maurice was there, she knew, waiting for her return, longing for
+it as she longed for it. Artois turned on his pillow wearily, saw her,
+and smiled.
+
+"You oughtn't to be here," he whispered. "But I am glad you are here."
+
+"And I am glad, I am thankful I am here!" she said, truly.
+
+"If there is a God," he said, "He will bless you for this!"
+
+"Hush! You must try to sleep."
+
+She laid her hand in his.
+
+"God has blessed me," she thought, "for all my poor little attempts at
+goodness, how far, far more than I deserve!"
+
+And the gratitude within her was almost like an ache, like a beautiful
+pain of the heart.
+
+In the morning Maurice put to sea with Gaspare and Salvatore. He knew the
+silvery calm of dawn on a day of sirocco. Everything was very still, in a
+warm and heavy stillness of silver that made the sweat run down at the
+least movement or effort. Masses of white, feathery vapors floated low in
+the sky above the sea, concealing the flanks of the mountains, but
+leaving their summits clear. And these vapors, hanging like veils with
+tattered edges, created a strange privacy upon the sea, an atmosphere of
+eternal mysteries. As the boat went out from the shore, urged by the
+powerful arms of Salvatore, its occupants were silent. The merriment and
+the ardor of the night, the passion of cards and of desire, were gone, as
+if they had been sucked up into the smoky wonder of the clouds, or sucked
+down into the silver wonder of the sea.
+
+Gaspare looked drowsy and less happy than usual. He had not yet recovered
+from his indignation at the success of Salvatore's cheating, and Maurice,
+who had not slept, felt the bounding life, the bounding fire of his youth
+held in check as by the action of a spell. The carelessness of
+excitement, of passion, was replaced by another carelessness--the
+carelessness of dream. It seemed to him now as if nothing mattered or
+ever could matter. On the calm silver of a hushed and breathless sea,
+beneath dense white vapors that hid the sky, he was going out slowly,
+almost noiselessly, to a fate of which he knew nothing, to a quiet
+emptiness, to a region which held no voices to call him this way or that,
+no hands to hold him, no eyes to regard him. His face was damp with
+sweat. He leaned over the gunwale and trailed his hand in the sea. It
+seemed to him unnaturally warm. He glanced up at the clouds. Heaven was
+blotted out. Was there a heaven? Last night he had thought there must
+be--but that was long ago. Was he sad? He scarcely knew. He was dull, as
+if the blood in him had run almost dry. He was like a sapless tree.
+Hermione and Maddalena--what were they? Shadows rather than women. He
+looked steadily at the sea. Was it the same element upon which he had
+been only a few hours ago under the stars with Maddalena? He could
+scarcely believe that it was the same. Sirocco had him fast, sirocco that
+leaves many Sicilians unchanged, unaffected, but that binds the stranger
+with cords of cotton wool which keep him like a net of steel.
+
+Gaspare lay down in the bottom of the boat, buried his face in his arms,
+and gave himself again to sleep. Salvatore looked at him, and then at
+Maurice, and smiled with a fine irony.
+
+"He thought he would win, signore."
+
+"Cosa?" said Maurice, startled by the sound of a voice.
+
+"He thought that he could play better than I, signore."
+
+Salvatore closed one eye, and stuck his tongue a little out of the left
+side of his mouth, then drew it in with a clicking noise.
+
+"No one gets the better of me," he said. "They may try. Many have tried,
+but in the end--"
+
+He shook his head, took his right hand from the oar and flapped it up and
+down, then brought it downward with force, as if beating some one, or
+something, to his feet.
+
+"I see," Maurice said, dully. "I see."
+
+He thought to himself that he had been cleverer than Salvatore the
+preceding night, but he felt no sense of triumph. He had divined the
+fisherman's passion and turned it to his purpose. But what of that? Let
+the man rejoice, if he could, in this dream. Let all men do what they
+wished to do so long as he could be undisturbed. He looked again at the
+sea, dropped his hand into it once more.
+
+"Shall I let down a line, signore?"
+
+Salvatore's keen eyes were upon him. He shook his head.
+
+"Not yet. I--" He hesitated.
+
+The still silver of the sea drew him. He touched his forehead with his
+hand and felt the dampness on it.
+
+"I'm going in," he said.
+
+"Can you swim, signore?"
+
+"Yes, like a fish. Don't follow me with the boat. Just let me swim out
+and come back. If I want you I'll call. But don't follow me."
+
+Salvatore nodded appreciatively. He liked a good swimmer, a real man of
+the sea.
+
+"And don't wake Gaspare, or he'll be after me."
+
+"Va bene!"
+
+Maurice stripped off his clothes, all the time looking at the sea. Then
+he sat down on the gunwale of the boat with his feet in the water.
+Salvatore had stopped rowing. Gaspare still slept.
+
+It was curious to be going to give one's self to this silent silver thing
+that waited so calmly for the gift. He felt a sort of dull voluptuousness
+stealing over him as he stared at the water. He wanted to get away from
+his companions, from the boat, to be quite alone with sirocco.
+
+"Addio Salvatore!" he said, in a low voice.
+
+"A rivederci, signore."
+
+He let himself down slowly into the water, feet foremost, and swam
+slowly away into the dream that lay before him.
+
+Even now that he was in it the water felt strangely warm. He had not let
+his head go under, and the sweat was still on his face. The boat lay
+behind him. He did not think of it. He had forgotten it. He felt himself
+to be alone, utterly alone with the sea.
+
+He had always loved the sea, but in a boyish, wholly natural way, as a
+delightful element, health-giving, pleasure-giving, associating it with
+holiday times, with bathing, fishing, boating, with sails on moonlight
+nights, with yacht-races about the Isle of Wight in the company of gay
+comrades. This sea of Sicily seemed different to him to-day from other
+seas, more mysterious and more fascinating, a sea of sirens about a
+Sirens' Isle. Mechanically he swam through it, scarcely moving his arms,
+with his chin low in the water--out towards the horizon-line.
+
+He was swimming towards Africa.
+
+Presently that thought came into his mind, that he was swimming towards
+Africa and Hermione, and away from Maddalena. It seemed to him, then, as
+if the two women on the opposite shores of this sea must know, Hermione
+that he was coming to her, Maddalena that he was abandoning her, and he
+began to think of them both as intent upon his journey, the one feeling
+him approach, the other feeling him recede. He swam more slowly. A
+curious melancholy had overtaken him, a deep depression of the spirit,
+such as often alternates in the Sicilian character with the lively gayety
+that is sent down upon its children by the sun. This lonely progress in
+the sea was prophetic. He must leave Maddalena. His friendship with her
+must come to an end, and soon. Hermione would return, and then, in no
+long time, they would leave the Casa del Prete and go back to England.
+They would settle down somewhere, probably in London, and he would take
+up his work with his father, and the Sicilian dream would be over.
+
+The vapors that hid the sky seemed to drop a little lower down towards
+the sea, as if they were going to enclose him.
+
+The Sicilian dream would be over. Was that possible? He felt as if the
+earth of Sicily would not let him go, as if, should the earth resign him,
+the sea of Sicily would keep him. He dwelt on this last fancy, this
+keeping of him by the sea. That would be strange, a quiet end to all
+things. Never before had he consciously contemplated his own death. The
+deep melancholy poured into him by sirocco caused him to do so now.
+Almost voluptuously he thought of death, a death in the sea of Sicily
+near the rocks of the isle of the sirens. The light would be kindled in
+the sirens' house and his eyes would not see it. They would be closed by
+the cold fingers of the sea. And Maddalena? The first time she had seen
+him she had seen him sinking in the sea. How strange if it should be so
+at the end, if the last time she saw him she saw him sinking in the sea.
+She had cried out. Would she cry out again or would she keep silence? He
+wondered. For a moment he felt as if it were ordained that thus he should
+die, and he let his body sink in the water, throwing up his hands. He
+went down, very far down, but he felt that Maddalena's eyes followed him
+and that in them he saw terrors enthroned.
+
+Gaspare stirred in the boat, lifted his head from his arms and looked
+sleepily around him. He saw Salvatore lighting a pipe, bending forward
+over a spluttering match which he held in a cage made of his joined
+hands. He glanced away from him still sleepily, seeking the padrone, but
+he saw only the empty seats of the boat, the oars, the coiled-up nets,
+and lines for the fish.
+
+"Dove--?" he began.
+
+He sat up, stared wildly round.
+
+"Dov'e il padrone?" he cried out, shrilly.
+
+Salvatore started and dropped the match. Gaspare sprang at him.
+
+"Dov'e il padrone? Dov'e il padrone?"
+
+"Sangue di--" began Salvatore.
+
+But the oath died upon his lips. His keen eyes had swept the sea and
+perceived that it was empty. From its silver the black dot which he had
+been admiringly watching had disappeared. Gaspare had waked, had asked
+his fierce question just as Maurice threw up his hands and sank down in
+his travesty of death.
+
+"He was there! Madonna! He was there swimming a moment ago!" exclaimed
+Salvatore.
+
+As he spoke he seized the oars, and with furious strokes propelled the
+boat in the direction Maurice had taken. But Gaspare would not wait. His
+instinct forbade him to remain inactive.
+
+"May the Madonna turn her face from thee in the hour of thy death!" he
+yelled at Salvatore.
+
+Then, with all his clothes on, he went over the side into the sea.
+
+Maurice was an accomplished swimmer, and had ardently practised swimming
+under water when he was a boy. He could hold his breath for an
+exceptionally long time, and now he strove to beat all his previous
+records. With a few strokes he came up from the depths of the sea towards
+the surface, then began swimming under water, swimming vigorously, though
+in what direction he knew not. At last he felt the imperative need of
+air, and, coming up into the light again, he gasped, shook his head,
+lifted his eyelids that were heavy with the pressure of the water, heard
+a shrill cry, and felt a hand grasp him fiercely.
+
+"Signorino! Signorino!"
+
+"Gaspare!" he gulped.
+
+He had not fully drawn breath yet.
+
+"Madonna! Madonna!"
+
+The hand still held him. The fingers were dug into his flesh. Then he
+heard a shout, and the boat came up with Salvatore leaning over its side,
+glaring down at him with fierce anxiety. He grasped the gunwale with both
+hands. Gaspare trod water, caught him by the legs, and violently assisted
+him upward. He tumbled over the side into the boat. Gaspare came after
+him, sank down in the bottom of the boat, caught him by the arms, stared
+into his face, saw him smiling.
+
+"Sta bene Lei?" he cried. "Sta bene?"
+
+"Benissimo."
+
+The boy let go of him and, still staring at him, burst into a passion of
+tears that seemed almost angry.
+
+"Gaspare! What is it? What's the matter?"
+
+He put out his hand to touch the boy's dripping clothes.
+
+"What has happened?"
+
+"Niente! Niente!" said Gaspare, between violent sobs. "Mamma mia! Mamma
+mia!"
+
+He threw himself down in the bottom of the boat and wept stormily,
+without shame, without any attempt to check or conceal his emotion. As in
+the tarantella he had given himself up utterly to joy, so now he gave
+himself up utterly to something that seemed like despair. He cried
+loudly. His whole body shook. The sea-water ran down from his matted hair
+and mingled with the tears that rushed over his brown cheeks.
+
+"What is it?" Maurice asked of Salvatore.
+
+"He thought the sea had taken you, signore."
+
+"That was it? Gaspare--"
+
+"Let him alone. Per Dio, signore, you gave me a fright, too."
+
+"I was only swimming under water."
+
+He looked at Gaspare. He longed to do something to comfort him, but he
+realized that such violence could not be checked by anything. It must
+wear itself out.
+
+"And he thought I was dead!"
+
+"Per Dio! And if you had been!"
+
+He wrinkled up his face and spat.
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Has he got a knife on him?"
+
+He threw out his hand towards Gaspare.
+
+"I don't know to-day. He generally has."
+
+"I should have had it in me by now," said Salvatore.
+
+And he smiled at the weeping boy almost sweetly, as if he could have
+found it in his heart to caress such a murderer.
+
+"Row in to land," Maurice said.
+
+He began to put on his clothes. Salvatore turned the boat round and they
+drew near to the rocks. The vapors were lifting now, gathering themselves
+up to reveal the blue of the sky, but the sea was still gray and
+mysterious, and the land looked like a land in a dream. Presently Gaspare
+put his fists to his eyes, lifted his head, and sat up. He looked at his
+master gloomily, as if in rebuke, and under this glance Maurice began to
+feel guilty, as if he had done something wrong in yielding to his strange
+impulses in the sea.
+
+"I was only swimming under water, Gaspare," he said, apologetically.
+
+The boy said nothing.
+
+"I know now," continued Maurice, "that I shall never come to any harm
+with you to look after me."
+
+Still Gaspare said nothing. He sat there on the floor of the boat with
+his dripping clothes clinging to his body, staring before him as if he
+were too deeply immersed in gloomy thoughts to hear what was being said
+to him.
+
+"Gaspare!" Maurice exclaimed, moved by a sudden impulse. "Do you think
+you would be very unhappy away from your 'paese'?"
+
+Gaspare shifted forward suddenly. A light gleamed in his eyes.
+
+"D'you think you could be happy with me in England?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"Si, signore!"
+
+"When we have to go away from Sicily I shall ask the signora to let me
+take you with us."
+
+Gaspare said nothing, but he looked at Salvatore, and his wet face was
+like a song of pride and triumph.
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+That day, ere he started with Gaspare for the house of the priest,
+Maurice made a promise to Maddalena. He pledged himself to go with her
+and her father to the great fair of San Felice, which takes place
+annually in the early days of June, when the throng of tourists has
+departed, and the long heats of the summer have not yet fully set in. He
+gave this promise in the presence of Salvatore and Gaspare, and while he
+did so he was making up his mind to something. That day at the fair
+should be the day of his farewell to Maddalena. Hermione must surely be
+coming back in June. It was impossible that she could remain in Kairouan
+later. The fury of the African summer would force her to leave the sacred
+city, her mission of salvation either accomplished or rendered forever
+futile by the death of her friend. And then, when Hermione came, within a
+short time no doubt they would start for England, taking Gaspare with
+them. For Maurice really meant to keep the boy in their service. After
+the strange scene of the morning he felt as if Gaspare were one of the
+family, a retainer with whose devoted protection he could never dispense.
+Hermione, he was sure, would not object.
+
+Hermione would not object. As he thought that, Maurice was conscious of a
+feeling such as sometimes moves a child, upon whom a parent or guardian
+has laid a gently restraining hand, violently to shrug his shoulders and
+twist his body in the effort to get away and run wild in freedom. He knew
+how utterly unreasonable and contemptible his sensation was, yet he had
+it. The sun had bred in him not merely a passion for complete personal
+liberty, but for something more, for lawlessness. For a moment he envied
+Gaspare, the peasant boy, whose ardent youth was burdened with so few
+duties to society, with so few obligations.
+
+What was expected of Gaspare? Only a willing service, well paid, which he
+could leave forever at any moment he pleased. To his family he must, no
+doubt, give some of his earnings, but in return he was looked up to by
+all, even by his father, as a little god. And in everything else was not
+he free, wonderfully free in this island of the south, able to be
+careless, unrestrained, wild as a young hawk, yet to remain uncondemned,
+unwondered at?
+
+And he--Maurice?
+
+He thought of Hermione's ardent and tenderly observant eyes with a sort
+of terror. If she could know or even suspect his feelings of the previous
+night, what a tragedy he would be at once involved in! The very splendor
+of Hermione's nature, the generous nobility of her character, would make
+that tragedy the more poignant. She felt with such intensity, she thought
+she had so much. Careless though his own nature was, doubly careless here
+in Sicily, Maurice almost sickened at the idea of her ever suspecting the
+truth, that he was capable of being strongly drawn towards a girl like
+Maddalena, that he could feel as if a peasant who could neither read nor
+write caught at something within him that was like the essence of his
+life, like the core of that by which he enjoyed, suffered, desired.
+
+But, of course, she would never suspect. And he laughed at himself, and
+made the promise about the fair, and, having made it and his resolution
+in regard to it, almost violently resolved to take no thought for the
+morrow, but to live carelessly and with gayety the days that lay before
+him, the few more days of his utter freedom in Sicily.
+
+After all, he was doing no wrong. He had lived and was going to live
+innocently. And now that he realized things, realized himself, he would
+be reasonable. He would be careless, gay--yes, but not reckless, not
+utterly reckless as he felt inclined to be.
+
+"What day of June is the fair?" he asked, looking at Maddalena.
+
+"The 11th of June, signore," said Salvatore. "There will be many donkeys
+there--good donkeys."
+
+Gaspare began to look fierce.
+
+"I think of buying a donkey," added Salvatore, carelessly, with his
+small, shrewd eyes fixed upon Maurice's face.
+
+Gaspare muttered something unintelligible.
+
+"How much do they cost?" said Maurice.
+
+"For a hundred lire you can get a very good donkey. It would be useful to
+Maddalena. She could go to the village sometimes then--she could go to
+Marechiaro to gossip with the neighbors."
+
+"Has Maddalena broken her legs--Madonna!" burst forth Gaspare.
+
+"Come along, Gaspare!" said Maurice, hastily.
+
+He bade good-bye to the fisherman and his daughter, and set off with
+Gaspare through the trees.
+
+"Be nice to Salvatore," said Maurice, as they went down towards the rocky
+wall.
+
+"But he wants to make you give him a donkey, signorino. You do not know
+him. When he is with you at the fair he will--"
+
+"Never mind. I say, Gaspare, I want--I want that day at the fair to be a
+real festa. Don't let's have any row on that day."
+
+Gaspare looked at him with surprised, inquiring eyes, as if struck by his
+serious voice, by the insisting pressure in it.
+
+"Why that day specially, signorino?" he asked, after a pause.
+
+"Oh, well--it will be my last day of--I mean that the signora will be
+coming back from Africa by then, and we shall--"
+
+"Si, signore?"
+
+"We sha'n't be able to run quite so wild as we do now, you see. And,
+besides, we shall be going to England very soon then."
+
+Gaspare's face lighted up.
+
+"Shall I see London, signorino?"
+
+"Yes," said Maurice.
+
+He felt a sickness at his heart.
+
+"I should like to live in London always," said Gaspare, excitedly.
+
+"In London! You don't know it. In London you will scarcely ever see the
+sun."
+
+"Aren't there theatres in London, signorino?"
+
+"Theatres? Yes, of course. But there is no sea, Gaspare, there are no
+mountains."
+
+"Are there many soldiers? Are there beautiful women?"
+
+"Oh, there are plenty of soldiers and women."
+
+"I should like always to live in London," repeated Gaspare, firmly.
+
+"Well--perhaps you will. But--remember--we are all to be happy at the
+fair of San Felice."
+
+"Si, signore. But be careful, or Salvatore will make you buy him a
+donkey. He had a wine-shop once, long ago, in Marechiaro, and the
+wine--Per Dio, it was always vino battezzato!"
+
+"What do you mean?"
+
+"Salvatore always put water in it. He is cattivo--and when he is angry--"
+
+"I know. You told me. But it doesn't matter. We shall soon be going away,
+and then we sha'n't see him any more."
+
+"Signorino?"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"You--do you want to stay here always?"
+
+"I like being here."
+
+"Why do you want to stay?"
+
+For once Maurice felt as if he could not meet the boy's great, steady
+eyes frankly. He looked away.
+
+"I like the sun," he answered. "I love it! I should like to live in the
+sunshine forever."
+
+"And I should like to live always in London," reiterated Gaspare. "You
+want to live here because you have always been in London, and I want to
+live in London because I have always been here. Ecco!"
+
+Maurice tried to laugh.
+
+"Perhaps that is it. We wish for what we can't have. Dio mio!"
+
+He threw out his arms.
+
+"But, anyhow, I've not done with Sicily yet! Come on, Gaspare! Now for
+the rocks! Ciao! Ciao! Ciao! Morettina bella ciao!"
+
+He burst out into a song, but his voice hardly rang true, and Gaspare
+looked at him again with a keen inquiry.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Artois was not yet destined to die. He said that Hermione would not let
+him die, that with her by his side it was useless for Death to approach
+him, to desire him, to claim him. Perhaps her courage gave to him the
+will to struggle against his enemy. The French doctor, deeply, almost
+sentimentally interested in the ardent woman who spoke his language with
+perfection and carried out such instructions of his as she considered
+sensible, with delicate care and strong thoroughness, thought and said
+so.
+
+"But for madame," he said to Artois, "you would have died, monsieur. And
+why? Because till she came you had not the will to live. And it is the
+will to live that assists the doctor."
+
+"I cannot be so ungallant as to die now," Artois replied, with a feeble
+but not sad smile. "Were I to do so, madame would think me ungrateful.
+No, I shall live. I feel now that I am going to live."
+
+And, in fact, from the night of Maurice's visit with Gaspare to the house
+of the sirens he began to get better. The inflammation abated, the
+temperature fell till it was normal, the agony died away gradually from
+the tormented body, and slowly, very slowly, the strength that had ebbed
+began to return. One day, when the doctor said that there was no more
+danger of any relapse, Artois called Hermione and told her that now she
+must think no more of him, but of herself; that she must pack up her
+trunk and go back to her husband.
+
+"You have saved me, and I have killed your honeymoon," he said, rather
+sadly. "That will always be a regret in my life. But, now go, my dear
+friend, and try to assuage your husband's wrath against me. How he must
+hate me!"
+
+"Why, Emile?"
+
+"Are you really a woman? Yes, I know that. No man could have tended me as
+you have. Yet, being a woman, how can you ask that question?"
+
+"Maurice understands. He is blessedly understanding."
+
+"Don't try his blessed comprehension of you and of me too far. You must
+go, indeed."
+
+"I will go."
+
+A shadow that he tried to keep back flitted across Artois's pale face,
+over which the unkempt beard straggled in a way that would have appalled
+his Parisian barber. Hermione saw it.
+
+"I will go," she repeated, quietly, "when I can take you with me."
+
+"But--"
+
+"Hush! You are not to argue. Haven't you an utter contempt for those who
+do things by halves? Well, I have. When you can travel we'll go
+together."
+
+"Where?"
+
+"To Sicily. It will be hot there, but after this it will seem cool as the
+Garden of Eden under those trees where--but you remember! And there is
+always the breeze from the sea. And then from there, very soon, you can
+get a ship from Messina and go back to France, to Marseilles. Don't talk,
+Emile. I am writing to-night to tell Maurice."
+
+And she left the room with quick softness.
+
+Artois did not protest. He told himself that he had not the strength to
+struggle against the tenderness that surrounded him, that made it sweet
+to return to life. But he wondered silently how Maurice would receive
+him, how the dancing faun was bearing, would bear, this interference with
+his new happiness.
+
+"When I am in Sicily I shall see at once, I shall know," he thought. "But
+till then--"
+
+And he gave up the faint attempt to analyze the possible feelings of
+another, and sank again into the curious peace of convalescence.
+
+And Hermione wrote to her husband, telling him of her plan, calling upon
+him with the fearless enthusiasm that was characteristic of her to
+welcome it and to rejoice, with her, in Artois's returning health and
+speedy presence in Sicily.
+
+Maurice read this letter on the terrace alone. Gaspare had gone down on
+the donkey to Marechiaro to buy a bottle of Marsala, which Lucrezia
+demanded for the making of a zampaglione, and Lucrezia was upon the
+mountain-side spreading linen to dry in the sun. It was nearly the end of
+May now, and the trees in the ravine were thick with all their leaves.
+The stream that ran down through the shadows towards the sea was a tiny
+trickle of water, and the long, black snakes were coming boldly forth
+from their winter hiding-places to sun themselves among the bowlders that
+skirted the mountain tracks.
+
+"I can't tell for certain," Hermione wrote, "how soon we shall arrive,
+but Emile is picking up strength every day, and I think, I pray, it may
+not be long. I dare to hope that we shall be with you about the second
+week of June. Oh, Maurice, something in me is almost mad with joy, is
+like Gaspare dancing the tarantella, when I think of coming up the
+mountain-side again with you as I came that first day, that first day of
+my real life. Tell Sebastiano he must play the 'Pastorale' to welcome me.
+And you--but I seem to feel your dear welcome here, to feel your hands
+holding mine, to see your eyes looking at me like Sicily. Isn't it
+strange? I feel out here in Africa as if you were Sicily. But you are,
+indeed, for me. You are Sicily, you are the sun, you are everything that
+means joy to me, that means music, that means hope and peace. Buon
+riposo, my dearest one. Can you feel--can you--how happy I am to-night?"
+
+The second week in June! Maurice stood holding the letter in his hand.
+The fair of San Felice would take place during the second week in June.
+That was what he was thinking, not of Artois's convalescence, not of his
+coming to Sicily. If Hermione arrived before June 11th, could he go to
+the fair with Maddalena? He might go, of course. He might tell Hermione.
+She would say "Go!" She believed in him and had never tried to curb his
+freedom. A less suspicious woman than she was had surely never lived. But
+if she were in Sicily, if he knew that she was there in the house of the
+priest, waiting to welcome him at night when he came back from the fair,
+it would--it would--He laid the letter down. There was a burning heat of
+impatience, of anxiety, within him. Now that he had received this letter
+he understood with what intensity he had been looking forward to this day
+at the fair, to this last festa of his Sicilian life.
+
+"Perhaps they will not come so soon!" he said to him self. "Perhaps they
+will not be here."
+
+And then he began to think of Artois, to realize the fact that he was
+coming with Hermione, that he would be part of the final remnant of these
+Sicilian days.
+
+His feeling towards Artois in London had been sympathetic, even almost
+reverential. He had looked at him as if through Hermione's eyes, had
+regarded him with a sort of boyish reverence. Hermione had said that
+Artois was a great man, and Maurice had felt that he was a great man, had
+mentally sat at his feet. Perhaps in London he would be ready to sit at
+his feet again. But was he ready to sit at his feet here in Sicily? As he
+thought of Artois's penetrating eyes and cool, intellectual face, of his
+air of authority, of his close intimacy with Hermione, he felt almost
+afraid of him. He did not want Artois to come here to Sicily. He hated
+his coming. He almost dreaded it as the coming of a spy. The presence of
+Artois would surely take away all the savor of this wild, free life,
+would import into it an element of the library, of the shut room, of that
+intellectual existence which Maurice was learning to think of as almost
+hateful.
+
+And Hermione called upon him to rejoice with her over the fact that
+Artois would be able to accompany her. How she misunderstood him! Good
+God! how she misunderstood him! It seemed really as if she believed that
+his mind was cast in precisely the same mould as her own, as if she
+thought that because she and he were married they must think and feel
+always alike. How absurd that was, and how impossible!
+
+A sense of being near a prison door came upon him. He threw Hermione's
+letter onto the writing-table, and went out into the sun.
+
+When Gaspare returned that evening Maurice told him the news from Africa.
+The boy's face lit up.
+
+"Oh, then shall we go to London?" he said.
+
+"Why not?" Maurice exclaimed, almost violently. "It will all be
+different! Yes, we had better go to London!"
+
+"Signorino."
+
+"Well, what is it, Gaspare?"
+
+"You do not like that signore to come here."
+
+"I--why not? Yes, I--"
+
+"No, signorino. I can see in your face that you do not like it. Your face
+got quite black just now. But if you do not like it why do you let him
+come? You are the padrone here."
+
+"You don't understand. The signore is a friend of mine."
+
+"But you said he was the friend of the signora."
+
+"So he is. He is the friend of both of us."
+
+Gaspare said nothing for a moment. His mind was working busily. At last
+he said:
+
+"Then Maddalena--when the signora comes will she be the friend of the
+signora, as well as your friend?"
+
+"Maddalena--that has nothing to do with it."
+
+"But Maddalena is your friend!"
+
+"That's quite different."
+
+"I do not understand how it is in England," Gaspare said, gravely.
+"But"--and he nodded his head wisely and spread out his hands--"I
+understand many things, signorino, perhaps more than you think. You do
+not want the signore to come. You are angry at his coming."
+
+"He is a very kind signore," said Maurice, hastily. "And he can speak
+dialetto."
+
+Gaspare smiled and shook his head again. But he did not say anything
+more. For a moment Maurice had an impulse to speak to him frankly, to
+admit him into the intimacy of a friend. He was a Sicilian, although he
+was only a boy. He was Sicilian and he would understand.
+
+"Gaspare," he began.
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+"As you understand so much--"
+
+"Si, signore?"
+
+"Perhaps you--" He checked himself, realizing that he was on the edge of
+doing an outrageous thing. "You must know that the friends of the signora
+are my friends and that I am always glad to welcome them."
+
+"Va bene, signorino! Va bene!"
+
+The boy began to look glum, understanding at once that he was being
+played with.
+
+"I must go to give Tito his food."
+
+And he stuck his hands in his pockets and went away round the corner of
+the cottage, whistling the tune of the "Canzone di Marechiaro."
+
+Maurice began to feel as if he were in the dark, but as if he were being
+watched there. He wondered how clearly Gaspare read him, how much he
+knew. And Artois? When he came, with his watchful eyes, there would be
+another observer of the Sicilian change. He did not much mind Gaspare,
+but he would hate Artois. He grew hot at the mere thought of Artois being
+there with him, observing, analyzing, playing the literary man's part in
+this out-door life of the mountains and of the sea.
+
+"I'm not a specimen," he said to himself, "and I'm damned if I'll be
+treated as one!"
+
+It did not occur to him that he was anticipating that which might never
+happen. He was as unreasonable as a boy who foresees possible
+interference with his pleasures.
+
+This decision of Hermione to bring with her to Sicily Artois, and its
+communication to Maurice, pushed him on to the recklessness which he had
+previously resolved to hold in check. Had Hermione been returning to him
+alone he would have felt that a gay and thoughtless holiday time was
+coming to an end, but he must have felt, too, that only tenderness and
+strong affection were crossing the sea from Africa to bind him in chains
+that already he had worn with happiness and peace. But the knowledge that
+with Hermione was coming Artois gave to him a definite vision of
+something that was like a cage. Without consciously saying it to himself,
+he had in London been vaguely aware of Artois's coldness of feeling
+towards him. Had any one spoken of it to him he would probably have
+denied that this was so. There are hidden things in a man that he himself
+does not say to himself that he knows of. But Maurice's vision of a cage
+was conjured up by Artois's mental attitude towards him in London, the
+attitude of the observer who might, in certain circumstances, be cruel,
+who was secretly ready to be cruel. And, anticipating the unpleasant
+probable, he threw himself with the greater violence into the enjoyment
+of his few more days of complete liberty.
+
+He wrote to Hermione, expressing as naturally as he could his ready
+acquiescence in her project, and then gave himself up to the
+light-heartedness that came with the flying moments of these last days of
+emancipation in the sun. His mood was akin to the mood of the rich man,
+"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." The music, he knew, must
+presently fail. The tarantella must come to an end. Well, then he would
+dance with his whole soul. He would not husband his breath nor save his
+strength. He would be thoughtless because for a moment he had thought too
+much, too much for his nature of the dancing faun who had been given for
+a brief space of time his rightful heritage.
+
+Each day now he went down to the sea.
+
+"How hot it is!" he would say to Gaspare. "If I don't have a bath I shall
+be suffocated."
+
+"Si, signore. At what time shall we go?"
+
+"After the siesta. It will be glorious in the sea to-day."
+
+"Si, signore, it is good to be in the sea."
+
+The boy smiled, at last would sometimes laugh. He loved his padrona, but
+he was a male and a Sicilian. And the signora had gone across the sea to
+her friend. These visits to the sea seemed to him very natural. He would
+have done the same as his padrone in similar circumstances with a light
+heart, with no sense of doing wrong. Only sometimes he raised a warning
+voice.
+
+"Signorino," he would say, "do not forget what I have told you."
+
+"What, Gaspare?"
+
+"Salvatore is birbante. You think he likes you."
+
+"Why shouldn't he like me?"
+
+"You are a forestiere. To him you are as nothing. But he likes your
+money."
+
+"Well, then? I don't care whether he likes me or not. What does it
+matter?"
+
+"Be careful, signorino. The Sicilian has a long hand. Every one knows
+that. Even the Napoletano knows that. I have a friend who was a soldier
+at Naples, and--"
+
+"Come, now, Gaspare! What reason will there ever be for Salvatore to turn
+against me?"
+
+"Va bene, signorino, va bene! But Salvatore is a bad man when he thinks
+any one has tried to do him a wrong. He has blood in his eyes then, and
+when we Sicilians see through blood we do not care what we do--no, not if
+all the world is looking at us."
+
+"I shall do no wrong to Salvatore. What do you mean?"
+
+"Niente, signorino, niente!"
+
+"Stick the cloth on Tito, and put something in the pannier. Al mare! Al
+mare!"
+
+The boy's warning rang in deaf ears. For Maurice really meant what he
+said. He was reckless, perhaps, but he was going to wrong no one, neither
+Salvatore, nor Hermione, nor Maddalena. The coming of Artois drove him
+into the arms of pleasure, but it would never drive him into the arms of
+sin. For it was surely no sin to make a little love in this land of the
+sun, to touch a girl's hand, to snatch a kiss sometimes from the soft
+lips of a girl, from whom he would never ask anything more, whatever
+leaping desire might prompt him.
+
+And Salvatore was always at hand. He seldom put to sea in these days
+unless Maurice went with him in the boat. His greedy eyes shone with a
+light of satisfaction when he saw Tito coming along the dusty white road
+from Isola Bella, and at night, when he crossed himself superstitiously
+before Maria Addolorata, he murmured a prayer that more strangers might
+be wafted to his "Paese," many strangers with money in their pockets and
+folly in their hearts. Then let the sea be empty of fish and the wind of
+the storm break up his boat--it would not matter. He would still live
+well. He might even at the last have money in the bank at Marechiaro,
+houses in the village, a larger wine-shop than Oreste in the Corso.
+
+But he kept his small eyes wide open and seldom let Maddalena be long
+alone with the forestiere, and this supervision began to irritate
+Maurice, to make him at last feel hostile to Salvatore. He remembered
+Gaspare's words about the fisherman--"To him you are as nothing. But he
+likes your money"--and a longing to trick this fox of the sea, who wanted
+to take all and make no return, came to him.
+
+"Why can one never be free in this world?" he thought, almost angrily.
+"Why must there always be some one on the watch to see what one is doing,
+to interfere with one's pleasure?"
+
+He began presently almost to hate Salvatore, who evidently thought that
+Maurice was ready to wrong him, and who, nevertheless, grasped greedily
+at every soldo that came from the stranger's pocket, and touted
+perpetually for more.
+
+His attitude was hideous. Maurice pretended not to notice it, and was
+careful to keep on the most friendly possible terms with him. But, while
+they acted their parts, the secret sense of enmity grew steadily in the
+two men, as things grow in the sun. When Maurice saw the fisherman, with
+a smiling, bird's face, coming to meet him as he climbed up through the
+trees to the sirens' house, he sometimes longed to strike him. And when
+Maurice went away with Gaspare in the night towards the white road where
+Tito, tied to a stake, was waiting to carry the empty pannier that had
+contained a supper up the mountain to the house of the priest, Salvatore
+stood handling his money, and murmuring:
+
+"Maledetto straniero! Madonna! Ma io sono piu birbante di Lei, mille
+volte piu birbante, Dio mio!"
+
+And he laughed as he went towards the sirens' house. It amused him to
+think that a stranger, an "Inglese," fancied that he could play with a
+Sicilian, who had never been "worsted," even by one of his own
+countrymen.
+
+
+
+XV
+
+Maurice had begun to dread the arrival of the post. Artois was rapidly
+recovering his strength, and in each of her letters Hermione wrote with a
+more glowing certainty of her speedy return to Sicily, bringing the
+invalid with her. Would they come before June 11th, the day of the fair?
+That was the question which preoccupied Maurice, which began to haunt
+him, and set a light of anxiety in his eyes when he saw Antonino climbing
+up the mountain-side with the letter-bag slung over his shoulder. He felt
+as if he could not forego this last festa. When it was over, when the
+lights had gone out in the houses of San Felice, and the music was
+silent, and the last rocket had burst in the sky, showering down its
+sparks towards the gaping faces of the peasants, he would be ready to
+give up this free, unintellectual life, this life in which his youth ran
+wild. He would resign himself to the inevitable, return to the existence
+in which, till now, he had found happiness, and try to find it there once
+more, try to forget the strange voices that had called him, the strange
+impulses that had prompted him. He would go back to his old self, and
+seek pleasure in the old paths, where he walked with those whom society
+would call his "equals," and did not spend his days with men who wrung
+their scant livelihood from the breast of the earth and from the breast
+of the sea, with women whose eyes, perhaps, were full of flickering
+fires, but who had never turned the leaves of a printed book, or traced a
+word upon paper. He would sit again at the feet of people who were
+cleverer and more full of knowledge than himself, and look up to them
+with reverence.
+
+But he must have his festa first. He counted upon that. He desired that
+so strongly, almost so fiercely, that he felt as if he could not bear to
+be thwarted, as if, should fate interfere between him and the fulfilment
+of this longing, he might do something almost desperate. He looked
+forward to the fair with something of the eagerness and the anticipation
+of a child expectant of strange marvels, of wonderful and mysterious
+happenings, and the name San Felice rang in his ears with a music that
+was magical, suggesting curious joys.
+
+He often talked about the fair to Gaspare, asking him many questions
+which the boy was nothing loath to answer.
+
+To Gaspare the fair of San Felice was the great event of the Sicilian
+year. He had only been to it twice; the first time when he was but ten
+years old, and was taken by an uncle who had gone to seek his fortune in
+South America, and had come back for a year to his native land to spend
+some of the money he had earned as a cook, and afterwards as a restaurant
+proprietor, in Buenos Ayres; the second time when he was sixteen, and had
+succeeded in saving up a little of the money given to him by travellers
+whom he had accompanied as a guide on their excursions. And these two
+days had been red-letter days in his life. His eyes shone with excitement
+when he spoke of the festivities at San Felice, of the bands of
+music--there were three "musics" in the village; of the village beauties
+who sauntered slowly up and down, dressed in brocades and adorned with
+jewels which had been hoarded in the family chests for generations, and
+were only taken out to be worn at the fair and at wedding-feasts; of the
+booths where all the desirable things of the world were exposed for
+sale--rings, watches, chains, looking-glasses, clocks that sang and
+chimed with bells like church towers, yellow shoes, and caps of all
+colors, handkerchiefs, and shawls with fringes that, when worn, drooped
+almost to the ground; ballads written by native poets, relating the life
+and the trial of Musolino, the famous brigand, his noble address to his
+captors, and his despair when he was condemned to eternal confinement;
+and the adventures of Giuseppe Moroni, called "Il Niccheri"
+(illetterato), composed in eight-lined verses, and full of the most
+startling and passionate occurrences. There were donkeys, too--donkeys
+from all parts of Sicily, mules from Girgenti, decorated with
+red-and-yellow harness, with pyramids of plumes and bells upon their
+heads, painted carts with pictures of the miracles of the saints and the
+conquests of the Saracens, turkeys and hens, and even cages containing
+yellow birds that came from islands far away and that sang with the
+sweetness of the angels. The ristoranti were crowded with people, playing
+cards and eating delicious food, and outside upon the pavements were
+dozens of little tables at which you could sit, drinking syrups of
+beautiful hues and watching at your ease the marvels of the show. Here
+came boys from Naples to sing and dance, peddlers with shining knives and
+elegant walking-sticks for sale, fortune-tellers with your fate already
+printed and neatly folded in an envelope, sometimes a pigeon-man with a
+high black hat, who made his doves hop from shoulder to shoulder along a
+row of school-children, or a man with a monkey that played antics to the
+sound of a grinding organ, and that was dressed up in a red worsted
+jacket and a pair of cloth trousers. And there were shooting-galleries
+and puppet-shows and dancing-rooms, and at night, when the darkness came,
+there were giuochi di fuoco which lit up the whole sky, till you could
+see Etna quite plainly.
+
+"E' veramente un paradiso!" concluded Gaspare.
+
+"A paradise!" echoed Maurice. "A paradise! I say, Gaspare, why can't we
+always live in paradise? Why can't life be one long festa?"
+
+"Non lo so, signore. And the signora? Do you think she will be here for
+the fair?"
+
+"I don't know. But if she is here, I am not sure that she will come to
+see it."
+
+"Why not, signorino? Will she stay with the sick signore?"
+
+"Perhaps. But I don't think she will be here. She does not say she will
+be here."
+
+"Do you want her to be here, signorino?" Gaspare asked, abruptly.
+
+"Why do you ask such a question? Of course I am happy, very happy, when
+the signora is here."
+
+As he said the words Maurice remembered how happy he had been in the
+house of the priest alone with Hermione. Indeed, he had thought that he
+was perfectly happy, that he had nothing left to wish for. But that
+seemed long ago. He wondered if he could ever again feel that sense of
+perfect contentment. He could scarcely believe so. A certain feverishness
+had stolen into his Sicilian life. He felt often like a man in suspense,
+uncertain of the future, almost apprehensive. He no longer danced the
+tarantella with the careless abandon of a boy. And yet he sometimes had a
+strange consciousness that he was near to something that might bring to
+him a joy such as he had never yet experienced.
+
+"I wish I knew what day Hermione is arriving," he thought, almost
+fretfully. "I wish she wouldn't keep me hung up in this condition of
+uncertainty. She seems to think that I have nothing to do but just wait
+here upon the pleasure of Artois."
+
+With that last thought the old sense of injury rose in him again. This
+friend of Hermione's was spoiling everything, was being put before every
+one. It was really monstrous that even during their honeymoon this old
+friendship should intrude, should be allowed to govern their actions and
+disturb their serenity. Now that Artois was out of danger Maurice began
+to forget how ill he had been, began sometimes to doubt whether he had
+ever been so ill as Hermione supposed. Perhaps Artois was one of those
+men who liked to have a clever woman at his beck and call. These literary
+fellows were often terribly exigent, eaten up with the sense of their own
+importance. But he, Maurice, was not going to allow himself to be made a
+cat's-paw of. He would make Artois understand that he was not going to
+permit his life to be interfered with by any one.
+
+"I'll let him see that when he comes," he said to himself. "I'll take a
+strong line. A man must be the master of his own life if he's worth
+anything. These Sicilians understand that."
+
+He began secretly to admire what before he had thought almost hateful,
+the strong Arab characteristics that linger on in many Sicilians, to
+think almost weak and unmanly the Western attitude to woman.
+
+"I will be master," he said to himself again. "All these Sicilians are
+wondering that I ever let Hermione go to Africa. Perhaps they think I'm a
+muff to have given in about it. And now, when Hermione comes back with a
+man, they'll suppose--God knows what they won't imagine!"
+
+He had begun so to identify himself with the Sicilians about Marechiaro
+that he cared what they thought, was becoming sensitive to their opinion
+of him as if he had been one of themselves. One day Gaspare told him a
+story of a contadino who had bought a house in the village, but who,
+being unable to complete the payment, had been turned out into the
+street.
+
+"And now, signorino," Gaspare concluded, "they are all laughing at him in
+Marechiaro. He dare not show himself any more in the Piazza. When a man
+cannot go any more into the Piazza--Madonna!"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands in a gesture of
+contemptuous pity.
+
+"E' finito!" he exclaimed.
+
+"Certo!" said Maurice.
+
+He was resolved that he would never be in such a case. Hermione, he felt
+now, did not understand the Sicilians as he understood them. If she did
+she would not bring back Artois from Africa, she would not arrive openly
+with him. But surely she ought to understand that such an action would
+make people wonder, would be likely to make them think that Artois was
+something more than her friend. And then Maurice thought of the day of
+their arrival, of his own descent to the station, to wait upon the
+platform for the train. Artois was not going to stay in the house of the
+priest. That was impossible, as there was no guest-room. He would put up
+at the hotel in Marechiaro. But that would make little difference. He was
+to arrive with Hermione. Every one would know that she had spent all this
+time with him in Africa. Maurice grew hot as he thought of the smiles on
+the Sicilian faces, of the looks of astonishment at the strange doings of
+the forestieri. Hermione's enthusiastic kindness was bringing her husband
+almost to shame. It was a pity that people were sometimes thoughtless in
+their eager desire to be generous and sympathetic.
+
+One day, when Maurice had been brooding over this matter of the
+Sicilian's view of Hermione's proceedings, the spirit moved him to go
+down on foot to Marechiaro to see if there were any letters for him at
+the post. It was now June 7th. In four days would come the fair. As the
+time for it drew near, his anxiety lest anything should interfere to
+prevent his going to it with Maddalena increased, and each day at post
+time he was filled with a fever of impatience to know whether there
+would be a letter from Africa or not. Antonino generally appeared about
+four o'clock, but the letters were in the village long before then, and
+this afternoon Maurice felt that he could not wait for the boy's coming.
+He had a conviction that there was a letter, a decisive letter from
+Hermione, fixing at last the date of her arrival with Artois. He must
+have it in his hands at the first possible moment. If he went himself to
+the post he would know the truth at least an hour and a half sooner than
+if he waited in the house of the priest. He resolved, therefore, to go,
+got his hat and stick, and set out, after telling Gaspare, who was
+watching for birds with his gun, that he was going for a stroll on the
+mountain-side and might be away for a couple of hours.
+
+It was a brilliant afternoon. The landscape looked hard in the fiery
+sunshine, the shapes of the mountains fierce and relentless, the dry
+watercourses almost bitter in their barrenness. Already the devastation
+of the summer was beginning to be apparent. All tenderness had gone from
+the higher slopes of the mountains which, jocund in spring and in autumn
+with growing crops, were now bare and brown, and seamed like the hide of
+a tropical reptile gleaming with metallic hues. The lower slopes were
+still panoplied with the green of vines and of trees, but the ground
+beneath the trees was arid. The sun was coming into his dominion with
+pride and cruelty, like a conqueror who loots the land he takes to be his
+own.
+
+But Maurice did not mind the change, which drove the tourists northward,
+and left Sicily to its own people. He even rejoiced in it. As each day
+the heat increased he was conscious of an increasing exultation, such as
+surely the snakes and the lizards feel as they come out of their
+hiding-places into the golden light. He was filled with a glorious sense
+of expansion, as if his capabilities grew larger, as if they were
+developed by heat like certain plants. None of the miseries that afflict
+many people in the violent summers which govern southern lands were his.
+His skin did not peel, his eyes did not become inflamed, nor did his head
+ache under the action of the burning rays. They came to him like brothers
+and he rejoiced in their company. To-day, as he descended to Marechiaro,
+he revelled in the sun. Its ruthlessness made him feel ruthless. He was
+conscious of that. At this moment he was in absolutely perfect physical
+health. His body was lithe and supple, yet his legs and arms were hard
+with springing muscle. His warm blood sang through his veins like music
+through the pipes of an organ. His eyes shone with the superb animation
+of youth that is radiantly sound. For, despite his anxiety, his sometimes
+almost fretful irritation when he thought about the coming of Artois and
+the passing of his own freedom, there were moments when he felt as if he
+could leap with the sheer joy of life, as if he could lift up his arms
+and burst forth into a wild song of praise to his divinity, the sun. And
+this grand condition of health made him feel ruthless, as the man who
+conquers and enters a city in triumph feels ruthless. As he trod down
+towards Marechiaro to-day, thinking of the letter that perhaps awaited
+him, it seemed to him that it would be monstrous if anything, if any one,
+were to interfere with his day of joy, the day he was looking forward to
+with such eager anticipation. He felt inclined to trample over
+opposition. Yet what could he do if, by some evil chance, Hermione and
+Artois arrived the day before the fair, or on the very day of the fair?
+He hurried his steps. He wanted to be in the village, to know whether
+there was a letter for him from Africa.
+
+When he came into the village it was about half-past two o'clock, and the
+long, narrow main street was deserted. The owners of some of the
+antiquity shops had already put up their shutters for the summer. Other
+shops, still open, showed gaping doorways, through which no travellers
+passed. Inside, the proprietors were dozing among their red brocades,
+their pottery, their Sicilian jewelry and obscure pictures thick with
+dust, guarded by squadrons of large, black flies, which droned on walls
+and ceilings, crept over the tiled floors, and clung to the draperies and
+laces which lay upon the cabinets. In the shady little rooms of the
+barbers small boys in linen jackets kept a drowsy vigil for the
+proprietors, who were sleeping in some dark corner of bedchamber or
+wine-shop. But no customer came to send them flying. The sun made the
+beards push on the brown Sicilian faces, but no one wanted to be shaved
+before the evening fell. Two or three lads lounged by on their way to the
+sea with towels and bathing-drawers over their arms. A few women were
+spinning flax on the door-lintels, or filling buckets of water from the
+fountain. A few children were trying to play mysterious games in the
+narrow alleys that led downward to the sea and upward to the mountains on
+the left and right of the street. A donkey brayed under an archway as if
+to summon its master from his siesta. A cat stole along the gutter, and
+vanished into a hole beneath a shut door. But the village was almost like
+a dead village, slain by the sun in his carelessness of pride.
+
+On his way to the post Maurice passed through the Piazza that was the
+glory of Marechiaro and the place of assemblage for its people. Here the
+music sounded on festa days before the stone steps that led up to the
+church of San Giuseppe. Here was the principal caffe, the Caffe Nuovo,
+where granite and ices were to be had, delicious yellow cakes, and
+chocolate made up into shapes of crowing cocks, of pigs, of little men
+with hats, and of saints with flowing robes. Here, too, was the club,
+with chairs and sofas now covered with white, and long tables adorned
+with illustrated journals and the papers of Catania, of Messina, and
+Palermo. But at this hour the caffe was closed and the club was empty.
+For the sun beat down with fury upon the open space with its tiled
+pavement, and the seats let into the wall that sheltered the Piazza from
+the precipice that frowned above the sea were untenanted by loungers. As
+Maurice went by he thought of Gaspare's words, "When a man cannot go any
+more into the Piazza--Madonna, it is finished!" This was the place where
+the public opinion of Marechiaro was formed, where fame was made and
+characters were taken away. He paused for an instant by the church, then
+went on under the clock tower and came to the post.
+
+"Any letters for me, Don Paolo?" he asked of the postmaster.
+
+The old man saluted him languidly through the peep-hole.
+
+"Si, signore, ce ne sono."
+
+He turned to seek for them while Maurice waited. He heard the flies
+buzzing. Their noise was loud in his ears. His heart beat strongly and he
+was gnawed by suspense. Never before had he felt so anxious, so impatient
+to know anything as he was now to know if among the letters there was one
+from Hermione.
+
+"Ecco, signore!"
+
+"Grazie!"
+
+Maurice took the packet.
+
+"A rivederci!"
+
+"A rivederlo, signore."
+
+He went away down the street. But now he had his letters he did not look
+at them immediately. Something held him back from looking at them until
+he had come again into the Piazza. It was still deserted. He went over to
+the seat by the wall, and sat down sideways, so that he could look over
+the wall to the sea immediately below him. Then, very slowly, he drew out
+his cigarette-case, selected a cigarette, lit it, and began to smoke like
+a man who was at ease and idle. He glanced over the wall. At the foot of
+the precipice by the sea was the station of Cattaro, at which Hermione
+and Artois would arrive when they came. He could see the platform, some
+trucks of merchandise standing on the rails, the white road winding by
+towards San Felice and Etna. After a long look down he turned at last to
+the packet from the post which he had laid upon the hot stone at his
+side. The _Times_, the "Pink 'un," the _Illustrated London News_, and
+three letters. The first was obviously a bill forwarded from London. The
+second was also from England. He recognized the handwriting of his
+mother. The third? He turned it over. Yes, it was from Hermione. His
+instinct had not deceived him. He was certain, too, that it did not
+deceive him now. He was certain that this was the letter that fixed the
+date of her coming with Artois. He opened the two other letters and
+glanced over them, and then at last he tore the covering from Hermione's.
+A swift, searching look was enough. The letter dropped from his hand to
+the seat. He had seen these words:
+
+"Isn't it splendid? Emile may leave at once. But there is no good boat
+till the tenth. We shall take that, and be at Cattaro on the eleventh at
+five o'clock in the afternoon...."
+
+"Isn't it splendid?"
+
+For a moment he sat quite still in the glare of the sun, mentally
+repeating to himself these words of his wife. So the inevitable had
+happened. For he felt it was inevitable. Fate was against him. He was not
+to have his pleasure.
+
+"Signorino! Come sta lei? Lei sta bene?"
+
+He started and looked up. He had heard no footstep. Salvatore stood by
+him, smiling at him, Salvatore with bare feet, and a fish-basket slung
+over his arm.
+
+"Buon giorno, Salvatore!" he answered, with an effort.
+
+Salvatore looked at Maurice's cigarette, put down the basket, and sat
+down on the seat by Maurice's side.
+
+"I haven't smoked to-day, signore," he began. "Dio mio! But it must be
+good to have plenty of soldi!"
+
+"Ecco!"
+
+Maurice held out his cigarette-case.
+
+"Take two--three!"
+
+"Grazie, signore, mille grazie!"
+
+He took them greedily.
+
+"And the fair, signorino--only four days now to the fair! I have been to
+order the donkeys for me and Maddalena."
+
+"Davvero?" Maurice said, mechanically.
+
+"Si, signore. From Angelo of the mill. He wanted fifteen lire, but I
+laughed at him. I was with him a good hour and I got them for nine. Per
+Dio! Fifteen lire and to a Siciliano! For he didn't know you were coming.
+I took care not to tell him that."
+
+"Oh, you took care not to tell him that I was coming!"
+
+Maurice was looking over the wall at the platform of the station far down
+below. He seemed to see himself upon it, waiting for the train to glide
+in on the day of the fair, waiting among the smiling Sicilian facchini.
+
+"Si, signore. Was not I right?"
+
+"Quite right."
+
+"Per Dio, signore, these are good cigarettes. Where do they come from?"
+
+"From Cairo, in Egypt."
+
+"Egitto! They must cost a lot."
+
+He edged nearer to Maurice.
+
+"You must be very happy, signorino."
+
+"I!" Maurice laughed. "Madonna! Why?"
+
+"Because you are so rich!"
+
+There was a fawning sound in the fisherman's voice, a fawning look in his
+small, screwed-up eyes.
+
+"To you it would be nothing to buy all the donkeys at the fair of San
+Felice."
+
+Maurice moved ever so little away from him.
+
+"Ah, signorino, if I had been born you how happy I should be!"
+
+And he heaved a great sigh and puffed at the cigarette voluptuously.
+
+Maurice said nothing. He was still looking at the railway platform. And
+now he seemed to see the train gliding in on the day of the fair of San
+Felice.
+
+"Signorino! Signorino!"
+
+"Well, what is it, Salvatore?"
+
+"I have ordered the donkeys for ten o'clock. Then we can go quietly. They
+will be at Isola Bella at ten o'clock. I shall bring Maddalena round in
+the boat."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+Salvatore chuckled.
+
+"She has got a surprise for you, signore."
+
+"A surprise?"
+
+"Per Dio!"
+
+"What is it?"
+
+His voice was listless, but now he looked at Salvatore.
+
+"I ought not to tell you, signore. But--if I do--you won't ever tell
+her?"
+
+"No."
+
+"A new gown, signorino, a beautiful new gown, made by Maria Compagni here
+in the Corso. Will you be at Isola Bella with Gaspare by ten o'clock on
+the day, signorino?"
+
+"Yes, Salvatore!" Maurice said, in a loud, firm, almost angry voice. "I
+will be there. Don't doubt it. Addio Salvatore!"
+
+He got up.
+
+"A rivederci, signore. Ma--"
+
+He got up, too, and bent to pick up his fish-basket.
+
+"No, don't come with me. I'm going up now, straight up by the Castello."
+
+"In all this heat? But it's steep there, signore, and the path is all
+covered with stones. You'll never--"
+
+"That doesn't matter. I like the sun. Addio!"
+
+"And this evening, signorino? You are coming to bathe this evening?"
+
+"I don't know. I don't think so. Don't wait for me. Go to sea if you want
+to!"
+
+"Birbanti!" muttered the fisherman, as he watched Maurice stride away
+across the Piazza, and strike up the mountain-side by the tiny path that
+led to the Castello. "You want to get me out of the way, do you?
+Birbanti! Ah, you fine strangers from England! You think to come here and
+find men that are babies, do you? men that--"
+
+He went off noiselessly on his bare feet, muttering to himself with the
+half-smoked cigarette in his lean, brown hand.
+
+Meanwhile, Maurice climbed rapidly up the steep track over the stones in
+the eye of the sun. He had not lied to Salvatore. While the fisherman had
+been speaking to him he had come to a decision. A disgraceful decision he
+knew it to be, but he would keep to it. Nothing should prevent him from
+keeping to it. He would be at Isola Bella on the day of the fair. He
+would go to San Felice. He would stay there till the last rocket burst in
+the sky over Etna, till the last song had been sung, the last toast
+shouted, the last tarantella danced, the last--kiss given--the last, the
+very last. He would ignore this message from Africa. He would pretend he
+had never received it. He would lie about it. Yes, he would lie--but he
+would have his pleasure. He was determined upon that, and nothing should
+shake him, no qualms of conscience, no voices within him, no memories of
+past days, no promptings of duty.
+
+He hurried up the stony path. He did not feel the sun upon him. The sweat
+poured down over his face, his body. He did not know it. His heart was
+set hard, and he felt villanous, but he felt quite sure what he was going
+to do, quite sure that he was going to the fair despite that letter.
+
+When he reached the priest's house he felt exhausted. Without knowing it
+he had come up the mountain at a racing pace. But he was not tired merely
+because of that. He sank down in a chair in the sitting-room. Lucrezia
+came and peeped at him.
+
+"Where is Gaspare?" he asked, putting his hand instinctively over the
+pocket in which were the letters.
+
+"He is still out after the birds, signore. He has shot five already."
+
+"Poor little wretches! And he's still out?"
+
+"Si, signore. He has gone on to Don Peppino's terreno now. There are many
+birds there. How hot you are, signorino! Shall I--"
+
+"No, no. Nothing, Lucrezia! Leave me alone!"
+
+She disappeared.
+
+Then Maurice drew the letters from his pocket and slowly spread out
+Hermione's in his lap. He had not read it through yet. He had only
+glanced at it and seen what he had feared to see. Now he read it word by
+word, very slowly and carefully. When he had come to the end he kept it
+on his knee and sat for some time quite still.
+
+In the letter Hermione asked him to go to the Hotel Regina Margherita at
+Marechiaro, and engage two good rooms facing the sea for Artois, a
+bedroom and a sitting-room. They were to be ready for the eleventh. She
+wrote with her usual splendid frankness. Her soul was made of sincerity
+as a sovereign is made of gold.
+
+"I know"--these were her words--"I know you will try and make Emile's
+coming to Sicily a little festa. Don't think I imagine you are personally
+delighted at his coming, though I am sure you are delighted at his
+recovery. He is my old friend, not yours, and I am not such a fool as to
+suppose that you can care for him at all as I do, who have known him
+intimately and proved his loyalty and his nobility of nature. But I
+think, I am certain, Maurice, that you will make his coming a festa for
+my sake. He has suffered very much. He is as weak almost as a child
+still. There's something tremendously pathetic in the weakness of body of
+a man so brilliant in mind, so powerful of soul. It goes right to my
+heart as I think it would go to yours. Let us make his return to life
+beautiful and blessed. Sha'n't we? Put flowers in the rooms for me, won't
+you? Make them look homey. Put some books about. But I needn't tell you.
+We are one, you and I, and I needn't tell you any more. It would be like
+telling things to myself--as unnecessary as teaching an organ-grinder how
+to turn the handle of his organ! Oh, Maurice, I can laugh to-day! I could
+almost--_I_--get up and dance the tarantella all alone here in my little,
+bare room with no books and scarcely any flowers. And at the station show
+Emile he is welcome. He is a little diffident at coming. He fancies
+perhaps he will be in the way. But one look of yours, one grasp of your
+hand will drive it all out of him! God bless you, my dearest. How he has
+blessed me in giving you to me!"
+
+As Maurice sat there, under his skin, burned deep brown by the sun, there
+rose a hot flush of red! Yes, he reddened at the thought of what he was
+going to do, but still he meant to do it. He could not forego his
+pleasure. He could not. There was something wild and imperious within him
+that defied his better self at this moment. But the better self was not
+dead. It was even startlingly alive, enough alive to stand almost aghast
+at that which was going, it knew, to dominate it--to dominate it for a
+time, but only for a time. On that he was resolved, as he was resolved to
+have this one pleasure to which he had looked forward, to which he was
+looking forward now. Men often mentally put a period to their sinning.
+Maurice put a period to his sinning as he sat staring at the letter on
+his knees. And the period which he put was the day of the fair at San
+Felice. After that day this book of his wild youth was to be closed
+forever.
+
+After the day of the fair he would live rightly, sincerely, meeting as it
+deserved to be met the utter sincerity of his wife. He would be, after
+that date, entirely straight with her. He loved her. As he looked at her
+letter he felt that he did love, must love, such love as hers. He was not
+a bad man, but he was a wilful man. The wild heart of youth in him was
+wilful. Well, after San Felice, he would control that wilfulness of his
+heart, he would discipline it. He would do more, he would forget that it
+existed. After San Felice!
+
+With a sigh, like that of a burdened man, he got up, took the letter in
+his hand, and went out up the mountain-side. There he tore the letter and
+its envelope into fragments, and hid the fragments in a heap of stones
+hot with the sun.
+
+When Gaspare came in that evening with a string of little birds in his
+hand and asked Maurice if there were any letter from Africa to say when
+the signora would arrive, Maurice answered "No."
+
+"Then the signora will not be here for the fair, signorino?" said the
+boy.
+
+"I don't suppose--no, Gaspare, she will not be here for the fair."
+
+"She would have written by now if she were coming.
+
+"Yes, if she were coming she would certainly have written by now."
+
+
+
+XVI
+
+"Signorino! Signorino! Are you ready?"
+
+It was Gaspare's voice shouting vivaciously from the sunny terrace, where
+Tito and another donkey, gayly caparisoned and decorated with flowers and
+little streamers of colored ribbon, were waiting before the steps.
+
+"Si, si! I'm coming in a moment!" replied Maurice's voice from the
+bedroom.
+
+Lucrezia stood by the wall looking very dismal. She longed to go to the
+fair, and that made her sad. But there was also another reason for her
+depression. Sebastiano was still away, and for many days he had not
+written to her. This was bad enough. But there was something worse. News
+had come to Marechiaro from a sailor of Messina, a friend of
+Sebastiano's, that Sebastiano was lingering in the Lipari Isles because
+he had found a girl there, a pretty girl called Teodora Amalfi, to whom
+he was paying attentions. And although Lucrezia laughed at the story, and
+pretended to disbelieve it, her heart was rent by jealousy and despair,
+and a longing to travel away, to cross the sea, to tear her lover from
+temptation, to--to speak for a few moments quietly--oh, very
+quietly--with this Teodora. Even now, while she stared at the donkeys,
+and at Gaspare in his festa suit, with two large, pink roses above his
+ears, she put up her hands instinctively to her own ears, as if to pluck
+the ear-rings out of them, as the Sicilian women of the lower classes do,
+deliberately, sternly, before they begin to fight their rivals, women who
+have taken their lovers or their husbands from them.
+
+Ah, if she were only in the Lipari Isles she would speak with Teodora
+Amalfi, speak with her till the blood flowed! She set her teeth, and her
+face looked almost old in the sunshine.
+
+"Coraggio, Lucrezia!" laughed Gaspare. "He will come back some day
+when--when he has sold enough to the people of the isles! But where is
+the padrone, Dio mio? Signorino! Signorino!"
+
+Maurice appeared at the sitting-room door and came slowly down the steps.
+
+Gaspare stared. "Eccomi!"
+
+"Why, signorino, what is the matter? What has happened?"
+
+"Happened? Nothing!"
+
+"Then why do you look so black?"
+
+"I! It's the shadow of the awning on my face."
+
+He smiled. He kept on smiling.
+
+"I say, Gasparino, how splendid the donkeys are! And you, too!"
+
+He took hold of the boy by the shoulders and turned him round.
+
+"Per Bacco! We shall make a fine show at the fair! I've got money, lot's
+of money, to spend!"
+
+He showed his portfolio, full of dirty notes. Gaspare's eyes began to
+sparkle.
+
+"Wait, signorino!"
+
+He lifted his hands to Maurice's striped flannel jacket and thrust two
+large bunches of flowers and ferns into the two button-holes, to right
+and left.
+
+"Bravo! Now, then."
+
+"No, no, signorino! Wait!"
+
+"More flowers! But where--what, over my ears, too!"
+
+He began to laugh.
+
+"But--"
+
+"Si, signore, si! To-day you must be a real Siciliano!"
+
+"Va bene!"
+
+He bent down his head to be decorated.
+
+"Pouf! They tickle! There, then! Now let's be off!"
+
+He leaped onto Tito's back. Gaspare sprang up on the other donkey.
+
+"Addio, Lucrezia!"
+
+Maurice turned to her.
+
+"Don't leave the house to-day."
+
+"No, signore," said poor Lucrezia, in a deplorable voice.
+
+"Mind, now! Don't go down to Marechiaro this afternoon."
+
+There was an odd sound, almost of pleading, in his voice.
+
+"No, signore."
+
+"I trust you to be here--remember."
+
+"Va bene, signorino!"
+
+"Ah--a--a--ah!" shouted Gaspare.
+
+They were off.
+
+"Signorino," said Gaspare, presently, when they were in the shadow of the
+ravine, "why did you say all that to Lucrezia?"
+
+"All what?"
+
+"All that about not leaving the house to-day?"
+
+"Oh--why--it's better to have some one there."
+
+"Si, signore. But why to-day specially?"
+
+"I don't know. There's no particular reason."
+
+"I thought there was."
+
+"No, of course not. How could there be?"
+
+"Non lo so."
+
+"If Lucrezia goes down to the village they'll be filling her ears with
+that stupid gossip about Sebastiano and that girl--Teodora."
+
+"It was for Lucrezia then, signorino?"
+
+"Yes, for Lucrezia. She's miserable enough already. I don't want her to
+be a spectacle when--when the signora returns."
+
+"I wonder when she is coming? I wonder why she has not written all these
+days?"
+
+"Oh, she'll soon come. We shall--we shall very soon have her here with
+us."
+
+He tried to speak naturally, but found the effort difficult, knowing what
+he knew, that in the evening of that day Hermione would arrive at the
+house of the priest and find no preparations made for her return, no one
+to welcome her but Lucrezia--if, indeed, Lucrezia obeyed his orders and
+refrained from descending to the village on the chance of hearing some
+fresh news of her fickle lover. And Artois! There were no rooms engaged
+for him at the Hotel Regina Margherita. There were no flowers, no books.
+Maurice tingled--his whole body tingled for a moment--and he felt like a
+man guilty of some mean crime and arraigned before all the world. Then he
+struck Tito with his switch, and began to gallop down the steep path at a
+breakneck pace, sticking his feet far out upon either side. He would
+forget. He would put away these thoughts that were tormenting him. He
+would enjoy this day of pleasure for which he had sacrificed so much, for
+which he had trampled down his self-respect in the dust.
+
+When they reached the road by Isola Bella, Salvatore's boat was just
+coming round the point, vigorously propelled by the fisherman's strong
+arms over the radiant sea. It was a magnificent day, very hot but not
+sultry, free from sirocco. The sky was deep blue, a passionate, exciting
+blue that seemed vocal, as if it were saying thrilling things to the
+world that lay beneath it. The waveless sea was purple, a sea, indeed, of
+legend, a wine-dark, lustrous, silken sea. Into it, just here along this
+magic coast, was surely gathered all the wonder of color of all the
+southern seas. They must be blanched to make this marvel of glory, this
+immense jewel of God. And the lemon groves were thick along the sea. And
+the orange-trees stood in their decorative squadrons drinking in the
+rays of the sun with an ecstatic submission. And Etna, snowless Etna,
+rose to heaven out of this morning world, with its base in the purple
+glory and its feather of smoke in the calling blue, child of the sea-god
+and of the god that looks down from the height, majestically calm in the
+riot of splendor that set the feet of June dancing in a great tarantella.
+
+As Maurice saw the wonder of sea and sky, the boat coming in over the
+sea, with Maddalena in the stern holding a bouquet of flowers, his heart
+leaped up and he forgot for a moment the shadow in himself, the shadow of
+his own unworthiness. He sprang off the donkey.
+
+"I'll go down to meet them!" he cried. "Catch hold of Tito, Gaspare!"
+
+The railway line ran along the sea, between road and beach. He had to
+cross it. In doing so one of his feet struck the metal rail, which gave
+out a dry sound. He looked down, suddenly recalled to a reality other
+than the splendor of the morning, the rapture of this careless festa day.
+And again he was conscious of the shadow. Along this line, in a few
+hours, would come the train bearing Hermione and Artois. Hermione would
+be at the window, eagerly looking out, full of happy anticipation,
+leaning to catch the first sight of his face, to receive and return his
+smile of welcome. What would her face be like when--? But Salvatore was
+hailing him from the sea. Maddalena was waving her hand. The thing was
+done. The die was cast. He had chosen his lot. Fiercely he put away from
+him the thought of Hermione, lifted his voice in an answering hail, his
+hand in a salutation which he tried to make carelessly joyous. The boat
+glided in between the flat rocks. And then--then he was able to forget.
+For Maddalena's long eyes were looking into his, with the joyousness of a
+child's, and yet with something of the expectation of a woman's, too. And
+her brown face was alive with a new and delicious self-consciousness,
+asking him to praise her for the surprise she had prepared, in his honor
+surely, specially for him, and not for her comrades and the public of the
+fair.
+
+"Maddalena!" he exclaimed.
+
+He put out his hands to help her out. She stood on the gunwale of the
+boat and jumped lightly down, with a little laugh, onto the beach.
+
+"Maddalena! Per Dio! Ma che bellezza!"
+
+She laughed again, and stood there on the stones before him smiling and
+watching him, with her head a little on one side, and the hand that held
+the tight bouquet of roses and ferns, round as a ring and red as dawn, up
+to her lips, as if a sudden impulse prompted her now to conceal something
+of her pleasure.
+
+"Le piace?"
+
+It came to him softly over the roses.
+
+Maurice said nothing, but took her hand and looked at her. Salvatore was
+fastening up the boat and putting the oars into their places, and getting
+his jacket and hat.
+
+What a transformation it was, making an almost new Maddalena! This
+festival dress was really quite wonderful. He felt inclined to touch it
+here and there, to turn Maddalena round for new aspects, as a child turns
+round a marvellous doll.
+
+Maddalena wore a tudischina, a bodice of blue cotton velvet, ornamented
+with yellow silken fringes, and opening over the breast to show a section
+of snowy white edged with little buttons of sparkling steel. Her
+petticoat--the sinava--was of pea-green silk and thread, and was
+partially covered by an apron, a real coquette of an apron, white and
+green, with little pockets and puckers, and a green rosette where the
+strings met round the supple waist. Her sleeves were of white muslin,
+bound with yellow silk ribbons, and her stockings were blue, the color of
+the bodice. On her feet were shining shoes of black leather, neatly tied
+with small, black ribbons, and over her shoulders was a lovely shawl of
+blue and white with a pattern of flowers. She wore nothing on her head,
+but in her ears were heavy ear-rings, and round her neck was a thin
+silver chain with bright-blue stones threaded on it here and there.
+
+"Maddalena!" Maurice said, at last. "You are a queen to-day!"
+
+He stopped, then he added:
+
+"No, you are a siren to-day, the siren I once fancied you might be."
+
+"A siren, signorino? What is that?"
+
+"An enchantress of the sea with a voice that makes men--that makes men
+feel they cannot go, they cannot leave it."
+
+Maddalena lifted the roses a little higher to hide her face, but Maurice
+saw that her eyes were still smiling, and it seemed to him that she
+looked even more radiantly happy than when she had taken his hands to
+spring down to the beach.
+
+Now Salvatore came up in his glory of a dark-blue suit, with a gay shirt
+of pink-and-white striped cotton, fastened at the throat with long, pink
+strings that had tasselled ends, a scarlet bow-tie with a brass anchor
+and the Italian flag thrust through it, yellow shoes, and a black hat,
+placed well over the left ear. Upon the forefinger of his left hand he
+displayed a thick snake-ring of tarnished metal, and he had a large,
+overblown rose in his button-hole. His mustaches had been carefully
+waxed, his hair cropped, and his hawklike, subtle, and yet violent face
+well washed for the great occasion. With bold familiarity he seized
+Maurice's hand.
+
+"Buon giorno, signore. Come sta lei?"
+
+"Benissimo."
+
+"And Maddalena, signore? What do you think of Maddalena?"
+
+He looked at his girl with a certain pride, and then back at Maurice
+searchingly.
+
+"Maddalena is beautiful to-day," Maurice answered, quickly. He did not
+want to discuss her with her father, whom he longed to be rid of, whom he
+meant to get rid of if possible at the fair. Surely it would be easy to
+give him the slip there. He would be drinking with his companions, other
+fishermen and contadini, or playing cards, or--yes, that was an idea!
+
+"Salvatore!" Maurice exclaimed, catching hold of the fisherman's arm.
+
+"Signore?"
+
+"There'll be donkeys at the fair, eh?"
+
+"Donkeys--per Dio! Why, last year there were over sixty, and--"
+
+"And isn't there a donkey auction sometimes, towards the end of the day,
+when they go cheap?"
+
+"Si, signore! Si, signore!"
+
+The fisherman's greedy little eyes were fixed on Maurice with keen
+interrogation.
+
+"Don't let us forget that," Maurice said, returning his gaze. "You're a
+good judge of a donkey?"
+
+Salvatore laughed.
+
+"Per Bacco! There won't be a man at San Felice that can beat me at that!"
+
+"Then perhaps you can do something for me. Perhaps you can buy me a
+donkey. Didn't I speak of it before?"
+
+"Si, signore. For the signora to ride when she comes back from Africa?"
+
+He smiled.
+
+"For a lady to ride," Maurice answered, looking at Maddalena.
+
+Salvatore made a clicking noise with his tongue, a noise that suggested
+eating. Then he spat vigorously and took from his jacket-pocket a long,
+black cigar. This was evidently going to be a great day for him.
+
+"Avanti, signorino! Avanti!"
+
+Gaspare was shouting and waving his hat frantically from the road.
+
+"Come along, Maddalena!"
+
+They left the beach and climbed the bank, Maddalena walking carefully in
+the shining shoes, and holding her green skirt well away from the bushes
+with both hands. Maurice hurried across the railway line without looking
+at it. He wanted to forget it. He was determined to forget it, and what
+it was bringing to Cattaro that afternoon. They reached the group of four
+donkeys which were standing patiently in the dusty white road.
+
+"Mamma mia!" ejaculated Gaspare, as Maddalena came full into his sight.
+"Madre mia! But you are like a burgisa dressed for the wedding-day, Donna
+Maddalena!"
+
+He wagged his head at her till the big roses above his ears shook like
+flowers in a wind.
+
+"Ora basta, ch' e tardu: jamu ad accumpagnari li Zitti!" he continued,
+pronouncing the time-honored sentence which, at a rustic wedding, gives
+the signal to the musicians to stop their playing, and to the assembled
+company the hint that the moment has come to escort the bride to the new
+home which her bridegroom has prepared for her.
+
+Maddalena laughed and blushed all over her face, and Salvatore shouted
+out a verse of a marriage song in high favor at Sicilian weddings:
+
+               "E cu saluti a li Zituzzi novi!
+               Chi bellu 'nguaggiamentu furtunatu!
+               Firma la menti, custanti lu cori,
+               E si cci arriva a lu jornu biatu--"
+
+Meanwhile, Maurice helped Maddalena onto her donkey, and paid and
+dismissed the boy who had brought it and Salvatore's beast from
+Marechiaro. Then he took out his watch.
+
+"A quarter-past ten," he said. "Off we go! Now, Gaspare--uno! due! tre!"
+
+They leaped simultaneously onto their donkeys, Salvatore clambered up on
+his, and the little cavalcade started off on the long, white road that
+ran close along the sea, Maddalena and Maurice in the van, Salvatore and
+Gaspare behind. Just at first they all kept close together, but Sicilians
+are very careful of their festa clothes, and soon Salvatore and Gaspare
+dropped farther behind to avoid the clouds of dust stirred up by the
+tripping feet of the donkeys in front. Their chattering voices died away,
+and when Maurice looked back he saw them at a distance which rendered his
+privacy with Maddalena more complete than anything he had dared to hope
+for so early in the day. Yet now that they were thus alone he felt as if
+he had nothing to say to her. He did not feel exactly constrained, but it
+seemed to him that, to-day, he could not talk the familiar commonplaces
+to her, or pay her obvious compliments. They might, they would please
+her, but something in himself would resent them. This was to be such a
+great day. He had wanted it with such ardor, he had been so afraid of
+missing it, he had gained it at the cost of so much self-respect, that it
+ought to be extraordinary from dawn to dark, and he and Maddalena to be
+unusual, intense--something, at least, more eager, more happy, more
+intimate than usual in it.
+
+And then, too, as he looked at her riding along by the sea, with her
+young head held rather high and a smile of innocent pride in her eyes, he
+remembered that this day was their good-bye. Maddalena did not know that.
+Probably she did not think about the future. But he knew it. They might
+meet again. They would doubtless meet again. But it would all be
+different. He would be a serious married man, who could no longer frolic
+as if he were still a boy like Gaspare. This was the last day of his
+intimate friendship with Maddalena.
+
+That seemed to him very strange. He had become accustomed to her society,
+to her naive curiosity, her girlish, simple gayety, so accustomed to it
+all that he could not imagine life without it, could scarcely realize
+what life had been before he knew Maddalena. It seemed to him that he
+must have always known Maddalena. And she--what did she feel about that?
+
+"Maddalena!" he said.
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+She turned her head and glanced at him, smiling, as if she were sure of
+hearing something pleasant. To-day, in her pretty festa dress, she looked
+intended for happiness. Everything about her conveyed the suggestion that
+she was expectant of joy. The expression in her eyes was a summons to the
+world to be very kind and good to her, to give her only pleasant things,
+things that could not harm her.
+
+"Maddalena, do you feel as if you had known me long?"
+
+She nodded her head.
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+"How long?"
+
+She spread out one hand with the fingers held apart.
+
+"Oh, signore--but always! I feel as if I had known you always."
+
+"And yet it's only a few days."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+She acquiesced calmly. The problem did not seem to puzzle her, the
+problem of this feeling so ill-founded. It was so. Very well, then--so it
+was.
+
+"And," he went on, "do you feel as if you would always know me?"
+
+"Si, signore. Of course."
+
+"But I shall go away, I am going away."
+
+For a moment her face clouded. But the influence of joy was very strong
+upon her to-day, and the cloud passed.
+
+"But you will come back, signorino. You will always come back."
+
+"How do you know that?"
+
+A pretty slyness crept into her face, showed in the curve of the young
+lips, in the expression of the young eyes.
+
+"Because you like to be here, because you like the Siciliani. Isn't it
+true?"
+
+"Yes," he said, almost passionately. "It's true! Ah, Maddalena--"
+
+But at this moment a group of people from Marechiaro suddenly appeared
+upon the road beside them, having descended from the village by a
+mountain-path. There were exclamations, salutations. Maddalena's gown was
+carefully examined by the women of the party. The men exchanged
+compliments with Maurice. Then Salvatore and Gaspare, seeing friends,
+came galloping up, shouting, in a cloud of dust. A cavalcade was formed,
+and henceforth Maurice was unable to exchange any more confidences with
+Maddalena. He felt vexed at first, but the boisterous merriment of all
+these people, their glowing anticipation of pleasure, soon infected him.
+His heart was lightened of its burden and the spirit of the careless boy
+awoke in him. He would take no thought for the morrow, he would be able
+to take no thought so long as he was in this jocund company. As they
+trotted forward in a white mist along the shining sea Maurice was one of
+the gayest among them. No laugh rang out more frequently than his, no
+voice chatted more vivaciously. The conscious effort which at first he
+had to make seemed to give him an impetus, to send him onward with a rush
+so that he outdistanced his companions. Had any one observed him closely
+during that ride to the fair he might well have thought that here was a
+nature given over to happiness, a nature that was utterly sunny in the
+sun.
+
+They passed through the town of Cattaro, where was the station for
+Marechiaro. For a moment Maurice felt a pang of self-contempt, and of
+something more, of something that was tender, pitiful even, as he thought
+of Hermione's expectation disappointed. But it died away, or he thrust
+it away. The long street was full of people, either preparing to start
+for the fair themselves or standing at their doors to watch their friends
+start. Donkeys were being saddled and decorated with flowers. Tall,
+painted carts were being harnessed to mules. Visions of men being
+lathered and shaved, of women having their hair dressed or their hair
+searched, Sicilian fashion, of youths trying to curl upward scarcely born
+mustaches, of children being hastily attired in clothes which made them
+wriggle and squint, came to the eyes from houses in which privacy was not
+so much scorned as unthought of, utterly unknown. Turkeys strolled in and
+out among the toilet-makers. Pigs accompanied their mistresses from
+doorway to doorway as dogs accompany the women of other countries. And
+the cavalcade of the people of Marechiaro was hailed from all sides with
+pleasantries and promises to meet at the fair, with broad jokes or
+respectful salutations. Many a "Benedicite!" or "C'ci basu li mano!"
+greeted Maurice. Many a berretto was lifted from heads that he had never
+seen to his knowledge before. He was made to feel by all that he was
+among friends, and as he returned the smiles and salutations he
+remembered the saying Hermione had repeated: "Every Sicilian, even if he
+wears a long cap and sleeps in a hut with the pigs, is a gentleman," and
+he thought it very true.
+
+It seemed as if they would never get away from the street. At every
+moment they halted. One man begged them to wait a moment till his donkey
+was saddled, so that he might join them. Another, a wine-shop keeper,
+insisted on Maurice's testing his moscato, and thereupon Maurice felt
+obliged to order glasses all round, to the great delight of Gaspare, who
+always felt himself to be glorified by the generosity of his padrone, and
+who promptly took the proceedings in charge, measured out the wine in
+appropriate quantities, handed it about, and constituted himself master
+of the ceremony. Already, at eleven o'clock, brindisi were invented, and
+Maurice was called upon to "drop into poetry." Then Maddalena caught
+sight of some girl friends, and must needs show them all her finery. For
+this purpose she solemnly dismounted from her donkey to be closely
+examined on the pavement, turned about, shook forth her pea-green skirt,
+took off her chain for more minute inspection, and measured the silken
+fringes of her shawl in order to compare them with other shawls which
+were hastily brought out from a house near-by.
+
+But Gaspare, always a little ruthless with women, soon tired of such
+vanities.
+
+"Avanti! Avanti!" he shouted. "Dio mio! Le donne sono pazze! Andiamo!
+Andiamo!"
+
+He hustled Maddalena, who yielded, blushing and laughing, to his
+importunities, and at last they were really off again, and drowned in a
+sea of odor as they passed some buildings where lemons were being packed
+to be shipped away from Sicily. This smell seemed to Maurice to be the
+very breath of the island. He drank it in eagerly. Lemons, lemons, and
+the sun! Oranges, lemons, yellow flowers under the lemons, and the sun!
+Always yellow, pale yellow, gold yellow, red-gold yellow, and white, and
+silver-white, the white of the roads, the silver-white of dusty olive
+leaves, and green, the dark, lustrous, polished green of orange leaves,
+and purple and blue, the purple of sea, the blue of sky. What a riot of
+talk it was, and what a riot of color! It made Maurice feel almost drunk.
+It was heady, this island of the south--heady in the summer-time. It had
+a powerful influence, an influence that was surely an excuse for much.
+Ah, the stay-at-homes, who condemned the far-off passions and violences
+of men! What did they know of the various truths of the world? How should
+one in Clapham judge one at the fair of San Felice? Avanti! Avanti!
+Avanti along the blinding white road by the sea, to the village on which
+great Etna looked down, not harshly for all its majesty. Nature
+understood. And God, who made Nature, who was behind Nature--did not He
+understand? There is forgiveness surely in great hearts, though the small
+hearts have no space to hold it.
+
+Something like this Maurice thought for a moment, ere a large
+thoughtlessness swept over him, bred of the sun and the odors, the
+movement, the cries and laughter of his companions, the gay gown and the
+happy glances of Maddalena, even of the white dust that whirled up from
+the feet of the cantering donkeys.
+
+And so, ever laughing, ever joking, gayly, almost tumultuously, they
+rushed upon the fair.
+
+San Felice is a large village in the plain at the foot of Etna. It lies
+near the sea between Catania and Messina, but beyond the black and
+forbidding lava land. Its patron saint, Protettore di San Felice, is
+Sant' Onofrio, and this was his festival. In the large, old church in the
+square, which was the centre of the life of the fiera, his image,
+smothered in paint, sumptuously decorated with red and gold and bunches
+of artificial flowers, was exposed under a canopy with pillars; and thin
+squares of paper reproducing its formal charms--the oval face with large
+eyes and small, straight nose, the ample forehead, crowned with hair that
+was brought down to a point in the centre, the undulating, divided beard
+descending upon the breast, one hand holding a book, the other upraised
+in a blessing--were sold for a soldo to all who would buy them.
+
+The first thing the party from Isola Bella and from Marechiaro did, when
+they had stabled their donkeys at Don Leontini's, in the Via Bocca di
+Leone, was to pay the visit of etiquette to Sant' Onofrio. Their laughter
+was stilled at the church doorway, through which women and men draped in
+shawls, lads and little children, were coming and going. Their faces
+assumed expressions of superstitious reverence and devotion. And, going
+up one by one to the large image of the saint, they contemplated it with
+awe, touched its hand or the hem of its robe, made the sign of the cross,
+and retreated, feeling that they were blessed for the day.
+
+Maddalena approached the saint with Maurice and Gaspare. She and Gaspare
+touched the hand that held the book, made the sign of the cross, then
+stared at Maurice to see why he did nothing. He quickly followed their
+example. Maddalena, who was pulling some of the roses from her tight
+bouquet, whispered to him:
+
+"Sant' Onofrio will bring us good-fortune."
+
+"Davvero?" he whispered back.
+
+"Si! Si!" said Gaspare, nodding his head.
+
+While Maddalena laid her flowers upon the lap of the saint, Gaspare
+bought from a boy three sheets of paper containing Sant' Onofrio's
+reproduction, and three more showing the effigies of San Filadelfo, Sant'
+Alfio, and San Cirino.
+
+"Ecco, Donna Maddalena! Ecco, signorino!"
+
+He distributed his purchases, keeping two for himself. These last he very
+carefully and solemnly folded up and bestowed in the inner pocket of his
+jacket, which contained a leather portfolio, given to him by Maurice to
+carry his money in.
+
+"Ecco!" he said, once more, as he buttoned the flap of the pocket as a
+precaution against thieves.
+
+And with that final exclamation he dismissed all serious thoughts.
+
+"Mangiamo, signorino!" he said. "Ora basta!"
+
+And they went forth into the sunshine. Salvatore was talking to some
+fishermen from Catania upon the steps. They cast curious glances at
+Maurice as he came out with Maddalena, and, when Salvatore went off with
+his daughter and the forestiere, they laughed among themselves and
+exchanged some remarks that were evidently merry. But Maurice did not
+heed them. He was not a self-conscious man. And Maddalena was far too
+happy to suppose that any one could be saying nasty things about her.
+
+"Where are we going to eat?" asked Maurice.
+
+"This way, this way, signorino!" replied Gaspare, elbowing a passage
+through the crowd. "You must follow me. I know where to go. I have many
+friends here."
+
+The truth of this statement was speedily made manifest. Almost every
+third person they met saluted Gaspare, some kissing him upon both cheeks,
+others grasping his hand, others taking him familiarly by the arm. Among
+the last was a tall boy with jet-black, curly hair and a long, pale face,
+whom Gaspare promptly presented to his padrone, by the name of Amedeo
+Buccini.
+
+"Amedeo is a parrucchiere, signorino," he said, "and my compare, and the
+best dancer in San Felice. May he eat with us?"
+
+"Of course."
+
+Gaspare informed Amedeo, who took off his hat, held it in his hand, and
+smiled all over his face with pleasure.
+
+"Yes, Gaspare is my compare, signore," he affirmed. "Compare, compare,
+compareddu"--he glanced at Gaspare, who joined in with him:
+
+               "Compare, compare, compareddu,
+               Io ti voglio molto bene,
+               Mangiamo sempre insieme--
+               Mangiamo carne e riso
+               E andiamo in Paradiso!"
+
+"Carne e riso--si!" cried Maurice, laughing. "But Paradise! Must you go
+to Paradise directly afterwards, before the dancing and before the
+procession and before the fireworks?"
+
+"No, signore," said Gaspare. "When we are very old, when we cannot dance
+any more--non e vero, Amedeo?--then we will go to Paradiso."
+
+"Yes," agreed the tall boy, quite seriously, "then we will go to
+Paradiso."
+
+"And I, too," said Maurice; "and Maddalena, but not till then."
+
+What a long time away that would be!
+
+"Here is the ristorante!"
+
+They had reached a long room with doors open onto the square, opposite to
+the rows of booths which were set up under the shadow of the church.
+Outside of it were many small tables and numbers of chairs on which
+people were sitting, contemplating the movement of the crowd of buyers
+and sellers, smoking, drinking syrups, gazzosa, and eating ices and flat
+biscuits.
+
+Gaspare guided them through the throng to a long table set on a sanded
+floor.
+
+"Ecco, signorino!"
+
+He installed Maurice at the top of the table.
+
+"And you sit here, Donna Maddalena."
+
+He placed her at Maurice's right hand, and was going to sit down himself
+on the left, when Salvatore roughly pushed in before him, seized the
+chair, sat in it, and leaned his arms on the table with a loud laugh that
+sounded defiant. An ugly look came into Gaspare's face.
+
+"Macche--" he began, angrily.
+
+But Maurice silenced him with a quick look.
+
+"Gaspare, you come here, by Maddalena!"
+
+"Ma--"
+
+"Come along, Gasparino, and tell us what we are to have. You must order
+everything. Where's the cameriere? Cameriere! Cameriere!"
+
+He struck on his glass with a fork. A waiter came running.
+
+"Don Gaspare will order for us all," said Maurice to him, pointing to
+Gaspare.
+
+His diplomacy was successful. Gaspare's face cleared, and in a moment he
+was immersed in an eager colloquy with the waiter, another friend of his
+from Marechiaro. Amedeo Buccini took a place by Gaspare, and all those
+from Marechiaro, who evidently considered that they belonged to the
+Inglese's party for the day, arranged themselves as they pleased and
+waited anxiously for the coming of the macaroni.
+
+A certain formality now reigned over the assembly. The movement of the
+road in the outside world by the sea had stirred the blood, had loosened
+tongues and quickened spirits. But a meal in a restaurant, with a rich
+English signore presiding at the head of the table, was an unaccustomed
+ceremony. Dark faces that had been lit up with laughter now looked almost
+ludicrously discreet. Brown hands which had been in constant activity,
+talking as plainly, and more expressively, than voices, now lay limply
+upon the white cloth or were placed upon knees motionless as the knees of
+statues. And all eyes were turned towards the giver of the feast, mutely
+demanding of him a signal of conduct to guide his inquiring guests. But
+Maurice, too, felt for the moment tongue-tied. He was very sensitive to
+influences, and his present position, between Maddalena and her father,
+created within him a certain confusion of feelings, an odd sensation of
+being between two conflicting elements. He was conscious of affection and
+of enmity, both close to him, both strong, the one ready to show itself,
+the other determined to remain in hiding. He glanced at Salvatore, and
+met the fisherman's keen gaze. Behind the instant smile in the glittering
+eyes he divined, rather than saw, the shadow of his hatred. And for a
+moment he wondered. Why should Salvatore hate him? It was reasonable to
+hate a man for a wrong done, even for a wrong deliberately contemplated
+with intention--the intention of committing it. But he had done no real
+wrong to Salvatore. Nor had he any evil intention with regard to him or
+his. So far he had only brought pleasure into their lives, his life and
+Maddalena's--pleasure and money. If there had been any secret pain
+engendered by their mutual intercourse it was his. And this day was the
+last of their intimacy, though Salvatore and Maddalena did not know it.
+Suddenly a desire, an almost weak desire, came to him to banish
+Salvatore's distrust of him, a distrust which he was more conscious of at
+this moment than ever before.
+
+He did not know of the muttered comments of the fishermen from Catania as
+he and Maddalena passed down the steps of the church of Sant' Onofrio.
+But Salvatore's sharp ears had caught them and the laughter that followed
+them, and his hot blood was on fire. The words, the laughter had touched
+his sensitive Sicilian pride--the pride of the man who means never to be
+banished from the Piazza--as a knife touches a raw wound. And as Maurice
+had set a limit to his sinning--his insincerity to Hermione, his betrayal
+of her complete trust in him, nothing more--so Salvatore now, while he
+sat at meat with the Inglese, mentally put a limit to his own
+complaisance, a complaisance which had been born of his intense avarice.
+To-day he would get all he could out of the Inglese--money, food, wine, a
+donkey--who knew what? And then--good-bye to soft speeches. Those
+fishermen, his friends, his comrades, his world, in fact, should have
+their mouths shut once for all. He knew how to look after his girl, and
+they should know that he knew, they and all Marechiaro, and all San
+Felice, and all Cattaro. His limit, like Maurice's, was that day of the
+fair, and it was nearly reached. For the hours were hurrying towards the
+night and farewells.
+
+Moved by his abrupt desire to stand well with everybody during this last
+festa, Maurice began to speak to Salvatore of the donkey auction. When
+would it begin?
+
+"Chi lo sa?"
+
+No one knew. In Sicily all feasts are movable. Even mass may begin an
+hour too late or an hour too early. One thought the donkey auction would
+start at fourteen, another at sixteen o'clock. Gaspare was imperiously
+certain, over the macaroni, which had now made its appearance, that the
+hour was seventeen. There were to be other auctions, auctions of
+wonderful things. A clock that played music--the "Marcia Reale" and the
+"Tre Colori"--was to be put up; suits of clothes, too; boots, hats, a
+chair that rocked like a boat on the sea, a revolver ornamented with
+ivory. Already--no one knew when, for no one had missed him--he had been
+to view these treasures. As he spoke of them tongues were loosed and eyes
+shone with excitement. Money was in the air. Prices were passionately
+discussed, values debated. All down the table went the words "soldi,"
+"lire," "lire sterline," "biglietti da cinque," "biglietti da dieci."
+Salvatore's hatred died away, suffocated for the moment under the weight
+of his avarice. A donkey--yes, he meant to get a donkey with the
+stranger's money. But why stop there? Why not have the clock and the
+rocking-chair and the revolver? His sharpness of the Sicilian, a
+sharpness almost as keen and sure as that of the Arab, divined the
+intensity, the recklessness alive in the Englishman to-day, bred of that
+limit, "my last day of the careless life," to which his own limit was
+twin-brother, but of which he knew nothing. And as Maurice was intense
+to-day, because there were so few hours left to him for intensity, so was
+Salvatore intense in a different way, but for a similar reason. They were
+walking in step without being aware of it. Or were they not rather racing
+neck to neck, like passionate opponents?
+
+There was little time. Then they must use what there was to the full.
+They must not let one single moment find them lazy, indifferent.
+
+[Illustration: "'I AM CONTENT WITHOUT ANYTHING, SIGNORINO,' SHE SAID"]
+
+Under the cover of the flood of talk Maurice turned to Maddalena. She was
+taking no part in it, but was eating her macaroni gently, as if it
+were a new and wonderful food. So Maurice thought as he looked at her.
+To-day there was something strange, almost pathetic, to him in Maddalena,
+a softness, an innocent refinement that made him imagine her in another
+life than hers, and with other companions, in a life as free but less
+hard, with companions as natural but less ruthless to women.
+
+"Maddalena," he said to her. "They all want to buy things at the
+auction."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+"And you?"
+
+"I, signorino?"
+
+"Yes, don't you want to buy something?"
+
+He was testing her, testing her memory. She looked at him above her fork,
+from which the macaroni streamed down.
+
+"I am content without anything, signorino," she said.
+
+"Without the blue dress and the ear-rings, longer than that?" He measured
+imaginary ear-rings in the air. "Have you forgotten, Maddalena?"
+
+She blushed and bent over her plate. She had not forgotten. All the day
+since she rose at dawn she had been thinking of Maurice's old promise.
+But she did not know that he remembered it, and his remembrance of it
+came to her now as a lovely surprise. He bent his head down nearer to
+her.
+
+"When they are all at the auction, we will go to buy the blue dress and
+the ear-rings," he almost whispered. "We will go by ourselves. Shall we?"
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+Her voice was very small and her cheeks still held their flush. She
+glanced, with eyes that were unusually conscious, to right and left of
+her, to see if the neighbors had noticed their colloquy. And that look of
+consciousness made Maurice suddenly understand that this limit which he
+had put to his sinning--so he had called it with a sort of angry mental
+sincerity, summoned, perhaps, to match the tremendous sincerity of his
+wife which he was meeting with a lie to-day--his sinning against Hermione
+was also a limit to something else. Had he not sinned against Maddalena,
+sinned when he had kissed her, when he had shown her that he delighted to
+be with her? Was he not sinning now when he promised to buy for her the
+most beautiful things of the fair? For a moment he thought to himself
+that his fault against Maddalena was more grave, more unforgivable than
+his fault against Hermione. But then a sudden anger that was like a
+storm, against his own condemnation of himself, swept through him. He had
+come out to-day to be recklessly happy, and here he was giving himself up
+to gloom, to absurd self-torture. Where was his natural careless
+temperament? To-day his soul was full of shadows, like the soul of a man
+going to meet a doom.
+
+"Where's the wine?" he called to Gaspare. "Wine, cameriere, wine!"
+
+"You must not drink wine with the pasta, signorino!" cried Gaspare. "Only
+afterwards, with the vitello."
+
+"Have you ordered vitello? Capital! But I've finished my pasta and I'm
+thirsty. Well, what do you want to buy at the auction, Gaspare, and you,
+Amedeo, and you Salvatore?"
+
+He plunged into the talk and made Salvatore show his keen desires,
+encouraging and playing with his avarice, now holding it off for a
+moment, then coaxing it as one coaxes an animal, stroking it, tempting it
+to a forward movement. The wine went round now, for the vitello was on
+the table, and the talk grew more noisy, the laughter louder. Outside,
+too, the movement and the tumult of the fair were increasing. Cries of
+men selling their wares rose up, the hard melodies of a piano-organ, and
+a strange and ecclesiastical chant sung by three voices that, repeated
+again and again, at last attracted Maurice's attention.
+
+"What's that?" he asked of Gaspare. "Are those priests chanting?"
+
+"Priests! No, signore. Those are the Romani."
+
+"Romans here! What are they doing?"
+
+"They have a cart decorated with flags, signorino, and they are selling
+lemon-water and ices. All the people say that they are Romans and that is
+how they sing in Rome."
+
+The long and lugubrious chant of the ice-venders rose up again, strident
+and melancholy as a song chanted over a corpse.
+
+"It's funny to sing like that to sell ices," Maurice said. "It sounds
+like men at a funeral."
+
+"Oh, they are very good ices, signorino. The Romans make splendid ices."
+
+Turkey followed the vitello.
+
+Maurice's guests were now completely at ease and perfectly happy. The
+consciousness that all this was going to be paid for, that they would not
+have to put their hands in their pockets for a soldo, warmed their hearts
+as the wine warmed their bodies. Amedeo's long, white face was becoming
+radiant, and even Salvatore softened towards the Inglese. A sort of
+respect, almost furtive, came to him for the wealth that could carelessly
+entertain this crowd of people, that could buy clocks, chairs, donkeys at
+pleasure, and scarcely know that soldi were gone, scarcely miss them. As
+he attacked his share of the turkey vigorously, picking up the bones with
+his fingers and tearing the flesh away with his white teeth, he tried to
+realize what such wealth must mean to the possessor of it, an effort
+continually made by the sharp-witted, very poor man. And this wealth--for
+the moment some of it was at his command! To ask to-day would be to have.
+Instinctively he knew that, and felt like one with money in the bank. If
+only it might be so to-morrow and for many days! He began to regret the
+limit, almost to forget the sound of the laughter of the Catania
+fishermen upon the steps of the church of Sant' Onofrio. His pride was
+going to sleep, and his avarice was opening its eyes wider.
+
+When the meal was over they went out onto the pavement to take coffee in
+the open air. The throng was much greater than it had been when they
+entered, for people were continually arriving from the more distant
+villages, and two trains had come in from Messina and Catania. It was
+difficult to find a table. Indeed, it might have been impossible had not
+Gaspare ruthlessly dislodged a party of acquaintances who were
+comfortably established around one in a prominent position.
+
+"I must have a table for my padrone," he said. "Go along with you!"
+
+And they meekly went, smiling, and without ill-will--indeed, almost as if
+they had received a compliment.
+
+"But, Gaspare," began Maurice, "I can't--"
+
+"Here is a chair for you, signorino. Take it quickly."
+
+"At any rate, let us offer them something."
+
+"Much better spare your soldi now, signorino, and buy something at the
+auction. That clock plays the 'Tre Colori' just like a band."
+
+"Buy it. Here is some money."
+
+He thrust some notes into the boy's ready hand.
+
+"Grazie, signorino. Ecco la musica!"
+
+In the distance there rose the blare of a processional march from "Aida,"
+and round the corner of the Via di Polifemo came a throng of men and boys
+in dark uniforms, with epaulets and cocked hats with flying plumes,
+blowing with all their might into wind instruments of enormous size.
+
+"That is the musica of the citta, signore," explained Amedeo. "Afterwards
+there will be the Musica Mascagni and the Musica Leoncavallo."
+
+"Mamma mia! And will they all play together?"
+
+"No, signore. They have quarrelled. At Pasqua we had no music, and the
+archpriest was hooted by all in the Piazza."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"Non lo so. I think he had forbidden the Musica Mascagni to play at Madre
+Lucia's funeral, and the Musica Mascagni went to fight with the Musica
+della citta. To-day they will all play, because it is the festa of the
+Santo Patrono, but even for him they will not play together."
+
+The bandsmen had now taken their places upon a wooden dais exactly
+opposite to the restaurant, and were indulging in a military rendering of
+"Celeste Aida," which struck most of the Sicilians at the small tables to
+a reverent silence. Maddalena's eyes had become almost round with
+pleasure, Gaspare was singing the air frankly with Amedeo, and even
+Salvatore seemed soothed and humanized, as he sipped his coffee, puffed
+at a thin cigar, and eyed the women who were slowly sauntering up and
+down to show their finery. At the windows of most of the neighboring
+houses appeared parties of dignified gazers, important personages of the
+town, who owned small balconies commanding the piazza, and who now
+stepped forth upon these coigns of vantage, and leaned upon the rails
+that they might see and be seen by the less favored ones below. Amedeo
+and Gaspare began to name these potentates. The stout man with a gray
+mustache, white trousers, and a plaid shawl over his shoulders was Signor
+Torloni, the syndic of San Felice. The tall, angry-looking gentleman,
+with bulging, black eyes and wrinkled cheeks, was Signor Carata, the
+avvocato; and the lady in black and a yellow shawl was his wife, who was
+the daughter of the syndic. Close by was Signorina Maria Sacchetti, the
+beauty of San Felice, already more than plump, but with a good
+complexion, and hair so thick that it stood out from her satisfied face
+as if it were trained over a trellis. She wore white, and long, thread
+gloves which went above her elbows. Maddalena regarded her with awe when
+Amedeo mentioned a rumor that she was going to be "promised" to Dr.
+Marinelli, who was to be seen at her side, wearing a Gibus hat and
+curling a pair of gigantic black mustaches.
+
+Maurice listened to the music and the chatter which, silenced by the
+arrival of the music, had now burst forth again, with rather indifferent
+ears. He wanted to get away somewhere and to be alone with Maddalena. The
+day was passing on. Soon night would be falling. The fair would be at an
+end. Then would come the ride back, and then----But he did not care to
+look forward into that future. He had not done so yet. He would not do so
+now. It would be better, when the time came, to rush upon it blindly.
+Preparation, forethought, would only render him unnatural. And he must
+seem natural, utterly natural, in his insincere surprise, in his
+insincere regret.
+
+"Pay for the coffee, Gaspare," he said, giving the boy some money. "Now I
+want to walk about and see everything. Where are the donkeys?"
+
+He glanced at Salvatore.
+
+"Oh, signore," said Gaspare, "they are outside the town in the
+watercourse that runs under the bridge--you know, that broke down this
+spring where the line is? They have only just finished mending it."
+
+"I remember your telling me."
+
+"And you were so glad the signora was travelling the other way."
+
+"Yes, yes."
+
+He spoke hastily. Salvatore was on his feet.
+
+"What hour have we?"
+
+Maurice looked at his watch.
+
+"Half-past two already! I say, Salvatore, you mustn't forget the
+donkeys."
+
+Salvatore came close up to him.
+
+"Signore," he began, in a low voice, "what do you wish me to do?"
+
+"Bid for a good donkey."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+"For the best donkey they put up for sale."
+
+Salvatore began to look passionately eager.
+
+"Si, signore. And if I get it?"
+
+"Come to me and I will give you the money to pay."
+
+"Si, signore. How high shall I go?"
+
+Gaspare was listening intently, with a hard face and sullen eyes. His
+whole body seemed to be disapproving what Maurice was doing. But he said
+nothing. Perhaps he felt that to-day it would be useless to try to govern
+the actions of his padrone.
+
+"How high? Well"--Maurice felt that, before Gaspare, he must put a limit
+to his price, though he did not care what it was--"say a hundred. Here,
+I'll give it you now."
+
+He put his hand into his pocket and drew out his portfolio.
+
+"There's the hundred."
+
+Salvatore took it eagerly, spread it over his hand, stared at it, then
+folded it with fingers that seemed for the moment almost delicate, and
+put it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He meant to go presently and
+show it to the fishermen of Catania, who had laughed upon the steps of
+the church, and explain matters to them a little. They thought him a
+fool. Well, he would soon make them understand who was the fool.
+
+"Grazie, signore!"
+
+He said it through his teeth. Maurice turned to Gaspare. He felt the
+boy's stern disapproval of what he had done, and wanted, if possible, to
+make amends.
+
+"Gaspare," he said, "here is a hundred lire for you. I want you to go to
+the auction and to bid for anything you think worth having. Buy
+something for your mother and father, for the house, some nice things!"
+
+"Grazie, signore."
+
+He took the note, but without alacrity, and his face was still lowering.
+
+"And you, signore?" he asked.
+
+"I?"
+
+"Yes. Are you not coming with me to the auction? It will be better for
+you to be there to choose the things."
+
+For an instant Maurice felt irritated. Was he never to be allowed a
+moment alone with Maddalena?
+
+"Oh, but I'm no good at----" he began.
+
+Then he stopped. To-day he must be birbante--on his guard. Once the
+auction was in full swing--so he thought--Salvatore and Gaspare would be
+as they were when they gambled beside the sea. They would forget
+everything. It would be easy to escape. But till that moment came he must
+be cautious.
+
+"Of course I'll come," he exclaimed, heartily. "But you must do the
+bidding, Gaspare."
+
+The boy looked less sullen.
+
+"Va bene, signorino. I shall know best what the things are worth. And
+Salvatore"--he glanced viciously at the fisherman--"can go to the
+donkeys. I have seen them. They are poor donkeys this year."
+
+Salvatore returned his vicious glance and said something in dialect which
+Maurice did not understand. Gaspare's face flushed, and he was about to
+burst into an angry reply when Maurice touched his arm.
+
+"Come along, Gaspare!"
+
+As they got up, he whispered:
+
+"Remember what I said about to-day!"
+
+"Macche----"
+
+Maurice closed his fingers tightly on Gaspare's arm.
+
+"Gaspare, you must remember! Afterwards what you like, but not to-day.
+Andiamo!"
+
+They all got up. The Musica della citta was now playing a violent jig,
+undoubtedly composed by Bellini, who was considered almost as a child of
+San Felice, having been born close by at Catania.
+
+"Where are the women in the wonderful blue dresses?" Maurice asked, as
+they stepped into the road; "and the ear-rings? I haven't seen them yet."
+
+"They will come towards evening, signorino," replied Gaspare, "when it
+gets cool. They do not care to be in the sun dressed like that. It might
+spoil their things."
+
+Evidently the promenade of these proud beauties was an important
+function.
+
+"We must not miss them," Maurice said to Maddalena.
+
+She looked conscious.
+
+"No, signore."
+
+"They will all be here this evening, signore," said Amedeo, "for the
+giuochi di fuoco."
+
+"The giuochi di fuoco--they will be at the end?"
+
+"Si, signore. After the giuochi di fuoco it is all finished."
+
+Maurice stifled a sigh. "It is all finished," Amedeo had said. But for
+him? For him there would be the ride home up the mountain, the arrival
+upon the terrace before the house of the priest. At what hour would he be
+there? It would be very late, perhaps nearly at dawn, in the cold, still,
+sad hour when vitality is at its lowest. And Hermione? Would she be
+sleeping? How would they meet? How would he----?
+
+"Andiamo! Andiamo!"
+
+He cried out almost angrily.
+
+"Which is the way?"
+
+"All the auctions are held outside the town, signore," said Amedeo.
+"Follow me."
+
+Proudly he took the lead, glad to be useful and important after the
+benefits that had been bestowed upon him, and hoping secretly that
+perhaps the rich Inglese would give him something to spend, too, since
+money was so plentiful for donkeys and clocks.
+
+"They are in the fiume, near the sea and the railway line."
+
+The railway line! When he heard that Maurice had a moment's absurd
+sensation of reluctance, a desire to hold back, such as comes to a man
+who is unexpectedly asked to confront some danger. It seemed to him that
+if he went to the watercourse he might be seen by Hermione and Artois as
+they passed by on their way to Marechiaro. But of course they were coming
+from Messina! What a fool he was to-day! His recklessness seemed to have
+deserted him just when he wanted it most. To-day he was not himself. He
+was a coward. What it was that made him a coward he did not tell himself.
+
+"Then we can all go together," he said. "Salvatore and all."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+Salvatore's voice was close at his ear, and he knew by the sound of it
+that the fisherman was smiling.
+
+"We can all keep together, signore; then we shall be more gay."
+
+They threaded their way through the throng. The violent jig of Bellini
+died away gradually, till it was faint in the distance. At the end of the
+narrow street Maurice saw the large bulk of Etna. On this clear afternoon
+it looked quite close, almost as if, when they got out of the street,
+they would be at its very foot, and would have to begin to climb. Maurice
+remembered his wild longing to carry Maddalena off upon the sea, or to
+some eyrie in the mountains, to be alone with her in some savage place.
+Why not give all these people the slip now--somehow--when the fun of the
+fair was at its height, mount the donkeys and ride straight for the huge
+mountain? There were caverns there and desolate lava wastes; there were
+almost impenetrable beech forests. Sebastiano had told him tales of
+them, those mighty forests that climbed up to green lawns looking down
+upon the Lipari Isles. He thought of their silence and their shadows,
+their beds made of the drifted leaves of the autumn. There, would be no
+disturbance, no clashing of wills and of interests, but calm and silence
+and the time to love. He glanced at Maddalena. He could hardly help
+imagining that she knew what he was thinking of. Salvatore had dropped
+behind for a moment. Maurice did not know it, but the fisherman had
+caught sight of his comrades of Catania drinking in a roadside wine-shop,
+and had stopped to show them the note for a hundred francs, and to make
+them understand the position of affairs between him and the forestiere.
+Gaspare was talking eagerly to Amedeo about the things that were likely
+to be put up for sale at the auction.
+
+"Maddalena," Maurice said to the girl, in a low voice, "can you guess
+what I am thinking about?"
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"No, signore."
+
+"You see the mountain!"
+
+He pointed to the end of the little street.
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+"I am thinking that I should like to go there now with you."
+
+"Ma, signorino--the fiera!"
+
+Her voice sounded plaintive with surprise and she glanced at her
+pea-green skirt.
+
+"And this, signorino!"--she touched it carefully with her slim fingers.
+"How could I go in this?"
+
+"When the fair is over, then, and you are in your every-day gown,
+Maddalena, I should like to carry you off to Etna."
+
+"They say there are briganti there."
+
+"Brigands--would you be afraid of them with me?"
+
+"I don't know, signore. But what should we do there on Etna far away from
+the sea and from Marechiaro?"
+
+"We should"--he whispered in her ear, seizing this chance almost angrily,
+almost defiantly, with the thought of Salvatore in his mind--"we should
+love each other, Maddalena. It is quiet in the beech forests on Etna. No
+one would come to disturb us, and----"
+
+A chuckle close to his ear made him start. Salvatore's hand was on his
+arm, and Salvatore's face, looking wily and triumphant, was close to his.
+
+"Gaspare was wrong, there are splendid donkeys here. I have been talking
+to some friends who have seen them."
+
+There was a tramp of heavy boots on the stones behind them. The fishermen
+from Catania were coming to see the fun. Salvatore was in glory. To get
+all and give nothing was, in his opinion, to accomplish the legitimate
+aim of a man's life. And his friends, those who had dared to sneer and to
+whisper, and to imagine that he was selling his daughter for money, now
+knew the truth and were here to witness his ingenuity. Intoxicated by his
+triumph, he began to show off his power over the Inglese for the benefit
+of the tramplers behind. He talked to Maurice with a loud familiarity,
+kept laying his hand on Maurice's arm as they walked, and even called
+him, with a half-jocose intonation, "compare." Maurice sickened at his
+impertinence, but was obliged to endure it with patience, and this act of
+patience brought to the birth within him a sudden, fierce longing for
+revenge, a longing to pay Salvatore out for his grossness, his greed, his
+sly and leering affectation of playing the slave when he was really
+indicating to his compatriots that he considered himself the master.
+Again Maurice heard the call of the Sicilian blood within him, but this
+time it did not call him to the tarantella or to love. It called him to
+strike a blow. But this blow could only be struck through Maddalena,
+could only be struck if he were traitor to Hermione. For a moment he saw
+everything red. Again Salvatore called him "compare." Suddenly Maurice
+could not bear it.
+
+"Don't say that!" he said. "Don't call me that!"
+
+He had almost hissed the words out. Salvatore started, and for an
+instant, as they walked side by side, the two men looked at each other
+with eyes that told the truth. Then Salvatore, without asking for any
+explanation of Maurice's sudden outburst, said:
+
+"Va bene, signore, va bene! I thought for to-day we were all compares.
+Scusi, scusi."
+
+There was a bitterness of irony in his voice. As he finished he swept off
+his soft hat and then replaced it more over his left ear than ever.
+Maurice knew at once that he had done the unforgivable thing, that he had
+stabbed a Sicilian's amour propre in the presence of witnesses of his own
+blood. The fishermen from Catania had heard. He knew it from Salvatore's
+manner, and an odd sensation came to him that Salvatore had passed
+sentence upon him. In silence, and mechanically, he walked on to the end
+of the street. He felt like one who, having done something swiftly,
+thoughtlessly, is suddenly confronted with the irreparable, abruptly sees
+the future spread out before him bathed in a flash of crude light, the
+future transformed in a second by that act of his as a landscape is
+transformed by an earthquake or a calm sea by a hurricane.
+
+And when the watercourse came in sight, with its crowd, its voices, and
+its multitude of beasts, he looked at it dully for a moment, hardly
+realizing it.
+
+In Sicily the animal fairs are often held in the great watercourses that
+stretch down from the foot of the mountains to the sea, and that resemble
+huge highroads in the making, roads upon which the stones have been
+dumped ready for the steam-roller. In winter there is sometimes a torrent
+of water rushing through them, but in summer they are dry, and look like
+wounds gashed in the thickly growing lemon and orange groves. The
+trampling feet of beasts can do no harm to the stones, and these
+watercourses in the summer season are of no use to anybody. They are,
+therefore, often utilized at fair time. Cattle, donkeys, mules are driven
+down to them in squadrons. Painted Sicilian carts are ranged upon their
+banks, with sets of harness, and the auctioneers, whose business it is to
+sell miscellaneous articles, household furniture, stuffs, clocks,
+ornaments, frequently descend into them, and mount a heap of stones to
+gain command of their gaping audience of contadini and the shrewder
+buyers from the towns.
+
+The watercourse of San Felice was traversed at its mouth by the railway
+line from Catania to Messina, which crossed it on a long bridge supported
+by stone pillars and buttresses, the bridge which, as Gaspare had said,
+had recently collapsed and was now nearly built up again. It was already
+in use, but the trains were obliged to crawl over it at a snail's pace in
+order not to shake the unfinished masonry, and men were stationed at each
+end to signal to the driver whether he was to stop or whether he might
+venture to go on. Beyond the watercourse, upon the side opposite to the
+town of San Felice, was a series of dense lemon groves, gained by a
+sloping bank of bare, crumbling earth, on the top of which, close to the
+line and exactly where it came to the bridge, was a group of four old
+olive-trees with gnarled, twisted trunks. These trees cast a patch of
+pleasant shade, from which all the bustle of the fair was visible, but at
+a distance, and as Maurice and his party came out of the village on the
+opposite bank, he whispered to Maddalena:
+
+"Maddalena!"
+
+"Si, signore?"
+
+"Let's get away presently, you and I; let's go and sit under those trees.
+I want to talk to you quietly."
+
+"Si, signore?"
+
+Her voice was lower even than his own.
+
+"Ecco, signore! Ecco!"
+
+Salvatore was pointing to a crowd of donkeys.
+
+"Signorino! Signorino!"
+
+"What is it, Gaspare?"
+
+"That is the man who is going to sell the clock!"
+
+The boy's face was intent. His eyes were shining, and his glum manner had
+vanished, under the influence of a keen excitement. Maurice realized that
+very soon he would be free. Once his friends were in the crowd of buyers
+and sellers everything but the chance of a bargain would be forgotten.
+His own blood quickened but for a different reason.
+
+"What beautiful carts!" he said. "We have no such carts in England!"
+
+"If you would like to buy a cart, signore----" began Salvatore.
+
+But Gaspare interrupted with violence.
+
+"Macche! What is the use of a cart to the signorino? He is going away to
+England. How can he take a cart with him in the train?"
+
+"He can leave the cart with me," said Salvatore, with open impudence. "I
+can take care of it for the signore as well as the donkey."
+
+"Macche!" cried Gaspare, furiously.
+
+Maurice took him by the arm.
+
+"Help me down the bank! Come on!"
+
+He began to run, pulling Gaspare with him. When they got to the bottom,
+he said:
+
+"It's all right, Gaspare. I'm not going to be such a fool as to buy a
+cart. Now, then, which way are we going?"
+
+"Signore, do you want to buy a very good donkey, a very strong donkey,
+strong enough to carry three Germans to the top of Etna? Come and see my
+donkey. He is very cheap. I make a special price because the signore is
+simpatico. All the English are simpatici. Come this way, signore! Gaspare
+knows me. Gaspare knows that I am not birbante."
+
+"Signorino! Signorino! Look at this clock! It plays the 'Tre Colori.' It
+is worth twenty-five lire, but I will make a special price for you
+because you love Sicily and are like a Siciliano. Gaspare will tell
+you----"
+
+But Gaspare elbowed away his acquaintances roughly.
+
+"Let my padrone alone. He is not here to buy. He is only here to see the
+fair. Come on, signorino! Do not answer them. Do not take any notice. You
+must not buy anything or you will be cheated. Let me make the prices."
+
+"Yes, you make the prices. Per Bacco, how hot it is!"
+
+Maurice pulled his hat down over his eyes.
+
+"Maddalena, you'll get a sunstroke!" he said.
+
+"Oh no, signore. I am accustomed to the sun."
+
+"But to-day it's terrific!"
+
+Indeed, the masses of stones in the watercourse seemed to draw and to
+concentrate the sun-rays. The air was alive with minute and dancing
+specks of light, and in the distance, seen under the railway bridge, the
+sea looked hot, a fiery blue that was surely sweating in the glare of the
+afternoon. The crowd of donkeys, of cattle, of pigs--there were many pigs
+on sale--looked both dull and angry in the heat, and the swarms of
+Sicilians who moved slowly about among them, examining them critically,
+appraising their qualities and noting their defects, perspired in their
+festa clothes, which were mostly heavy and ill-adapted to summer-time. A
+small boy passed by, bearing in his arms a struggling turkey. He caught
+his foot in some stones, fell, bruised his forehead, and burst out
+crying, while the indignant and terrified bird broke away, leaving some
+feathers, and made off violently towards Etna. There was a roar of
+laughter from the people near. Some ran to catch the turkey, others
+picked up the boy. Salvatore had stopped to see this adventure, and was
+now at a little distance surrounded by the Catanesi, who were evidently
+determined to assist at his bidding for a donkey. The sight of the note
+for a hundred lire had greatly increased their respect for Salvatore, and
+with the Sicilian instinct to go, and to stay, where money is, they now
+kept close to their comrade, eying him almost with awe as one in
+possession of a fortune. Maurice saw them presently examining a group of
+donkeys. Salvatore, with an autocratic air, and the wild gestures
+peculiar to him, was evidently laying down the law as to what each animal
+was worth. The fishermen stood by, listening attentively. The fact of
+Salvatore's purchasing power gave him the right to pronounce an opinion.
+He was in glory. Maurice thanked Heaven for that. The man in glory is
+often the forgetful man. Salvatore, he thought, would not bother about
+his daughter and his banker for a little while. But how to get rid of
+Gaspare and Amedeo! It seemed to him that they would never leave his
+side.
+
+There were many wooden stands covered with goods for sale in the
+watercourse, with bales of stuff for suits and dresses, with hats and
+caps, shirts, cravats, boots and shoes, walking-sticks, shawls, household
+utensils, crockery, everything the contadino needs and loves. Gaspare,
+having money to lay out, considered it his serious duty to examine
+everything that was to be bought with slow minuteness. It did not matter
+whether the goods were suited to a masculine taste or not. He went into
+the mysteries of feminine attire with almost as much assiduity as a
+mother displays when buying a daughter's trousseau, and insisted upon
+Maurice sharing his interest and caution. All sense of humor, all boyish
+sprightliness vanished from him in this important epoch of his life. The
+suspicion, the intensity of the bargaining contadino came to the surface.
+His usually bright face was quite altered. He looked elderly, subtle, and
+almost Jewish as he slowly passed from stall to stall, testing, weighing,
+measuring, appraising.
+
+It seemed to Maurice that this progress would never end. Presently they
+reached a stand covered with women's shawls and with aprons.
+
+"Shall I buy an apron for my mother, signorino?" asked Gaspare.
+
+"Yes, certainly."
+
+Maurice did not know what else to say. The result of his consent was
+terrible. For a full half-hour they stood in the glaring sun, while
+Gaspare and Amedeo solemnly tried on aprons over their suits in the midst
+of a concourse of attentive contadini. In vain did Maurice say: "That's a
+pretty one. I should take that one." Some defect was always discoverable.
+The distant mother's taste was evidently peculiar and not to be easily
+suited, and Maurice, not being familiar with it, was unable to combat
+such assertions of Gaspare as that she objected to pink spots, or that
+she could never be expected to put on an apron before the neighbors if
+the stripes upon it were of different colors and there was no stitching
+round the hem. For the first time since he was in Sicily the heat began
+to affect him unpleasantly. His head felt as if it were compressed in an
+iron band, and the vision of Gaspare, eagerly bargaining, looking Jewish,
+and revolving slowly in aprons of different colors, shapes, and sizes,
+began to dance before his eyes. He felt desperate, and suddenly resolved
+to be frank.
+
+"Macche!" Gaspare was exclaiming, with indignant gestures of protest to
+the elderly couple who were in charge of the aprons; "it is not worth two
+soldi! It is not fit to be thrown to the pigs, and you ask me----"
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+"Two lire--Madonna! Sangue di San Pancrazio, they ask me two lire!
+Macche!" (He flung down the apron passionately upon the stall.) "Go and
+find Lipari people to buy your dirt; don't come to one from Marechiaro."
+
+He took up another apron.
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+"One lira fifty? Madre mia, do you think I was born in a grotto on Etna
+and have never----"
+
+"Gaspare, listen to me!"
+
+"Scusi, signorino! I----"
+
+"I'm going over there to sit down in the shade for a minute. After that
+wine I drank at dinner I'm a bit sleepy."
+
+"Si, signore. Shall I come with you?"
+
+For once there was reluctance in his voice, and he looked down at the
+blue-and-white apron he had on with wistful eyes. It was a new joy to him
+to be bargaining in the midst of an attentive throng of his compatriots.
+
+"No, no. You stay here and spend the money. Bid for the clock when the
+auction comes on."
+
+"Oh, signore, but you must be here, too, then."
+
+"All right. Come and fetch me if you like. I shall be over there under
+the trees."
+
+He waved his hand vaguely towards the lemon groves.
+
+"Now, choose a good apron. Don't let them cheat you."
+
+"Macche!"
+
+The boy laughed loudly, and turned eagerly to the stall again.
+
+"Come, Maddalena!"
+
+Maurice drew her quickly, anxiously, out of the crowd, and they began to
+walk across the watercourse towards the farther bank and the group of
+olive-trees. Salvatore had forgotten them. So had Gaspare. Both father
+and servant were taken by the fascination of the fair. At last! But how
+late it must be! How many hours had already fled away! Maurice scarcely
+dared to look at his watch. He feared to see the time. While they walked
+he said nothing to Maddalena, but when they reached the bank he took her
+arm and helped her up it, and when they were at the top he drew a long
+breath.
+
+"Are you tired, signorino?"
+
+"Tired--yes, of all those people. Come and sit down, Maddalena, under the
+olive-trees."
+
+He took her by the hand. Her hand was warm and dry, pleasant to touch, to
+hold. As he felt it in his the desire to strike at Salvatore revived
+within him. Salvatore was laughing at him, was triumphing over him,
+triumphing in the get-all and give-nothing policy which he thought he was
+pursuing with such complete success. Would it be very difficult to turn
+that success into failure? Maurice wondered for a moment, then ceased to
+wonder. Something in the touch of Maddalena's hand told him that, if he
+chose, he could have his revenge upon Salvatore, and he was assailed by a
+double temptation. Both anger and love tempted him. If he stooped to do
+evil he could gratify two of the strongest desires in humanity, the
+desire to conquer in love and the desire to triumph in hate. Salvatore
+thought him such a fool, held him in such contempt! Something within him
+was burning to-day as a cheek burns with shame, something within him that
+was like the kernel of him, like the soul of his manhood, which the
+fisherman was sneering at. He did not say to himself strongly that he did
+not care what such men thought of him. He could not, for his nature was
+both reckless and sensitive. He did care, as if he had been a Sicilian
+half doubtful whether he dared to show his face in the piazza. And he had
+another feeling, too, which had come to him when Salvatore had answered
+his exclamation of irresistible anger at being called "compare," the
+feeling that, whether he sinned against the fisherman or not, the
+fisherman meant to do him harm. The sensation might be absurd, would have
+seemed to him probably absurd in England. Here, in Sicily, it sprang up
+and he had just to accept it, as a man accepts an instinct which guides
+him, prompts him.
+
+Salvatore had turned down his thumb that day.
+
+Maurice was not afraid of him. Physically, he was quite fearless. But
+this sensation of having been secretly condemned made him feel hard,
+cruel, ready, perhaps, to do a thing not natural to him, to sacrifice
+another who had never done him wrong. At that moment it seemed to him
+that it would be more manly to triumph over Salvatore by a double
+betrayal than to "run straight," conquer himself and let men not of his
+code think of him as they would.
+
+Not of his code! But what was his code? Was it that of England or that of
+Sicily? Which strain of blood was governing him to-day? Which strain
+would govern him finally? Artois would have had an interesting specimen
+under his observant eyes had he been at the fair of San Felice.
+
+Maddalena willingly obeyed Maurice's suggestion.
+
+"Get well into the shade," he said. "There's just enough to hold us, if
+we sit close together. You don't mind that, do you?"
+
+"No, signore."
+
+"Put your back against the trunk--there."
+
+He kept his hat off. Over the railway line from the hot-looking sea there
+came a little breeze that just moved his short hair and the feathers of
+gold about Maddalena's brow. In the watercourse, but at some distance,
+they saw the black crowd of men and women and beasts swarming over the
+hot stones.
+
+"How can they?" Maurice muttered, as he looked down.
+
+"Cosa?"
+
+He laughed.
+
+"I was thinking out loud. I meant how can they bargain and bother hour
+after hour in all that sun!"
+
+"But, signorino, you would not have them pay too much!" she said, very
+seriously. "It is dreadful to waste soldi."
+
+"I suppose--yes, of course it is. Oh, but there are so many things worth
+more than soldi. Dio mio! Let's forget all that!"
+
+He waved his hand towards the crowd, but he saw that Maddalena was
+preoccupied. She glanced towards the watercourse rather wistfully.
+
+"What is it, Maddalena? Ah, I know! The blue dress and the ear-rings! Per
+Bacco!"
+
+"No, signore--no, signore!"
+
+She disclaimed quickly, reddening.
+
+"Yes, it is. I had forgotten. But we can't go now. Maddalena, we will buy
+them this evening. Directly it gets cool we'll go, directly we've rested
+a little. But don't think of them now. I've promised, and I always keep a
+promise. Now, don't think of that any more!"
+
+He spoke with a sort of desperation. The fair seemed to be his enemy, and
+he had thought that it would be his friend. It was like a personage with
+a stronger influence than his, an influence that could take away that
+which he wished to retain, to fix upon himself.
+
+"No, signore," Maddalena said, meekly, but still wistfully.
+
+"Do you care for a blue dress and a pair of ear-rings more than you do
+for me?" cried Maurice, with sudden roughness. "Are you like your father?
+Do you only care for me for what you can get out of me? I believe you
+do!"
+
+Maddalena looked startled, almost terrified, by his outburst. Her lips
+trembled, but she gazed at him steadily.
+
+"Non e vero."
+
+The words sounded almost stern.
+
+"I do--" he said. "I do want to be cared for a little--just for myself."
+
+[Illustration: "HE KEPT HIS HAND ON HERS AND HELD IT ON THE WARM GROUND"]
+
+At that moment he had a sensation of loneliness like that of an
+utterly unloved man. And yet at that moment a great love was travelling
+to him--a love that was complete and flawless. But he did not think of
+it. He only thought that perhaps all this time he had been deceived, that
+Maddalena, like her father, was merely pleased to see him because he had
+money and could spend it. He sickened.
+
+"Non e vero!" Maddalena repeated.
+
+Her lips still trembled. Maurice looked at her doubtfully, yet with a
+sudden tenderness. Always when she looked troubled, even for an instant,
+there came to him the swift desire to protect her, to shield her.
+
+"But why should you care for me?" he said. "It is better not. For I am
+going away, and probably you will never see me again."
+
+Tears came into Maddalena's eyes. He did not know whether they were
+summoned by his previous roughness or his present pathos. He wanted to
+know.
+
+"Probably I shall never come back to Sicily again," he said, with
+pressure.
+
+She said nothing.
+
+"It will be better not," he added. "Much better."
+
+Now he was speaking for himself.
+
+"There's something here, something that I love and that's bad for me. I'm
+quite changed here. I'm like another man."
+
+He saw a sort of childish surprise creeping into her face.
+
+"Why, signorino?" she murmured.
+
+He kept his hand on hers and held it on the warm ground.
+
+"Perhaps it is the sun," he said. "I lose my head here, and I--lose my
+heart!"
+
+She still looked rather surprised, and again her ignorance fascinated
+him. He thought that it was far more attractive than any knowledge could
+have been.
+
+"I'm horribly happy here, but I oughtn't to be happy."
+
+"Why, signorino? It is better to be happy."
+
+"Per Dio!" he exclaimed.
+
+Now a deep desire to have his revenge upon Salvatore came to him, but not
+at all because it would hurt Salvatore. The cruelty had gone out of him.
+Maddalena's eyes of a child had driven it away. He wanted his revenge
+only because it would be an intense happiness to him to have it. He
+wanted it because it would satisfy an imperious desire of tender passion,
+not because it would infuriate a man who hated him. He forgot the father
+in the daughter.
+
+"Suppose I were quite poor, Maddalena!" he said.
+
+"But you are very rich, signorino."
+
+"But suppose I were poor, like Gaspare, for instance. Suppose I were as I
+am, just the same, only a contadino, or a fisherman, as your father is.
+And suppose--suppose"--he hesitated--"suppose that I were not married!"
+
+She said nothing. She was listening with deep but still surprised
+attention.
+
+"Then I could--I could go to your father and ask him----"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"What could you ask him, signorino?"
+
+"Can't you guess?"
+
+"No, signore."
+
+"I might ask him to let me marry you. I should--if it were like that--I
+should ask him to let me marry you."
+
+"Davvero?"
+
+An expression of intense pleasure, and of something more--of pride--had
+come into her face. She could not divest herself imaginatively of her
+conception of him as a rich forestiere, and she saw herself placed high
+above "the other girls," turned into a lady.
+
+"Magari!" she murmured, drawing in her breath, then breathing out.
+
+"You would be happy if I did that?"
+
+"Magari!" she said again.
+
+He did not know what the word meant, but he thought it sounded like the
+most complete expression of satisfaction he had ever heard.
+
+"I wish," he said, pressing her hand--"I wish I were a Sicilian of
+Marechiaro."
+
+At this moment, while he was speaking, he heard in the distance the
+shrill whistle of an engine. It ceased. Then it rose again, piercing,
+prolonged, fierce surely with inquiry. He put his hands to his ears.
+
+"How beastly that is!" he exclaimed.
+
+He hated it, not only for itself, but for the knowledge it sharply
+recalled to his mind, the knowledge of exactly what he was doing, and of
+the facts of his life, the facts that the very near future held.
+
+"Why do they do that?" he added, with intense irritation.
+
+"Because of the bridge, signorino. They want to know if they can come
+upon the bridge. Look! There is the man waving a flag. Now they can come.
+It is the train from Palermo."
+
+"Palermo!" he said, sharply.
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+"But the train from Palermo comes the other way, by Messina!"
+
+"Si, signore. But there are two, one by Messina and one by Catania.
+Ecco!"
+
+From the lemon groves came the rattle of the approaching train.
+
+"But--but----"
+
+He caught at his watch, pulled it out.
+
+Five o'clock!
+
+He had taken his hand from Maddalena's, and now he made a movement as if
+to get up. But he did not get up. Instead, he pressed back against the
+olive-tree, upon whose trunk he was leaning, as if he wished to force
+himself into the gnarled wood of it. He had an instinct to hide. The
+train came on very slowly. During the two or three minutes that elapsed
+before it was in his view Maurice lived very rapidly. He felt sure that
+Hermione and Artois were in the train. Hermione had said that they would
+arrive at Cattaro at five-thirty. She had not said which way they were
+coming. Maurice had assumed that they would come from Messina because
+Hermione had gone away by that route. It was a natural error. But now? If
+they were at the carriage window! If they saw him! And surely they must
+see him. The olive-trees were close to the line and on a level with it.
+He could not get away. If he got up he would be more easily seen.
+Hermione would call out to him. If he pretended not to hear she might,
+she probably would, get out of the train at the San Felice station and
+come into the fair. She was impulsive. It was just the sort of thing she
+might do. She would do it. He was sure she would do it. He looked at the
+watercourse hard. The crowd of people was not very far off. He thought he
+detected the form of Gaspare. Yes, it was Gaspare. He and Amedeo were on
+the outskirts of the crowd near the railway bridge. As he gazed, the
+train whistled once more, and he saw Gaspare turn round and look towards
+the sea. He held his breath.
+
+"Ecco, signorino. Viene!"
+
+Maddalena touched his arm, kept her hand upon it. She was deeply
+interested in this event, the traversing by the train of the unfinished
+bridge. Maurice was thankful for that. At least she did not notice his
+violent perturbation.
+
+"Look, signorino! Look!"
+
+In despite of himself, Maurice obeyed her. He wanted not to look, but he
+could not help looking. The engine, still whistling, crept out from the
+embrace of the lemon-trees, with the dingy line of carriages behind it.
+At most of the windows there were heads of people looking out. Third
+class--he saw soldiers, contadini. Second class--no one. Now the
+first-class carriages were coming. They were close to him.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+He had seen Hermione. She was standing up, with her two hands resting on
+the door-frame and her head and shoulders outside of the carriage.
+Maurice sat absolutely still and stared at her, stared at her almost as
+if she were a stranger passing by. She was looking at the watercourse, at
+the crowd, eagerly. Her face, much browner than when she had left Sicily,
+was alight with excitement, with happiness. She was radiant. Yet he
+thought she looked old, older at least than he had remembered. Suddenly,
+as the train came very slowly upon the bridge, she drew in to speak to
+some one behind her, and he saw vaguely Artois, pale, with a long beard.
+He was seated, and he, too, was gazing out at the fair. He looked ill,
+but he, too, looked happy, much happier than he had in London. He put up
+a thin hand and stroked his beard, and Maurice saw wrinkles coming round
+his eyes as he smiled at something Hermione said to him. The train came
+to the middle of the bridge and stopped.
+
+"Ecco!" murmured Maddalena. "The man at the other end has signalled!"
+
+Maurice looked again at the watercourse. Gaspare was beyond the crowd
+now, and was staring at the train with interest, like Maddalena. Would it
+never go on? Maurice set his teeth and cursed it silently. And his soul
+said; "Go on! Go on!" again and again. "Go on! Go on!" Now Hermione was
+once more leaning out. Surely she must see Gaspare. A man waved a flag.
+The train jerked back, jangled, crept forward once more, this time a
+little faster. In a moment they would begone. Thank God! But what was
+Hermione doing? She started. She leaned further forward, staring into
+the watercourse. Maurice saw her face changing. A look of intense
+surprise, of intense inquiry, came into it. She took one hand swiftly
+from the door, put it behind her--ah, she had a pair of opera-glasses at
+her eyes now! The train went on faster. It was nearly off the bridge. But
+she was waving her hand. She was calling. She had seen Gaspare. And he?
+Maurice saw him start forward as if to run to the bridge. But the train
+was gone. The boy stopped, hesitated, then dashed away across the stones.
+
+"Signorino! Signorino!"
+
+Maurice said nothing.
+
+"Signorino!" repeated Maddalena. "Look at Gaspare! Is he mad? Look! How
+he is running!"
+
+Gaspare reached the bank, darted up it, and disappeared into the village.
+
+"Signorino, what is the matter?"
+
+Maddalena pulled his sleeve. She was looking almost alarmed.
+
+"Matter? Nothing."
+
+Maurice got up. He could not remain still. It was all over now. The fair
+was at an end for him. Gaspare would reach the station before the train
+went on, would explain matters. Hermione would get out. Already Maurice
+seemed to see her coming down to the watercourse, walking with her
+characteristic slow vigor. It did not occur to him at first that Hermione
+might refuse to leave Artois. Something in him knew that she was coming.
+Fate had interfered now imperiously. Once he had cheated fate. That was
+when he came to the fair despite Hermione's letter. Now fate was going to
+have her revenge upon him. He looked at Maddalena. Was fate working for
+her, to protect her? Would his loss be her gain? He did not know, for he
+did not know what would have been the course of his own conduct if fate
+had not interfered. He had been trifling, letting the current take him.
+It might have taken him far, but--now Hermione was coming. It was all
+over and the sun was still up, still shining upon the sea.
+
+"Let us go into the fair. It is cooler now."
+
+He tried to speak lightly.
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+Maddalena shook out her skirt and began to smile. She was thinking of the
+blue dress and the ear-rings. They went down into the watercourse.
+
+"Signorino, what can have been the matter with Gaspare?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"He was looking at the train."
+
+"Was he? Perhaps he saw a friend in it. Yes, that must have been it. He
+saw a friend in the train."
+
+He stared across the watercourse towards the village, seeking two
+figures, and he was conscious now of two feelings that fought within him,
+of two desires: a desire that Hermione should not come, and a desire that
+she should come. He wanted, he even longed, to have his evening with
+Maddalena. Yet he wanted Hermione to get out of the train when Gaspare
+told her that he--Maurice--was at San Felice. If she did not get out she
+would be putting Artois before him. The pale face at the window, the eyes
+that smiled when Hermione turned familiarly round to speak, had stirred
+within him the jealousy of which he had already been conscious more than
+once. But now actual vision had made it fiercer. The woman who had leaned
+out looking at the fair belonged to him. He felt intensely that she was
+his property. Maddalena spoke to him again, two or three times. He did
+not hear her. He was seeing the wrinkles that came round the eyes of
+Artois when he smiled.
+
+"Where are we going, signorino? Are we going back to the town?"
+
+Instinctively, Maurice was following in the direction taken by Gaspare.
+He wanted to meet fate half-way, to still, by action, the tumult of
+feeling within him.
+
+"Aren't the best things to be bought there?" he replied. "By the church
+where all those booths are? I think so."
+
+Maddalena began to walk a little faster. The moment had come. Already she
+felt the blue dress rustling about her limbs, the ear-rings swinging in
+her ears.
+
+Maurice did not try to hold her back. Nor did it occur to him that it
+would be wise to meet Hermione without Maddalena. He had done no actual
+wrong, and the pale face of Artois had made him defiant. Hermione came to
+him with her friend. He would come to her with his. He did not think of
+Maddalena as a weapon exactly, but he did feel as if, without her, he
+would be at a disadvantage when he and Hermione met.
+
+They were in the first street now. People were beginning to flow back
+from the watercourse towards the centre of the fair. They walked in a
+crowd and could not see far before them. But Maurice thought he would
+know when Hermione was near him, that he would feel her approach. The
+crowd went on slowly, retarding them, but at last they were near to the
+church of Sant' Onofrio and could hear the sound of music. The
+"Intermezzo" from "Cavalleria Rusticana" was being played by the Musica
+Mascagni. Suddenly, Maurice started. He had felt a pull at his arm.
+
+"Signorino! Signorino!"
+
+Gaspare was by his side, streaming with perspiration and looking
+violently excited.
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+He stopped, cast a swift look round. Gaspare was alone.
+
+"Signorino"--the boy was breathing hard--"the signora"--he gulped--"the
+signora has come back."
+
+The time had come for acting. Maurice feigned surprise.
+
+"The signora! What are you saying? The signora is in Africa."
+
+"No, signore! She is here!"
+
+"Here in San Felice!"
+
+"No, signore! But she was in the train. I saw her at the window. She
+waved her hand to me and called out--when the train was on the bridge. I
+ran to the station; I ran fast, but when I got there the train had just
+gone. The signora has come back, and we are not there to meet her!"
+
+His eyes were tragic. Evidently he felt that their absence was a matter
+of immense importance, was a catastrophe.
+
+"The signora here!" Maurice repeated, trying to make his voice amazed.
+"But why did she not tell us? Why did not she say that she was coming?"
+
+He looked at Gaspare, but only for an instant. He felt afraid to meet his
+great, searching eyes.
+
+"Non lo so."
+
+Maddalena stood by in silence. The bright look of anticipation had gone
+out of her face, and was replaced by a confused and slightly anxious
+expression.
+
+"I can't understand it," Maurice said, heavily. "I can't--was the signora
+alone, or did you see some one with her?"
+
+"The sick signore? I did not see him. I saw only the signora standing at
+the window, waving her hand--cosi!"
+
+He waved his hand.
+
+"Madonna!" Maurice said, mechanically.
+
+"What are we to do, signorino?"
+
+"Do! What can we do? The train has gone!"
+
+"Si, signore. But shall I fetch the donkeys?"
+
+Maurice stole a glance at Maddalena. She was looking frankly piteous.
+
+"Have you got the clock yet?" he asked Gaspare.
+
+"No, signore."
+
+Gaspare began to look rather miserable, too.
+
+"It has not been put up. Perhaps they are putting it up now."
+
+"Gaspare," Maurice said, hastily, "we can't be back to meet the signora
+now. Even if we went at once we should be hours late--and the donkeys are
+tired, perhaps. They will go slowly unless they have a proper rest. It is
+a dreadful pity, but I think if the signora knew she would wish us to
+stay now till the fair is over. She would not wish to spoil your
+pleasure. Do you think she would?"
+
+"No, signore. The signora always wishes people to be happy."
+
+"Even if we went at once it would be night before we got back."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+"I think we had better stay--at any rate till the auction is finished and
+we have had something to eat. Then we will go."
+
+"Va bene."
+
+The boy sounded doubtful.
+
+"La povera signora!" he said. "How disappointed she will be! She did want
+to speak to me. Her face was all red; she was so excited when she saw me,
+and her mouth was wide open like that!"
+
+He made a grimace, with earnest, heart-felt sincerity.
+
+"It cannot be helped. To-night we will explain everything and make the
+signora quite happy. Look here! Buy something for her. Buy her a present
+at the auction!"
+
+"Signorino!" Gaspare cried. "I will give her the clock that plays the
+'Tre Colori'! Then she will be happy again. Shall I?"
+
+"Si, si. And meet me in the market-place. Then we will eat something and
+we will start for home."
+
+The boy darted away towards the watercourse. His heart was light again.
+He had something to do for the signora, something that would make her
+very happy. Ah, when she heard the clock playing the "Tre Colori"! Mamma
+mia!
+
+He tore towards the watercourse in an agony lest he should be too late.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Night was falling over the fair. The blue dress and the ear-rings had
+been chosen and paid for. The promenade of the beauties in the famous
+inherited brocades had taken place with eclat before the church of Sant'
+Onofrio. Salvatore had acquired a donkey of strange beauty and wondrous
+strength, and Gaspare had reappeared in the piazza accompanied by Amedeo,
+both laden with purchases and shining with excitement and happiness.
+Gaspare's pockets were bulging, and he walked carefully, carrying in his
+hands a tortured-looking parcel.
+
+"Dov'e il mio padrone?" he asked, as he and Amedeo pushed through the
+dense throng. "Dov'e il mio padrone?"
+
+He spied Maurice and Maddalena sitting before the ristorante listening to
+the performance of a small Neapolitan boy with a cropped head, who was
+singing street songs in a powerful bass voice, and occasionally doing a
+few steps of a melancholy dance upon the pavement. The crowd billowed
+round them. A little way off the "Musica della citta," surrounded by a
+circle of colored lamps, was playing a selection from the "Puritani." The
+strange ecclesiastical chant of the Roman ice venders rose up against the
+music as if in protest. And these three definite and fighting
+melodies--of the Neapolitan, the band, and the ice venders--detached
+themselves from a foundation of ceaseless sound, contributed by the
+hundreds of Sicilians who swarmed about the ancient church, infested the
+narrow side streets of the village, looked down from the small balconies
+and the windows of the houses, and gathered in mobs in the wine-shops and
+the trattorie.
+
+"Signorino! Signorino! Look!"
+
+Gaspare had reached Maurice, and now stood by the little table at which
+his padrone and Maddalena were sitting, and placed the tortured parcel
+tenderly upon it.
+
+"Is that the clock?"
+
+Gaspare did not reply in words, but his brown fingers deftly removed the
+string and paper and undressed his treasure.
+
+"Ecco!" he exclaimed.
+
+The clock was revealed, a great circle of blue and white standing upon
+short, brass legs, and ticking loudly,
+
+               "Speranza mia, non piangere,
+                 E il marinar fedele,
+               Vedrai tornar dall' Africa
+                 Tra un anno queste vele----"
+
+bawled the little boy from Naples. Gaspare seized the clock, turned a
+handle, lifted his hand in a reverent gesture bespeaking attention; there
+was a faint whirr, and then, sure enough, the tune of the "Tre Colori"
+was tinkled blithely forth.
+
+"Ecco!" repeated Gaspare, triumphantly.
+
+"Mamma mia!" murmured Maddalena, almost exhausted with the magic of the
+fair.
+
+"It's wonderful!" said Maurice.
+
+He, too, was a little tired, but not in body.
+
+Gaspare wound the clock again, and again the tune was trilled forth,
+competing sturdily with the giant noises of the fair, a little voice that
+made itself audible by its clearness and precision.
+
+"Ecco!" repeated Gaspare. "Will not the signora be happy when she sees
+what I have brought her from the fair?"
+
+He sighed from sheer delight in his possession and the thought of his
+padrona's joy and wonder in it.
+
+"Mangiamo?" he added, descending from heavenly delights to earthly
+necessities.
+
+"Yes, it is getting late," said Maurice. "The fireworks will soon be
+beginning, I suppose."
+
+"Not till ten, signorino. I have asked. There will be dancing first.
+But--are we going to stay?"
+
+Maurice hesitated, but only for a second.
+
+"Yes," he said. "Even if we went now the signora would be in bed and
+asleep long before we got home. We will stay to the end, the very end."
+
+"Then we can say 'Good-morning' to the signora when we get home," said
+Gaspare.
+
+He was quite happy now that he had this marvellous present to take back
+with him. He felt that it would make all things right, would sweep away
+all lingering disappointment at their absence and the want of welcome.
+
+Salvatore did not appear at the meal. He had gone off to stable his new
+purchase with the other donkeys, and now, having got a further sum of
+money out of the Inglese, was drinking and playing cards with the
+fishermen of Catania. But he knew where his girl and Maurice were, and
+that Gaspare and Amedeo were with them. And he knew, too, that the
+Inglese's signora had come back. He told the news to the fishermen.
+
+"To-night, when he gets home, his 'cristiana' will be waiting for him.
+Per Dio! it is over for him now. We shall see little more of him."
+
+"And get little more from him!" said one of the fishermen, who was
+jealous of Salvatore's good-fortune.
+
+Salvatore laughed loudly. He had drunk a good deal of wine and he had had
+a great deal of money given to him.
+
+"I shall find another English fool, perhaps!" he said. "Chi lo sa?"
+
+"And his cristiana?" asked another fisherman. "What is she like?"
+
+"Like!" cried Salvatore, pouring out another glass of wine and spitting
+on the discolored floor, over which hens were running; "what is any
+cristiana like?"
+
+And he repeated the contadino's proverb:
+
+"'La mugghieri e comu la gatta: si l'accarizzi, idda ti gratta!'"
+
+"Perhaps the Inglese will get scratched to-night," said the first
+fisherman.
+
+"I don't mind," rejoined Salvatore. "Get us a fresh pack of cards,
+Fortunato. I'll pay for 'em."
+
+And he flung down a lira on the wine-stained table.
+
+Gaspare, now quite relieved in his mind, gave himself up with all his
+heart to the enjoyment of the last hours of the fair, and was unwearied
+in calling on his padrone to do the same. When the evening meal was over
+he led the party forth into the crowd that was gathered about the music;
+he took them to the shooting-tent, and made them try their luck at the
+little figures which calmly presented grotesquely painted profiles to the
+eager aim of the contadini; he made them eat ices which they bought at
+the beflagged cart of the ecclesiastical Romans, whose eternally chanting
+voices made upon Maurice a sinister impression, suggesting to his
+mind--he knew not why--the thought of death. Finally, prompted by Amedeo,
+he drew Maurice into a room where there was dancing.
+
+It was crowded with men and women, was rather dark and very hot. In a
+corner there was a grinding organ, whose handle was turned by a
+perspiring man in a long, woollen cap. Beside him, hunched up on a
+window-sill, was a shepherd boy who accompanied the organ upon a flute of
+reed. Round the walls stood a throng of gazers, and in the middle of the
+floor the dancers performed vigorously, dancing now a polka, now a waltz,
+now a mazurka, now an elaborate country dance in which sixteen or twenty
+people took part, now a tarantella, called by many of the contadini "La
+Fasola." No sooner had they entered the room than Gaspare gently but
+firmly placed his arm round his padrone's waist, took his left hand and
+began to turn him about in a slow waltz, while Amedeo followed the
+example given with Maddalena. Round and round they went among the other
+couples. The organ in the corner ground out a wheezy tune. The reed-flute
+of the shepherd boy twittered, as perhaps, long ago, on the great
+mountain that looked down in the night above the village, a similar flute
+twittered from the woods to Empedocles climbing upward for the last time
+towards the plume of smoke that floated from the volcano. And then Amedeo
+and Gaspare danced together and Maurice's arm was about the waist of
+Maddalena.
+
+It was the first time that he had danced with her, and the mutual act
+seemed to him to increase their intimacy, to carry them a step forward in
+this short and curious friendship which was now, surely, very close to
+its end. They did not speak as they danced. Maddalena's face was very
+solemn, like the face of one taking part in an important ceremonial. And
+Maurice, too, felt serious, even sad. The darkness and heat of the room,
+the melancholy with which all the tunes of a grinding organ seem
+impregnated, the complicated sounds from the fair outside, from which now
+and again the voices of the Roman ice-venders detached themselves, even
+the tapping of the heavy boots of the dancers upon the floor of
+brick--all things in this hour moved him to a certain dreariness of the
+spirit which was touched with sentimentality. This fair day was coming to
+an end. He felt as if everything were coming to an end.
+
+Every dog has his day. The old saying came to his mind. "Every dog has
+his day--and mine is over."
+
+He saw in the dimness of the room the face of Hermione at the railway
+carriage window. It was the face of one on the edge of some great
+beginning. But she did not know. Hermione did not know.
+
+The dance was over. Another was formed, a country dance. Again Maurice
+was Maddalena's partner. Then came "La Fasola," in which Amedeo proudly
+showed forth his well-known genius and Gaspare rivalled him. But Maurice
+thought it was not like the tarantella upon the terrace before the house
+of the priest. The brilliancy, the gayety of that rapture in the sun were
+not present here among farewells. A longing to be in the open air under
+the stars came to him, and when at last the grinding organ stopped he
+said to Gaspare:
+
+"I'm going outside. You'll find me there when you've finished dancing."
+
+"Va bene, signorino. In a quarter of an hour the fireworks will be
+beginning."
+
+"And then we must start off at once."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+The organ struck up again and Amedeo took hold of Gaspare by the waist.
+
+"Maddalena, come out with me."
+
+She followed him. She was tired. Festivals were few in her life, and the
+many excitements of this long day had told upon her, but her fatigue was
+the fatigue of happiness. They sat down on a wooden bench set against the
+outer wall of the house. No one else was sitting there, but many people
+were passing to and fro, and they could see the lamps round the "Musica
+Leoncavallo," and hear it fighting and conquering the twitter of the
+shepherd boy's flute and the weary wheezing of the organ within the
+house. A great, looming darkness rising towards the stars dominated the
+humming village. Etna was watching over the last glories of the fair.
+
+"Have you been happy to-day, Maddalena?" Maurice asked.
+
+"Si, signore, very happy. And you?"
+
+He did not answer.
+
+"It will all be very different to-morrow," he said.
+
+He was trying to realize to-morrow, but he could not.
+
+"We need not think of to-morrow," Maddalena said.
+
+She arranged her skirt with her hands, and crossed one foot over the
+other.
+
+"Do you always live for the day?" Maurice asked her.
+
+She did not understand him.
+
+"I do not want to think of to-morrow," she said. "There will be no fair
+then."
+
+"And you would like always to be at the fair?"
+
+"Si, signore, always."
+
+There was a great conviction in her simple statement.
+
+"And you, signorino?"
+
+She was curious about him to-night.
+
+"I don't know what I should like," he said.
+
+He looked up at the great darkness of Etna, and again a longing came to
+him to climb up, far up, into those beech forests that looked towards the
+Isles of Lipari. He wanted greater freedom. Even the fair was prison.
+
+"But I think," he said, after a pause--"I think I should like to carry
+you off, Maddalena, up there, far up on Etna."
+
+He remembered his feeling when he had put his arms round her in the
+dance. It had been like putting his arms round ignorance that wanted to
+be knowledge. Who would be Maddalena's teacher? Not he. And yet he had
+almost intended to have his revenge upon Salvatore.
+
+"Shall we go now?" he said. "Shall we go off to Etna, Maddalena?"
+
+"Signorino!"
+
+She gave a little laugh.
+
+"We must go home after the fireworks."
+
+"Why should we? Why should we not take the donkeys now? Gaspare is
+dancing. Your father is playing cards. No one would notice. Shall we?
+Shall we go now and get the donkeys, Maddalena?"
+
+But she replied:
+
+"A girl can only go like that with a man when she is married."
+
+"That's not true," he said. "She can go like that with a man she loves."
+
+"But then she is wicked, and the Madonna will not hear her when she
+prays, signorino."
+
+"Wouldn't you do anything for a man you really loved? Wouldn't you forget
+everything? Wouldn't you forget even the Madonna?"
+
+She looked at him.
+
+"Non lo so."
+
+It seemed to him that he was answered.
+
+"Wouldn't you forget the Madonna for me?" he whispered, leaning towards
+her.
+
+There was a loud report close to them, a whizzing noise, a deep murmur
+from the crowd, and in the clear sky above Etna the first rocket burst,
+showering down a cataract of golden stars, which streamed towards the
+earth, leaving trails of fire behind them.
+
+The sound of the grinding organ and of the shepherd boy's flute ceased in
+the dancing-room, and the crowd within rushed out into the market-place.
+
+"Signorino! Signorino! Come with me! We cannot see properly here! I know
+where to go. There will be wheels of fire, and masses of flowers, and a
+picture of the Regina Margherita. Presto! Presto!"
+
+Gaspare had hold of Maurice by the arm.
+
+"E' finito!" Maurice murmured.
+
+It seemed to him that the last day of his wild youth was at an end.
+
+"E' finito!" he repeated.
+
+But there was still an hour.
+
+And who can tell what an hour will bring forth?
+
+
+
+XVII
+
+It was nearly two o'clock in the morning when Maurice and Gaspare said
+good-bye to Maddalena and her father on the road by Isola Bella.
+Salvatore had left the three donkeys at Cattaro, and had come the rest of
+the way on foot, while Maddalena rode Gaspare's beast.
+
+"The donkey you bought is for Maddalena," Maurice had said to him.
+
+And the fisherman had burst into effusive thanks. But already he had his
+eye on a possible customer in Cattaro. As soon as the Inglese had gone
+back to his own country the donkey would be resold at a good price. What
+did a fisherman want with donkeys, and how was an animal to be stabled on
+the Sirens' Isle? As soon as the Inglese was gone, Salvatore meant to put
+a fine sum of money into his pocket.
+
+"Addio, signorino!" he said, sweeping off his hat with the wild,
+half-impudent gesture that was peculiar to him. "I kiss your hand and I
+kiss the hand of your signora."
+
+He bent down his head as if he were going to translate the formal phrase
+into an action, but Maurice drew back.
+
+"Addio, Salvatore," he said.
+
+His voice was low.
+
+"Addio, Maddalena!" he added.
+
+She murmured something in reply. Salvatore looked keenly from one to the
+other.
+
+"Are you tired, Maddalena?" he asked, with a sort of rough suspicion.
+
+"Si," she answered.
+
+She followed him slowly across the railway line towards the sea, while
+Maurice and Gaspare turned their donkeys' heads towards the mountain.
+
+They rode upward in silence. Gaspare was sleepy. His head nodded loosely
+as he rode, but his hands never let go their careful hold of the clock.
+Round about him his many purchases were carefully disposed, fastened
+elaborately to the big saddle. The roses, faded now, were still above his
+ears. Maurice rode behind. He was not sleepy. He felt as if he would
+never sleep again.
+
+As they drew nearer to the house of the priest, Gaspare pulled himself
+together with an effort, half-turned on his donkey, and looked round at
+his padrone.
+
+"Signorino!"
+
+"Si."
+
+"Do you think the signora will be asleep?"
+
+"I don't know. I suppose so."
+
+The boy looked wise.
+
+"I do not think so," he said, firmly.
+
+"What--at three o'clock in the morning!"
+
+"I think the signora will be on the terrace watching for us."
+
+Maurice's lips twitched.
+
+"Chi lo sa?" he replied.
+
+He tried to speak carelessly, but where was his habitual carelessness of
+spirit, his carelessness of a boy now? He felt that he had lost it
+forever, lost it in that last hour of the fair.
+
+"Signorino!"
+
+"Well?"
+
+"Where were you and Maddalena when I was helping with the fireworks?"
+
+"Close by."
+
+"Did you see them all? Did you see the Regina Margherita?"
+
+"Si."
+
+"I looked round for you, but I could not see you."
+
+"There was such a crowd and it was dark."
+
+"Yes. Then you were there, where I left you?"
+
+"We may have moved a little, but we were not far off."
+
+"I cannot think why I could not find you when the fireworks were over."
+
+"It was the crowd. I thought it best to go to the stable without
+searching for you. I knew you and Salvatore would be there."
+
+The boy was silent for a moment. Then he said:
+
+"Salvatore was very angry when he saw me come into the stable without
+you."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"He said I ought not to have left my padrone."
+
+"And what did you say?"
+
+"I told him I would not be spoken to by him. If you had not come in just
+then I think there would have been a baruffa. Salvatore is a bad man, and
+always ready with his knife. And he had been drinking."
+
+"He was quiet enough coming home."
+
+"I do not like his being so quiet."
+
+"What does it matter?"
+
+Again there was a pause. Then Gaspare said:
+
+"Now that the signora has come back we shall not go any more to the Casa
+delle Sirene, shall we?"
+
+"No, I don't suppose we shall go any more."
+
+"It is better like that, signorino. It is much better that we do not go."
+
+Maurice said nothing.
+
+"We have been there too often," added Gaspare. "I am glad the signora has
+come back. I am sorry she ever went away."
+
+"It was not our fault that she went," Maurice said, in a hard voice like
+that of a man trying to justify something, to defend himself against some
+accusation. "We did not want the signora to go."
+
+"No, signore."
+
+Gaspare's voice sounded almost apologetic. He was a little startled by
+his padrone's tone.
+
+"It was a pity she went," he continued. "The poor signora----"
+
+"Why is it such a pity?" Maurice interrupted, almost roughly, almost
+suspiciously. "Why do you say 'the poor signora'?"
+
+Gaspare stared at him with open surprise.
+
+"I only meant----"
+
+"The signora wished to go to Africa. She decided for herself. There is no
+reason to call her the poor signora."
+
+"No, signore."
+
+The boy's voice recalled Maurice to prudence.
+
+"It was very good of her to go," he said, more quietly. "Perhaps she has
+saved the life of the sick signore by going."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+Gaspare said no more, but as they rode up, drawing ever nearer to the
+bare mountain-side and the house of the priest, Maurice's heart
+reiterated the thought of the boy. Why had Hermione ever gone? What a
+madness it had all been, her going, his staying! He knew it now for a
+madness, a madness of the summer, of the hot, the burning south. In this
+terrible quiet of the mountains, without the sun, without the laughter
+and the voices and the movement of men, he understood that he had been
+mad, that there had been something in him, not all himself, which had run
+wild, despising restraint. And he had known that it was running wild, and
+he had thought to let it go just so far and no farther. He had set a
+limit of time to his wildness and its deeds. And he had set another
+limit. Surely he had. He had not ever meant to go too far. And then, just
+when he had said to himself "E' finito!" the irrevocable was at hand, the
+moment of delirium in which all things that should have been remembered
+were forgotten. What had led him? What spirit of evil? Or had he been
+led at all? Had not he rather deliberately forced his way to the tragic
+goal whither, through all these sunlit days, these starry nights, his
+feet had been tending?
+
+He looked upon himself as a man looks upon a stranger whom he has seen
+commit a crime which he could never have committed. Mentally he took
+himself into custody, he tried, he condemned himself. In this hour of
+acute reaction the cool justice of the Englishman judged the passionate
+impulse of the Sicilian, even marvelled at it, and the heart of the
+dancing Faun cried: "What am I--what am I really?" and did not find the
+answer.
+
+"Signorino?"
+
+"Yes, Gaspare."
+
+"When we get to that rock we shall see the house."
+
+"I know."
+
+How eagerly he had looked upward to the little white house on the
+mountain on that first day in Sicily, with what joy of anticipation, with
+what an exquisite sense of liberty and of peace! The drowsy wail of the
+"Pastorale" had come floating down to him over the olive-trees almost
+like a melody that stole from paradise. But now he dreaded the turn of
+the path. He dreaded to see the terrace wall, the snowy building it
+protected. And he felt as if he were drawing near to a terror, and as if
+he could not face it, did not know how to face it.
+
+"Signorino, there is no light! Look!"
+
+"The signora and Lucrezia must be asleep at this hour."
+
+"If they are, what are we to do? Shall we wake them?"
+
+"No, no."
+
+He spoke quickly, in hope of a respite.
+
+"We will wait--we will not disturb them."
+
+Gaspare looked down at the parcel he was holding with such anxious care.
+
+"I would like to play the 'Tre Colori,'" he said. "I would like the
+first thing the signora hears when she wakes to be the 'Tre Colori.'"
+
+"Hush! We must be very quiet."
+
+The noise made on the path by the tripping feet of the donkeys was almost
+intolerable to him. It must surely wake the deepest sleeper. They were
+now on the last ascent where the mountain-side was bare. Some stones
+rattled downward, causing a sharp, continuous sound. It was answered by
+another sound, which made both Gaspare and Maurice draw rein and pull up.
+
+As on that first day in Sicily Maurice had been welcomed by the
+"Pastorale," so he was welcomed by it now. What an irony that was to him!
+For an instant his lips curved in a bitter smile. But the smile died away
+as he realized things, and a strange sadness took hold of his heart. For
+it was not the ceramella that he heard in this still hour, but a piano
+played softly, monotonously, with a dreamy tenderness that made it surely
+one with the tenderness of the deep night. And he knew that Hermione had
+been watching, that she had heard him coming, that this was her welcome,
+a welcome from the depths of her pure, true heart. How much the music
+told him! How clearly it spoke to him! And how its caress flagellated his
+bare soul! Hermione had returned expectant of welcome and had found
+nothing, and instead of coming out upon the terrace, instead of showing
+surprise, vexation, jealous curiosity, of assuming the injured air that
+even a good woman can scarcely resist displaying in a moment of acute
+disappointment, she sent forth this delicate salutation to him from afar,
+the sweetest that she knew, the one she herself loved best.
+
+Tears came into his eyes as he listened. Then he shut his eyes and said
+to himself, shuddering:
+
+"Oh, you beast! You beast!"
+
+"It is the signora!" said Gaspare, turning round on his donkey. "She does
+not know we are here, and she is playing to keep herself awake."
+
+He looked down at his clock, and his eyes began to shine.
+
+"I am glad the signora is awake!" he said. "Signorino, let us get off the
+donkeys and leave them at the arch, and let us go in without any noise."
+
+"But perhaps the signora knows that we are here," Maurice said.
+
+Directly he had heard the music he had known that Hermione was aware of
+their approach.
+
+"No, no, signore. I am sure she does not, or she would have come out to
+meet us. Let us leave the donkeys!"
+
+He sprang off softly. Mechanically, Maurice followed his example.
+
+"Now, signore!"
+
+The boy took him by the hand and led him on tiptoe to the terrace, making
+him crouch down close to the open French window. The "Pastorale" was
+louder here. It never ceased, but returned again and again with the
+delicious monotony that made it memorable and wove a spell round those
+who loved it. As he listened to it, Maurice fancied he could hear the
+breathing of the player, and he felt that she was listening, too,
+listening tensely for footsteps on the terrace.
+
+Gaspare looked up at him with bright eyes. The boy's whole face was alive
+with a gay and mischievous happiness, as he turned the handle at the back
+of his clock slowly, slowly, till at last it would turn no more. Then
+there tinkled forth to join the "Pastorale" the clear, trilling melody of
+the "Tre Colori."
+
+The music in the room ceased abruptly. There was a rustling sound as the
+player moved. Then Hermione's voice, with something trembling through it
+that was half a sob, half a little burst of happy laughter, called out:
+
+"Gaspare, how dare you interrupt my concert?"
+
+"Signora! Signora!" cried Gaspare, and, springing up, he darted into the
+sitting-room.
+
+But Maurice, though he lifted himself up quickly, stood where he was with
+his hand set hard against the wall of the house. He heard Gaspare kiss
+Hermione's hand. Then he heard her say:
+
+"But, but, Gaspare----"
+
+He took his hand from the wall with an effort. His feet seemed glued to
+the ground, but at last he was in the room.
+
+"Hermione!" he said.
+
+"Maurice!"
+
+He felt her strong hands, strong and yet soft like all the woman, on his.
+
+"Cento di questi giorni!" she said. "Ah, but it is better than all the
+birthdays in the world!"
+
+He wanted to kiss her--not to please her, but for himself he wanted to
+kiss her--but he dared not. He felt that if his lips were to touch
+hers--she must know. To excuse his avoidance of the natural greeting he
+looked at Gaspare.
+
+"I know!" she whispered. "You haven't forgotten!"
+
+She was alluding to that morning on the terrace when he came up from the
+fishing. They loosed their hands. Gaspare set the clock playing again.
+
+"What a beauty!" Hermione said, glad to hide her emotion for a moment
+till she and Maurice could be alone. "What a marvel! Where did you find
+it, Gaspare--at the fair?"
+
+"Si, signora!"
+
+Solemnly he handed it, still playing brightly, to his padrona, just a
+little reluctantly, perhaps, but very gallantly.
+
+"It is for you, signora."
+
+"A present--oh, Gaspare!"
+
+Again her voice was veiled. She put out her hand and touched the boy's
+hand.
+
+"Grazie! How sweetly it plays! You thought of me!"
+
+There was a silence till the tune was finished. Then Maurice said:
+
+"Hermione, I don't know what to say. That we should be at the fair the
+day you arrived! Why--why didn't you tell me? Why didn't you write?"
+
+"You didn't know, then!"
+
+The words came very quickly, very eagerly.
+
+"Know! Didn't Lucrezia tell you that we had no idea?"
+
+"Poor Lucrezia! She's in a dreadful condition. I found her in the
+village."
+
+"No!" Maurice cried, thankful to turn the conversation from himself,
+though only for an instant. "I specially told her to stay here. I
+specially----"
+
+"Well, but, poor thing, as you weren't expecting me! But I wrote,
+Maurice, I wrote a letter telling you everything, the hour we were
+coming--"
+
+"It's Don Paolo!" exclaimed Gaspare, angrily. "He hides away the letters.
+He lets them lie sometimes in his office for months. To-morrow I will go
+and tell him what I think; I will turn out every drawer."
+
+"It is too bad!" Maurice said.
+
+"Then you never had it?"
+
+"Hermione"--he stared at the open door--"you think we should have gone to
+the fair if----"
+
+"No, no, I never thought so. I only wondered. It all seemed so strange."
+
+"It is too horrible!" Maurice said, with heavy emphasis. "And Artois--no
+rooms ready for him! What can he have thought?"
+
+"As I did, that there had been a mistake. What does it matter now? Just
+at the moment I was dreadfully--oh, dreadfully disappointed. I saw
+Gaspare at the fair. And you saw me, Gaspare?"
+
+"Si, signora. I ran all the way to the station, but the train had gone."
+
+"But I didn't see you, Maurice. Where were you?"
+
+Gaspare opened his lips to speak, but Maurice did not give him time.
+
+"I was there, too, in the fair."
+
+"But of course you weren't looking at the train?"
+
+"Of course not. And when Gaspare told me, it was too late to do anything.
+We couldn't get back in time, and the donkeys were tired, and so----"
+
+"Oh, I'm glad you didn't hurry back. What good would it have done then?"
+
+There was a touch of constraint in her voice.
+
+"You must have thought I should be in bed."
+
+"Yes, we did."
+
+"And so I ought to be now. I believe I am tremendously tired, but--but
+I'm so tremendously something else that I hardly know."
+
+The constraint had gone.
+
+"The signora is happy because she is back in my country," Gaspare
+remarked, with pride and an air of shrewdness.
+
+He nodded his head. The faded roses shook above his ears. Hermione smiled
+at him.
+
+"He knows all about it," she said. "Well, if we are ever to go to
+bed----"
+
+Gaspare looked from her to his padrone.
+
+"Buona notte, signora," he said, gravely. "Buona notte, signorino. Buon
+riposo!"
+
+"Buon riposo!" echoed Hermione. "It is blessed to hear that again. I do
+love the clock, Gaspare."
+
+The boy beamed at her and went reluctantly away to find the donkeys. At
+that moment Maurice would have given almost anything to keep him. He
+dreaded unspeakably to be alone with Hermione. But it had to be. He must
+face it. He must seem natural, happy.
+
+"Shall I put the clock down?" he asked.
+
+He went to her, took the clock, carried it to the writing-table, and put
+it down.
+
+"Gaspare was so happy to bring it to you."
+
+He turned. He felt desperate. He came to Hermione and put out his hands.
+
+"I feel so bad that we weren't here," he said.
+
+"That is it!"
+
+There was a sound of deep relief in her voice. Then she had been puzzled
+by his demeanor! He must be natural; but how? It seemed to him as if
+never in all his life could he have felt innocent, careless, brave. Now
+he was made of cowardice. He was like a dog that crawls with its belly to
+the floor. He got hold of Hermione's hands.
+
+"I feel--I feel horribly, horribly bad!"
+
+Speaking the absolute truth, his voice was absolutely sincere, and he
+deceived her utterly.
+
+"Maurice," she said, "I believe it's upset you so much that--that you are
+shy of me."
+
+She laughed happily.
+
+"Shy--of me!"
+
+He tried to laugh, too, and kissed her abruptly, awkwardly. All his
+natural grace was gone from him. But when he kissed her she did not know
+it; her lips clung to his with a tender passion, a fealty that terrified
+him.
+
+"She must know!" he thought. "She must feel the truth. My lips must tell
+it to her."
+
+And when at last they drew away from each other his eyes asked her
+furiously a question, asked it of her eyes.
+
+"What is it, Maurice?"
+
+He said nothing. She dropped her eyes and reddened slowly, till she
+looked much younger than usual, strangely like a girl.
+
+"You haven't--you haven't----"
+
+There was a sound of reserve in her voice, and yet a sound of triumph,
+too. She looked up at him again.
+
+"Do you guess that I have something to tell you?" she said, slowly.
+
+"Something to tell me?" he repeated, dully.
+
+He was so intent on himself, on his own evil-doing, that it seemed to him
+as if everything must have some connection with it.
+
+"Ah," she said, quickly; "no, I see you weren't."
+
+"What is it?" he asked, but without real interest.
+
+"I can't tell you now," she said.
+
+Gaspare went by the window leading the donkeys.
+
+"Buona notte, signora!"
+
+It was a very happy voice.
+
+"Buona notte, Gaspare. Sleep well."
+
+Maurice caught at the last words.
+
+"We must sleep," he said. "To-morrow we'll--we'll----"
+
+"Tell each other everything. Yes, to-morrow!"
+
+She put her arm through his.
+
+"Maurice, if you knew how I feel!"
+
+"Yes?" he said, trying to make his voice eager, buoyant. "Yes?"
+
+"If you knew how I've been longing to be back! And so often I've thought
+that I never should be here with you again, just in the way we were!"
+
+He cleared his throat.
+
+"Why?"
+
+"It is so difficult to repeat a great, an intense happiness, I think. But
+we will, we are repeating it, aren't we?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"When I got to the station to-day, and--and you weren't there, I had a
+dreadful foreboding. It was foolish. The explanation of your not being
+there was so simple. Of course I might have guessed it."
+
+"Of course."
+
+"But in the first moment I felt as if you weren't there because I had
+lost you forever, because you had been taken away from me forever. It was
+such an intense feeling that it frightened me--it frightened me horribly.
+Put your arm round me, Maurice. Let me feel what an idiot I have been!"
+
+He obeyed her and put his arm round her, and he felt as if his arm must
+tell her what she had not learned from his lips. And she thought that now
+he must know the truth she had not told him.
+
+"Don't think of dreadful things," he said.
+
+"I won't any more. I don't think I could with you. To me you always mean
+the sun, light, and life, and all that is brave and beautiful!"
+
+He took his arm away from her.
+
+"Come, we must sleep, Hermione!" he said. "It's nearly dawn. I can almost
+see the smoke on Etna."
+
+He shut the French window and drew the bolt.
+
+She had gone into the bedroom and was standing by the dressing-table. She
+did not know why, but a great shyness had come upon her. It was like a
+cloud enveloping her. Never before had she felt like this with Maurice,
+not even when they were first married. She had loved him too utterly to
+be shy with him. Maurice was still in the sitting-room, fastening the
+shutters of the window. She heard the creak of wood, the clatter of the
+iron bar falling into the fastener. Now he would come.
+
+But he did not come. He was moving about in the room. She heard papers
+rustling, then the lid of the piano shut down. He was putting everything
+in order.
+
+This orderliness was so unusual in Maurice that it made a disagreeable
+impression upon her. She began to feel as if he did not want to come into
+the bedroom, as if he were trying to put off the moment of coming. She
+remembered that he had seemed shy of her. What had come to them both
+to-night? Her instinct moved her to break through this painful, this
+absurd constraint.
+
+"Maurice!" she called.
+
+"Yes."
+
+His voice sounded odd to her, almost like the voice of some other man,
+some stranger.
+
+"Aren't you coming?"
+
+"Yes. Hermione."
+
+But still he did not come. After a moment, he said:
+
+"It's awfully hot to-night!"
+
+"After Africa it seems quite cool to me."
+
+"Does it? I've been--since you've been away I've been sleeping nearly
+always out-of-doors on the terrace."
+
+Now he came to the doorway and stood there. He looked at the white room,
+at Hermione. She had on a white tea-gown. It seemed to him that
+everything here was white, everything but his soul. He felt as if he
+could not come into this room, could not sleep here to-night, as if it
+would be a desecration. When he stood in the doorway the painful shyness
+returned to her.
+
+"Have you?" she said.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Do you--would you rather sleep there to-night?"
+
+She did not mean to say it. It was the last thing she wished to say. Yet
+she said it. It seemed to her that she was forced to say it.
+
+"Well, it's much cooler there."
+
+She was silent.
+
+"I could just put one or two rugs and cushions on the seat by the wall,"
+he said. "I shall sleep like a top. I'm awfully tired!"
+
+"But--but the sun will soon be up, won't it?"
+
+"Oh--then I can come in."
+
+"All right."
+
+"I'll take the rugs from the sitting-room. I say--how's Artois?"
+
+"Much better, but he's still weak."
+
+"Poor chap!"
+
+"He'll ride up to-morrow on a donkey."
+
+"Good! I'm--I'm most awfully sorry about his rooms."
+
+"What does it matter? I've made them quite nice already. He's perfectly
+comfortable."
+
+"I'm glad. It's all--it's all been such a pity--about to-day, I mean."
+
+"Don't let's think of it! Don't let's think of it any more."
+
+A passionate sound had stolen into her voice. She moved a step towards
+him. A sudden idea had come to her, an idea that stirred within her a
+great happiness, that made a flame of joy spring up in her heart.
+
+"Maurice, you--you----"
+
+"What is it?" he asked.
+
+"You aren't vexed at my staying away so long? You aren't vexed at my
+bringing Emile back with me?"
+
+"No, of course not," he said. "But--but I wish you hadn't gone away."
+
+And then he disappeared into the sitting-room, collected the rugs and
+cushions, opened the French window, and went out upon the terrace.
+Presently he called out:
+
+"I shall sleep as I am, Hermione, without undressing. I'm awfully done.
+Good-night."
+
+"Good-night!" she called.
+
+There was a quiver in her voice. And yet that flame of happiness had not
+quite died down. She said to herself:
+
+"He doesn't want me to know. He's too proud. But he has been a little
+jealous, perhaps." She remembered how Sicilian he was.
+
+"But I'll make him forget it all," she thought, eagerly.
+"To-morrow--to-morrow it will be all right. He's missed me, he's missed
+me!"
+
+That thought was very sweet to her. It seemed to explain all things; this
+constraint of her husband, which had reacted upon her, this action of his
+in preferring to sleep outside--everything. He had always been like a
+boy. He was like a boy now. He could not conceal his feelings. He did not
+doubt her. She knew that. But he had been a little jealous about her
+friendship for Emile.
+
+She undressed. When she was ready for bed she hesitated a moment. Then
+she put a white shawl round her shoulders and stole quickly out of the
+room. She came upon the terrace. The stars were waning. The gray of the
+dawn was in the sky towards the east. Maurice, stretched upon the rugs,
+with his face turned towards the terrace wall, was lying still. She went
+to him, bent down, and kissed him.
+
+"I love you," she whispered--"oh, so much!"
+
+She did not wait, but went away at once. When she was gone he put up his
+hand to his face. On his cheek there was a tear.
+
+"God forgive me!" he said to himself. "God forgive me!"
+
+His body was shaken by a sob.
+
+
+
+XVIII
+
+When the sun came up over the rim of the sea Maurice ceased from his
+pretence of sleep, raised himself on his elbow, then sat upright and
+looked over the ravine to the rocks of the Sirens' Isle. The name seemed
+to him now a fatal name, and everything connected with his sojourn in
+Sicily fatal. Surely there had been a malign spirit at work. In this
+early morning hour his brain, though unrefreshed by sleep, was almost
+unnaturally clear, feverishly busy. Something had met him when he first
+set foot in Sicily--so he thought now--had met him with a fixed and evil
+purpose. And that purpose had never been abandoned.
+
+Old superstitions, inherited perhaps from a long chain of credulous
+Sicilian ancestors, were stirring in him. He did not laugh at his idea,
+as a pure-blooded Englishman would have laughed. He pondered it. He
+cherished it.
+
+On his very first evening in Sicily the spirit had led him to the wall,
+had directed his gaze to the far-off light in the house of the sirens. He
+remembered how strangely the little light had fascinated his eyes, and
+his mind through his eyes, how he had asked what it was, how, when
+Hermione had called him to come in to sleep, he had turned upon the steps
+to gaze down on it once more. Then he had not known why he gazed. Now he
+knew. The spirit that had met him by the sea in Sicily had whispered to
+him to look, and he had obeyed because he could not do otherwise.
+
+He dwelt upon that thought, that he had obeyed because he had been
+obliged to obey. It was a palliative to his mental misery and his hatred
+of himself. The fatalism that is linked with superstition got hold upon
+him and comforted him a little. He had not been a free agent. He had had
+to do as he had done. Everything had been arranged so that he might sin.
+The night of the fishing had prepared the way for the night of the fair.
+If Hermione had stayed--but of course she had not stayed. The spirit that
+had kept him in Sicily had sent her across the sea to Africa. In the full
+flush of his hot-blooded youth, intoxicated by his first knowledge of the
+sun and of love, he had been left quite alone. Newly married, he had been
+abandoned by his wife for a good, even perhaps a noble, reason. Still, he
+had been abandoned--to himself and the keeping of that spirit. Was it any
+wonder that he had fallen? He strove to think that it was not. In the
+night he had cowered before Hermione and had been cruel with himself.
+Now, in the sunshine, he showed fight. He strove to find excuses for
+himself. If he did not find excuses he felt that he could not face the
+day, face Hermione in sunlight.
+
+And now that the spirit had led him thus far, surely its work was done,
+surely it would leave him alone. He tried to believe that.
+
+Then he thought of Maddalena.
+
+She was there, down there where the rising sun glittered on the sea. She
+surely was awake, as he was awake. She was thinking, wondering--perhaps
+weeping.
+
+He got up. He could not look at the sea any more. The name "House of the
+Sirens" suddenly seemed to him a terrible misnomer, now that he thought
+of Maddalena perhaps weeping by the sea.
+
+He had his revenge upon Salvatore, but at what a cost!
+
+Salvatore! The fisherman's face rose up before him. If he ever knew!
+Maurice remembered his sensation that already, before he had done the
+fisherman any wrong, the fisherman had condemned him. Now there was a
+reason for condemnation. He had no physical fear of Salvatore. He was not
+a man to be physically afraid of another man. But if Salvatore ever knew
+he might tell. He might tell Hermione. That thought brought with it to
+Maurice a cold as of winter. The malign spirit might still have a purpose
+in connection with him, might still be near him full of intention. He
+felt afraid of the Sicily he had loved. He longed to leave it. He thought
+of it as an isle of fear, where terrors walked in the midst of the glory
+of the sunshine, where fatality lurked beside the purple sea.
+
+"Maurice!"
+
+He started. Hermione was on the steps of the sitting-room.
+
+"You're not sleeping!" he said.
+
+He felt as if she had been there reading all his thoughts.
+
+"And you!" she answered.
+
+"The sun woke me."
+
+He lied instinctively. All his life with her would be a lie now, could
+never be anything else--unless----
+
+He looked at her hard and long in the eyes for the first time since they
+had met after her return. Suppose he were to tell her, now, at once, in
+the stillness, the wonderful innocence and clearness of the dawn! For a
+moment he felt that it would be an exquisite relief, a casting down of an
+intolerable burden. She had such a splendid nature. She loved sincerity
+as she loved God. To her it was the one great essential quality, whose
+presence or absence made or marred the beauty of a human soul. He knew
+that.
+
+"Why do you look at me like that?" she said, coming down to him with the
+look of slow strength that was always characteristic of her.
+
+He dropped his eyes.
+
+"I don't know. How do you mean?"
+
+"As if you had something to tell me."
+
+"Perhaps--perhaps I have," he answered.
+
+He was on the verge, the very verge of confession. She put her arm
+through his. When she touched him the impulse waned, but it did not die
+utterly away.
+
+"Tell it me," she said. "I love to hear everything you tell me. I don't
+think you could ever tell me anything that I should not understand."
+
+"Are you--are you sure?"
+
+"I think so."
+
+"But"--he suddenly remembered some words of hers that, till then, he had
+forgotten--"but you had something to tell me."
+
+"Yes."
+
+"I want to hear it."
+
+He could not speak yet. Perhaps presently he would be able to.
+
+"Let us go up to the top of the mountain," she answered. "I feel as if we
+could see the whole island from there. And up there we shall get all the
+wind of the morning."
+
+They turned towards the steep, bare slope and climbed it, while the sun
+rose higher, as if attending them. At the summit there was a heap of
+stones.
+
+"Let us sit here," Hermione said. "We can see everything from here, all
+the glories of the dawn."
+
+"Yes."
+
+He was so intensely preoccupied by the debate within him that he did not
+remember that it was here, among these stones where they were sitting,
+that he had hidden the fragments of Hermione's letter from Africa telling
+him of her return on the day of the fair.
+
+They sat down with their faces towards the sea. The air up here was
+exquisitely cool. In the pellucid clearness of dawn the coast-line looked
+enchanted, fairy-like and full of delicate mystery. And its fading, in
+the far distance, was like a calling voice. Behind them the ranges of
+mountains held a few filmy white clouds, like laces, about their rugged
+peaks. The sea was a pale blue stillness, shot with soft grays and mauves
+and pinks, and dotted here and there with black specks that were the
+boats of fishermen.
+
+Hermione sat with her hands clasped round her knees. Her face, browned by
+the African sun, was intense with feeling.
+
+"Yes," she said, at last, "I can tell you here."
+
+She looked at the sea, the coast-line, then turned her head and gazed at
+the mountains.
+
+"We looked at them together," she continued--"that last evening before I
+went away. Do you remember, Maurice?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"From the arch. It is better up here. Always, when I am very happy or
+very sad, my instinct would be to seek a mountain-top. The sight of great
+spaces seen from a height teaches one, I think."
+
+"What?"
+
+"Not to be an egoist in one's joy; not to be a craven in one's sorrow.
+You see, a great view suggests the world, the vastness of things, the
+multiplicity of life. I think that must be it. And of course it reminds
+one, too, that one will soon be going away."
+
+"Going away?"
+
+"Yes. 'The mountains will endure'--but we--!"
+
+"Oh, you mean death."
+
+"Yes. What is it makes one think most of death when--when life, new life,
+is very near?"
+
+She had been gazing at the mountains and the sea, but now she turned and
+looked into his face.
+
+"Don't you understand what I have to tell you?" she asked.
+
+He shook his head. He was still wondering whether he would dare to tell
+her of his sin. And he did not know. At one moment he thought that he
+could do it, at another that he would rather throw himself over the
+precipice of the mountain than do it.
+
+"I don't understand it at all."
+
+There was a lack of interest in his voice, but she did not notice it. She
+was full of the wonder of the morning, the wonder of being again with
+him, and the wonder of what she had to tell him.
+
+"Maurice"--she put her hand on his--"the night I was crossing the sea to
+Africa I knew. All these days I have kept this secret from you because I
+could not write it. It seemed to me too sacred. I felt I must be with you
+when I told it. That night upon the sea I was very sad. I could not
+sleep. I was on deck looking always back, towards Sicily and you. And
+just when the dawn was coming I--I knew that a child was coming, too, a
+child of mine and yours."
+
+She was silent. Her hand pressed his, and now she was again looking
+towards the sea. And it seemed to him that her face was new, that it was
+already the face of a mother.
+
+He said nothing and he did not move. He looked down at the heap of stones
+by which they were sitting, and his eyes rested on a piece of paper
+covered with writing. It was a fragment of Hermione's letter to him. As
+he saw it something sharp and cold like a weapon made of ice, seemed to
+be plunged into him. He got up, pulling hard at her hand. She obeyed his
+hand.
+
+"What is it?" she said, as they stood together. "You look----"
+
+He had become pale. He knew it.
+
+"Hermione!" he said.
+
+He was actually panting as if he had been running. He moved a few steps
+towards the edge of the summit. She followed him.
+
+"You are angry that I didn't tell you! But--I wanted to say it. I wanted
+to--to----"
+
+She lifted his hands to her lips.
+
+"Thank you for giving me a child," she said.
+
+Then tears came into his eyes and ran down over his cheeks. That he
+should be thanked by her--that scourged the genuine good in him till
+surely blood started under the strokes.
+
+"Don't thank me!" he said. "Don't do that! I won't have it!"
+
+His voice sounded angry.
+
+"I won't ever let you thank me for anything," he went on. "You must
+understand that."
+
+He was on the edge of some violent, some almost hysterical outburst. He
+thought of Gaspare casting himself down in the boat that morning when he
+had feared that his padrone was drowned. So he longed to cast himself
+down and cry. But he had the strength to check his impulse. Only, the
+checking of it seemed to turn him for a moment into something made not of
+flesh and blood but of iron. And this thing of iron was voiceless.
+
+She knew that he was feeling intensely and respected his silence. But at
+last it began almost to frighten her. The boyish look she loved had gone
+out of his face. A stern man stood beside her, a man she had never seen
+before.
+
+"Maurice," she said, at length. "What is it? I think you are suffering."
+
+"Yes," he said.
+
+"But--but aren't you glad? Surely you are glad?"
+
+To her the word seemed mean, poverty-stricken. She changed it.
+
+"Surely you are thankful?"
+
+"I don't know," he answered, at last. "I am thinking that I don't know
+that I am worthy to be a father."
+
+He himself had fixed a limit. Now, God was putting a period to his wild
+youth. And the heart--was that changed within him?
+
+Too much was happening. The cup was being filled too full. A great
+longing came to him to get away, far away, and be alone. If it had been
+any other day he would have gone off into the mountains, by himself, have
+stayed out till night came, have walked, climbed, till he was exhausted.
+But to-day he could not do that. And soon Artois would be coming. He felt
+as if something must snap in brain or heart.
+
+And he had not slept. How he wished that he could sleep for a little
+while and forget everything. In sleep one knows nothing. He longed to be
+able to sleep.
+
+"I understand that," she said. "But you are worthy, my dear one."
+
+When she said that he knew that he could never tell her.
+
+"I must try," he muttered. "I'll try--from to-day."
+
+She did not talk to him any more. Her instinct told her not to. Almost
+directly they were walking down to the priest's house. She did not know
+which of them had moved first.
+
+When they got there they found Lucrezia up. Her eyes were red, but she
+smiled at Hermione. Then she looked at the padrone with alarm. She
+expected him to blame her for having disobeyed his orders of the day
+before. But he had forgotten all about that.
+
+"Get breakfast, Lucrezia," Hermione said. "We'll have it on the terrace.
+And presently we must have a talk. The sick signore is coming up to-day
+for collazione. We must have a very nice collazione, but something
+wholesome."
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+Lucrezia went away to the kitchen thankfully. She had heard bad news of
+Sebastiano yesterday in the village. He was openly in love with the girl
+in the Lipari Isles. Her heart was almost breaking, but the return of the
+padrona comforted her a little. Now she had some one to whom she could
+tell her trouble, some one who would sympathize.
+
+"I'll go and take a bath, Hermione," Maurice said.
+
+And he, too, disappeared.
+
+Hermione went to talk to Gaspare and tell him what to get in Marechiaro.
+
+When breakfast was ready Maurice came back looking less pale, but still
+unboyish. All the bright sparkle to which Hermione was accustomed had
+gone out of him. She wondered why. She had expected the change in him to
+be a passing thing, but it persisted.
+
+At breakfast it was obviously difficult for him to talk. She sought a
+reason for his strangeness. Presently she thought again of Artois. Could
+he be the reason? Or was Maurice now merely preoccupied by that great,
+new knowledge that there would soon be a third life mingled with theirs?
+She wondered exactly what he felt about that. He was really such a boy at
+heart despite his set face of to-day. Perhaps he dreaded the idea of
+responsibility. His agitation upon the mountain-top had been intense.
+Perhaps he was rendered unhappy by the thought of fatherhood. Or was it
+Emile?
+
+When breakfast was over, and he was smoking, she said to him:
+
+"Maurice, I want to ask you something."
+
+A startled look came into his eyes.
+
+"What?" he said, quickly.
+
+He threw his cigarette away and turned towards her, with a sort of
+tenseness that suggested to her a man bracing himself for some ordeal.
+
+"Only about Emile."
+
+"Oh!" he said.
+
+He took another cigarette, and his attitude at once looked easier. She
+wondered why.
+
+"You don't mind about Emile being here, do you?"
+
+Maurice was nearly answering quickly that he was delighted to welcome
+him. But a suddenly born shrewdness prevented him. To-day, like a guilty
+man, he was painfully conscious, painfully alert. He knew that Hermione
+was wondering about him, and realized that her question afforded him an
+opportunity to be deceptive and yet to seem quite natural and truthful.
+He could not be as he had been, to-day. The effort was far too difficult
+for him. Hermione's question showed him a plausible excuse for his
+peculiarity of demeanor and conduct. He seized it.
+
+"I think it was very natural for you to bring him," he answered.
+
+He lit the cigarette. His hand was trembling slightly.
+
+"But--but you had rather I hadn't brought him?"
+
+As Maurice began to act a part an old feeling returned to him, and almost
+turned his lie into truth.
+
+"You could hardly expect me to wish to have Artois with us here, could
+you, Hermione?" he said, slowly.
+
+She scarcely knew whether she were most pained or pleased. She was pained
+that anything she had done had clouded his happiness, but she was
+intensely glad to think he loved to be quite alone with her.
+
+"No, I felt that. But I felt, too, as if it would be cruel to stop short,
+unworthy in us."
+
+"In us?"
+
+"Yes. You let me go to Africa. You might have asked me, you might even
+have told me, not to go. I did not think of it at the time. Everything
+went so quickly. But I have thought of it since. And, knowing that,
+realizing it, I feel that you had your part, a great part, in Emile's
+rescue. For I do believe, Maurice, that if I had not gone he would have
+died."
+
+"Then I am glad you went."
+
+He spoke perfunctorily, almost formally. Hermione felt chilled.
+
+"It seemed to me that, having begun to do a good work, it would be finer,
+stronger, to carry it quite through, to put aside our own desires and
+think of another who had passed through a great ordeal. Was I wrong,
+Maurice? Emile is still very weak, very dependent. Ought I to have said,
+'Now I see you're not going to die, I'll leave you at once.' Wouldn't it
+have been rather selfish, even rather brutal?"
+
+His reply startled her.
+
+"Have you--have you ever thought of where we are?" he said.
+
+"Where we are!"
+
+"Of the people we are living among?"
+
+"I don't think I understand."
+
+He cleared his throat.
+
+"They're Sicilians. They don't see things as the English do," he said.
+
+There was a silence. Hermione felt a heat rush over her, over all her
+body and face. She did not speak, because, if she had, she might have
+said something vehement, even headstrong, such as she had never said,
+surely never would say, to Maurice.
+
+"Of course I understand. It's not that," he added.
+
+"No, it couldn't be that," she said. "You needn't tell me."
+
+The hot feeling stayed with her. She tried to control it.
+
+"You surely can't mind what ignorant people out here think of an utterly
+innocent action!" she said, at last, very quietly.
+
+But even as she spoke she remembered the Sicilian blood in him.
+
+"You have minded it!" she said. "You do mind now."
+
+And suddenly she felt very tender over him, as she might have felt over a
+child. In his face she could not see the boy to-day, but his words set
+the boy, the inmost nature of the boy that he still surely was, before
+her.
+
+The sense of humor in her seemed to be laughing and wiping away a tear at
+the same time.
+
+She moved her chair close to his.
+
+"Maurice," she said. "Do you know that sometimes you make me feel
+horribly old and motherly?"
+
+"Do I?" he said.
+
+"You do to-day, and yet--do you know that I have been thinking since I
+came back that you are looking older, much older than when I went away?"
+
+"Is that Artois?" he said, looking over the wall to the mountain-side
+beyond the ravine.
+
+Hermione got up, leaned upon the wall, and followed his eyes.
+
+"I think it must be. I told Gaspare to go to the hotel when he fetched
+the provisions in Marechiaro and tell Emile it would be best to come up
+in the cool. Yes, it is he, and Gaspare is with him! Maurice, you don't
+mind so very much?"
+
+She put her arm through his.
+
+"These people can't talk when they see how ill he looks. And if they
+do--oh, Maurice, what does it matter? Surely there's only one thing in
+the world that matters, and that is whether one can look one's own
+conscience in the face and say, 'I've nothing to be ashamed of!'"
+
+Maurice longed to get away from the touch of her arm. He remembered the
+fragment of paper he had seen among the stones on the mountain-side. He
+must go up there alone directly he had a moment of freedom. But
+now--Artois! He stared at the distant donkeys. His brain felt dry and
+shrivelled, his body both feverish and tired. How could he support this
+long day's necessities? It seemed to him that he had not the strength and
+resolution to endure them. And Artois was so brilliant! Maurice thought
+of him at that moment as a sort of monster of intellectuality, terrifying
+and repellent.
+
+"Don't you think so?" Hermione said.
+
+"I dare say," he answered. "But I dare say, I suppose--very few of us can
+do that. We can't expect to be perfect, and other people oughtn't to
+expect it of us."
+
+His voice had changed. Before, it had been almost an accusing voice and
+insincere. Now it was surely a voice that pleaded, and it was absolutely
+sincere. Hermione remembered how in London long ago the humility of
+Maurice had touched her. He had stood out from the mass of conceited men
+because of his beauty and his simple readiness to sit at the feet of
+others. And surely the simplicity, the humility, still persisted
+beautifully in him.
+
+"I don't think I should ever expect anything of you that you wouldn't
+give me," she said to him. "Anything of loyalty, of straightness, or of
+manhood. Often you seem to me a boy, and yet, I know, if a danger came to
+me, or a trouble, I could lean on you and you would never fail me. That's
+what a woman loves to feel when she has given herself to a man, that he
+knows how to take care of her, and that he cares to take care of her."
+
+Her body was touching his. He felt himself stiffen. The mental pain he
+suffered under the lash of her words affected his body, and his knowledge
+of the necessity to hide all that was in his mind caused his body to long
+for isolation, to shrink from any contact with another.
+
+"I hope," he said, trying to make his voice natural and simple----"I hope
+you'll never be in trouble or in danger, Hermione."
+
+"I don't think I could mind very much if you were there, if I could just
+touch your hand."
+
+"Here they come!" he said. "I hope Artois isn't very tired with the ride.
+We ought to have had Sebastiano here to play the 'Pastorale' for him."
+
+"Ah! Sebastiano!" said Hermione. "He's playing it for some one else in
+the Lipari Islands. Poor Lucrezia! Maurice, I love Sicily and all things
+Sicilian. You know how much! But--but I'm glad you've got some drops of
+English blood in your veins. I'm glad you aren't all Sicilian."
+
+"Come," he said. "Let us go to the arch and meet him."
+
+
+
+XIX
+
+"So this is your Garden of Paradise?" Artois said.
+
+He got off his donkey slowly at the archway, and stood for a moment,
+after shaking them both by the hand, looking at the narrow terrace,
+bathed in sunshine despite the shelter of the awning, at the columns, at
+the towering rocks which dominated the grove of oak-trees, and at the
+low, white-walled cottage.
+
+"The garden from which you came to save my life," he added.
+
+He turned to Maurice.
+
+"I am grateful and I am ashamed," he said. "I was not your friend,
+monsieur, but you have treated me with more than friendship. I thank you
+in words now, but my hope is that some day I shall be given the
+opportunity to thank you with an act."
+
+He held out his hand again to Maurice. There had been a certain formality
+in his speech, but there was a warmth in his manner that was not formal.
+As Maurice held his hand the eyes of the two men met, and each took swift
+note of the change in the other.
+
+Artois's appearance was softened by his illness. In health he looked
+authoritative, leonine, very sure of himself, piercingly observant,
+sometimes melancholy, but not anxious. His manner, never blustering or
+offensive, was usually dominating, the manner of one who had the right to
+rule in the things of the intellect. Now he seemed much gentler, less
+intellectual, more emotional. One received, at a first meeting with him,
+the sensation rather of coming into contact with a man of heart than
+with a man of brains. Maurice felt the change at once, and was surprised
+by it. Outwardly the novelist was greatly altered. His tall frame was
+shrunken and slightly bent. The face was pale and drawn, the eyes were
+sunken, the large-boned body was frightfully thin and looked uncertain
+when it moved. As Maurice gazed he realized that this man had been to the
+door of death, almost over the threshold of the door.
+
+And Artois? He saw a change in the Mercury whom he had last seen at the
+door of the London restaurant, a change that startled him.
+
+"Come into our Garden of Paradise and rest," said Hermione. "Lean on my
+arm, Emile."
+
+"May I?" Artois asked of Maurice, with a faint smile that was almost
+pathetic.
+
+"Please do. You must be tired!"
+
+Hermione and Artois walked slowly forward to the terrace, arm linked in
+arm. Maurice was about to follow them when he felt a hand catch hold of
+him, a hand that was hot and imperative.
+
+"Gaspare! What is it?"
+
+"Signorino, signorino, I must speak to you!"
+
+Startled, Maurice looked into the boy's flushed face. The great eyes
+searched him fiercely.
+
+"Put the donkeys in the stable," Maurice said. "I'll come."
+
+"Come behind the house, signorino. Ah, Madonna!"
+
+The last exclamation was breathed out with an intensity that was like the
+intensity of despair. The boy's look and manner were tragic.
+
+"Gaspare," Maurice said, "what----?"
+
+He saw Hermione turning towards him.
+
+"I'll come in a minute, Gaspare."
+
+"Madonna!" repeated the boy. "Madonna!"
+
+He held up his hands and let them drop to his sides. Then he muttered
+something--a long sentence--in dialect. His voice sounded like a
+miserable old man's.
+
+"Ah--ah!"
+
+He called to the donkeys and drove them forward to the out-house. Maurice
+followed.
+
+What had happened? Gaspare had the manner, the look, of one confronted by
+a terror from which there was no escape. His eyes had surely at the same
+time rebuked and furiously pitied his master. What did they mean?
+
+"This is our Garden of Paradise!" Hermione was saying as Maurice came up
+to her and Artois. "Do you wonder that we love it?"
+
+"I wonder that you left it." Artois replied.
+
+He was sunk in a deep straw chair, a chaise longue piled up with
+cushions, facing the great and radiant view. After he had spoken he
+sighed.
+
+"I don't think," he said, "that either of you really know that this is
+Eden. That knowledge has been reserved for the interloper, for me."
+
+Hermione sat down close to him. Maurice was standing by the wall,
+listening furtively to the noises from the out-house, where Gaspare was
+unsaddling the donkeys. Artois glanced at him, and was more sharply
+conscious of change in him. To Artois this place, after the long journey,
+which had sorely tried his feeble body, seemed an enchanted place of
+peace, a veritable Elysian Field in which the saddest, the most driven
+man must surely forget his pain and learn how to rest and to be joyful in
+repose. But he felt that his host, the man who had been living in
+paradise, who ought surely to have been learning its blessed lessons
+through sunlit days and starry nights, was restless like a man in a city,
+was anxious, was intensely ill at ease. Once, watching this man, Artois
+had thought of the messenger, poised on winged feet, radiantly ready for
+movement that would be exquisite because it would be obedient. This man
+still looked ready for flight, but for a flight how different! As Artois
+was thinking this Maurice moved.
+
+"Excuse me just for an instant!" he said. "I want to speak to Gaspare."
+
+He saw now that Gaspare was taking into the cottage the provisions that
+had been carried up by the donkey from Marechiaro.
+
+"I--I told him to do something for me in the village," he added, "and I
+want just to know--"
+
+He looked at them, almost defiantly, as if he challenged them not to
+believe what he had said. Then, without finishing his sentence, he went
+quickly into the cottage.
+
+"You have chosen your garden well," Artois said to Hermione directly they
+were alone. "No other sea has ever given to me such an impression of
+tenderness and magical space as this; no other sea has surely ever had a
+horizon-line so distant from those who look as this."
+
+He went on talking about the beauty, leading her with him. He feared lest
+she might begin to speak about her husband.
+
+Meanwhile, Maurice had reached the mountain-side behind the house and was
+waiting there for Gaspare. He heard the boy's voice in the kitchen
+speaking to Lucrezia, angrily it seemed by the sound. Then the voice
+ceased and Gaspare appeared for an instant at the kitchen door, making
+violent motions with his arms towards the mountain. He disappeared. What
+did he want? What did he mean? The gestures had been imperative. Maurice
+looked round. A little way up the mountain there was a large, closed
+building, like a barn, built of stones. It belonged to a contadino, but
+Maurice had never seen it open, or seen any one going to or coming from
+it. As he stared at it an idea occurred to him. Perhaps Gaspare meant him
+to go and wait there, behind the barn, so that Lucrezia should not see or
+hear their colloquy. He resolved to do this, and went swiftly up the
+hill-side. When he was in the shadow of the building he waited. He did
+not know what was the matter, what Gaspare wanted, but he realized that
+something had occurred which had stirred the boy to the depths. This
+something must have occurred while he was at Marechiaro. Before he had
+time mentally to make a list of possible events in Marechiaro, Maurice
+heard light feet running swiftly up the mountain, and Gaspare came round
+the corner, still with the look of tragedy, a wild, almost terrible look
+in his eyes.
+
+"Signorino," he began at once, in a low voice that was full of the
+pressure of an intense excitement. "Tell me! Where were you last night
+when we were making the fireworks go off?"
+
+Maurice felt the blood mount to his face.
+
+"Close to where you left me," he answered.
+
+"Oh, signore! Oh, signore!"
+
+It was almost a cry. The sweat was pouring down the boy's face.
+
+"Ma non e mia colpa! Non e mia colpa!" he exclaimed.
+
+"What do you mean? What has happened, Gaspare?"
+
+"I have seen Salvatore."
+
+His voice was more quiet now. He fixed his eyes almost sternly on his
+padrone, as if in the effort to read his very soul.
+
+"Well? Well, Gaspare?"
+
+Maurice was almost stammering now. He guessed--he knew what was coming.
+
+"Salvatore came up to me just before I got to the village. I heard him
+calling, 'Stop!' I stood still. We were on the path not far from the
+fountain. There was a broken branch on the ground, a branch of olive.
+Salvatore said: 'Suppose that is your padrone, that branch there!' and he
+spat on it. He spat on it, signore, he spat--and he spat."
+
+Maurice knew now.
+
+"Go on!" he said.
+
+And this time there was no uncertainty in his voice. Gaspare was
+breathing hard. His breast rose and fell.
+
+"I was going to strike him in the face, but he caught my hand, and
+then--Signorino, signorino, what have you done?"
+
+His voice rose. He began to look uncontrolled, distracted, wild, as if he
+might do some frantic thing.
+
+"Gaspare! Gaspare!"
+
+Maurice had him by the arms.
+
+"Why did you?" panted the boy. "Why did you?"
+
+"Then Salvatore knows?"
+
+Maurice saw that any denial was useless.
+
+"He knows! He knows!"
+
+If Maurice had not held Gaspare tightly the boy would have flung himself
+down headlong on the ground, to burst into one of those storms of weeping
+which swept upon him when he was fiercely wrought up. But Maurice would
+not let him have this relief.
+
+"Gaspare! Listen to me! What is he going to do? What is Salvatore going
+to do?"
+
+"Santa Madonna! Santa Madonna!"
+
+The boy rocked himself to and fro. He began to invoke the Madonna and the
+saints. He was beside himself, was almost like one mad.
+
+"Gaspare--in the name of God----!"
+
+"H'sh!"
+
+Suddenly the boy kept still. His face changed, hardened. His body became
+tense. With his hand still held up in a warning gesture, he crept to the
+edge of the barn and looked round it.
+
+"What is it?" Maurice whispered.
+
+Gaspare stole back.
+
+"It is only Lucrezia. She is spreading the linen. I thought----"
+
+"What is Salvatore going to do?"
+
+"Unless you go down to the sea to meet him this evening, signorino, he
+is coming up here to-night to tell everything to the signora."
+
+Maurice went white.
+
+"I shall go," he said. "I shall go down to the sea."
+
+"Madonna! Madonna!"
+
+"He won't come now? He won't come this morning?"
+
+Maurice spoke almost breathlessly, with his hands on the boy's hands
+which streamed with sweat. Gaspare shook his head.
+
+"I told him if he came up I would meet him in the path and kill him."
+
+The boy had out a knife.
+
+Maurice put his arm round Gaspare's shoulder. At that moment he really
+loved the boy.
+
+"Will he come?"
+
+"Only if you do not go."
+
+"I shall go."
+
+"I will come with you, signorino."
+
+"No. I must go alone."
+
+"I will come with you!"
+
+A dogged obstinacy hardened his whole face, made even his shining eyes
+look cold, like stones.
+
+"Gaspare, you are to stay with the signora. I may miss Salvatore going
+down. While I am gone he may come up here. The signora is not to speak
+with him. He is not to come to her."
+
+Gaspare hesitated. He was torn in two by his dual affection, his dual
+sense of the watchful fidelity he owed to his padrone and to his padrona.
+
+"Va bene," he said, at last, in a half whisper.
+
+He hung down his head like one exhausted.
+
+"How will it finish?" he murmured, as if to himself. "How will it
+finish?"
+
+"I must go," Maurice said. "I must go now. Gaspare!"
+
+"Si, signore?"
+
+"We must be careful, you and I, to-day. We must not let the signora,
+Lucrezia, any one suspect that--that we are not just as usual. Do you
+see?"
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+The boy nodded. His eyes now looked tired.
+
+"And try to keep a lookout, when you can, without drawing the attention
+of the signora. Salvatore might change his mind and come up. The signora
+is not to know. She is never to know. Do you think"--he hesitated--"do
+you think Salvatore has told any one?"
+
+"Non lo so."
+
+The boy was silent. Then he lifted his hands again and said:
+
+"Signorino! Signorino!"
+
+And Maurice seemed to hear at that moment the voice of an accusing angel.
+
+"Gaspare," he said, "I was mad. We men--we are mad sometimes. But now I
+must be sane. I must do what I can to--I must do what I can--and you must
+help me."
+
+He held out his hand. Gaspare took it. The grasp of it was strong, that
+of a man. It seemed to reassure the boy.
+
+"I will always help my padrone," he said.
+
+Then they went down the mountain-side.
+
+It was perhaps very strange--Maurice thought it was--but he felt now less
+tired, less confused, more master of himself than he had before he had
+spoken with Gaspare. He even felt less miserable. Face to face with an
+immediate and very threatening danger, courage leaped up in him, a
+certain violence of resolve which cleared away clouds and braced his
+whole being. He had to fight. There was no way out. Well, then, he would
+fight. He had played the villain, perhaps, but he would not play the
+poltroon. He did not know what he was going to do, what he could do, but
+he must act, and act decisively. His wild youth responded to this call
+made upon it. There was a new light in his eyes as he went down to the
+cottage, as he came upon the terrace.
+
+Artois noticed it at once, was aware at once that in this marvellous
+peace to which Hermione had brought him there were elements which had
+nothing to do with peace.
+
+"What hast thou to do with peace? Turn thee behind me."
+
+These words from the Bible came into his mind as he looked into the eyes
+of his host, and he felt that Hermione and he were surely near to some
+drama of which they knew nothing, of which Hermione, perhaps, suspected
+nothing.
+
+Maurice acted his part. The tonic of near danger gave him strength, even
+gave him at first a certain subtlety. From the terrace he could see far
+over the mountain flanks. As one on a tower he watched for the approach
+of his enemy from the sea, but he did not neglect his two companions. For
+he was fighting already. When he seemed natural in his cordiality to his
+guest, when he spoke and laughed, when he apologized for the misfortune
+of the previous day, he was fighting. The battle with circumstances was
+joined. He must bear himself bravely in it. He must not allow himself to
+be overwhelmed.
+
+Nevertheless, there came presently a moment which brought with it a sense
+of fear.
+
+Hermione got up to go into the house.
+
+"I must see what Lucrezia is doing," she said. "Your collazione must not
+be a fiasco, Emile."
+
+"Nothing could be a fiasco here, I think," he answered.
+
+She laughed happily.
+
+"But poor Lucrezia is not in paradise," she said. "Ah, why can't every
+one be happy when one is happy one's self? I always think of that when
+I----"
+
+She did not finish her sentence in words. Her look at the two men
+concluded it. Then she turned and went into the house.
+
+"What is the matter with Lucrezia?" asked Artois.
+
+"Oh, she--she's in love with a shepherd called Sebastiano."
+
+"And he's treating her badly?"
+
+"I'm afraid so. He went to the Lipari Isles, and he doesn't come back."
+
+"A girl there keeps him captive?"
+
+"It seems so."
+
+"Faithful women must not expect to have a perfect time in Sicily," Artois
+said.
+
+As he spoke he noticed that a change came in his companion's face. It was
+fleeting, but it was marked. It made Artois think:
+
+"This man understands Sicilian faithlessness in love."
+
+It made him, too, remember sharply some words of his own said long ago in
+London:
+
+"I love the South, but I distrust what I love, and I see the South in
+him."
+
+There was a silence between the two men. Heat was growing in the long
+summer day, heat that lapped them in the influence of the South. Africa
+had been hotter, but this seemed the breast of the South, full of glory
+and of languor, and of that strange and subtle influence which inclines
+the heart of man to passion and the body of man to yield to its desires.
+It was glorious, this wonderful magic of the South, but was it wholesome
+for Northern men? Was it not full of danger? As he looked at the great,
+shining waste of the sea, purple and gold, dark and intense and jewelled,
+at the outline of Etna, at the barbaric ruin of the Saracenic castle on
+the cliff opposite, like a cry from the dead ages echoing out of the
+quivering blue, at the man before him leaning against the blinding white
+wall above the steep bank of the ravine, Artois said to himself that the
+South was dangerous to young, full-blooded men, was dangerous, to such a
+man as Delarey. And he asked himself the question, "What has this man
+been doing here in this glorious loneliness of the South, while his wife
+has been saving my life in Africa?" And a sense of reproach, almost of
+alarm, smote him. For he had called Hermione away. In the terrible
+solitude that comes near to the soul with the footfalls of death he had
+not been strong enough to be silent. He had cried out, and his friend had
+heard and had answered. And Delarey had been left alone with the sun.
+
+"I'm afraid you must feel as if I were your enemy," he said.
+
+And as he spoke he was thinking, "Have I been this man's enemy?"
+
+"Oh no. Why?"
+
+"I deprived you of your wife. You've been all alone here."
+
+"I made friends of the Sicilians."
+
+Maurice spoke lightly, but through his mind ran the thought, "What an
+enemy this man has been to me, without knowing it!"
+
+"They are easy to get on with," said Artois. "When I was in Sicily I
+learned to love them."
+
+"Oh, love!" said Maurice, hastily.
+
+He checked himself.
+
+"That's rather a strong word, but I like them. They're a delightful
+race."
+
+"Have you found out their faults?"
+
+Both men were trying to hide themselves in their words.
+
+"What are their faults, do you think?" Maurice said.
+
+He looked over the wall and saw, far off on the path by the ravine, a
+black speck moving.
+
+"Treachery when they do not trust; sensuality, violence, if they think
+themselves wronged."
+
+"Are--are those faults? I understand them. They seem almost to belong to
+the sun."
+
+Artois had not been looking at Maurice. The sound of Maurice's voice now
+made him aware that the speaker had turned away from him. He glanced up
+and saw his companion staring over the wall across the ravine. What was
+he gazing at? Artois wondered.
+
+"Yes, the sun is perhaps partly responsible for them. Then you have
+become such a sun-worshipper that----"
+
+"No, no, I don't say that," Maurice interrupted.
+
+He looked round and met Artois's observant eyes. He had dreaded having
+those eyes fixed upon him.
+
+"But I think--I think things done in such a place, such an island as
+this, shouldn't be judged too severely, shouldn't be judged, I mean,
+quite as we might judge them, say, in England."
+
+He looked embarrassed as he ended, and shifted his gaze from his
+companion.
+
+"I agree with you," Artois said.
+
+Maurice looked at him again, almost eagerly. An odd feeling came to him
+that this man, who unwittingly had done him a deadly harm, would be able
+to understand what perhaps no woman could ever understand, the tyranny of
+the senses in a man, their fierce tyranny in the sunlit lands. Had he
+been so wicked? Would Artois think so? And the punishment that was
+perhaps coming--did he deserve that it should be terrible? He wondered,
+almost like a boy. But Hermione was not with them. When she was there he
+did not wonder. He felt that he deserved lashes unnumbered.
+
+And Artois--he began to feel almost clairvoyant. The new softness that
+had come to him with the pain of the body, that had been developed by the
+blessed rest from pain that was convalescence, had not stricken his
+faculty of seeing clear in others, but it had changed, at any rate for a
+time, the sentiments that followed upon the exercise of that faculty.
+Scorn and contempt were less near to him than they had been. Pity was
+nearer. He felt now almost sure that Delarey had fallen into some
+trouble while Hermione was in Africa, that he was oppressed at this
+moment by some great uneasiness or even fear, that he was secretly
+cursing some imprudence, and that his last words were a sort of
+surreptitious plea for forgiveness, thrown out to the Powers of the air,
+to the Spirits of the void, to whatever shadowy presences are about the
+guilty man ready to condemn his sin. He felt, too, that he owed much to
+Delarey. In a sense it might be said that he owed to him his life. For
+Delarey had allowed Hermione to come to Africa, and if Hermione had not
+come the end for him, Artois, might well have been death.
+
+"I should like to say something to you, monsieur," he said. "It is rather
+difficult to say, because I do not wish it to seem formal, when the
+feeling that prompts it is not formal."
+
+Maurice was again looking over the wall, watching with intensity the
+black speck that was slowly approaching on the little path.
+
+"What is it, monsieur?" he asked, quickly.
+
+"I owe you a debt--indeed I do. You must not deny it. Through your
+magnanimous action in permitting your wife to leave you, you, perhaps
+indirectly, saved my life. For, without her aid, I do not think I could
+have recovered. Of her nobility and devotion I will not, because I cannot
+adequately, speak. But I wish to say to you that if ever I can do you a
+service of any kind I will do it."
+
+As he finished Maurice, who was looking at him now, saw a veil over his
+big eyes. Could it--could it possibly be a veil of tears!
+
+"Thank you," he answered.
+
+He tried to speak warmly, cordially. But his heart said to him: "You can
+do nothing for me now. It is all too late!"
+
+Yet the words and the emotion of Artois were some slight relief to him.
+He was able to feel that in this man he had no secret enemy, but, if
+need be, a friend.
+
+"You have a nice fellow as servant," Artois said, to change the
+conversation.
+
+"Gaspare--yes. He's loyal. I intend to ask Hermione to let me take him to
+England with us."
+
+He paused, then added, with an anxious curiosity:
+
+"Did you talk to him much as you came up?"
+
+He wondered whether the novelist had noticed Gaspare's agitation or
+whether the boy had been subtle enough to conceal it.
+
+"Not very much. The path is narrow, and I rode in front. He sang most of
+the time, those melancholy songs of Sicily that came surely long ago
+across the sea from Africa."
+
+"They nearly always sing on the mountains when they are with the
+donkeys."
+
+"Dirges of the sun. There is a sadness of the sun as well as a joy."
+
+"Yes."
+
+As Maurice answered, he thought, "How well I know that now!" And as he
+looked at the black figure drawing nearer in the sunshine it seemed to
+him that there was a terror in that gold which he had often worshipped.
+If that figure should be Salvatore! He strained his eyes. At one moment
+he fancied that he recognized the wild, free, rather strutting walk of
+the fisherman. At another he believed that his fear had played him a
+trick, that the movements of the figure were those of an old man, some
+plodding contadino of the hills. Artois wondered increasingly what he was
+looking at. A silence fell between them. Artois lay back in the chaise
+longue and gazed up at the blue, then at the section of distant sea which
+was visible above the rim of the wall though the intervening mountain
+land was hidden. It was a paradise up here. And to have it with the great
+love of a woman, what an experience that must be for any man! It seemed
+to him strange that such an experience had been the gift of the gods to
+their messenger, their Mercury. What had it meant to him? What did it
+mean to him now? Something had changed him. Was it that? In the man by
+the wall Artois did not see any longer the bright youth he remembered.
+Yet the youth was still there, the supple grace, the beauty, bronzed now
+by the long heats of the sun. It was the expression that had changed. In
+cities one sees anxious-looking men everywhere. In London Delarey had
+stood out from the crowd not only because of his beauty of the South, but
+because of his light-hearted expression, the spirit of youth in his eyes.
+And now here, in this reality that seemed almost like a dream in its
+perfection, in this reality of the South, there was a look of strain in
+his eyes and in his whole body. The man had contradicted his surroundings
+in London--now he contradicted his surroundings here.
+
+While Artois was thinking this Maurice's expression suddenly changed, his
+attitude became easier. He turned round from the wall, and Artois saw
+that the keen anxiety had gone out of his eyes. Gaspare was below with
+his gun pretending to look for birds, and had made a sign that the
+approaching figure was not that of Salvatore. Maurice's momentary sense
+of relief was so great that it threw him off his guard.
+
+"What can have been happening beyond the wall?" Artois thought.
+
+He felt as if a drama had been played out there and the denouement had
+been happy.
+
+Hermione came back at this moment.
+
+"Poor Lucrezia!" she said. "She's plucky, but Sebastiano is making her
+suffer horribly."
+
+"Here!" said Artois, almost involuntarily.
+
+"It does seem almost impossible, I know."
+
+She sat down again near him and smiled at her husband.
+
+"You are coming back to health, Emile. And Maurice and I--well, we are in
+our garden. It seems wrong, terribly wrong, that any one should suffer
+here. But Lucrezia loves like a Sicilian. What violence there is in these
+people!"
+
+"England must not judge them."
+
+He looked at Maurice.
+
+"What's that?" asked Hermione. "Something you two were talking about when
+I was in the kitchen?"
+
+Maurice looked uneasy.
+
+"I was only saying that I think the sun--the South has an influence," he
+said, "and that----"
+
+"An influence!" exclaimed Hermione. "Of course it has! Emile, you would
+have seen that influence at work if you had been with us on our first day
+in Sicily. Your tarantella, Maurice!"
+
+She smiled again happily, but her husband did not answer her smile.
+
+"What was that?" said Artois. "You never told me in Africa."
+
+"The boys danced a tarantella here on the terrace to welcome us, and it
+drove Maurice so mad that he sprang up and danced too. And the strange
+thing was that he danced as well as any of them. His blood called him,
+and he obeyed the call."
+
+She looked at Artois to remind him of his words.
+
+"It's good when the blood calls one to the tarantella, isn't it?" she
+asked him. "I think it's the most wildly innocent expression of extreme
+joy in the world. And yet"--her expressive face changed, and into her
+prominent brown eyes there stole a half-whimsical, half-earnest look--"at
+the end--Maurice, do you know that I was almost frightened that day at
+the end?"
+
+"Frightened! Why?" he said.
+
+He got up from the terrace-seat and sat down in a straw chair.
+
+[Illustration: "'BUT I SOON LEARNED TO DELIGHT IN--IN MY SICILIAN,' SHE
+SAID, TENDERLY"]
+
+"Why?" he repeated, crossing one leg over the other and laying his
+brown hands on the arms of the chair.
+
+"I had a feeling that you were escaping from me in the tarantella. Wasn't
+it absurd?"
+
+He looked slightly puzzled. She turned to Artois.
+
+"Can you imagine what I felt, Emile? He danced so well that I seemed to
+see before me a pure-blooded Sicilian. It almost frightened me!"
+
+She laughed.
+
+"But I soon learned to delight in--in my Sicilian," she said, tenderly.
+
+She felt so happy, so at ease, and she was so completely natural, that it
+did not occur to her that though she was with her husband and her most
+intimate friend the two men were really strangers to each other.
+
+"You'll find that I'm quite English, when we are back in London," Maurice
+said. There was a cold sound of determination in his voice.
+
+"Oh, but I don't want you to lose what you have gained here," Hermione
+protested, half laughingly, half tenderly.
+
+"Gained!" Maurice said, still in the prosaic voice. "I don't think a
+Sicilian would be much good in England. We--we don't want romance there.
+We want cool-headed, practical men who can work, and who've no nonsense
+about them."
+
+"Maurice!" she said, amazed. "What a cold douche! And from you! Why, what
+has happened to you while I've been away?"
+
+"Happened to me?" he said, quickly. "Nothing. What should happen to me
+here?"
+
+"Do you--are you beginning to long for England and English ways?"
+
+"I think it's time I began to do something," he said, resolutely. "I
+think I've had a long enough holiday."
+
+He was trying to put the past behind him. He was trying to rush into the
+new life, the life in which there would be no more wildness, no more
+yielding to the hot impulses that were surely showered down out of the
+sun. Mentally he was leaving the Enchanted Island already. It was fading
+away, sinking into its purple sea, sinking out of his sight with his wild
+heart of youth, while he, cold, calm, resolute man, was facing the steady
+life befitting an Englishman, the life of work, of social duties, of
+husband and father, with a money-making ambition and a stake in his
+country.
+
+"Perhaps you're right," Hermione said.
+
+But there was a sound of disappointment in her voice. Till now Maurice
+had always shared her Sicilian enthusiasms, had even run before them,
+lighter-footed than she in the race towards the sunshine. It was
+difficult to accommodate herself to this abrupt change.
+
+"But don't let us think of going to-day," she added. "Remember--I have
+only just come back."
+
+"And I!" said Artois. "Be merciful to an invalid, Monsieur Delarey!"
+
+He spoke lightly, but he felt fully conscious now that his suspicion was
+well founded. Maurice was uneasy, unhappy. He wanted to get away from
+this peace that held no peace for him. He wanted to put something behind
+him. To a man like Artois, Maurice was a boy. He might try to be subtle,
+he might even be subtle--for him. But to this acute and trained observer
+of the human comedy he could not for long be deceptive.
+
+During his severe illness the mind of Artois had often been clouded, had
+been dispossessed of its throne by the clamor of the body's pain. And
+afterwards, when the agony passed and the fever abated, the mind had been
+lulled, charmed into a stagnant state that was delicious. But now it
+began to go again to its business. It began to work with the old rapidity
+that had for a time been lost. And as this power came back and was felt
+thoroughly, very consciously by this very conscious man, he took alarm.
+What affected or threatened Delarey must affect, threaten Hermione.
+Whether he were one with her or not she was one with him. The feeling of
+Artois towards the woman who had shown him such noble, such unusual
+friendship was exquisitely delicate and intensely strong. Unmingled with
+any bodily passion, it was, or so it seemed to him, the more delicate and
+strong on that account. He was a man who had an instinctive hatred of
+heroics. His taste revolted from them as it revolted from violence in
+literature. They seemed to him a coarseness, a crudity of the soul, and
+almost inevitably linked with secret falseness. But he was conscious that
+to protect from sorrow or shame the woman who had protected him in his
+dark hour he would be willing to make any sacrifice. There would be no
+limit to what he would be ready to do now, in this moment, for Hermione.
+He knew that, and he took the alarm. Till now he had been feeling
+curiosity about the change in Delarey. Now he felt the touch of fear.
+
+Something had happened to change Maurice while Hermione had been in
+Africa. He had heard, perhaps, the call of the blood. All that he had
+said, and all that he had felt, on the night when he had met Maurice for
+the first time in London, came back to Artois. He had prophesied, vaguely
+perhaps. Had his prophecy already been fulfilled? In this great and
+shining peace of nature Maurice was not at peace. And now all sense of
+peace deserted Artois. Again, and fiercely now, he felt the danger of the
+South, and he added to his light words some words that were not light.
+
+"But I am really no longer an invalid," he said. "And I must be getting
+northward very soon. I need the bracing air, the Spartan touch of the
+cold that the Sybarite in me dreads. Perhaps we all need them."
+
+"If you go on like this, you two," Hermione exclaimed, "you will make me
+feel as if it were degraded to wish to live anywhere except at Clapham
+Junction or the North Pole. Let us be happy as we are, where we are,
+to-day and--yes, call me weak if you like--and to-morrow!"
+
+Maurice made no answer to this challenge, but Artois covered his silence,
+and kept the talk going on safe topics till Gaspare came to the terrace
+to lay the cloth for collazione.
+
+It was past noon now, and the heat was brimming up like a flood over the
+land. Flies buzzed about the terrace, buzzed against the white walls and
+ceilings of the cottage, winding their tiny, sultry horns ceaselessly,
+musicians of the sun. The red geraniums in the stone pots beneath the
+broken columns drooped their dry heads. The lizards darted and stopped,
+darted and stopped upon the wall and the white seats where the tiles were
+burning to the touch. There was no moving figure on the baked mountains,
+no moving vessel on the shining sea. No smoke came from the snowless lips
+of Etna. It was as if the fires of the sun had beaten down and slain the
+fires of the earth.
+
+Gaspare moved to and fro slowly, spreading the cloth, arranging the pots
+of flowers, the glasses, forks, and knives upon it. In his face there was
+little vivacity. But now and then his great eyes searched the hot world
+that lay beneath them, and Artois thought he saw in them the
+watchfulness, the strained anxiety that had been in Maurice's eyes.
+
+"Some one must be coming," he thought. "Or they must be expecting some
+one to come, these two."
+
+"Do you ever have visitors here?" he asked, carelessly.
+
+"Visitors! Emile, why are we here? Do you anticipate a knock and 'If you
+please, ma'am, Mrs. and the Misses Watson'? Good Heavens--visitors on
+Monte Amato!"
+
+He smiled, but he persisted.
+
+"Never a contadino, or a shepherd, or"--he looked down at the sea--"or a
+fisherman with his basket of sarde?"
+
+Maurice moved in his chair, and Gaspare, hearing a word he knew, looked
+hard at the speaker.
+
+"Oh, we sometimes have the people of the hills to see us," said Hermione.
+"But we don't call them 'visitors.' As to fishermen--here they are!"
+
+She pointed to her husband and Gaspare.
+
+"But they eat all the fish they catch, and we never see the fin of even
+one at the cottage."
+
+Collazione was ready now. Hermione helped Artois up from his chaise
+longue, and they went to the table under the awning.
+
+"You must sit facing the view, Emile," Hermione said.
+
+"What a dining-room!" Artois exclaimed.
+
+Now he could see over the wall. His gaze wandered over the
+mountain-sides, travelled down to the land that lay along the edge of the
+sea.
+
+"Have you been fishing much since I've been away, Maurice?" Hermione
+asked, as they began to eat.
+
+"Oh yes. I went several times. What wine do you like, Monsieur Artois?"
+
+He tried to change the conversation, but Hermione, quite innocently,
+returned to the subject.
+
+"They fish at night, you know, Emile, all along that coast by Isola Bella
+and on to the point there that looks like an island, where the House of
+the Sirens is."
+
+A tortured look went across Maurice's face. He had begun to eat, but now
+he stopped for a moment like a man suddenly paralyzed.
+
+"The House of the Sirens!" said Artois. "Then there are sirens here? I
+could well believe it. Have you seen them, Monsieur Maurice, at night,
+when you have been fishing?"
+
+He had been gazing at the coast, but now he turned towards his host.
+Maurice began hastily to eat again.
+
+"I'm afraid not. But we didn't look out for them. We were prosaic and
+thought of nothing but the fish."
+
+"And is there really a house down there?" said Artois.
+
+"Yes," said Hermione. "It used to be a ruin, but now it's built up and
+occupied. Gaspare"--she spoke to him as he was taking a dish from the
+table--"who is it lives in the Casa delle Sirene now? You told me, but
+I've forgotten."
+
+A heavy, obstinate look came into the boy's face, transforming it. The
+question startled him, and he had not understood a word of the
+conversation which had led up to it. What had they been talking about? He
+glanced furtively at his master. Maurice did not look at him.
+
+"Salvatore and Maddalena, signora," he answered, after a pause.
+
+Then he took the dish and went into the house.
+
+"What's the matter with Gaspare?" said Hermione. "I never saw him look
+like that before--quite ugly. Doesn't he like these people?"
+
+"Oh yes," replied Maurice. "Why--why, they're quite friends of ours. We
+saw them at the fair only yesterday."
+
+"Well, then, why should Gaspare look like that?"
+
+"Oh," said Artois, who saw the discomfort of his host, "perhaps there is
+some family feud that you know nothing of. When I was in Sicily I found
+the people singularly subtle. They can gossip terribly, but they can keep
+a secret when they choose. If I had won the real friendship of a
+Sicilian, I would rather trust him with my secret than a man of any other
+race. They are not only loyal--that is not enough--but they are also very
+intelligent."
+
+"Yes, they are both--the good ones," said Hermione. "I would trust
+Gaspare through thick and thin. If they were only as stanch in love as
+they can be in friendship!"
+
+Gaspare came out again with another course. The ugly expression had gone
+from his face, but he still looked unusually grave.
+
+"Ah, when the senses are roused they are changed beings," Artois said.
+"They hate and resent governance from outside, but their blood governs
+them."
+
+"Our blood governs us when the time comes--do you remember?"
+
+Hermione had said the words before she remembered the circumstances in
+which they had been spoken and of whom they were said. Directly she had
+uttered them she remembered.
+
+"What was that?" Maurice asked, before Artois could reply.
+
+He had seen a suddenly conscious look in Hermione's face, and instantly
+he was aware of a feeling of jealousy within him.
+
+"What was that?" he repeated, looking quickly from one to the other.
+
+"Something I remember saying to your wife," Artois answered. "We were
+talking about human nature--a small subject, monsieur, isn't it?--and I
+think I expressed the view of a fatalist. At any rate, I did say
+that--that our blood governs us when the time comes."
+
+"The time?" Maurice asked.
+
+His feeling of jealousy died away, and was replaced by a keen personal
+interest unmingled with suspicions of another.
+
+"Well, I confess it sometimes seems to me as if, when a certain hour
+strikes, a certain deed must be committed by a certain man or woman. It
+is perhaps their hour of madness. They may repent it to the day of their
+death. But can they in that hour avoid that deed? Sometimes, when I
+witness the tragic scenes that occur abruptly, unexpectedly, in the
+comedy of life, I am moved to wonder."
+
+"Then you should be very forgiving, Emile," Hermione said.
+
+"And you?" he asked. "Are you, or would you be, forgiving?"
+
+Maurice leaned forward on the table and looked at his wife with
+intensity.
+
+"I hope so, but I don't think it would be for that--I mean because I
+thought the deed might not have been avoided. I think I should forgive
+because I pitied so, because I know how desperately unhappy I should be
+myself if I were to do a hateful thing, a thing that was exceptional,
+that was not natural to my nature as I had generally known it. When one
+really does love cleanliness, to have thrown one's self down deliberately
+in the mud, to see, to feel, that one is soiled from head to foot--that
+must be terrible. I think I should forgive because I pitied so. What do
+you say, Maurice?"
+
+It was like a return to their talk in London at Caminiti's restaurant,
+when Hermione and Artois discussed topics that interested them, and
+Maurice listened until Hermione appealed to him for his opinion. But now
+he was more deeply interested than his companions.
+
+"I don't know," he said. "I don't know about pitying and forgiving, but I
+expect you're right, Hermione."
+
+"How?"
+
+"In what you say about--about the person who's done the wrong thing
+feeling awful afterwards. And I think Monsieur Artois is right,
+too--about the hour of madness. I'm sure he is right. Sometimes an hour
+comes and one seems to forget everything in it. One seems not to be
+really one's self in it, but somebody else, and--and--"
+
+Suddenly he seemed to become aware that, whereas Hermione and Artois had
+been considering a subject impersonally, he was introducing the personal
+element into the conversation. He stopped short, looked quickly from
+Hermione to Artois, and said:
+
+"What I mean is that I imagine it's so, and that I've known fellows--in
+London, you know--who've done such odd things that I can only explain it
+like that. They must have--well, they must have gone practically mad for
+the moment. You--you see what I mean, Hermione?"
+
+The question was uneasy.
+
+"Yes, but I think we can control ourselves. If we couldn't, remorse would
+lose half its meaning. I could never feel remorse because I had been
+mad--horror, perhaps, but not remorse. It seems to me that remorse is our
+sorrow for our own weakness, the heart's cry of 'I need not have done the
+hateful thing, and I did it, I chose to do it!' But I could pity, I could
+pity, and forgive because of my pity."
+
+Gaspare came out with coffee.
+
+"And then, Emile, you must have a siesta," said Hermione. "This is a
+tiring day for you. Maurice and I will leave you quite alone in the
+sitting-room."
+
+"I don't think I could sleep," said Artois.
+
+He was feeling oddly excited, and attributed the sensation to his weak
+state of health. For so long he had been shut up, isolated from the
+world, that even this coming out was an event. He was accustomed to
+examine his feelings calmly, critically, to track them to their sources.
+He tried to do so now.
+
+"I must beware of my own extra sensitiveness," he said to himself. "I'm
+still weak. I am not normal. I may see things distorted. I may
+exaggerate, turn the small into the great. At least half of what I think
+and feel to-day may come from my peculiar state."
+
+Thus he tried to raise up barriers against his feeling that Delarey had
+got into some terrible trouble during the absence of Hermione, that he
+was now stricken with remorse, and that he was also in active dread of
+something, perhaps of some Nemesis.
+
+"All this may be imagination," Artois thought, as he sipped his coffee.
+But he said again:
+
+"I don't think I could sleep. I feel abnormally alive to-day. Do you
+know the sensation, as if one were too quick, as if all the nerves were
+standing at attention?"
+
+"Then our peace here does not soothe you?" Hermione said.
+
+"If I must be truthful--no," he answered.
+
+He met Maurice's restless glance.
+
+"I think I've had enough coffee," he added. "Coffee stimulates the nerves
+too much at certain times."
+
+Maurice finished his and asked for another cup.
+
+"He isn't afraid of being overstimulated," said Hermione. "But, Emile,
+you ought to sleep. You'll be dead tired this evening when you ride
+down."
+
+"This evening," Hermione had said. Maurice wondered suddenly how late
+Artois was going to stay at the cottage.
+
+"Oh no, it will be cool," Artois said.
+
+"Yes," Maurice said. "Towards five we get a little wind from the sea
+nearly always, even sooner sometimes. I--I usually go down to bathe about
+that time."
+
+"I must begin to bathe, too," Hermione said.
+
+"What--to-day!" Maurice said, quickly.
+
+"Oh no. Emile is here to-day."
+
+Then Artois did not mean to go till late. But he--Maurice--must go down
+to the sea before nightfall.
+
+"Unless I bathe," he said, trying to speak naturally--"unless I bathe I
+feel the heat too much at night. A dip in the sea does wonders for me."
+
+"And in such a sea!" said Artois. "You must have your dip to-day. I shall
+go directly that little wind you speak of comes. I told a boy to come up
+from the village at four to lead the donkey down."
+
+He smiled deprecatingly.
+
+"Dreadful to be such a weakling, isn't it?" he said.
+
+"Hush. Don't talk, like that. It's all going away. Strength is coming.
+You'll soon be your old self. But you've got to look forward all the
+time."
+
+Hermione spoke with a warmth, an energy that braced. She spoke to Artois,
+but Maurice, eager to grasp at any comfort, strove to take the words to
+himself. This evening the climax of his Sicilian tragedy must come. And
+then? Beyond, might there not be the calm, the happiness of a sane life?
+He must look forward, he would look forward.
+
+But when he looked, there stood Maddalena weeping.
+
+He hated himself. He loved happiness, he longed for it, but he knew he
+had lost his right to it, if any man ever has such a right. He had
+created suffering. How dared he expect, how dared he even wish, to escape
+from suffering?
+
+"Now, Emile," Hermione said, "you have really got to go in and lie down
+whether you feel sleepy or not. Don't protest. Maurice and I have hardly
+seen anything of each other yet. We want to get rid of you."
+
+She spoke laughingly, and laughingly he obeyed her. When she had settled
+him comfortably in the sitting-room she came out again to the terrace
+where her husband was standing, looking towards the sea. She had a rug
+over her arm and was holding two cushions.
+
+"I thought you and I might go down and take our siesta under the
+oak-trees, Maurice. Would you like that?"
+
+He was longing to get away, to go up to the heap of stones on the
+mountain-top and set a match to the fragments of Hermione's letter, which
+the dangerous wind might disturb, might bring out into the light of day.
+But he acquiesced at once. He would go later--if not this afternoon, then
+at night when he came back from the sea. They went down and spread the
+rug under the shadow of the oaks.
+
+"I used to read to Gaspare here," he said. "When you were away in
+Africa."
+
+"What did you read?"
+
+"The _Arabian Nights_."
+
+She stretched herself on the rug.
+
+"To lie here and read the _Arabian Nights_! And you want to go away,
+Maurice?"
+
+"I think it's time to go. If I stayed too long here I should become fit
+for nothing."
+
+"Yes, that's true, I dare say. But--Maurice, it's so strange--I have a
+feeling as if you would always be in Sicily. I know it's absurd, and yet
+I have it. I feel as if you belonged to Sicily, and Sicily did not mean
+to part from you."
+
+"That can't be. How could I stay here always?"
+
+"I know."
+
+"Unless," he said, as if some new thought had started suddenly into his
+mind--"unless I were--"
+
+He stopped. He had remembered his sensation in the sea that gray morning
+of sirocco. He had remembered how he had played at dying.
+
+"What?"
+
+She looked at him and understood.
+
+"Maurice--don't! I--I can't bear that!"
+
+"Not one of us can know," he answered.
+
+"I--I thought of that once," she said--"long ago, on the first night that
+we were here. I don't know why--but perhaps it was because I was so
+happy. I think it must have been that. I suppose, in this world, there
+must aways be dread in one's happiness, the thought it may stop soon, it
+may end. But why should it? Is God cruel? I think He wants us to be
+happy."
+
+"If he wants us--"
+
+"And that we prevent ourselves from being happy. But we won't do that,
+Maurice--you and I--will we?"
+
+He did not answer.
+
+"This world--nature--is so wonderfully beautiful, so happily beautiful.
+Surely we can learn to be happy, to keep happy in it. Look at that sky,
+that sea! Look at the plain over there by the foot of Etna, and the
+coast-line fading away, and Etna. The God who created it all must have
+meant men to be happy in such a world. It isn't my brain tells me that,
+Maurice, it's my heart, my whole heart that you have made whole. And I
+know it tells the truth."
+
+Her words were terrible to him. The sound of a step, a figure standing
+before her, a few Sicilian words--and all this world in which she gloried
+would be changed for her. But she must not know. He felt that he would be
+willing to die to keep her ignorant of the truth forever.
+
+"Now we must try to sleep," he said, to prevent her from speaking any
+more of the words that were torturing him. "We must have our siesta. I
+had very little sleep last night."
+
+"And I had none at all. But now--we're together."
+
+He arranged the cushion for her. They lay in soft shadow and could see
+the shining world. The distant gleams upon the sea spoke to her. She
+fancied them voices rising out of the dream of the waters, voices from
+the breast of nature that was the breast of God, saying that she was not
+in error, that God did mean men to be happy, that they could be happy if
+they would learn of Him.
+
+She watched those gleams until she fell asleep.
+
+
+
+XX
+
+When Hermione woke it was four o'clock. She sat up on the rug, looked
+down over the mountain flank to the sea, then turned and saw her husband.
+He was lying with his face half buried in his folded arms.
+
+"Maurice!" she said, softly.
+
+"Yes," he answered, lifting his face.
+
+"Then you weren't asleep!"
+
+"No."
+
+"Have you been asleep?"
+
+"No."
+
+She looked at her watch.
+
+"All this time! It's four. What a disgraceful siesta! But I was really
+tired after the long journey and the night."
+
+She stood up. He followed her example and threw the rug over his arm.
+
+"Emile will think we've deserted him and aren't going to give him any
+tea."
+
+"Yes."
+
+They began to walk up the track towards the terrace.
+
+"Maurice," Hermione said, presently, more thoroughly wide-awake now. "Did
+you get up while I was asleep? Did you begin to move away from me, and
+did I stop you, or was it a dream? I have a kind of vague
+recollection--or is it only imagination?--of stretching out my hand and
+saying, 'Don't leave me alone--don't leave me alone!'"
+
+"I moved a little," he answered, after a slight pause.
+
+"And you did stretch out your hand and murmur something."
+
+"It was that--'don't leave me alone.'"
+
+"Perhaps. I couldn't hear. It was such a murmur."
+
+"And you only moved a little? How stupid of me to think you were getting
+up to go away!"
+
+"When one is half asleep one has odd ideas often."
+
+He did not tell her that he had been getting up softly, hoping to steal
+away to the mountain-top and destroy the fragments of her letter, hidden
+there, while she slept.
+
+"You won't mind," he added, "if I go down to bathe this evening. I
+sha'n't sleep properly to-night unless I do."
+
+"Of course--go. But won't it be rather late after tea?"
+
+"Oh no. I've often been in at sunset."
+
+"How delicious the water must look then! Maurice!"
+
+"Yes?"
+
+"Shall I come with you? Shall I bathe, too? It would be lovely,
+refreshing, after this heat! It would wash away all the dust of the
+train!"
+
+Her face was glowing with the anticipation of pleasure. Every little
+thing done with him was an enchantment after the weeks of separation.
+
+"Oh, I don't think you'd better, Hermione," he answered, hastily.
+"I--you--there might be people. I--I must rig you up something first, a
+tent of some kind. Gaspare and I will do it. I can't have my wife--"
+
+"All right," she said.
+
+She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice.
+
+"How lucky you men are! You can do anything. And there's no fuss. Ah,
+there's poor Emile, patiently waiting!"
+
+Artois was already established once more in the chaise longue. He greeted
+them with a smile that was gentle, almost tender. Those evil feelings to
+which he had been a prey in London had died away. He loved now to see
+the happiness in Hermione's face. His illness had swept out his
+selfishness, and in it he had proved her affection. He did not think that
+he could ever be jealous of her again.
+
+"Sleeping all this time?" he said.
+
+"I was. I'm ashamed of myself. My hair is full of mountain-side, but you
+must forgive me, Emile. Ah, there's Lucrezia! Is tea ready, Lucrezia?"
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+"Then ask Gaspare to bring it."
+
+"Gaspare--he isn't here, signora. But I'll bring it."
+
+She went away.
+
+"Where's Gaspare, I wonder?" said Hermione. "Have you seen him, Emile?"
+
+"No."
+
+"Perhaps he's sleeping, too. He sleeps generally among the hens."
+
+She looked round the corner into the out-house.
+
+"No, he isn't there. Have you sent him anywhere, Maurice?"
+
+"I? No. Where should I--"
+
+"I only thought you looked as if you knew where he was."
+
+"No. But he may have gone out after birds and forgotten the time. Here's
+tea!"
+
+These few words had renewed in Maurice the fever of impatience to get
+away and meet his enemy. This waiting, this acting of a part, this
+suspense, were almost unbearable. All the time that Hermione slept he had
+been thinking, turning over again and again in his mind the coming scene,
+trying to imagine how it would be, how violent or how deadly, trying to
+decide exactly what line of conduct he should pursue. What would
+Salvatore demand? What would he say or do? And where would they meet? If
+Salvatore waited for his coming they would meet at the House of the
+Sirens. And Maddalena? She would be there. His heart sickened. He was
+ready to face a man--but not Maddalena. He thought of Gaspare's story of
+the fallen olive-branch upon which Salvatore had spat. It was strange to
+be here in this calm place with these two happy people, wife and friend,
+and to wonder what was waiting for him down there by the sea.
+
+How lonely our souls are!--something like that he thought. Circumstances
+were turning him away from his thoughtless youth. He had imagined it
+sinking down out of his sight into the purple sea, with the magic island
+in which it had danced the tarantella and heard the voice of the siren.
+But was it not leaving him, vanishing from him while still his feet trod
+the island and his eyes saw her legendary mountains?
+
+Gaspare, he knew, was on the watch. That was why he was absent from his
+duties. But the hour was at hand when he would be relieved. The evening
+was coming. Maurice was glad. He was ready to face even violence, but he
+felt that he could not for much longer endure suspense and play the quiet
+host and husband.
+
+Tea was over and Gaspare had not returned. The clock he had bought at the
+fair struck five.
+
+"I ought to be going," Artois said.
+
+There was reluctance in his voice. Hermione noticed it and knew what he
+was feeling.
+
+"You must come up again very soon," she said.
+
+"Yes, monsieur, come to-morrow, won't you?" Maurice seconded her.
+
+The thought of what was going to happen before to-morrow made it seem to
+him a very long way off.
+
+Hermione looked pleased.
+
+"I must not be a bore," Artois answered. "I must not remind you and
+myself of limpets. There are rocks in your garden which might suggest the
+comparison. I think to-morrow I ought to stay quietly in Marechiaro."
+
+"No, no," said Maurice. "Do come to-morrow."
+
+"Thank you very much. I can't pretend that I do not wish to come. And,
+now that donkey-boy--has he climbed up, I wonder?"
+
+"I'll go and see," said Maurice.
+
+He was feverishly impatient to get rid of Artois. He hurried to the arch.
+A long way off, near the path that led up from the ravine, he saw a
+figure with a gun. He was not sure, but he was almost sure that it was
+Gaspare. It must be he. The gun made him look, indeed, a sentinel. If
+Salvatore came the boy would stop him, stop him, if need be, at the cost
+of his own life. Maurice felt sure of that, and realized the danger of
+setting such faithfulness and violence to be sentinel. He stood for a
+moment looking at the figure. Yes, he knew it now for Gaspare. The boy
+had forgotten tea-time, had forgotten everything, in his desire to carry
+out his padrone's instructions. The signora was not to know. She was
+never to know. And Salvatore might come. Very well, then, he was there in
+the sun--ready.
+
+"We'll never part from Gaspare," Maurice thought, as he looked and
+understood.
+
+He saw no other figure. The donkey-boy had perhaps forgotten his mission
+or had started late. Maurice chafed bitterly at the delay. But he could
+not well leave his guest on this first day of his coming to Monte Amato,
+more especially after the events of the preceding day. To do so would
+seem discourteous. He returned to the terrace ill at ease, but strove to
+disguise his restlessness. It was nearly six o'clock when the boy at last
+appeared. Artois at once bade Hermione and Maurice good-bye and mounted
+his donkey.
+
+"You will come to-morrow, then?" Maurice said to him at parting.
+
+"I haven't the courage to refuse," Artois replied. "Good-bye."
+
+He had already shaken Maurice's hand, but now he extended his hand again.
+
+"It is good of you to make me so welcome," he said.
+
+He paused, holding Maurice's hand in his. Both Hermione and Maurice
+thought he was going to say something more, but he glanced at her,
+dropped his host's hand, lifted his soft hat, and signed to the boy to
+lead the donkey away.
+
+Hermione and Maurice followed to the arch, and from there watched him
+riding slowly down till he was out of sight. Maurice looked for Gaspare,
+but did not see him. He must have moved into the shadow of the ravine.
+
+"Dear old Emile!" Hermione said. "He's been happy to-day. You've made him
+very happy, Maurice. Bless you for it!"
+
+Maurice said nothing. Now the moment had arrived when he could go he felt
+a strange reluctance to say good-bye to Hermione, even for a short time.
+So much might--must--happen before he saw her again that evening.
+
+"And you?" she said, at last, as he was silent. "Are you really going
+down to bathe? Isn't it too late?"
+
+"Oh no. I must have a dip. It will do me all the good in the world." He
+tried to speak buoyantly, but the words seemed to himself to come heavily
+from his tongue.
+
+"Will you take Tito?"
+
+"I--no, I think I'll walk. I shall get down quicker, and I like going
+into the sea when I'm hot. I'll just fetch my bathing things."
+
+They walked back together to the house. Maurice wondered what had
+suddenly come to him. He felt horribly sad now--yet he wished to get the
+scene that awaited him over. He was longing to have it over. He went into
+the house, got his bathing-dress and towels, and came out again onto the
+terrace.
+
+"I shall be a little late back, I suppose," he said.
+
+"Yes. It's six o'clock now. Shall we dine at half-past eight--or better
+say nine? That will give you plenty of time to come up quietly."
+
+"Yes. Let's say nine."
+
+Still he did not move to go.
+
+"Have you been happy to-day, Hermione?" he asked.
+
+"Yes, very--since this morning."
+
+"Since?"
+
+"Yes. This morning I--"
+
+She stopped.
+
+"I was a little puzzled," she said, after a minute, with her usual
+frankness. "Tell me, Maurice--you weren't made unhappy by--by what I told
+you?"
+
+"About--about the child?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+He did not answer with words, but he put his arms about her and kissed
+her, as he had not kissed her since she went away to Africa. She shut her
+eyes. Presently she felt the pressure of his arms relax.
+
+"I'm perfectly happy now," she said. "Perfectly happy."
+
+He moved away a step or two. His face was flushed, and she thought that
+he looked younger, that the boyish expression she loved had come back to
+him.
+
+"Good-bye, Hermione," he said.
+
+Still he did not go. She thought that he had something more to say but
+did not know how to say it. She felt so certain of this that she said:
+
+"What is it, Maurice?"
+
+"We shall come back to Sicily, I suppose, sha'n't we, some time or
+other?"
+
+"Surely. Many times, I hope."
+
+"Suppose--one can never tell what will happen--suppose one of us were to
+die here?"
+
+"Yes," she said, soberly.
+
+"Don't you think it would be good to lie there where we lay this
+afternoon, under the oak-trees, in sight of Etna and the sea? I think it
+would. Good-bye, Hermione."
+
+He swung the bathing-dress and the towels up over his shoulder and went
+away through the arch. She followed and watched him springing down the
+mountain-side. Just before he reached the ravine he turned and waved his
+hand to her. His movements, that last gesture, were brimful of energy and
+of life. He acted better then than he had that day upon the terrace. But
+the sense of progress, the feeling that he was going to meet fate in the
+person of Salvatore, quickened the blood within him. At last the suspense
+would be over. At last he would be obliged to play not the actor but the
+man. He longed to be down by the sea. The youth in him rose up at the
+thought of action, and his last farewell to Hermione, looking down to him
+from the arch, was bold and almost careless.
+
+Scarcely had he got into the ravine before he met Gaspare. He stopped.
+The boy's face was aflame with expression as he stood, holding his gun,
+in front of his padrone.
+
+"Gaspare!" Maurice said to him.
+
+He held out his hand and grasped the boy's hot hand.
+
+"I sha'n't forget your faithful service," he said. "Thank you, Gaspare."
+
+He wanted to say more, to find other and far different words. But he
+could not.
+
+"Let me come with you, signorino."
+
+The boy's voice was intensely, almost savagely, earnest.
+
+"No. You must stay with the signora."
+
+"I want to come with you."
+
+His great eyes were fastened on his padrone's face.
+
+"I have always been with you."
+
+"But you were with the signora first. You were her servant. You must stay
+with her now. Remember one thing, Gaspare--the signora is never to know."
+
+The boy nodded. His eyes still held Maurice. They glittered as if with
+leaping fires. That deep and passionate spirit of Sicilian loyalty, which
+is almost savage in its intensity and heedless of danger, which is ready
+to go to hell with, or for, a friend or a master who is beloved and
+believed in, was awake in Gaspare, illuminated him at this moment. The
+peasant boy looked noble.
+
+"Mayn't I come with you, signorino?"
+
+"Gaspare," Maurice said, "I must leave some one with the padrona.
+Salvatore might come still. I may miss him going down. Whom can I trust
+to stop Salvatore, if he comes, but you? You see?"
+
+"Va bene, signorino."
+
+The boy seemed convinced, but he suffered and did not try to conceal it.
+
+"Now I must go," Maurice said.
+
+He shook Gaspare's hand.
+
+"Have you got the revolver, signorino?" said the boy.
+
+"No. I am not going to fight with Salvatore."
+
+"How do you know what Salvatore will do?"
+
+Maurice looked down upon the stones that lay on the narrow path.
+
+"My revolver can have nothing to do with Maddalena's father," he said.
+
+He sighed.
+
+"That's how it is, Gaspare. Addio!"
+
+"Addio, signorino."
+
+Maurice went on down the path into the shadow of the trees. Presently he
+turned. Gaspare stood quite still, looking after him.
+
+"Signorino!" he called. "May I not come? I want to come with you."
+
+Maurice waved his hand towards the mountain-side.
+
+"Go to the signora," he called back. "And look out for me to-night.
+Addio, Gaspare!"
+
+The boy's "Addio!" came to him sadly through the gathering shadows of the
+evening.
+
+Presently Hermione, who was sitting alone on the terrace with a book in
+her lap which she was not reading, saw Gaspare walking listlessly through
+the archway holding his gun. He came slowly towards her, lifted his hat,
+and was going on without a word, but she stopped him.
+
+"Why, Gaspare," she said, lightly, "you forgot us to-day. How was that?"
+
+"Signora?"
+
+Again she saw the curious, almost ugly, look of obstinacy, which she had
+already noticed, come into his face.
+
+"You didn't remember about tea-time!"
+
+"Signora," he answered, "I am sorry."
+
+He looked at her fixedly while he spoke.
+
+"I am sorry," he said again.
+
+"Never mind," Hermione said, unable to blame him on this first day of her
+return. "I dare say you have got out of regular habits while I've been
+away. What have you been doing all the time?"
+
+He shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Niente."
+
+Again she wondered what was the matter with the boy to-day. Where were
+his life and gayety? Where was his sense of fun? He used to be always
+joking, singing. But now he was serious, almost heavy in demeanor.
+
+"Gaspare," she said, jokingly, "I think you've all become very solemn
+without me. I am the old person of the party, but I begin to believe that
+it is I who keep you lively. I mustn't go away again."
+
+"No, signora," he answered, earnestly; "you must never go away from us
+again. You should never have gone away from us."
+
+The deep solemnity of his great eyes startled her. He put on his hat and
+went away round the angle of the cottage.
+
+"What can be the matter with him?" she thought.
+
+She remained sitting there on the terrace, wondering. Now she thought
+over things quietly, it struck her as strange the fact that she had left
+behind her in the priest's house three light-hearted people, and had
+come back to find Lucrezia drowned in sorrow, Gaspare solemn, even
+mysterious in his manner, and her husband--but here her thoughts paused,
+not labelling Maurice. At first he had puzzled her the most. But she
+thought she had found reasons for the change--a passing one, she felt
+sure--in him. He had secretly resented her absence, and, though utterly
+free from any ignoble suspicion of her, he had felt boyishly jealous of
+her friendship with Emile. That was very natural. For this was their
+honeymoon. She considered it their honeymoon prolonged, delightfully
+prolonged, beyond any fashionable limit. Lucrezia's depression was easily
+comprehensible. The change in her husband she accounted for; but now here
+was Gaspare looking dismal!
+
+"I must cheer them all up," she thought to herself. "This beautiful time
+mustn't end dismally."
+
+And then she thought of the inevitable departure. Was Maurice looking
+forward to it, desiring it? He had spoken that day as if he wished to be
+off. In London she had been able to imagine him in the South, in the
+highway of the sun. But now that she was here in Sicily she could not
+imagine him in London.
+
+"He is not in his right place there," she thought.
+
+Yet they must go, and soon. She knew that they were going, and yet she
+could not feel that they were going. What she had said under the
+oak-trees was true. In the spring her tender imagination had played
+softly with the idea of Sicily's joy in the possession of her son, of
+Maurice. Would Sicily part from him without an effort to retain him?
+Would Sicily let him go? She smiled to herself at her fancies. But if
+Sicily kept him, how would she keep him? The smile left her lips and her
+eyes as she thought of Maurice's suggestion. That would be too horrible.
+God would not allow that. And yet what tragedies He allowed to come into
+the lives of others. She faced certain facts, as she sat there, facts
+permitted, or deliberately brought about by the Divine Will. The scourge
+of war--that sowed sorrows over a land as the sower in the field scatters
+seeds. She, like others, had sat at home and read of battles in which
+thousands of men had been killed, and she had grieved--or had she really
+grieved, grieved with her heart? She began to wonder, thinking of
+Maurice's veiled allusion to the possibility of his death. He was the
+spirit of youth to her. And all the boys slain in battle! Had not each
+one of them represented the spirit of youth to some one, to some
+woman--mother, sister, wife, lover?
+
+What were those women's feelings towards God?
+
+She wondered. She wondered exceedingly. And presently a terrible thought
+came into her mind. It was this. How can one forgive God if He snatches
+away the spirit of youth that one loves?
+
+Under the shadow of the oak-trees she had lain that day and looked out
+upon the shining world--upon the waters, upon the plains, upon the
+mountains, upon the calling coast-line and the deep passion of the blue.
+And she had felt the infinite love of God. When she had thought of God,
+she had thought of Him as the great Provider of happiness, as One who
+desired, with a heart too large and generous for the mere accurate
+conception of man, the joy of man.
+
+But Maurice was beside her then.
+
+Those whose lives had been ruined by great tragedies, when they looked
+out upon the shining world what must they think, feel?
+
+She strove to imagine. Their conception of God must surely be very
+different from hers.
+
+Once she had been almost unable to believe that God could choose her to
+be the recipient of a supreme happiness. But we accustom ourselves with a
+wonderful readiness to a happy fate. She had come back--she had been
+allowed to return to the Garden of Paradise. And this fact had given to
+her a confidence in life which was almost audacious. So now, even while
+she imagined the sorrows of others, half strove to imagine what her own
+sorrows might be, her inner feeling was still one of confidence. She
+looked out on the shining world, and in her heart was the shining world.
+She looked out on the glory of the blue, and in her heart was the glory
+of the blue. The world shone for her because she had Maurice. She knew
+that. But there was light in it. There would always be light whatever
+happened to any human creature. There would always be the sun, the great
+symbol of joy. It rose even upon the battle-field where the heaps of the
+dead were lying.
+
+She could not realize sorrow to-day. She must see the sunlight even in
+the deliberate visions conjured up by her imagination.
+
+Gaspare did not reappear. For a long time she was alone. She watched the
+changing of the light, the softening of the great landscape as the
+evening approached. Sometimes she thought of Maurice's last words about
+being laid to rest some day in the shadows of the oak-trees, in sight of
+Etna and the sea. When the years had gone, perhaps they would lie
+together in Sicily, wrapped in the final siesta of the body. Perhaps the
+unborn child, of whose beginning she was mystically conscious, would lay
+them to rest there.
+
+"Buon riposo." She loved the Sicilian good-night. Better than any text
+she would love to have those simple words written above her
+sleeping-place and his. "Buon riposo!"--she murmured the words to herself
+as she looked at the quiet of the hills, at the quiet of the sea. The
+glory of the world was inspiring, but the peace of the world was almost
+more uplifting, she thought. Far off, in the plain, she discerned tiny
+trails of smoke from Sicilian houses among the orange-trees beside the
+sea. The gold was fading. The color of the waters was growing paler,
+gentler, the color of the sky less passionate. The last point of the
+coast-line was only a shadow now, scarcely that. Somewhere was the
+sunset, its wonder unseen by her, but realized because of this growing
+tenderness, that was like a benediction falling upon her from a distant
+love, intent to shield her and her little home from sorrow and from
+danger. Nature was whispering her "Buon riposo!" Her hushed voice spoke
+withdrawn among the mountains, withdrawn upon the spaces of the sea. The
+heat of the golden day was blessed, but after it how blessed was the cool
+of the dim night!
+
+Again she thought that the God who had placed man in the magnificent
+scheme of the world must have intended and wished him to be always happy
+there. Nature seemed to be telling her this, and her heart was convinced
+by Nature, though the story of the Old Testament had sometimes left her
+smiling or left her wondering. Men had written a Bible. God had written a
+Bible, too. And here she read its pages and was made strong by it.
+
+"Signora!"
+
+Hermione started and turned her head.
+
+"Lucrezia! What is it?"
+
+"What time is it, signora?"
+
+Hermione looked at her watch.
+
+"Nearly eight o'clock. An hour still before supper."
+
+"I've got everything ready."
+
+"To-night we've only cold things, haven't we? You made us a very nice
+collazione. The French signore praised your cooking, and he's very
+particular, as French people generally are. So you ought to be proud of
+yourself."
+
+Lucrezia smiled, but only for an instant. Then she stood with an anxious
+face, twisting her apron.
+
+"Signora!"
+
+"Yes? What is it?"
+
+"Would you mind--may I--"
+
+She stopped.
+
+"Why, Lucrezia, are you afraid of me? I've certainly been away too long!"
+
+"No, no, signora, but--" Tears hung in her eyes. "Will you let me go away
+if I promise to be back by nine?"
+
+"But you can't go to Marechiaro in--"
+
+"No, signora. I only want to go to the mountain over there under Castel
+Vecchio. I want to go to the Madonna."
+
+Hermione took one of the girl's hands.
+
+"To the Madonna della Rocca?"
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+"I understand."
+
+"I have a candle to burn to the Madonna. If I go now I can be back before
+nine."
+
+She stood gazing pathetically, like a big child, at her padrona.
+
+"Lucrezia," Hermione said, moved to a great pity by her own great
+happiness, "would you mind if I came, too? I think I should like to say a
+prayer for you to-night. I am not a Catholic, but my prayer cannot hurt
+you."
+
+Lucrezia suddenly forgot distinctions, threw her arms round Hermione, and
+began to sob.
+
+"Hush, you must be brave!"
+
+She smoothed the girl's dark hair gently.
+
+"Have you got your candle?"
+
+"Si."
+
+She showed it.
+
+"Let us go quickly, then. Where's Gaspare?"
+
+"Close to the house, signora, on the mountain. One cannot speak with him
+to-day."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Non lo so. But he is terrible to-day!"
+
+So Lucrezia had noticed Gaspare's strangeness, too, even in the midst of
+her sorrow!
+
+"Gaspare!" Hermione called.
+
+There was no answer.
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+She called louder.
+
+"Si, signora!"
+
+The voice came from somewhere behind the house.
+
+"I am going for a walk with Lucrezia. We shall be back at nine. Tell the
+padrone if he comes."
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+The two women set out without seeing Gaspare. They walked in silence down
+the mountain-path. Lucrezia held her candle carefully, like one in a
+procession. She was not sobbing now. There were no tears in her eyes. The
+companionship and the sympathy of her padrona had given her some courage,
+some hope, had taken away from her the desolate feeling, the sensation of
+abandonment which had been torturing her. And then she had an almost
+blind faith in the Madonna della Rocca. And the padrona was going to
+pray, too. She was not a Catholic, but she was a lady and she was good.
+The Madonna della Rocca must surely be influenced by her petition.
+
+So Lucrezia plucked up a little courage. The activity of the walk helped
+her. She knew the solace of movement. And perhaps, without being
+conscious of it, she was influenced by the soft beauty of the evening, by
+the peace of the hills. But as they crossed the ravine they heard the
+tinkle of bells, and a procession of goats tripped by them, following a
+boy who was twittering upon a flute. He was playing the tune of the
+tarantella, that tune which Hermione associated with careless joy in the
+sun. He passed down into the shadows of the trees, and gradually the airy
+rapture of his fluting and the tinkle of the goat-bells died away towards
+Marechiaro. Then Hermione saw tears rolling down over Lucrezia's brown
+cheeks.
+
+"He can't play it like Sebastiano, signora!" she said.
+
+The little tune had brought back all her sorrow.
+
+"Perhaps we shall soon hear Sebastiano play it again," said Hermione.
+
+They began to climb upward on the far side of the ravine towards the
+fierce silhouette of the Saracenic castle on the height. Beneath the
+great crag on which it was perched was the shrine of the Madonna della
+Rocca. Night was coming now, and the little lamp before the shrine shone
+gently, throwing a ray of light upon the stones of the path. When they
+reached it, Lucrezia crossed herself, and they stood together for a
+moment looking at the faded painting of the Madonna, almost effaced
+against its rocky background. Within the glass that sheltered it stood
+vases of artificial flowers, and on the ledge outside the glass were two
+or three bunches of real flowers, placed there by peasants returning to
+their homes in Castel Vecchio from their labors in the vineyards and the
+orchards. There were also two branches with clustering, red-gold oranges
+lying among the flowers. It was a strange, wild place. The precipice of
+rock, which the castello dominated, leaned slightly forward above the
+head of the Madonna, as if it meditated overwhelming her. But she smiled
+gently, as if she had no fear of it, bending down her pale eyes to the
+child who lay upon her girlish knees. Among the bowlders, the wild cactus
+showed its spiked leaves, and in the daytime the long black snakes sunned
+themselves upon the stones.
+
+To Hermione this lonely and faded Madonna, smiling calmly beneath the
+savagely frowning rock upon which dead men had built long years ago a
+barbarous fastness, was touching in her solitude. There was something
+appealing in her frailness, in her thin, anaemic calm. How long had she
+been here? How long would she remain? She was fading away, as things fade
+in the night. Yet she had probably endured for years, would still be here
+for years to come, would be here to receive the wild flowers of peasant
+children, the prayers of peasant lovers, the adoration of the poor, who,
+having very little here, put their faith in far-off worlds, where they
+will have harvests surely without reaping in the heat of the sun, where
+they will have good wine without laboring in the vineyards, where they
+will be able to rest without the thought coming to them, "If to-day I
+rest, to-morrow I shall starve."
+
+As Hermione looked at the painting lit by the little lamp, at the gifts
+of the flowers and the fruit, she began to feel as if indeed a woman
+dwelt there, in that niche of the crag, as if a heart were there, a soul
+to pity, an ear to listen.
+
+Lucrezia knelt down quietly, lit her candle, turned it upside down till
+the hot wax dripped onto the rock and made a foundation for it, then
+stuck it upright, crossed herself silently, and began to pray. Her lips
+moved quickly. The candle-flame flickered for a moment, then burned
+steadily, sending its thin fire up towards the evening star. After a
+moment Hermione knelt down beside her.
+
+She had never before prayed at a shrine. It was curious to be kneeling
+under this savage wall of rock above which the evening star showed itself
+in the clear heaven of night. She looked at the star and at the Madonna,
+then at the little bunches of flowers, and at Lucrezia's candle. These
+gifts of the poor moved her heart. Poverty giving is beautiful. She
+thought that, and was almost ashamed of the comfort of her life. She
+wished she had brought a candle, too. Then she bent her head and began to
+pray that Sebastiano might remember Lucrezia and return to her. To make
+her prayer more earnest, she tried to realize Lucrezia's sorrow by
+putting herself in Lucrezia's place, and Maurice in Sebastiano's. It was
+such a natural effort as people make every day, every hour. If Maurice
+had forgotten her in absence, had given his love to another, had not
+cared to return to her! If she were alone now in Sicily while he was
+somewhere else, happy with some one else!
+
+Suddenly the wildness of this place where she knelt became terrible to
+her. She felt the horror of solitude, of approaching darkness. The
+outlines of the rocks and of the ruined castle looked threatening,
+alarming. The pale light of the lamp before the shrine and of Lucrezia's
+votive candle drew to them not only the fluttering night-moths, but the
+spirits of desolation and of hollow grief that dwell among the waste
+places and among the hills. Night seemed no more beneficent, but dreary
+as a spectre that came to rob the world of all that made it beautiful.
+The loneliness of deserted women encompassed her. Was there any other
+loneliness comparable to it?
+
+She felt sure that there was not, and she found herself praying not only
+for Lucrezia, but for all women who were sad because they loved, for all
+women who were deserted by those whom they loved, or who had lost those
+whom they loved.
+
+At first she believed that she was addressing her prayer to the Madonna
+della Rocca, the Blessed Virgin of the Rocks, whose pale image was before
+her. But presently she knew that her words, the words of her lips and the
+more passionate words of her heart, were going out to a Being before whom
+the sun burned as a lamp and the moon as a votive taper. She was thinking
+of women, she was praying for women, but she was no longer praying to a
+woman. It seemed to her as if she was so ardent a suitor that she pushed
+past the Holy Mother of God into the presence of God Himself. He had
+created women. He had created the love of women. To Him she would, she
+must, appeal.
+
+Often she had prayed before, but never as now, never with such passion,
+with such a sensation of personally pleading. The effort of her heart was
+like the effort of womanhood. It seemed to her--and she had no feeling
+that this was blasphemous--as if God knew, understood, everything of the
+world He had created except perhaps this--the inmost agony some women
+suffer, as if she, perhaps, could make Him understand this by her prayer.
+And she strove to recount this agony, to make it clear to God.
+
+Was it a presumptuous effort? She did not feel that it was. And now she
+felt selfless. She was no more thinking of herself, was no longer obliged
+to concentrate her thoughts and her imagination upon herself and the one
+she loved best. She had passed beyond that, as she had passed beyond the
+Madonna della Rocca. She was the voice and the heart not of a woman, but
+of woman praying in the night to the God who had made woman and the
+night.
+
+From behind a rock Gaspare watched the two praying women. He had not
+forgotten his padrone's words, and when Hermione and Lucrezia set off
+from the cottage he had followed them, faithful to his trust. Intent upon
+their errand, they had not seen him. His step was light among the stones,
+and he had kept at a distance. Now he stood still, gazing at them as they
+prayed.
+
+Gaspare did not believe in priests. Very few Sicilians do. An uncle of
+his was a priest's son, and he had other reasons, quite sufficient to his
+mind, for being incredulous of the sanctity of those who celebrated the
+mass to which he seldom went. But he believed in God, and he believed
+superstitiously in the efficacy of the Madonna and in the powers of the
+saints. Once his little brother had fallen dangerously ill on the festa
+of San Giorgio, the santo patrono of Castel Vecchio. He had gone to the
+festa, and had given all his money, five lire, to the saint to heal his
+brother. Next day the child was well. In misfortune he would probably
+utter a prayer, or burn a candle, himself. That Lucrezia might think that
+she had reason to pray he understood, though he doubted whether the
+Madonna and all the saints could do much for the reclamation of his
+friend Sebastiano. But why should the padrona kneel there out-of-doors
+sending up such earnest petitions? She was not a Catholic. He had never
+seen her pray before. He looked on with wonder, presently with
+discomfort, almost with anger. To-night he was what he would himself have
+called "nervoso," and anything that irritated his already strung-up
+nerves roused his temper. He was in anxiety about his padrone, and he
+wanted to be back at the priest's house, he wanted to see his padrone
+again at the earliest possible moment. The sight of his padrona
+committing an unusual action alarmed him. Was she, then, afraid as he was
+afraid? Did she know, suspect anything? His experience of women was that
+whenever they were in trouble they went for comfort and advice to the
+Madonna and the saints.
+
+He grew more and more uneasy. Presently he drew softly a little nearer.
+It was getting late. Night had fallen. He must know the result of the
+padrone's interview with Salvatore, and he could not leave the padrona.
+Well, then--! He crept nearer and nearer till at last he was close to the
+shrine and could see the Madonna smiling. Then he crossed himself and
+said, softly:
+
+"Signora!"
+
+Hermione did not hear him. She was wrapped in the passion of her prayer.
+
+"Signora!"
+
+He bent forward and touched her on the shoulder. She started, turned her
+head, and rose to her feet.
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+She looked startled. This abrupt recall to the world confused her for a
+moment.
+
+"Gaspare! What is it? The padrone?"
+
+He took off his cap.
+
+"Signora, do you know how late it is?"
+
+"Has the padrone come back?"
+
+Lucrezia was on her feet, too. The tears were in her eyes.
+
+"Scusi, signora!" said Gaspare.
+
+Hermione began to look more natural.
+
+"Has the padrone come back and sent you for us?"
+
+"He did not send me, signora. It was getting dark. I thought it best to
+come. But I expect he is back. I expect he is waiting for us now."
+
+"You came to guard me?"
+
+She smiled. She liked his watchfulness.
+
+"What's the time?"
+
+She looked at her watch.
+
+"Why, it is nine already! We must hurry. Come, Lucrezia!"
+
+They went quickly down the path.
+
+They did not talk as they went. Gaspare led the way. It was obvious that
+he was in great haste. Sometimes he forgot that the padrona was not so
+light-footed as he was, and sprang on so swiftly that she called to him
+to wait. When at last they came in sight of the arch Hermione and
+Lucrezia were panting.
+
+"The padrone will--forgive us--when--he--sees how we have--hurried," said
+Hermione, laughing at her own fatigue. "Go on, Gaspare!"
+
+She stood for a moment leaning against the arch.
+
+"And you go quickly, Lucrezia, and get the supper. The padrone--will
+be--hungry after his bath."
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+Lucrezia went off to the back of the house. Then Hermione drew a long
+breath, recovered herself, and walked to the terrace.
+
+Gaspare met her with flaming eyes.
+
+"The padrone is not here, signora. The padrone has not come back!"
+
+He stood and stared at her.
+
+It was not yet very dark. They stood in a sort of soft obscurity in which
+all objects could be seen, not with sharp clearness, but distinctly.
+
+"Are you sure, Gaspare?"
+
+"Si, signora! The padrone has not come back. He is not here."
+
+The boy's voice sounded angry, Hermione thought. It startled her. And the
+way he looked at her startled her too.
+
+"You have looked in the house? Maurice!" she called. "Maurice!"
+
+"I say the padrone is not here, signora!"
+
+Never before had Gaspare spoken to Hermione like this, in a tone almost
+that she ought to have resented. She did not resent it, but it filled her
+with a creeping uneasiness.
+
+"What time is it? Nearly half-past nine. He ought to be here by now."
+
+The boy nodded, keeping his flaming eyes on her.
+
+"I said nine to give him lots of time to get cool, and change his
+clothes, and--it's very odd."
+
+"I will go down to the sea, signora. A rivederci."
+
+He swung round to go, but Hermione caught his arm.
+
+"No; don't go. Wait a moment, Gaspare. Don't leave me like this!"
+
+She detained him.
+
+"Why, what's the matter? What--what are you afraid of?"
+
+Instantly there came into his face the ugly, obstinate look she had
+already noticed, and wondered at, that day.
+
+"What are you afraid of, Gaspare?" she repeated.
+
+Her voice vibrated with a strength of feeling that as yet she herself
+scarcely understood.
+
+"Niente!" the boy replied, doggedly.
+
+"Well, but then"--she laughed--"why shouldn't the padrone be a few
+minutes late? It would be absurd to go down. You might miss him on the
+way."
+
+Gaspare said nothing. He stood there with his arms hanging and the ugly
+look still on his face.
+
+"Mightn't you? Mightn't you, Gaspare, if he came up by Marechiaro?"
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+"Well, then--"
+
+They stood there in silence for a minute. Hermione broke it.
+
+"He--you know how splendidly the padrone swims," she said. "Don't you,
+Gaspare?"
+
+The boy said nothing.
+
+"Gaspare, why don't you answer when I speak to you?"
+
+"Because I've got nothing to say, signora."
+
+His tone was almost rude. At that moment he nearly hated Hermione for
+holding him by the arm. If she had been a man he would have struck her
+off and gone.
+
+"Gaspare!" she said, but not angrily.
+
+Her instinct told her that he was obliged to be utterly natural just then
+under the spell of some violent feeling. She knew he loved his padrone.
+The feeling must be one of anxiety. But it was absurd to be so anxious.
+It was ridiculous, hysterical. She said to herself that it was Gaspare's
+excitement that was affecting her. She was catching his mood.
+
+"My dear Gaspare," she said, "we must just wait. The padrone will be here
+in a minute. Perhaps he has come up by Marechiaro. Very likely he has
+looked in at the hotel to see how the sick signore is after his day up
+here. That is it, I feel sure."
+
+She looked at him for agreement and met his stern and flaming eyes,
+utterly unmoved by what she had said, utterly unconvinced. At this moment
+she could not deny that this untrained, untutored nature had power over
+hers. She let go his arm and sat down by the wall.
+
+"Let us wait out here for a minute," she said.
+
+"Va bene, signora."
+
+He stood there quite still, but she felt as if in this unnatural
+stillness there was violent movement, and she looked away from him. It
+was fully night now. She gazed down at the ravine. By that way Maurice
+would come, unless he really had gone to Marechiaro to see Artois. She
+had suggested to Gaspare that this might be the reason of Maurice's
+delay, but she knew that she did not think it was. Yet what other reason
+could there be? He swam splendidly. She said that to herself. She kept on
+saying it. Why?
+
+Slowly the minutes crept by. The silence around them was intense, yet she
+felt no calm, no peace in it. Like the stillness of Gaspare it seemed to
+be violent. It began to frighten her. She began to wish for movement, for
+sound. Presently a light shone in the cottage.
+
+"Signora! Signora!"
+
+Lucrezia's voice was calling.
+
+"What is it?" she said.
+
+"Supper is quite ready, signora."
+
+"The signore has not come back yet. He is a little late."
+
+Lucrezia came to the top of the steps.
+
+"Where can the signore be, signora?" she said. "It only takes--"
+
+Her voice died suddenly away. Hermione looked quickly at Gaspare, and saw
+that he was gazing ferociously at Lucrezia as if to bid her be silent.
+
+"Gaspare!" Hermione said, suddenly getting up.
+
+"Signora?"
+
+"I--it's odd the signore's not coming."
+
+The boy answered nothing.
+
+"Perhaps--perhaps there really has been an--an accident."
+
+She tried to speak lightly.
+
+"I don't think he would keep me waiting like this if--"
+
+"I will go down to the sea," the boy said. "Signora, let me go down to
+the sea!"
+
+There was a fury of pleading in his voice. Hermione hesitated, but only
+for a moment. Then she answered:
+
+"Yes, you shall go. Stop, Gaspare!"
+
+He had moved towards the arch.
+
+"I'm coming with you."
+
+"You, signora?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"You cannot come! You are not to come!"
+
+He was actually commanding her--his padrona.
+
+"You are not to come, signora!" he repeated, violently.
+
+"But I am coming," she said.
+
+They stood facing each other. It was like a battle, Gaspare's manner, his
+words, the tone in which they were spoken--all made her understand that
+there was some sinister terror in his soul. She did not ask what it was.
+She did not dare to ask. But she said again:
+
+"I am coming with you, Gaspare."
+
+He stared at her and knew that from that decision there was no appeal. If
+he went she would accompany him.
+
+"Let us wait here, signora," he said. "The padrone will be coming
+presently. We had better wait here."
+
+But now she was as determined on activity as before she had been--or
+seemed--anxious for patience.
+
+"I am going," she answered. "If you like to let me go alone you can."
+
+She spoke very quietly, but there was a thrill in her voice. The boy saw
+it was useless just then to pit his will against hers. He dropped his
+head, and the ugly look came back to his face, but he made no reply.
+
+"We shall be back very soon, Lucrezia. We are going a little way down to
+meet the padrone. Come, Gaspare!"
+
+She spoke to him gently, kindly, almost pleadingly. He made an odd sound.
+It was not a word, nor was it a sob. She had never heard anything like it
+before. It seemed to her to be like a smothered outcry of a heart torn by
+some acute emotion.
+
+"Gaspare!" she said. "We shall meet him. We shall meet him in the
+ravine!"
+
+Then they set out. As she was going, Hermione cast a look down towards
+the sea. Always at this hour, when night had come, a light shone there,
+the light in the siren's house. To-night that little spark was not
+kindled. She saw only the darkness. She stopped.
+
+"Why," she said, "there's no light!"
+
+"Signora?"
+
+She pointed over the wall.
+
+"There's no light!" she repeated.
+
+This little fact--she did not know why--frightened her.
+
+"Signora, I am going!"
+
+"Gaspare!" she said. "Give me your hand to help me down the path. It's so
+dark. Isn't it?"
+
+She put out her hand. The boy's hand was cold.
+
+They set out towards the sea.
+
+
+
+XXI
+
+They did not talk as they went down the steep mountain-side, but when
+they reached the entrance of the ravine Gaspare stopped abruptly and took
+his cold hand away from his padrona's hand.
+
+"Signora," he said, almost in a whisper. "Let me go alone!"
+
+They were under the shade of the trees here and it was much darker than
+upon the mountain-side. Hermione could not see the boy's face plainly.
+She came close up to him.
+
+"Why do you want to go alone?" she asked.
+
+Without knowing it, she, too, spoke in an under-voice.
+
+"What is it you are afraid of?" she added.
+
+"I am not afraid."
+
+"Yes," she said, "you are. Your hand is quite cold."
+
+"Let me go alone, signora."
+
+"No, Gaspare. There is nothing to be afraid of, I believe. But if--if
+there should have been an accident, I ought to be there. The padrone is
+my husband, remember."
+
+She went on and he followed her.
+
+Hermione had spoken firmly, even almost cheerfully, to comfort the boy,
+whose uneasiness was surely greater than the occasion called for. So many
+little things may happen to delay a man. And Maurice might really have
+made the detour to Marechiaro on his way home. If he had, then they would
+miss him by taking this path through the ravine. Hermione knew that, but
+she did not hesitate to take it. She could not remain inactive to-night.
+Patience was out of her reach. It was only by making a strong effort that
+she had succeeded in waiting that short time on the terrace. Now she
+could wait no longer. She was driven. Although she had not yet sincerely
+acknowledged it to herself, fear was gradually taking possession of her,
+a fear such as she had never yet known or even imagined.
+
+She had never yet known or imagined such a fear. That she felt. But she
+had another feeling, contradictory, surely. It began to seem to her as if
+this fear, which was now coming upon her, had been near her for a long
+time, ever since the night when she knew that she was going to Africa.
+Had she not even expressed it to Maurice?
+
+Those beautiful days and nights of perfect happiness--can they ever come
+again? Had she not thought that many times? Was it not the voice of this
+fear which had whispered those words, and others like them, to her mind?
+And had there not been omens? Had there not been omens?
+
+She heard Gaspare's feet behind her in the ravine, and it seemed to her
+that she could tell by the sound of them upon the many little loose
+stones that he was wild with impatience, that he was secretly cursing her
+for obliging him to go so slowly. Had he been alone he would have sped
+down with a rapidity almost like that of travelling light. She was
+strong, active. She was going fast. Instinctively she went fast. But she
+was a woman, not a boy.
+
+"I can't help it, Gaspare!"
+
+She was saying that mentally, saying it again and again, as she hurried
+onward.
+
+Had there not been omens?
+
+That last letter of hers, whose loss had prevented Maurice from meeting
+her on her return, from welcoming her! When she had reached the station
+of Cattaro, and had not seen him upon the platform, she had felt "I have
+lost him." Afterwards, directly almost, she had laughed at the feeling as
+absurd. But she had had it. And then, when at last he had come, she had
+been moved to suggest that he might like to sleep outside upon the
+terrace. And he had agreed to the suggestion. They had not resumed their
+old, sweet relation of husband and wife.
+
+Had there not been omens?
+
+And only an hour ago, scarcely that, not that, she had knelt before the
+Madonna della Rocca and she had prayed, she had prayed passionately for
+deserted women, for women who loved and who had lost those whom they
+loved.
+
+The fear was upon her fully now, and she fully knew that it was. Why had
+she prayed for lonely, deserted women? What had moved her to such a
+prayer?
+
+"Was I praying for myself?"
+
+At that thought a physical weakness came to her, and she felt as if she
+could not go on. By the side of the path, growing among pointed rocks,
+there was a gnarled olive-tree, whose branches projected towards her.
+Before she knew what she was doing she had caught hold of one and stood
+still. So suddenly she had stopped that Gaspare, unprepared, came up
+against her in the dark.
+
+"Signora! What is the matter?"
+
+His voice was surely angry. For a moment she thought of telling him to go
+on alone, quickly.
+
+"What is it, signora?"
+
+"Nothing--only--I've walked so fast. Wait one minute!"
+
+She felt the agony of his impatience, and it seemed to her that she was
+treating him very cruelly to-night.
+
+"You know, Gaspare," she said, "it's not easy for women--this rough
+walking, I mean. We've got our skirts."
+
+She laughed. How unnatural, how horrible her laugh sounded in the
+darkness! He did not say any more. She knew he was wondering why she had
+laughed like that. After a moment she let go the branch. But her legs
+were trembling, and she stumbled when she began to walk on.
+
+"Signora, you are tired already. You had better let me go alone."
+
+For the first time she told him a lie.
+
+"I should be afraid to wait here all by myself in the night," she said.
+"I couldn't do that."
+
+"Who would come?"
+
+"I should be frightened."
+
+She thought she saw him look at her incredulously in the dark, but was
+not sure.
+
+"Be kind to me to-night, Gaspare!" she said.
+
+She felt a sudden passionate need of gentleness, of support, a woman's
+need of sympathy.
+
+"Won't you?" she added.
+
+"Signora!" he said.
+
+His voice sounded shocked, she thought; but in a moment, when they came
+to an awkward bit of the path, he put his hand under her arm, and very
+carefully, almost tenderly, helped her over it. Tears rushed into her
+eyes. For such a small thing she was crying! She turned her head so that
+Gaspare should not see, and tried to control her emotion. That terrible
+question kept on returning to her heart.
+
+"Was I praying for myself when I prayed at the shrine of the Madonna
+della Rocca?"
+
+Hermione was gifted, or cursed, with imagination, and as she never made
+use of her imaginative faculty in any of the arts, it was, perhaps, too
+much at the service of her own life. In happiness it was a beautiful
+handmaid, helping her to greater joy, but in unhappy, or in only anxious
+moments, it was, as it usually is, a cursed thing. It stood at her elbow,
+then, like a demon full of suggestions that were terrible. With an
+inventiveness that was diabolic it brought vividly before her scenes to
+shake the stoutest courage. It painted the future black. It showed her
+the world as a void. And in that void she was as something falling,
+falling, yet reaching nothing.
+
+Now it was with her in the ravine, and as she asked questions, terrible
+questions, it gave her terrible answers. And it reminded her of other
+omens--it told her these facts were really omens--which till now she had
+not thought of.
+
+Why had both she and Maurice been led to think and to speak of death
+to-day?
+
+Upon the mountain-top the thought of death had come to her when she
+looked at the glory of the dawn. She had said to Maurice, "'The mountains
+will endure'--but we!" Of course it was a truism, such a thing as she
+might say at any time when she was confronted by the profound stability
+of nature. Thousands of people had said much the same thing on thousands
+of occasions. Yet now the demon at her elbow whispered to her that the
+remark had had a peculiar significance. She had even said, "What is it
+makes one think most of death when--when life, new life, is very near?"
+
+Existence is made up of loss and gain. New beings rush into life day by
+day and hour by hour. Birth is about us, but death is about us too. And
+when we are given something, how often is something also taken from us!
+Was that to be her fate?
+
+And Maurice--he had been led to speak of death, afterwards, just as he
+was going away to the sea. She recalled his words, or the demon whispered
+them over to her:
+
+"'One can never tell what will happen--suppose one of us were to die
+here? Don't you think it would be good to lie there where we lay this
+afternoon, under the oak-trees, in sight of Etna and the sea? I think it
+would."
+
+They were his very last words, his who was so full of life, who scarcely
+ever seemed to realize the possibility of death. All through the day
+death had surely been in the air about them. She remembered her dream, or
+quasi-dream. In it she had spoken. She had muttered an appeal, "Don't
+leave me alone!" and at another time she had tried to realize Maurice in
+England and had failed. She had felt as if Sicily would never let him go.
+And when she had spoken her thought he had hinted that Sicily could only
+keep him by holding him in arms of earth, holding him in those arms that
+keep the body of man forever.
+
+Perhaps it was ordained that her Sicilian should never leave the island
+that he loved. In all their Sicilian days how seldom had she thought of
+their future life together in England! Always she had seen herself with
+Maurice in the south. He had seemed to belong to the south, and she had
+brought him to the south. And now--would the south let him go? The
+thought of the sirens of legend flitted through her mind. They called men
+to destruction. She imagined them sitting among the rocks near the Casa
+della Sirene, calling--calling to her Sicilian.
+
+Long ago, when she first knew him well and loved his beauty, she had
+sometimes thought of him as a being of legend. She had let her fancy play
+about him tenderly, happily. He had been Mercury, Endymion, a dancing
+faun, Cupid vanishing from Psyche as the dawn came. And now she let a
+cruel fancy have its will for a moment. She imagined the sirens calling
+among the rocks, and Maurice listening to their summons, and going to his
+destruction. The darkness of the ravine helped the demon who hurried with
+her down the narrow path, whispering in her ears. But though she yielded
+for a time to the nightmare spell, common-sense had not utterly deserted
+her, and presently it made its voice heard. She began to say to herself
+that in giving way to such fantastic fears she was being unworthy of
+herself, almost contemptible. In former times she had never been a
+foolish woman or weak. She had, on the contrary, been strong and
+sensible, although unconventional and enthusiastic. Many people had
+leaned upon her, even strong people. Artois was one. And she had never
+yet failed any one.
+
+"I must not fail myself," she suddenly thought. "I must not be a fool
+because I love."
+
+She loved very much, and she had been separated from her lover very soon.
+Her eagerness to return to him had been so intense that it had made her
+afraid. Yet she had returned, been with him again. Her fear in Africa
+that they would perhaps never be together again in their Sicilian home
+had been groundless. She remembered how it had often tormented her,
+especially at night in the dark. She had passed agonizing hours, for no
+reason. Her imagination had persecuted her. Now it was trying to
+persecute her more cruelly. Suddenly she resolved not to let it have its
+way. Why was she so frightened at a delay that might be explained in a
+moment and in the simplest manner? Why was she frightened at all?
+
+Gaspare's foot struck a stone and sent it flying down the path past her.
+
+Ah! it had been Gaspare. His face, his manner, had startled her, had
+first inclined her to fear.
+
+"Gaspare!" she said.
+
+"Si, signora?"
+
+"Come up beside me. There's room now."
+
+The boy joined her.
+
+"Gaspare," she continued, "do you know that when we meet the padrone, you
+and I, we shall look like two fools?"
+
+"Meet the padrone?" he repeated, sullenly.
+
+"Yes. He'll laugh at us for rushing down like this. He'll think we've
+gone quite mad."
+
+Silence was the only response she had.
+
+"Won't he?" she asked.
+
+"Non lo so."
+
+"Oh, Gaspare!" she exclaimed. "Don't--don't be like this to-night. Do you
+know that you are frightening me?"
+
+He did not answer.
+
+"What is the matter with you? What has been the matter with you all day?"
+
+"Niente."
+
+His voice was hard, and he fell behind again.
+
+Hermione knew that he was concealing something from her. She wondered
+what it was. It must be something surely in connection with his anxiety.
+Her mind worked rapidly. Maurice--the sea--bathing--Gaspare's
+fear--Maurice and Gaspare had bathed together often while she had been in
+Africa.
+
+"Gaspare," she said. "Walk beside me--I wish it."
+
+He came up reluctantly.
+
+"You've bathed with the padrone lately?"
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+"Many times?"
+
+"Si, signora."
+
+"Have you ever noticed that he was tired in the sea, or afterwards, or
+that bathing seemed to make him ill in any way?"
+
+"Tired, signora?"
+
+"You know there's a thing, in English we call it cramp. Sometimes it
+seizes the best swimmers. It's a dreadful pain, I believe, and the limbs
+refuse to move. You've never--when he's been swimming with you, the
+padrone has never had anything of that kind, has he? It wasn't that which
+made you frightened this evening when he didn't come?"
+
+She had unwittingly given the boy the chance to save her from any worse
+suspicion. With Sicilian sharpness he seized it. Till now he had been in
+a dilemma, and it was that which had made him sullen, almost rude. His
+position was a difficult one. He had to keep his padrone's confidence.
+Yet he could not--physically he could not--stay on the mountain when he
+knew that some tragedy was probably being enacted, or had already been
+enacted by the sea. He was devoured by an anxiety which he could not
+share and ought not to show because it was caused by the knowledge which
+he was solemnly pledged to conceal. This remark of Hermione gave him a
+chance of shifting it from the shoulders of the truth to the shoulders of
+a lie. He remembered the morning of sirocco, his fear, his passion of
+tears in the boat. The memory seemed almost to make the lie he was going
+to tell the truth.
+
+"Si, signora. It was that."
+
+His voice was no longer sullen.
+
+"The padrone had an attack like that?"
+
+Again the terrible fear came back to her.
+
+"Signora, it was one morning."
+
+"Used you to bathe in the morning?"
+
+A hot flush came in Gaspare's face, but Hermione did not see it in the
+darkness.
+
+"Once we did, signora. We had been fishing."
+
+"Go on. Tell me!"
+
+Then Gaspare related the incident of his padrone's sinking in the sea.
+Only he made Maurice's travesty appear a real catastrophe. Hermione
+listened with painful attention. So Maurice had nearly died, had been
+into the jaws of death, while she had been in Africa! Her fears there had
+been less ill-founded than she had thought. A horror came upon her as she
+heard Gaspare's story.
+
+"And then, signora, I cried," he ended. "I cried."
+
+"You cried?"
+
+"I thought I never could stop crying again."
+
+How different from an English boy's reticence was this frank confession!
+and yet what English boy was ever more manly than this mountain lad?
+
+"Why--but then you saved the padrone's life! God bless you!"
+
+Hermione had stopped, and she now put her hand on Gaspare's arm.
+
+"Oh, signora, there were two of us. We had the boat."
+
+"But"--another thought came to her--"but, Gaspare, after such a thing as
+that, how could you let the padrone go down to bathe alone?"
+
+Gaspare, a moment before credited with a faithful action, was now to be
+blamed for a faithless one. For neither was he responsible, if strict
+truth were to be regarded. But he had insisted on saving his padrone from
+the sea when it was not necessary. And he knew his own faithfulness and
+was secretly proud of it, as a good woman knows and is proud of her
+honor. He had borne the praise therefore. But one thing he could not
+bear, and that was an imputation of faithlessness in his stewardship.
+
+"It was not my fault, signora!" he cried, hotly. "I wanted to go. I
+begged to go, but the padrone would not let me."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+Hermione, peering in the darkness, thought she saw the ugly look come
+again into the boy's face.
+
+"Why not, signora?"
+
+"Yes, why not?"
+
+"He wished me to stay with you. He said: 'Stay with the padrona, Gaspare.
+She will be all alone.'"
+
+"Did he? Well, Gaspare, it is not your fault. But I never thought it was.
+You know that."
+
+She had heard in his voice that he was hurt.
+
+"Come! We must go on!"
+
+Her fear was now tangible. It had a definite form, and with every moment
+it grew greater in the night, towering over her, encompassing her about.
+For she had hoped to meet Maurice coming up the ravine, and, with each
+moment that went by, her hope of hearing his footstep decreased, her
+conviction that something untoward must have occurred grew more solid.
+Only once was her terror abated. When they were not far from the mouth of
+the ravine Gaspare suddenly seized her arm from behind.
+
+"Gaspare! What is it?" she said, startled.
+
+He held up one hand.
+
+"Zitta!" he whispered.
+
+Hermione listened, holding her breath. It was a silent night, windless
+and calm. The trees had no voices, the watercourse was dry, no longer
+musical with the falling stream. Even the sea was dumb, or, if it were
+not, murmured so softly that these two could not hear it where they
+stood. And now, in this dark silence, they heard a faint sound. It was
+surely a foot-fall upon stones. Yes, it was.
+
+By the fierce joy that burst up in her heart Hermione measured her
+previous fear.
+
+"It's he! It's the padrone!"
+
+She put her face close to Gaspare's and whispered the words. He nodded.
+His eyes were shining.
+
+"Andiamo!" he whispered back.
+
+With a boy's impetuosity he wished to rush on and meet the truant pilgrim
+from the sea, but Hermione held him back. She could not bear to lose that
+sweet sound, the foot-fall on the stones, coming nearer every moment.
+
+"No. Let's wait for him here! Let's give him a surprise."
+
+"Va bene!"
+
+His body was quivering with suppressed movement. But they waited. The
+step was slow, or so it seemed to Hermione as she listened again, like
+the step of a tired man. Maurice seldom walked like that, she thought. He
+was light-footed, swift. His actions were ardent as were his eyes. But it
+must be he! Of course it was he! He was languid after a long swim, and
+was walking slowly for fear of getting hot. That must be it. The walker
+drew nearer, the crunch of the stones was louder under his feet.
+
+"It isn't the padrone!"
+
+Gaspare had spoken. All the light had gone out of his eyes.
+
+"Si! Si! It is he!"
+
+Hermione contradicted him.
+
+"No, signora. It is a contadino."
+
+Her joy was failing. Although she contradicted Gaspare, she began to feel
+that he was right. This step was heavy, weary, an old man's step. It
+could not be her Mercury coming up to his home on the mountain. But still
+she waited. Presently there detached itself from the darkness a faint
+figure, bent, crowned with a long Sicilian cap.
+
+"Andiamo!"
+
+This time she did not keep Gaspare back. Without a word they went on. As
+they came to the figure it stopped. She did not even glance at it, but as
+she went by it she heard an old, croaky voice say:
+
+"Benedicite!"
+
+Never before had the Sicilian greeting sounded horrible in her ears. She
+did not reply to it. She could not. And Gaspare said nothing. They
+hastened on in silence till they reached the high-road by Isola Bella,
+the road where Maurice had met Maddalena on the morning of the fair.
+
+It was deserted. The thick white dust upon it looked ghastly at their
+feet. Now they could hear the faint and regular murmur of the oily sea by
+which the fishermen's boats were drawn up, and discern, far away on the
+right, the serpentine lights of Cattaro.
+
+"Where do you go to bathe?" Hermione asked, always speaking in a hushed
+voice. "Here, by Isola Bella?"
+
+She looked down at the rocks of the tiny island, at the dimness of the
+spreading sea. Till now she had always gloried in its beauty, but
+to-night it looked to her mysterious and cruel.
+
+"No, signora."
+
+"Where then?"
+
+"Farther on--a little. I will go."
+
+His voice was full of hesitation. He did not know what to do.
+
+"Please, signora, stay here. Sit on the bank by the line. I will go and
+be back in a moment. I can run. It is better. If you come we shall take
+much longer."
+
+"Go, Gaspare!" she said. "But--stop--where do you bathe exactly?"
+
+"Quite near, signora."
+
+"In that little bay underneath the promontory where the Casa delle Sirene
+is?"
+
+"Sometimes there and sometimes farther on by the caves. A rivederla!"
+
+The white dust flew up from the road as he disappeared.
+
+Hermione did not sit down on the bank. She had never meant to wait by
+Isola Bella, but she let him go because what he had said was true, and
+she did not wish to delay him. If anything serious had occurred every
+moment might be valuable. After a short pause she followed him. As she
+walked she looked continually at the sea. Presently the road mounted and
+she came in sight of the sheltered bay in which Maurice had heard
+Maddalena's cry when he was fishing. A stone wall skirted the road here.
+Some twenty feet below was the railway line laid on a bank which sloped
+abruptly to the curving beach. She leaned her hands upon the wall and
+looked down, thinking she might see Gaspare. But he was not there. The
+dark, still sea, protected by the two promontories, and by an islet of
+rock in the middle of the bay, made no sound here. It lay motionless as
+a pool in a forest under the stars. To the left the jutting land, with
+its turmoil of jagged rocks, was a black mystery. As she stood by the
+wall, Hermione felt horribly lonely, horribly deserted. She wished she
+had not let Gaspare go. Yet she dreaded his return. What might he have to
+tell her? Now that she was here by the sea she felt how impossible it was
+for Maurice to have been delayed upon the shore. For there was no one
+here. The fishermen were up in the village. The contadini had long since
+left their work. No one passed upon the road. There was nothing, there
+could have been nothing to keep a man here. She felt as if it were
+already midnight, the deepest hour of darkness and of silence.
+
+As she took her hands from the wall, and turned to go on up the hill to
+the point which commanded the open sea and the beginning of the Straits
+of Messina, she was terrified. Suspicion was hardening into certainty.
+Something dreadful must have happened to Maurice.
+
+Her legs had begun to tremble again. All her body felt weak and
+incapable, like the body of an old person whose life was drawing to an
+end. The hill, not very steep, faced her like a precipice, and it seemed
+to her that she would not be able to mount it. In the road the deep dust
+surely clung to her feet, refusing to let her lift them. And she felt
+sick and contemptible, no longer her own mistress either physically or
+mentally. The voices within her that strove to whisper commonplaces of
+consolation, saying that Maurice had gone to Marechiaro, or that he had
+taken another path home, not the path from Isola Bella, brought her no
+comfort. The thing within her soul that knew what she, the human being
+containing it, did not know, told her that her terror had its reason,
+that she was not suffering in this way without cause. It said, "Your
+terror is justified."
+
+[Illustration: "SHE COULD SEE VAGUELY THE SHORE BY THE CAVES WHERE THE
+FISHERMEN HAD SLEPT IN THE DAWN"]
+
+At last she was at the top of the hill, and could see vaguely the shore
+by the caves where the fishermen had slept in the dawn. To her right was
+the path which led to the wall of rock connecting the Sirens' Isle with
+the main-land. She glanced at it, but did not think of following it.
+Gaspare must have followed the descending road. He must be down there on
+that beach searching, calling his padrone's name, perhaps. She began to
+descend slowly, still physically distressed. True to her fixed idea that
+if there had been a disaster it must be connected with the sea, she
+walked always close to the wall, and looked always down to the sea.
+Within a short time, two or three minutes, she came in sight of the
+lakelike inlet, a miniature fiord which lay at the feet of the woods
+where hid the Casa delle Sirene. The water here looked black like ebony.
+She stared down at it and saw a boat lying on the shore. Then she gazed
+for a moment at the trees opposite from which always, till to-night, had
+shone the lamp which she and Maurice had seen from the terrace. All was
+dark. The thickly growing trees did not move. Secret and impenetrable
+seemed to her the hiding-place they made. She could scarcely imagine that
+any one lived among them. Yet doubtless the inhabitants of the Casa delle
+Sirene were sleeping quietly there while she wandered on the white road
+accompanied by her terror.
+
+She had stopped for a minute, and was just going to walk on, when she
+heard a sound that, though faint and distant, was sharp and imperative.
+It seemed to her to be a violent beating on wood, and it was followed by
+the calling of a voice. She waited. The sound died away. She listened,
+straining her ears. In this absolutely still night sound travelled far.
+At first she had no idea from what direction came this noise which had
+startled her. But almost immediately it was repeated, and she knew that
+it must be some one striking violently and repeatedly upon wood--probably
+a wooden door.
+
+Then again the call rang out. This time she recognized, or thought she
+recognized, Gaspare's voice raised angrily, fiercely, in a summons to
+someone. She looked across the ebon water at the ebon mass of the trees
+on its farther side, and realized swiftly that Gaspare must be there. He
+had gone to the only house between the two bathing-places to ask if its
+inhabitants had seen anything of the padrone.
+
+This seemed to her to be a very natural and intelligent action, and she
+waited eagerly and watched, hoping to see a light shine out as
+Salvatore--yes, that had been the name told to her by Gaspare--as
+Salvatore got up from sleep and came to open. He might know something,
+know at least at what hour Maurice had left the sea.
+
+Again came the knocking and the call, again--four, five times. Then there
+was a long silence. Always the darkness reigned, unbroken by the
+earth-bound star, the light she looked for. The silence began to seem to
+her interminable. At first she thought that perhaps Gaspare was having a
+colloquy with the owner of the house, was learning something of Maurice.
+But presently she began to believe that there could be no one in the
+house, and that he had realized this. If so, he would have to return
+either to the road or the beach. She could see no boat moored to the
+shore opposite. He would come by the wall of rock, then, unless he swam
+the inlet. She went back a little way to a point from which dimly she saw
+the wall, and waited there a few minutes. Surely it would be dangerous to
+traverse that wall on such a dark night! Now, to her other fear was added
+fear for Gaspare. If an accident were to happen to him! Suddenly she
+hastened back to the path which led from the high-road along the spit of
+cultivated land to the wall, turned from the road, traversed the spit,
+and went down till she stood at the edge of the wall. She looked at the
+black rock, the black sea that lay motionless far down on either side of
+it. Surely Gaspare would not venture to come this way. It seemed to her
+that to do so would mean death, or, if not that, a dangerous fall into
+the sea--and probably there were rocks below, hidden under the surface of
+the water. But Gaspare was daring. She knew that. He was as active as a
+cat and did not know the meaning of fear for his own safety. He might--
+
+Out of the darkness on the land beyond the wall, something came, the form
+of some one hurrying.
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+The form stopped.
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+"Signora! What are you doing here? Madonna!"
+
+"Gaspare, don't come this way! You are not to come this way."
+
+"Why are you here, signora? I told you to wait for me by Isola Bella."
+
+The startled voice was hard.
+
+"You are not to cross the wall. I won't have it."
+
+"The wall--it is nothing, signora. I have crossed it many times. It is
+nothing for a man."
+
+"In the day, perhaps, but at night--don't, Gaspare--d'you hear me?--you
+are not--"
+
+She stopped, holding her breath, for she saw him coming lightly, poised
+on bare feet, straight as an arrow, and balancing himself with his
+out-stretched arms.
+
+"Ah!"
+
+She had shrieked out. Just as he was midway Gaspare had looked down at
+the sea--the open sea on the far side of the wall. Instantly his foot
+slipped, he lost his balance and fell. She thought he had gone, but he
+caught the wall with his hands, hung for a moment suspended above the
+sea, then raised himself, as a gymnast does on a parallel bar, slowly
+till his body was above the wall. Then--Hermione did not know how--he was
+beside her.
+
+She caught hold of him with both hands. She felt furiously angry.
+
+"How dare you disobey me?" she said, panting and trembling. "How dare
+you--"
+
+But his eyes silenced her. She broke off, staring at him. All the healthy
+color had left his face. There was a leaden hue upon it.
+
+"Gaspare--are you--you aren't hurt--you--"
+
+"Let me go, signora! Let me go!"
+
+She let him go instantly.
+
+"What is it? Where are you going?"
+
+He pointed to the beach.
+
+"To the boat. There's--down there in the water--there's something in the
+water!"
+
+"Something?" she said.
+
+"Wait in the road."
+
+He rushed away from her, and she heard him saying: "Madonna! Madonna!
+Madonna!"--crying it out as he ran.
+
+Something in the water! She felt as if her heart stood still for a
+century, then at last beat again somewhere up in her throat, choking her.
+Something--could Gaspare have seen what? She moved on a step. One of her
+feet was on the wall, the other still on the firm earth. She leaned down
+and tried to look over into the sea beyond, the sea close to the wall.
+But her head swam. Had she not moved back hastily, obedient to an
+imperious instinct of self-preservation, she would have fallen. She sat
+down, there where she had been standing, and dropped her face into her
+hands close to her knees, and kept quite still. She felt as if she were
+in a train going through a tunnel. Her ears were full of a roaring
+clamor. How long she sat and heard tumult she did not know. When she
+looked up the night seemed to her to be much darker than before,
+intensely dark. Yet all the stars were there in the sky. No clouds had
+come to hide them. She tried to get up quickly, but there was surely
+something wrong with her body. It would not obey her will at first.
+Presently she lay down, turned over on her side, put both hands on the
+ground, and with an effort, awkward as that of a cripple, hoisted herself
+up and stood on her feet. Gaspare had said, "Wait in the road." She must
+find the road. That was what she must do.
+
+"Wait in the road--wait in the road." She kept on saying that to herself.
+But she could not remember for a moment where the road was. She could
+only think of rock, of water black like ebony. The road was white. She
+must look for something white. And when she found it she must wait.
+Presently, while she thought she was looking, she found that she was
+walking in the dust. It flew up into her nostrils, dry and acrid. Then
+she began to recover herself and to realize more clearly what she was
+doing.
+
+She did not know yet. She knew nothing yet. The night was dark, the sea
+was dark. Gaspare had only cast one swift glance down before his foot had
+slipped. It was impossible that he could have seen what it was that was
+there in the water. And she was always inclined to let her imagination
+run riot. God isn't cruel. She had said that under the oak-trees, and it
+was true. It must be true.
+
+"I've never done God any harm," she was saying to herself now. "I've
+never meant to. I've always tried to do the right thing. God knows that!
+God wouldn't be cruel to me."
+
+In this moment all the subtlety of her mind deserted her, all that in her
+might have been called "cleverness." She was reduced to an extraordinary
+simplicity like that of a child, or a very instinctive, uneducated
+person.
+
+"I don't think I'm bad," she thought. "And God--He isn't bad. He wouldn't
+wish to hurt me. He wouldn't wish to kill me."
+
+She was walking on mechanically while she thought this, but presently
+she remembered again that Gaspare had told her to wait in the road. She
+looked over the wall down to the narrow strip of beach that edged the
+inlet between the main-land and the Sirens' Isle. The boat which she had
+seen there was gone. Gaspare had taken it. She stood staring at the place
+where the boat had been. Then she sought a means of descending to that
+strip of beach. She would wait there. A little lower down the road some
+of the masonry of the wall had been broken away, perhaps by a winter
+flood, and at this point there was a faint track, trodden by fishermen's
+feet, leading down to the line. Hermione got over the wall at this point
+and was soon on the beach, standing almost on the spot where Maurice had
+stripped off his clothes in the night to seek the voice that had cried
+out to him in the darkness. She waited here. Gaspare would presently come
+back. His arms were strong. He could row fast. She would only have to
+wait a few minutes. In a few minutes she would know. She strained her
+eyes to catch sight of the boat rounding the promontory as it returned
+from the open sea. At first she stood, but presently, as the minutes went
+by and the boat did not come, her sense of physical weakness returned and
+she sat down on the stones with her feet almost touching the water.
+
+"Gaspare knows now," she thought. "I don't know, but Gaspare knows."
+
+That seemed to her strange, that any one should know the truth of this
+thing before she did. For what did it matter to any one but her? Maurice
+was hers--was so absolutely hers that she felt as if no one else had any
+concern in him. He was Gaspare's padrone. Gaspare loved him as a Sicilian
+may love his padrone. Others in England, too, loved him--his mother, his
+father. But what was any love compared with the love of the one woman to
+whom he belonged. His mother had her husband. Gaspare--he was a boy. He
+would love some girl presently; he would marry. No, she was right. The
+truth about that "something in the water" only concerned her. God's
+dealing with this creature of his to-night only really mattered to her.
+
+As she waited, pressing her hands on the stones and looking always at the
+point of the dark land round which the boat must come, a strange and
+terrible feeling came to her, a feeling that she knew she ought to drive
+out of her soul, but that she was powerless to expel.
+
+She felt as if at this moment God were on His trial before her--before a
+poor woman who loved.
+
+"If God has taken Maurice from me," she thought, "He is cruel,
+frightfully cruel, and I cannot love Him. If He has not taken Maurice
+from me, He is the God who is love, the God I can, I must worship!"
+
+Which God was he?
+
+The vast scheme of the world narrowed; the wide horizons vanished. There
+was nothing beyond the limit of her heart. She felt, as almost all
+believing human beings feel in such moments, that God's attention was
+entirely concentrated upon her life, that no other claimed His care,
+begged for His pity, demanded His tenderness because hers was so intense.
+
+Did God wish to lose her love? Surely not! Then He could not commit this
+frightful act which she feared. He had not committed it.
+
+A sort of relief crept through her as she thought this. Her agony of
+apprehension was suddenly lessened, was almost driven out.
+
+God wants to be loved by the beings He has created. Then He would not
+deliberately, arbitrarily destroy a love already existing in the heart of
+one of them--a love thankful to Him, enthusiastically grateful for
+happiness bestowed by Him.
+
+Beyond the darkness of the point there came out of the dimness of the
+night that brooded above the open sea a moving darkness, and Hermione
+heard the splash of oars in the calm water. She got up quickly. Now her
+body was trembling again. She stared at the boat as if she would force it
+to yield its secret to her eyes. But that was only for an instant. Then
+her ears seemed to be seeking the truth, seeking it from the sound of the
+oars in the water!
+
+There was no rhythmic regularity in the music they made, no steadiness,
+no--no--
+
+She listened passionately, instinctively bending down her head sideways.
+It seemed to her that she was listening to a drunken man rowing. Now
+there was a quick beating of the oars in the water, then silence, then a
+heavy splash as if one of the oars had escaped from an uncertain hand,
+then some uneven strokes, one oar striking the water after the other.
+
+"But Gaspare is a contadino," she said to herself, "not a fisherman.
+Gaspare is a contadino and--"
+
+"Gaspare!" she called out. "Gaspare!"
+
+The boat stopped midway in the mouth of the inlet.
+
+"Gaspare! Is it you?"
+
+She saw a dark figure standing up in the boat.
+
+"Gaspare, is it you?" she cried, more loudly.
+
+"Si."
+
+Was it Gaspare's voice? She did not recognize it. Yet the voice had
+answered "Yes." The boat still remained motionless on the water midway
+between shore and shore. She did not speak again; she was afraid to
+speak. She stood and stared at the boat and at the motionless figure
+standing up in it. Why did not he row in to land? What was he doing
+there? She stared at the boat and at the figure standing in it till she
+could see nothing. Then she shut her eyes.
+
+"Gaspare!" she called, keeping her eyes shut. "What are you doing?
+Gaspare!"
+
+There was no reply.
+
+She opened her eyes, and now she could see the boat again and the rower.
+
+"Gaspare!" she cried, with all her strength, to the black figure. "Why
+don't you row to the shore? Why don't you come to me?"
+
+"Vengo!"
+
+Loudly the word came to her, loudly and sullenly as if the boy were angry
+with her, almost hated her. It was followed by a fierce splash of oars.
+The boat shot forward, coming straight towards her. Then suddenly the
+oars ceased from moving, the dark figure of the rower fell down in a
+heap, and she heard cries, like cries of despair, and broken
+exclamations, and then a long sound of furious weeping.
+
+"Gaspare! Gaspare!"
+
+Her voice was strangled in her throat and died away.
+
+"And then, signora, I cried--I cried!"
+
+When had Gaspare said that to her? And why had he cried?
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+It came from her lips in a whisper almost inaudible to herself.
+
+Then she rushed forward into the dark water.
+
+
+
+XXII
+
+Late that night Dr. Marini, the doctor of the commune of Marechiaro, was
+roused from sleep in his house in the Corso by a violent knocking on his
+street door. He turned over in his bed, muttered a curse, then lay still
+for a moment and listened. The knocking was renewed more violently.
+Evidently the person who stood without was determined to gain admission.
+There was no help for it. The good doctor, who was no longer young,
+dropped his weary legs to the floor, walked across to the open window,
+and thrust his head out of it. A man was standing below.
+
+"What is it? What do you want?" said the doctor, in a grumbling voice.
+"Is it another baby? Upon my word, these--"
+
+"Signor Dottore, come down, come down instantly! The signore of Monte
+Amato, the signore of the Casa del Prete has had an accident. You must
+come at once. I will go to fetch a donkey."
+
+The doctor leaned farther out of the window.
+
+"An accident! What--?"
+
+But the man, a fisherman of Marechiaro, was already gone, and the doctor
+saw only the narrow, deserted street, black with the shadows of the tall
+houses.
+
+He drew in quickly and began to dress himself with some expedition. An
+accident, and to a forestiere! There would be money in this case. He
+regretted his lost sleep less now and cursed no more, though he thought
+of the ride up into the mountains with a good deal of self-pity. It was
+no joke to be a badly paid Sicilian doctor, he thought, as he tugged at
+his trousers buttons, and fastened the white front that covered the
+breast of his flannel shirt, and adjusted the cuffs which he took out of
+a small drawer. Without lighting a candle he went down-stairs, fumbled
+about, and found his case of instruments. Then he opened the street door
+and waited, yawning on the stone pavement. In two or three minutes he
+heard the tripping tip-tap of a donkey's hoofs, and the fisherman came up
+leading a donkey apparently as disinclined for a nocturnal flitting as
+the doctor.
+
+"Ah, Giuseppe, it's you, is it?"
+
+"Si, Signor Dottore!"
+
+"What's this accident?"
+
+The fisherman looked grave and crossed himself.
+
+"Oh, signore, it is terrible! They say the poor signore is dead!"
+
+"Dead!" exclaimed the doctor, startled. "You said is was an accident.
+Dead you say now?"
+
+"Signore, he is dead beyond a doubt. I was going to the fishing when I
+heard dreadful cries in the water by the inlet--you know, by Salvatore's
+terreno!"
+
+"In the water?"
+
+"Si, signore. I went down quickly and I found Gaspare, the signore's--"
+
+"I know--I know!"
+
+"Gaspare in a boat with the padrone lying at the bottom, and the signora
+standing up to her middle in the sea."
+
+"Z't! z't!" exclaimed the doctor, "the signora in the sea! Is she mad?"
+
+"Signor Dottore, how do I know? I brought the boat to shore. Gaspare was
+like one crazed. Then we lifted the signore out upon the stones. Oh, he
+is dead, Signor Dottore; dead beyond a doubt. They had found him in the
+sea--"
+
+"They?"
+
+"Gaspare--under the rocks between Salvatore's terreno and the main-land.
+He had all his clothes on. He must have been there in the dark--"
+
+"Why should he go in the dark?"
+
+"How do I know, Signor Dottore?--and have fallen, and struck his head
+against the rocks. For there was a wound and--"
+
+"The body should not have been moved from where it lay till the Pretore
+had seen it. Gaspare should have left the body."
+
+"But perhaps the povero signore is not really dead, after all! Madonna!
+How--"
+
+"Come! come! we must not delay! One minute! I will get some lint and--"
+
+He disappeared into the house. Almost directly he came out again with a
+package under his arm and a long, black cigar lighted in his mouth.
+
+"Take these, Giuseppe! Carry them carefully. Now then!"
+
+He hoisted himself onto the donkey.
+
+"A-ah! A-ah!"
+
+They set off, the fisherman walking on naked feet beside the donkey.
+
+"Then we have to go down to the sea?"
+
+"No, Signor Dottore. There were others on the road, Antonio and--"
+
+"The rest of you going to the boats--I know. Well?"
+
+"And the signora would have him carried up to Monte Amato."
+
+"She could give directions?"
+
+"Si, signore. She ordered everything. When she came out of the sea she
+was all wet, the poor signora, but she was calm. I called the others.
+When they saw the signore they all cried out. They knew him. Some of them
+had been to the fishing with him. Oh, they were sorry! They all began to
+speak and to try to--"
+
+"Diavolo! They could only make things worse! If the breath of life was
+in the signore's body they would drive it out. Per Dio!"
+
+"But the signora stopped them. She told them to be silent and to carry
+the signore up to the Casa del Prete. Signore, she--the povera
+signora--she took his head in her hands. She held his head and she never
+cried, not a tear!"
+
+The man brushed his hand across his eyes.
+
+"Povera signora! Povera signora!" murmured the doctor.
+
+"And she comforted Gaspare, too!" Giuseppe added. "She put her arm round
+him and told him to be brave, and help her. She made him walk by her and
+put his hand under the padrone's shoulder. Madonna!"
+
+They turned away from the village into a narrow path that led into the
+hills.
+
+"And I came to fetch you, Signor Dottore. Perhaps the povero signore is
+not really dead. Perhaps you can save him, Signor Dottore!"
+
+"Chi lo sa?" replied the doctor.
+
+He had let his cigar go out and did not know it.
+
+"Chi lo sa?" he repeated, mechanically.
+
+Then they went on in silence--till they reached the shoulder of the
+mountain under Castel Vecchio. From here they could see across the ravine
+to the steep slope of Monte Amato. Upon it, high up, a light shone, and
+presently a second light detached itself from the first, moved a little
+way, and then was stationary.
+
+Giuseppe pointed.
+
+"Ecco, Signor Dottore! They have carried the poor signore up."
+
+The second light moved waveringly back towards the first.
+
+"They are carrying him into the house, Signor Dottore. Madonna! And all
+this to happen in the night!"
+
+The doctor nodded without speaking. He was watching the lights up there
+in that lonely place. He was not a man of strong imagination, and was
+accustomed to look on misery, the misery of the poor. But to-night he
+felt a certain solemnity descend upon him as he rode by these dark
+by-paths up into the bosom of the hills. Perhaps part of this feeling
+came from the fact that his mission had to do with strangers, with rich
+people from a distant country who had come to his island for pleasure,
+and who were now suddenly involved in tragedy in the midst of their
+amusement. But also he had a certain sense of personal sympathy. He had
+known Hermione on her former visit to Sicily and had liked her; and
+though this time he had seen scarcely anything of her he had seen enough
+to be aware that she was very happy with her young husband. Maurice, too,
+he had seen, full of the joy of youth and of bounding health. And now all
+that was put out, if Giuseppe's account were true. It was a pity, a sad
+pity.
+
+The donkey crossed the mouth of the ravine, and picked its way upward
+carefully amid the loose stones. In the ravine a little owl hooted twice.
+
+"Giuseppe!" said the doctor.
+
+"Signore?"
+
+"The signora has been away, hasn't she?"
+
+"Si signore. In Africa."
+
+"Nursing that sick stranger. And now directly she comes back here's this
+happening to her! Per Dio!"
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"Somebody must have looked on the povera signora with the evil-eye,
+Signor Dottore."
+
+Giuseppe crossed himself.
+
+"It seems so," the doctor replied, gravely.
+
+He was almost as superstitious as the contadini among whom he labored.
+
+"Ecco, Signor Dottore!"
+
+The doctor looked up. At the arch stood a figure holding a little lamp.
+Almost immediately, two more figures appeared behind it.
+
+"Il dottore! Ecco il dottore!"
+
+There was a murmur of voices in the dark. As the donkey came up the
+excited fishermen crowded round, all speaking at once.
+
+"He is dead, Signor Dottore. The povero signore is dead!"
+
+"Let the Signor Dottore come to him, Beppe! What do you know? Let the--"
+
+"Sure enough he is dead! Why, he must have been in the water a good hour.
+He is all swollen with the water and--"
+
+"It is his head, Signor Dottore! If it had not been for his coming
+against the rocks he would not have been hurt. Per Dio, he can swim like
+a fish, the povero signorino. I have seen him swim. Why, even Peppino--"
+
+"The signora wants us all to go away, Signor Dottore. She begs us to go
+and leave her alone with the povero signore!"
+
+"Gaspare is in such a state! You would not know him. And the povera
+signora, she is all dripping wet. She has been into the sea, and now she
+has carried the head of the povero signore all the way up the mountain.
+She would not let any one--"
+
+A succession of cries came out of the darkness, hysterical cries that
+ended in prolonged sobbing.
+
+"That is Lucrezia!" cried one of the fishermen. "Madonna! That is
+Lucrezia!"
+
+"Mamma mia! Mamma mia!"
+
+Their voices were loud in the night. The doctor pushed his way between
+the men and came onto the terrace in front of the steps that led into the
+sitting-room.
+
+Gaspare was standing there alone. His face was almost unrecognizable. It
+looked battered, puffy, and inflamed, as if he had been drinking and
+fighting. There were no tears in his eyes now, but long, violent sobs
+shook his body from time to time, and his blistered lips opened and shut
+mechanically with each sob. He stared dully at the doctor, but did not
+say a word, or move to get out of the way.
+
+"Gaspare!" said the doctor. "Where is the padrona?"
+
+The boy sobbed and sobbed, always in the same dry and terribly mechanical
+way.
+
+"Gaspare!" repeated the doctor, touching him. "Gaspare!"
+
+"E' morto!" the boy suddenly cried out, in a loud voice.
+
+And he flung himself down on the ground.
+
+The doctor felt a thrill of cold in his veins. He went up the steps into
+the little sitting-room. As he did so Hermione came to the door of the
+bedroom. Her dripping skirts clung about her. She looked quite calm.
+Without greeting the doctor she said, quietly:
+
+"You heard what Gaspare said?"
+
+"Si, signora, ma--"
+
+The doctor stopped, staring at her. He began to feel almost dazed. The
+fishermen had followed him and stood crowding together on the steps and
+staring into the room.
+
+"He is dead. I am sorry you came all this way."
+
+They stood there facing one another. From the kitchen came the sound of
+Lucrezia's cries. Hermione put her hands up to her ears.
+
+"Please--please--oh, there should be a little silence here now!" she
+said.
+
+For the first time there was a sound of something like despair in her
+voice.
+
+"Let me come in, signora!" stammered the doctor. "Let me come in and
+examine him."
+
+"He is dead."
+
+"Well, but let me. I must!"
+
+"Please come in," she said.
+
+The doctor turned round to the fishermen.
+
+"Go, one of you, and make that girl keep quiet," he said, angrily. "Take
+her away out of the house--directly! Do you hear? And the rest of you
+stay outside, and don't make a sound."
+
+The fishermen slunk a little way back into the darkness, while Giuseppe,
+walking on the toes of his bare feet, and glancing nervously at the
+furniture and the pictures upon the walls, crossed the room and
+disappeared into the kitchen. Then the doctor laid down his cigar on a
+table and went into the bedroom whither Hermione had preceded him.
+
+There was a lighted candle on the white chest of drawers. The window and
+the shutters of the room were closed against the glances of the
+fishermen. On one of the two beds--Hermione's--lay the body of a man
+dripping with water. The doctor took the candle in his hand, went to this
+bed and leaned down, then set down the candle at the bedhead and made a
+brief examination. He found at once that Gaspare had spoken the truth.
+This man had been dead for some time. Nevertheless, something--he
+scarcely knew what--kept the doctor there by the bed for some moments
+before he pronounced his verdict. Never before had he felt so great a
+reluctance to speak the simple words that would convey a great truth. He
+fingered his shirt-front uneasily, and stared at the body on the bed and
+at the wet sheets and pillows. Meanwhile, Hermione had sat down on a
+chair near the door that opened into what had been Maurice's
+dressing-room, and folded her hands in her lap. The doctor did not look
+towards her, but he felt her presence painfully. Lucrezia's cries had
+died away, and there was complete silence for a brief space of time.
+
+The body on the bed was swollen, but not very much, the face was sodden,
+the hair plastered to the head, and on the left temple there was a large
+wound, evidently, as the doctor had seen, caused by the forehead striking
+violently against a hard, resisting substance. It was not the sea alone
+which had killed this man. It was the sea and the rock in the sea. He
+had fallen, been stunned and then drowned. The doctor knew the place
+where he had been found. The explanation of the tragedy was very
+simple--very simple.
+
+While the doctor was thinking this, and fingering his shirt-front
+mechanically, and bracing himself to turn towards the quiet woman in the
+chair, he heard a loud, dry noise in the sitting-room, then in the
+bedroom. Gaspare had come in, and was standing at the foot of the bed,
+sobbing and staring at the doctor with hopeless eyes, that yet asked a
+last question, begged desperately for a lie.
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+The woman in the chair whispered to him. He took no notice.
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+She got up and crossed over to the boy, and took one of his hands.
+
+"It's no use," she said. "Perhaps he is happy."
+
+Then the boy began to cry passionately. Tears poured out of his eyes
+while he held his padrona's hand. The doctor got up.
+
+"He is dead, signora," he said.
+
+"We knew it," Hermione replied.
+
+She looked at the doctor for a minute. Then she said:
+
+"Hush, Gaspare!"
+
+The doctor stood by the bed.
+
+"Scusi, signora," he said, "but--but will you take him into the next
+room?"
+
+He pointed to Gaspare, who shivered as he wept.
+
+"I must make a further examination."
+
+"Why? You see that he is dead."
+
+"Yes, but--there are certain formalities."
+
+He stopped.
+
+"Formalities!" she said. "He is dead."
+
+"Yes. But--but the authorities will have to be informed. I am very
+sorry. I should wish to leave everything undisturbed."
+
+"What do you mean? Gaspare! Gaspare!"
+
+"But--according to the law, our law, the body should never have been
+moved. It should have been left where it was found until--"
+
+"We could not leave him in the sea."
+
+She still spoke quite quietly, but the doctor felt as if he could not go
+on.
+
+"Since it is done--" he began.
+
+He pulled himself together with an effort.
+
+"There will have to be an inquiry, signora--the cause of death will have
+to be ascertained."
+
+"You see it. He was coming from the island. He fell and was drowned. It
+is very simple."
+
+"Yes, no doubt. Still, there must be an inquiry. Gaspare will have to
+explain--"
+
+He looked at the weeping boy, then at the woman who stood there holding
+the boy's hand in hers.
+
+"But that will be for to-morrow," he muttered, fingering his shirt-front
+and looking down. "That will be for to-morrow."
+
+As he went out he added:
+
+"Signora, do not remain in your wet clothes."
+
+"I--oh, thank you. They do not matter."
+
+She did not follow him into the next room. As he went down the steps to
+the terrace the sound of Gaspare's passionate weeping followed him into
+the night.
+
+When the doctor was on the donkey and was riding out through the arch,
+after a brief colloquy with the fishermen and with Giuseppe, whom he had
+told to remain at the cottage for the rest of the night, he suddenly
+remembered the cigar which he had left upon the table, and he pulled up.
+
+"What is it, Signor Dottore?" said one of the fishermen.
+
+"I've left something, but--never mind. It does not matter."
+
+He rode on again.
+
+"It does not matter," he repeated.
+
+He was thinking of the English signora standing beside the bed in her wet
+skirts and holding the hand of the weeping boy.
+
+It was the first time in his life that he had ever sacrificed a good
+cigar.
+
+He wondered why he did so now, but he did not care to return just then to
+the Casa del Prete.
+
+
+
+XXIII
+
+Hermione longed for quiet, for absolute silence.
+
+It seemed strange to her that she still longed for anything--strange and
+almost horrible, almost inhuman. But she did long for that, to be able to
+sit beside her dead husband and to be undisturbed, to hear no voice
+speaking, no human movement, to see no one. If it had been possible she
+would have closed the cottage against every one, even against Gaspare and
+Lucrezia. But it was not possible. Destiny did not choose that she should
+have this calm, this silence. It had seemed to her, when fear first came
+upon her, as if no one but herself had any real concern with Maurice, as
+if her love conferred upon her a monopoly. This monopoly had been one of
+joy. Now it should be one of sorrow. But now it did not exist. She was
+not weeping for Maurice. But others were. She had no one to go to. But
+others came to her, clung to her. She could not rid herself of the human
+burden.
+
+She might have been selfish, determined, she might have driven the
+mourners out. But--and that was strange, too--she found herself pitying
+them, trying to use her intellect to soothe them.
+
+Lucrezia was terrified, almost like one assailed suddenly by robbers,
+terrified and half incredulous. When her hysteria subsided she was at
+first unbelieving.
+
+"He cannot be really dead, signora!" she sobbed to Hermione. "The povero
+signorino. He was so gay! He was so--"
+
+She talked and talked, as Sicilians do when face to face with tragedy.
+
+She recalled Maurice's characteristics, his kindness, his love of
+climbing, fishing, bathing, his love of the sun--all his love of life.
+
+Hermione had to listen to the story with that body lying on her bed.
+
+Gaspare's grief was speechless, but needed comfort more. There was an
+element in it of fury which Hermione realized without rightly
+understanding. She supposed it was the fury of a boy from whom something
+is taken by one whom he cannot attack.
+
+For God is beyond our reach.
+
+She could not understand the conflict going on in the boy's heart and
+mind.
+
+He knew that this death was probably no natural death, but a murder.
+
+Neither Maddalena nor her father had been in the Casa delle Sirene when
+he knocked upon the door in the night. Salvatore had sent Maddalena to
+spend the night with relations in Marechiaro, on the pretext that he was
+going to sail to Messina on some business. And he had actually sailed
+before Gaspare's arrival on the island. But Gaspare knew that there had
+been a meeting, and he knew what the Sicilian is when he is wronged. The
+words "vengeance is mine!" are taken in Sicily by each wronged man into
+his own mouth, and Salvatore was notoriously savage and passionate.
+
+As the first shock of horror and despair passed away from Gaspare he was
+devoured, as by teeth, devoured by the desire to spring upon Salvatore
+and revenge the death of his padrone. But the padrone had laid a solemn
+injunction upon him. Solemn, indeed, it seemed to the boy now that the
+lips which had spoken were sealed forever. The padrona was never to know.
+If he obeyed his impulse, if he declared the vendetta against Salvatore,
+the padrona would know. The knife that spilled the murderer's blood would
+give the secret to the world--and to the padrona.
+
+Tremendous that night was the conflict in the boy's soul. He would not
+leave Hermione. He was like the dog that creeps to lie at the feet of his
+sorrowing mistress. But he was more than that. For he had his own sorrow
+and his own fury. And he had the battle with his own instincts.
+
+What was he going to do?
+
+As he began to think, really to think, and to realize things, he knew
+that after such a death the authorities of Marechiaro, the Pretore and
+the Cancelliere, would proceed to hold a careful examination into the
+causes of death. He would be questioned. That was certain. The
+opportunity would be given him to denounce Salvatore.
+
+And was he to keep silence? Was he to act for Salvatore, to save
+Salvatore from justice? He would not have minded doing that, he would
+have wished to do it, if afterwards he could have sprung upon Salvatore
+and buried his knife in the murderer of his padrone.
+
+But--the padrona? She was not to know. She was never to know. And she had
+been the first in his life. She had found him, a poor, ragged little boy
+working among the vines, and she had given him new clothes and had taken
+him into her home and into her confidence. She had trusted him. She had
+remembered him in England. She had written to him from far away, telling
+him to prepare everything for her and the padrone when they were coming.
+
+He began to sob violently again, thinking of it all, of how he had
+ordered the donkeys to fetch the luggage from the station, of how--
+
+"Hush, Gaspare!"
+
+Hermione again put her hand on his. She was sitting near the bed on which
+the body was lying between dry sheets. For she had changed them with
+Gaspare's assistance. Maurice still wore the clothes which had been on
+him in the sea. Giuseppe, the fisherman, had explained to Hermione that
+she must not interfere with the body till it had been visited by the
+authorities, and she had obeyed him. But she had changed the sheets. She
+scarcely knew why. Now the clothes had almost dried on the body, and she
+did not see any more the stains of water. One sheet was drawn up over the
+body, to the chin. The matted dark hair was visible against the pillow,
+and had made her think several times vaguely of that day after the
+fishing when she had watched Maurice taking his siesta. She had longed
+for him to wake then, for she had known that she was going to Africa,
+that they had only a few hours together before she started. It had seemed
+almost terrible to her, his sleeping through any of those hours. And now
+he was sleeping forever. She was sitting there waiting for nothing, but
+she could not realize that yet. She felt as if she must be waiting for
+something, that something must presently occur, a movement in the bed,
+a--she scarcely knew what.
+
+Presently the clock Gaspare had brought from the fair chimed, then played
+the "Tre Colori." Lucrezia had set it to play that evening when she was
+waiting for the padrone to return from the sea.
+
+When he heard the tinkling tune Gaspare lifted his head and listened till
+it was over. It recalled to him all the glories of the fair. He saw his
+padrone before him. He remembered how he had decorated Maurice with
+flowers, and he felt as if his heart would break.
+
+"The povero signorino! the povero signorino!" he cried, in a choked
+voice. "And I put roses above his ears! Si, signora, I did! I said he
+should be a real Siciliano!"
+
+He began to rock himself to and fro. His whole body shook, and his face
+had a frantic expression that suggested violence.
+
+"I put roses above his ears!" he repeated. "That day he was a real
+Siciliano!"
+
+"Gaspare--Gaspare--hush! Don't! Don't!"
+
+She held his hand and went on speaking softly.
+
+"We must be quiet in here. We must remember to be quiet. It isn't our
+fault, Gaspare. We did all we could to make him happy. We ought to be
+glad of that. You did everything you could, and he loved you for it. He
+was happy with us. I think he was. I think he was happy till the very
+end. And that is something to be glad of. Don't you think he was very
+happy here?"
+
+"Si, signora!" the boy whispered, with twitching lips.
+
+"I'm glad I came back in time," Hermione said, looking at the dark hair
+on the pillow. "It might have happened before, while I was away. I'm glad
+we had one more day together."
+
+Suddenly, as she said that, something in the mere sound of the words
+seemed to reveal more clearly to her heart what had befallen her, and for
+the first time she began to cry and to remember. She remembered all
+Maurice's tenderness for her, all his little acts of kindness. They
+seemed to pass rapidly in procession through her mind on their way to her
+heart. Not one surely was absent. How kind to her he had always been! And
+he could never be kind to her again. And she could never be kind to
+him--never again.
+
+Her tears went on falling quietly. She did not sob like Gaspare. But she
+felt that now she had begun to cry she would never be able to stop again;
+that she would go on crying till she, too, died.
+
+Gaspare looked up at her.
+
+"Signora!" he said. "Signora!"
+
+Suddenly he got up, as if to go out of the room, out of the house. The
+sight of his padrona's tears had driven him nearly mad with the desire to
+wreak vengeance upon Salvatore. For a moment his body seemed to get
+beyond his control. His eyes saw blood, and his hand darted down to his
+belt, and caught at the knife that was there, and drew it out. When
+Hermione saw the knife she thought the boy was going to kill himself
+with it. She sprang up, went swiftly to Gaspare, and put her hand on it
+over his hand.
+
+"Gaspare, what are you doing?" she said.
+
+For a moment his face was horrible in its savagery. He opened his mouth,
+still keeping his grasp on the knife, which she tried to wrest from him.
+
+"Lasci andare! Lasci andare!" he said, beginning to struggle with her.
+
+"No, Gaspare."
+
+"Allora--"
+
+He paused with his mouth open.
+
+At that moment he was on the very verge of a revelation of the truth. He
+was on the point of telling Hermione that he was sure that the padrone
+had been murdered, and that he meant to avenge the murder. Hermione
+believed that for the moment he was mad, and was determined to destroy
+himself in her presence. It was useless to pit her strength against his.
+In a physical struggle she must be overcome. Her only chance was to
+subdue him by other means.
+
+"Gaspare," she said, quickly, breathlessly, pointing to the bed. "Don't
+you think the padrone would have wished you to take care of me now? He
+trusted you. I think he would. I think he would rather you were with me
+than any one else in the whole world. You must take care of me. You must
+take care of me. You must never leave me!"
+
+The boy looked at her. His face changed, grew softer.
+
+"I've got nobody now," she added. "Nobody but you."
+
+The knife fell on the floor.
+
+In that moment Gaspare's resolve was taken. The battle within him was
+over. He must protect the padrona. The padrone would have wished it. Then
+he must let Salvatore go.
+
+He bent down and kissed Hermione's hand.
+
+"Lei non piange!" he muttered. "Forse Dio la aiutera."
+
+In the morning, early, Hermione left the body for the first time, went
+into the dressing-room, changed her clothes, then came back and said to
+Gaspare:
+
+"I am going a little way up the mountain, Gaspare. I shall not be long.
+No, don't come with me. Stay with him. Are you dreadfully tired?"
+
+"No, signora."
+
+"We shall be able to rest presently," she said.
+
+She was thinking of the time when they would take Maurice from her. She
+left Gaspare sitting near the bed, and went out onto the terrace.
+Lucrezia and Gaspare, both thoroughly tired out, were sleeping soundly.
+She was thankful for that. Soon, she knew, she would have to be with
+people, to talk, to make arrangements. But now she had a short spell of
+solitude.
+
+She went slowly up the mountain-side till she was near the top. Then she
+sat down on a rock and looked out towards the sea.
+
+The world was not awake yet, although the sun was coming. Etna was like a
+great phantom, the waters at its foot were pale in their tranquillity.
+The air was fresh, but there was no wind to rustle the leaves of the
+oak-trees, upon whose crested heads Hermione gazed down with quiet,
+tearless eyes.
+
+She had a strange feeling of being out of the world, as if she had left
+it, but still had the power to see it. She wondered if Maurice felt like
+that.
+
+He had said it would be good to lie beneath those oak-trees in sight of
+Etna and the sea. How she wished that she could lay his body there,
+alone, away from all other dead. But that was impossible, she supposed.
+She remembered the doctor's words. What were they going to do? She did
+not know anything about Italian procedure in such an event. Would they
+take him away? She had no intention of trying to resist anything, of
+offering any opposition. It would be useless, and besides he had gone
+away. Already he was far off. She did not feel, as many women do, that so
+long as they are with the body of their dead they are also with the soul.
+She would like to keep the dear body, to have it always near to her, to
+live close to the spot where it was committed to the earth. But Maurice
+was gone. Her Mercury had winged his way from her, obedient to a summons
+that she had not heard. Always she had thought of him as swift, and
+swiftly, without warning, he had left her. He had died young. Was that
+wonderful? She thought not. No; age could have nothing to say to him,
+could hold no commerce with him. He had been born to be young and never
+to be anything else. It seemed to her now strange that she had not felt
+this, foreseen that it must be so. And yet, only yesterday, she had
+imagined a far future, and their child laying them in the ground of
+Sicily, side by side, and murmuring "Buon riposo" above their mutual
+sleep.
+
+Their child! A life had been taken from her. Soon a life would be given
+to her. Was that what is called compensation? Perhaps so. Many strange
+thoughts, come she could not tell why, were passing through her mind as
+she sat upon this height in the dawn. The thought of compensation
+recalled to her the Book of Job. Everything was taken from Job; not only
+his flocks and his herds, but his sons and his daughters. And then at the
+last he was compensated. He was given new flocks and herds and new sons
+and daughters. And it was supposed to be well with Job. If it was well
+with Job, then Job had been a man without a heart.
+
+Never could she be compensated for this loss, which she was trying to
+realize, but which she would not be able to realize until the days went
+by, and the nights, the days and the nights of the ordinary life, when
+tragedy was supposed to be over and done with, and people would say, and
+no doubt sincerely believe, that she was "getting accustomed" to her
+loss.
+
+Thinking of Job led her on to think of God's dealings with His creatures.
+
+Hermione was a woman who clung to no special religion, but she had
+always, all her life, had a very strong personal consciousness of a
+directing Power in the world, had always had an innate conviction that
+this directing Power followed with deep interest the life of each
+individual in the scheme of His creation. She had always felt, she felt
+now, that God knew everything about her and her life, was aware of all
+her feelings, was constantly intent upon her.
+
+He was intent. But was He kindly or was He cruelly intent?
+
+Surely He had been dreadfully cruel to her!
+
+Only yesterday she had been wondering what bereaved women felt about God.
+Now she was one of these women.
+
+"Was Maurice dead?" she thought--"was he already dead when I was praying
+before the shrine of the Madonna della Rocca?"
+
+She longed to know. Yet she scarcely knew why she longed. It was like a
+strange, almost unnatural curiosity which she could not at first explain
+to herself. But presently her mind grew clearer and she connected this
+question with that other question--of God and what He really was, what He
+really felt towards His creatures, towards her.
+
+Had God allowed her to pray like that, with all her heart and soul, and
+then immediately afterwards deliberately delivered her over to the fate
+of desolate women, or had Maurice been already dead? If that were so, and
+it must surely have been so, for when she prayed it was already night,
+she had been led to pray for herself ignorantly, and God had taken away
+her joy before He had heard her prayer. If He had heard it first He
+surely could not have dealt so cruelly with her--so cruelly! No human
+being could have, she thought, even the most hard-hearted.
+
+But perhaps God was not all-powerful.
+
+She remembered that once in London she had asked a clever and good
+clergyman if, looking around upon the state of things in the world, he
+was able to believe without difficulty that the world was governed by an
+all-wise, all-powerful, and all-merciful God. And his reply to her had
+been, "I sometimes wonder whether God is all-powerful--yet." She had not
+pursued the subject, but she had not forgotten this answer; and she
+thought of it now.
+
+Was there a conflict in the regions beyond the world which was the only
+one she knew? Had an enemy done this thing, an enemy not only of hers,
+but of God's, an enemy who had power over God?
+
+That thought was almost more terrible than the thought that God had been
+cruel to her.
+
+She sat for a long time wondering, thinking, but not praying. She did not
+feel as if she could ever pray any more. The world was lighted up by the
+sun. The sea began to gleam, the coast-line to grow more distinct, the
+outlines of the mountains and of the Saracenic Castle on the height
+opposite to her more hard and more barbaric against the deepening blue.
+She saw smoke coming from the mouth of Etna, sideways, as if blown
+towards the sea. A shepherd boy piped somewhere below her. And still the
+tune was the tarantella. She listened to it--the tarantella. So short a
+time ago Maurice had danced with the boys upon the terrace! How can such
+life be so easily extinguished? How can such joy be not merely clouded
+but utterly destroyed? A moment, and from the body everything is
+expelled; light from the eyes, speech from the lips, movement from the
+limbs, joy, passion from the heart. How can such a thing be?
+
+The little shepherd boy played on and on. He was nearer now. He was
+ascending the slope of the mountain, coming up towards heaven with his
+little happy tune. She heard him presently among the oak-trees
+immediately below her, passing almost at her feet.
+
+To Hermione the thin sound of the reed-flute always had suggested Arcady.
+Even now it suggested Arcady--the Arcady of the imagination: wide soft
+airs, blue skies and seas, eternal sunshine and delicious shade, and
+happiness where is a sweet noise of waters and of birds, a sweet and deep
+breathing of kind and bounteous nature.
+
+And that little boy with the flute would die. His foot might slip now as
+he came upward, and no more could he play souls into Arcady!
+
+The tune wound away to her left, like a gay and careless living thing
+that was travelling ever upward, then once more came towards her. But now
+it was above her. She turned her head and she saw the little player
+against the blue. He was on a rock, and for a moment he stood still. On
+his head was a long woollen cap, hanging over at one side. It made
+Hermione think of the woollen cap she had seen come out of the darkness
+of the ravine as she waited with Gaspare for the padrone. Against the
+blue, standing on the gray and sunlit rock, with the flute at his lips,
+and his tiny, deep-brown fingers moving swiftly, he looked at one with
+the mountain and yet almost unearthly, almost as if the blue had given
+birth to him for a moment, and in a moment would draw him back again into
+the womb of its wonder. His goats were all around him, treading
+delicately among the rocks. As Hermione watched he turned and went away
+into the blue, and the tarantella went away into the blue with him.
+
+Her Sicilian and his tarantella, the tarantella of his joy in
+Sicily--they had gone away into the blue.
+
+She looked at it, deep, quivering, passionate, intense; thousands and
+thousands of miles of blue! And she listened as she looked; listened for
+some far-off tarantella, for some echo of a fainting tarantella, that
+might be a message to her, a message left on the sweet air of the
+enchanted island, telling her where the winged feet of her beloved one
+mounted towards the sun.
+
+
+
+XXIV
+
+Giuseppe came to fetch Hermione from the mountain. He had a note in his
+hand and also a message to give. The authorities were already at the
+cottage; the Pretore of Marechiaro with his Cancelliere, Dr. Marini and
+the Maresciallo of the Carabinieri.
+
+"They have come already?" Hermione said. "So soon?"
+
+She took the note. It was from Artois.
+
+"There is a boy waiting, signora," said Giuseppe. "Gaspare is with the
+Signor Pretore."
+
+She opened Emile's note.
+
+     "I cannot write anything except this--do you wish me to come?--E."
+
+"Do I wish him to come?" she thought.
+
+She repeated the words mentally several times, while the fisherman stood
+by her, staring at her with sympathy. Then she went down to the cottage.
+
+Dr. Marini met her on the terrace. He looked embarrassed. He was
+expecting a terrible scene.
+
+"Signora," he said, "I am very sorry, but--but I am obliged to perform my
+duty."
+
+"Yes," she said. "Of course. What is it?"
+
+"As there is a hospital in Marechiaro--"
+
+He stopped.
+
+"Yes?" she said.
+
+"The autopsy of the body must take place there. Otherwise I could have--"
+
+"You have come to take him away," she said. "I understand. Very well."
+
+But they could not take him away, these people. For he was gone; he had
+gone away into the blue.
+
+The doctor looked relieved, though surprised, at her apparent
+nonchalance.
+
+"I am very sorry, signora," he said--"very sorry."
+
+"Must I see the Pretore?" she said.
+
+"I am afraid so, signora. They will want to ask you a few questions. The
+body ought not to have been moved from the place where--"
+
+"We could not leave him in the sea," she said, as she had said in the
+night.
+
+"No, no. You will only just have to say--"
+
+"I will tell them what I know. He went down to bathe."
+
+"Yes. But the Pretore will want to know why he went to Salvatore's
+terreno."
+
+"I suppose he bathed from there. He knew the people in the Casa delle
+Sirene, I believe."
+
+She spoke indifferently. It seemed to her so utterly useless, this
+inquiry by strangers into the cause of her sorrow.
+
+"I must just write something," she added.
+
+She went up the steps into the sitting-room. Gaspare was there with three
+men--the Pretore, the Cancelliere and the Maresciallo. As she came in the
+strangers turned and saluted her with grave politeness, all looking
+earnestly at her with their dark eyes. But Gaspare did not look at her.
+He had the ugly expression on his face that Hermione had noticed the day
+before.
+
+"Will you please allow me to write a line to a friend?" Hermione said.
+"Then I shall be ready to answer your questions."
+
+"Certainly, signora," said the Pretore; "we are very sorry to disturb
+you, but it is our duty."
+
+He had gray hair and a dark mustache, and his black eyes looked as if
+they had been varnished.
+
+Hermione went to the writing-table, while the men stood in silence
+filling up the little room.
+
+"What shall I say?" she thought.
+
+She heard the boots of the Cancelliere creak as he shifted his feet upon
+the floor. The Maresciallo cleared his throat. There was a moment of
+hesitation. Then he went to the steps and spat upon the terrace.
+
+"Don't come yet," she wrote, slowly.
+
+Then she turned round.
+
+"How long will your inquiry take, do you think, signore?" she asked of
+the Pretore. "When will--when can the funeral take place?"
+
+"Signora, I trust to-morrow. I hope--I do not suppose there will be any
+reason to suspect, after what Dr. Marini has told us and we have seen,
+that the death was anything but an accident--an accident which we all
+most deeply grieve for."
+
+"It was an accident."
+
+She stood by the table with the pen in her hand.
+
+"I suppose--I suppose he must be buried in the Campo Santo?" she said.
+
+"Do you wish to convey the body to England, signora?"
+
+"Oh no. He loved Sicily. He wished to stay always here, I think,
+although--"
+
+She broke off.
+
+"I could never take him away from Sicily. But there is a place
+here--under the oak-trees. He was very fond of it."
+
+Gaspare began to sob, then controlled himself with a desperate effort,
+turned round and stood with his face to the wall.
+
+"I suppose, if I could buy a piece of land there, it could not be
+permitted--?"
+
+She looked at the Pretore.
+
+"I am very sorry, signora, such a thing could not possibly be allowed. If
+the body is buried here it must be in the Campo Santo."
+
+"Thank you."
+
+She turned to the table and wrote after "Don't come yet":
+
+     "They are taking him away now to the hospital in the village. I
+     shall come down. I think the funeral will be to-morrow. They tell
+     me he must be buried in the Campo Santo. I should have liked him to
+     lie here under the oak-trees.
+                                                   HERMIONE."
+
+When Artois read this note tears came into his eyes.
+
+No event in his life had shocked him so much as the death of Delarey.
+
+It had shocked both his intellect and his heart. And yet his intellect
+could hardly accept it as a fact. When, early that morning, one of the
+servants of the Hotel Regina Margherita had rushed into his room to tell
+him, he had refused to believe it. But then he had seen the fishermen,
+and finally Dr. Marini. And he had been obliged to believe. His natural
+impulse was to go to his friend in her trouble as she had come to him in
+his. But he checked it. His agony had been physical. Hers was of the
+affections, and how far greater than his had ever been! He could not bear
+to think of it. A great and generous indignation seized him, an
+indignation against the catastrophes of life. That this should be
+Hermione's reward for her noble unselfishness roused in him something
+that was like fury; and then there followed a more torturing fury against
+himself.
+
+He had deprived her of days and weeks of happiness. Such a short span of
+joy had been allotted to her, and he had not allowed her to have even
+that. He had called her away. He dared not trust himself to write any
+word of sympathy. It seemed to him that to do so would be a hideous
+irony, and he sent the line in pencil which she had received. And then he
+walked up and down in his little sitting-room, raging against himself,
+hating himself.
+
+In his now bitterly acute consideration of his friendship with Hermione
+he realized that he had always been selfish, always the egoist claiming
+rather than the generous donor. He had taken his burdens to her, not
+weakly, for he was not a weak man, but with a desire to be eased of some
+of their weight. He had always been calling upon her for sympathy, and
+she had always been lavishly responding, scattering upon him the wealth
+of her great heart.
+
+And now he had deprived her of nearly all the golden time that had been
+stored up for her by the decree of the Gods, of God, of Fate,
+of--whatever it was that ruled, that gave and that deprived.
+
+A bitterness of shame gripped him. He felt like a criminal. He said to
+himself that the selfish man is a criminal.
+
+"She will hate me," he said to himself. "She must. She can't help it."
+
+Again the egoist was awake and speaking within him. He realized that
+immediately and felt almost a fear of this persistence of character. What
+is the use of cleverness, of clear sight into others, even of genius,
+when the self of a man declines to change, declines to be what is not
+despicable?
+
+"Mon Dieu!" he thought, passionately. "And even now I must be thinking of
+my cursed self!"
+
+He was beset by an intensity of desire to do something for Hermione. For
+once in his life his heart, the heart she believed in and he was inclined
+to doubt or to despise, drove him as it might have driven a boy, even
+such a one as Maurice. It seemed to him that unless he could do something
+to make atonement he could never be with Hermione again, could never bear
+to be with her again. But what could he do?
+
+"At least," he thought, "I may be able to spare her something to-day. I
+may be able to arrange with these people about the funeral, about all the
+practical things that are so frightful a burden to the living who have
+loved the dead, in the last moments before the dead are given to the
+custody of the earth."
+
+And then he thought of the inquiry, of the autopsy. Could he not help
+her, spare her perhaps, in connection with them?
+
+Despite his weakness of body he felt feverishly active, feverishly
+desirous to be of practical use. If he could do something he would think
+less, too; and there were thoughts which seemed furtively trying to press
+themselves forward in the chambers of his mind, but which, as yet, he
+was, also furtively, pushing back, striving to keep in the dark place
+from which they desired to emerge.
+
+Artois knew Sicily well, and he knew that such a death as this would
+demand an inquiry, might raise suspicions in the minds of the authorities
+of Marechiaro. And in his own mind?
+
+He was a mentally courageous man, but he longed now to leave Marechiaro,
+to leave Sicily at once, carrying Hermione with him. A great dread was
+not actually with him, but was very near to him.
+
+Presently something, he did not know what, drew him to the window of his
+bedroom which looked out towards the main street of the village. As he
+came to it he heard a dull murmur of voices, and saw the Sicilians
+crowding to their doors and windows, and coming out upon their balconies.
+
+The body of Maurice was being borne to the hospital which was at the far
+end of the town. As soon as he realized that, Artois closed his window.
+He could not look with the curious on that procession. He went back into
+his sitting-room, which faced the sea. But he felt the procession going
+past, and was enveloped in the black wonder of death.
+
+That he should be alive and Delarey dead! How extraordinary that was! For
+he had been close to death, so close that it would have seemed quite
+natural to him to die. Had not Hermione come to him, he thought, he
+would almost, at the crucial stage in his illness, have preferred to die.
+It would have been a far easier, far simpler act than the return to
+health and his former powers. And now he stood here alive, looking at the
+sea, and Delarey's dead body was being carried to the hospital.
+
+Was the fact that he was alive the cause of the fact that Delarey was
+dead? Abruptly one of those furtive thoughts had leaped forward out of
+its dark place and challenged him boldly, even with a horrible brutality.
+Too late now to try to force it back. It must be faced, be dealt with.
+
+Again, and much more strongly than on the previous day, Artois felt that
+in Hermione's absence the Sicilian life of the dead man had not run
+smoothly, that there had been some episode of which she knew nothing,
+that he, Artois, had been right in his suspicions at the cottage. Delarey
+had been in fear of something, had been on the watch. When he had sat by
+the wall he had been tortured by some tremendous anxiety.
+
+He had gone down to the sea to bathe. That was natural enough. And he had
+been found dead under a precipice of rock in the sea. The place was a
+dangerous one, they said. A man might easily fall from the rock in the
+night. Yes; but why should he be there?
+
+That thought now recurred again and again to the mind of Artois. Why had
+Delarey been at the place where he had met his death? The authorities of
+Marechiaro were going to inquire into that, were probably down at the sea
+now. Suppose there had been some tragic episode? Suppose they should find
+out what it was?
+
+He saw Hermione in the midst of her grief the central figure of some
+dreadful scandal, and his heart sickened.
+
+But then he told himself that perhaps he was being led by his
+imagination. He had thought that possible yesterday. To-day, after what
+had occurred, he thought it less likely. This sudden death seemed to tell
+him that his mind had been walking in the right track. Left alone in
+Sicily, Delarey might have run wild. He might have gone too far. This
+death might be a vengeance.
+
+Artois was deeply interested in all human happenings, but he was not a
+vulgarly curious man. He was not curious now, he was only afraid for
+Hermione. He longed to protect her from any further grief. If there were
+a dreadful truth to know, and if, by knowing it, he could guard her more
+efficiently, he wished to know it. But his instinct was to get her away
+from Sicily at once, directly the funeral was over and the necessary
+arrangements could be made. For himself, he would rather go in ignorance.
+He did not wish to add to the heavy burden of his remorse.
+
+There came at this moment a knock at his door.
+
+"Avanti!" he said.
+
+The waiter of the hotel came in.
+
+"Signore," he said. "The poor signora is here."
+
+"In the hotel?"
+
+"Si, signore. They have taken the body of the signore to the hospital.
+Everybody was in the street to see it pass. And now the poor signora has
+come here. She has taken the rooms above you on the little terrace."
+
+"The signora is going to stay here?"
+
+"Si, signore. They say, if the Signor Pretore allows after the inquiry is
+over, the funeral will be to-morrow."
+
+Artois looked at the man closely. He was a young fellow, handsome and
+gentler-looking than are most Sicilians. Artois wondered what the people
+of Marechiaro were saying. He knew how they must be gossiping on such an
+occasion. And then it was summer, when they have little or nothing to do,
+no forestieri to divide their attentions and to call their ever-ready
+suspicions in various directions. The minds of the whole community must
+undoubtedly be fixed upon this tragic episode and its cause.
+
+"If the Pretore allows?" Artois said. "But surely there can be no
+difficulty? The poor signore fell from the rock and was drowned."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+The man stood there. Evidently he was anxious to talk.
+
+"The Signor Pretore has gone down to the place now, signore, with the
+Cancelliere and the Maresciallo. They have taken Gaspare with them."
+
+"Gaspare!"
+
+Artois thought of this boy, Maurice's companion during Hermione's
+absence.
+
+"Si, signore. Gaspare has to show them the exact place where he found the
+poor signore."
+
+"I suppose the inquiry will soon be over?"
+
+"Chi lo sa?"
+
+"Well, but what is there to do? Whom can they inquire of? It was a lonely
+place, wasn't it? No one was there."
+
+"Chi lo sa?"
+
+"If there had been any one, surely the signore would have been rescued at
+once? Did not every one here love the signore? He was like one of you,
+wasn't he, one of the Sicilians?"
+
+"Si, signore. Maddalena has been crying about the signore."
+
+"Maddalena?"
+
+"Si, signore, the daughter of Salvatore, the fisherman, who lives at the
+Casa delle Sirene."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+Artois paused; then he said:
+
+"Were she and her--Salvatore is her father, you say?"
+
+"Her father, signore."
+
+"Were they at the Casa delle Sirene yesterday?"
+
+Artois spoke quietly, almost carelessly, as if merely to say something,
+but without special intention.
+
+"Maddalena was here in the town with her relations. And they say
+Salvatore is at Messina. This morning Maddalena went home. She was
+crying. Every one saw her crying for the signore."
+
+"That is very natural if she knew him."
+
+"Oh yes, signore, she knew him. Why, they were all at the fair of San
+Felice together only the day before."
+
+"Then, of course, she would cry."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+The man put his hand on the door.
+
+"If the signora wishes to see me at any time I am here," said Artois.
+"But, of course, I shall not disturb her. But if I can do anything to
+help her--about the funeral, for instance--"
+
+"The signora is giving all the directions now. The poor signore is to be
+buried in the high part of the Campo Santo by the wall. Those who are not
+Catholics are buried there, and the poor signore was not a Catholic. What
+a pity!"
+
+"Thank you, Ferdinando."
+
+The man went out slowly, as if he were reluctant to stop the
+conversation.
+
+So the villagers were beginning to gossip already! Ferdinando had not
+said so, but Artois knew his Sicily well enough to read the silences that
+had made significant his words. Maddalena had been crying for the
+signore. Everybody had seen Maddalena crying for the signore. That was
+enough. By this time the village would be in a ferment, every woman at
+her door talking it over with her next-door neighbor, every man in the
+Piazza, or in one of the wine-shops.
+
+Maddalena--a Sicilian girl--weeping, and Delarey's body found among the
+rocks at night in a lonely place close to her cottage. Artois divined
+something of the truth and hated himself the more. The blood, the
+Sicilian blood in Delarey, had called to him in the sunshine when he was
+left alone, and he had, no doubt, obeyed the call. How far had he gone?
+How strongly had he been governed? Probably Artois would never know. Long
+ago he had prophesied, vaguely perhaps, still he had prophesied. And now
+had he not engineered perhaps the fulfilment of his own prophecy?
+
+But at all costs Hermione must be spared any knowledge of that
+fulfilment.
+
+He longed to go to her and to guard her door against the Sicilians. But
+surely in such a moment they would not speak to her of any suspicions, of
+any certainties, even if they had them. She would surely be the last
+person to hear anything, unless--he thought of the "authorities"--of the
+Pretore, the Cancelliere, the Maresciallo, and suddenly it occurred to
+him to ride down to the sea. If the inquiry had yielded any terrible
+result he might do something to protect Hermione. If not, he might be
+able to prepare her. She must not receive any coarse shock from these
+strangers in the midst of her agony.
+
+He got his hat, opened his door, and went quietly down-stairs. He did not
+wish to see Hermione before he went. Perhaps he would return with his
+mind relieved of its heaviest burden, and then at least he could meet her
+eyes without a furtive guilt in his.
+
+At the foot of the stairs he met Ferdinando.
+
+"Can you get me a donkey, Ferdinando?" he said.
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+"I don't want a boy. Just get me a donkey, and I shall go for a short
+ride. You say the signora has not asked for me?"
+
+"No, signore."
+
+"If she does, explain to her that I have gone out, as I did not like to
+disturb her."
+
+Hermione might think him heartless to go out riding at such a time. He
+would risk that. He would risk anything to spare her the last, the
+nameless agony that would be hers if what he suspected were true, and she
+were to learn of it, to know that all these people round her knew it.
+
+That Hermione should be outraged, that the sacredness of her despair
+should be profaned, and the holiness of her memories utterly
+polluted--Artois felt he would give his life willingly to prevent that.
+
+When the donkey came he set off at once. He had drawn his broad-brimmed
+hat down low over his pale face, and he looked neither to right nor left,
+as he was carried down the long and narrow street, followed by the
+searching glances of the inhabitants, who, as he had surmised, were all
+out, engaged in eager conversation, and anxiously waiting for the return
+of the Pretore and his assistants, and the announcement of the result of
+the autopsy. His appearance gave them a fresh topic to discuss. They fell
+upon it like starveling dogs on a piece of offal found in the gutter.
+
+Once out of the village, Artois felt a little safer, a little easier; but
+he longed to be in the train with Hermione, carrying her far from the
+chance of that most cruel fate in life--the fate of disillusion, of the
+loss of holy belief in the truth of one beloved.
+
+When presently he reached the high-road by Isola Bella he encountered the
+fisherman, Giuseppe, who had spent the night at the Casa del Prete.
+
+"Are you going to see the place where the poor signore was found,
+signore?" asked the man.
+
+"Si," said Artois. "I was his friend. I wish to see the Pretore, to hear
+how it happened. Can I? Are they there, he and the others?"
+
+"They are in the Casa delle Sirene, signore. They are waiting to see if
+Salvatore comes back this morning from Messina."
+
+"And his daughter? Is she there?"
+
+"Si, signore. But she knows nothing. She was in the village. She can
+only cry. She is crying for the poor signore."
+
+Again that statement. It was becoming a refrain in the ears of Artois.
+
+"Gaspare is angry with her," added the fisherman. "I believe he would
+like to kill her."
+
+"It makes him sad to see her crying, perhaps," said Artois. "Gaspare
+loved the signore."
+
+He saluted the fisherman and rode on. But the man followed and kept by
+his side.
+
+"I will take you across in a boat, signore," he said.
+
+"Grazie."
+
+Artois struck the donkey and made it trot on in the dust.
+
+Giuseppe rowed him across the inlet and to the far side of the Sirens'
+Isle, from which the little path wound upward to the cottage. Here, among
+the rocks, a boat was moored.
+
+"Ecco, signore!" cried Giuseppe. "Salvatore has come back from Messina!
+Here is his boat!"
+
+Artois felt a pang of anxiety, of regret. He wished he had been there
+before the fisherman had returned. As he got out of the boat he said:
+
+"Did Salvatore know the signore well?"
+
+"Si, signore. The poor signore used to go out fishing with Salvatore.
+They say in the village that he gave Salvatore much money."
+
+"The signore was generous to every one."
+
+"Si, signore. But he did not give donkeys to every one."
+
+"Donkeys? What do you mean, Giuseppe?"
+
+"He gave Salvatore a donkey, a fine donkey. He bought it at the fair of
+San Felice."
+
+Artois said no more. Slowly, for he was still very weak, and the heat was
+becoming fierce as the morning wore on, he walked up the steep path and
+came to the plateau before the Casa delle Sirene.
+
+A group of people stood there: the Pretore, the Cancelliere, the
+Maresciallo, Gaspare, and Salvatore. They seemed to be in strong
+conversation, but directly Artois appeared there was a silence, and they
+all turned and stared at him as if in wonder. Then Gaspare came forward
+and took off his hat.
+
+The boy looked haggard with grief, and angry and obstinate, desperately
+obstinate.
+
+"Signore," he said. "You know my padrone! Tell them--"
+
+But the Pretore interrupted him with an air of importance.
+
+"It is my duty to make an inquiry," he said. "Who is this signore?"
+
+Artois explained that he was an intimate friend of the signora and had
+known her husband before his marriage.
+
+"I have come to hear if you are satisfied, as no doubt you are, Signor
+Pretore," he said, "that this terrible death was caused by an accident.
+The poor signora naturally wishes that this necessary business should be
+finished as soon as possible. It is unavoidable, I know, but it can only
+add to her unhappiness. I am sure, signore, that you will do your best to
+conclude the inquiry without delay. Forgive me for saying this. But I
+know Sicily, and know that I can always rely on the chivalry of Sicilian
+gentlemen where an unhappy lady is concerned."
+
+He spoke intentionally with a certain pomp, and held his hat in his hand
+while he was speaking.
+
+The Pretore looked pleased and flattered.
+
+"Certainly, Signor Barone," he said. "Certainly. We all grieve for the
+poor signora."
+
+"You will allow me to stay?" said Artois.
+
+"I see no objection," said the Pretore.
+
+He glanced at the Cancelliere, a small, pale man, with restless eyes and
+a pointed chin that looked like a weapon.
+
+"Niente, niente!" said the Cancelliere, obsequiously.
+
+He was reading Artois with intense sharpness. The Maresciallo, a broad,
+heavily built man, with an enormous mustache, uttered a deep "Buon
+giorno, Signor Barone," and stood calmly staring. He looked like a
+magnificent bull, with his short, strong brown neck, and low-growing hair
+that seemed to have been freshly crimped. Gaspare stood close to Artois,
+as if he felt that they were allies and must keep together. Salvatore was
+a few paces off.
+
+Artois glanced at him now with a carefully concealed curiosity. Instantly
+the fisherman said:
+
+"Povero signorino! Povero signorino! Mamma mia! and only two days ago we
+were all at the fair together! And he was so generous, Signor Barone." He
+moved a little nearer, but Artois saw him glance swiftly at Gaspare, like
+a man fearful of violence and ready to repel it. "He paid for everything.
+We could all keep our soldi in our pockets. And he gave Maddalena a
+beautiful blue dress, and he gave me a donkey. Dio mio! We have lost a
+benefactor. If the poor signorino had lived he would have given me a new
+boat. He had promised me a boat. For he would come fishing with me nearly
+every day. He was like a compare--"
+
+Salvatore stopped abruptly. His eyes were again on Gaspare.
+
+"And you say," began the Pretore, with a certain heavy pomposity, "that
+you did not see the signore at all yesterday?"
+
+"No, signore. I suppose he came down after I had started for Messina."
+
+"What did you go to Messina for?"
+
+"Signore, I went to see my nephew, Guido, who is in the hospital. He
+has--"
+
+"Non fa niente! non fa niente!" interrupted the Cancelliere.
+
+"Non fa niente! What time did you start?" said the Pretore.
+
+The Maresciallo cleared his throat with great elaboration, and spat with
+power twice.
+
+"Signor Pretore, I do not know. I did not look at the clock. But it was
+before sunset--it was well before sunset."
+
+"And the signore only came down from the Casa del Prete very late,"
+interposed Artois, quietly. "I was there and kept him. It was quite
+evening before he started."
+
+An expression of surprise went over Salvatore's face and vanished. He had
+realized that for some reason this stranger was his ally.
+
+"Had you any reason to suppose the signore was coming to fish with you
+yesterday?" asked the Pretore of Salvatore.
+
+"No, signore. I thought as the signora was back the poor signore would
+stay with her at the house."
+
+"Naturally, naturally!" said the Cancelliere.
+
+"Naturally! It seems the signore had several times passed across the
+rocks, from which he appears to have fallen, without any difficulty,"
+remarked the Pretore.
+
+"Si, signore," said Gaspare.
+
+He looked at Salvatore, seemed to make a great effort, then added:
+
+"But never when it was dark, signore. And I was always with him. He used
+to take my hand."
+
+His chest began to heave.
+
+"Corragio, Gaspare!" said Artois to him, in a low voice.
+
+His strong intuition enabled him to understand something of the conflict
+that was raging in the boy. He had seen his glances at Salvatore, and
+felt that he was longing to fly at the fisherman, that he only restrained
+himself with agony from some ferocious violence.
+
+The Pretore remained silent for a moment. It was evident that he was at
+a loss. He wished to appear acute, but the inquiry yielded nothing for
+the exercise of his talents.
+
+At last he said:
+
+"Did any one see you going to Messina? Is there any corroboration of your
+statement that you started before the signore came down here?"
+
+"Do you think I am not speaking the truth, Signor Pretore?" said
+Salvatore, proudly. "Why should I lie? The poor signore was my
+benefactor. If I had known he was coming I should have been here to
+receive him. Why, he has eaten in my house! He has slept in my house. I
+tell you we were as brothers."
+
+"Si, si," said the Cancelliere.
+
+Gaspare set his teeth, walked away to the edge of the plateau, and stood
+looking out to sea.
+
+"Then no one saw you?" persisted the Pretore.
+
+"Non lo so," said Salvatore. "I did not think of such things. I wanted to
+go to Messina, so I sent Maddalena to pass the night in the village, and
+I took the boat. What else should I do?"
+
+"Va bene! Va bene!" said the Cancelliere.
+
+The Maresciallo cleared his throat again. That, and the ceremony which
+invariably followed, were his only contributions to this official
+proceeding.
+
+The Pretore, receiving no assistance from his colleagues, seemed doubtful
+what more to do. It was evident to Artois that he was faintly suspicious,
+that he was not thoroughly satisfied about the cause of this death.
+
+"Your daughter seems very upset about all this," he said to Salvatore.
+
+"Mamma mia! And how should she not? Why, Signor Pretore, we loved the
+poor signore. We would have thrown ourselves into the sea for him. When
+we saw him coming down from the mountain to us it was as if we saw God
+coming down from heaven."
+
+"Certo! Certo!" said the Cancelliere.
+
+"I think every one who knew the signore at all grew to be very fond of
+him," said Artois, quietly. "He was greatly beloved here by every one."
+
+His manner to the Pretore was very civil, even respectful. Evidently it
+had its effect upon that personage. Every one here seemed to be assured
+that this death was merely an accident, could only have been an accident.
+He did not know what more to do.
+
+"Va bene!" he said at last, with some reluctance. "We shall see what the
+doctors say when the autopsy is concluded. Let us hope that nothing will
+be discovered. I do not wish to distress the poor signora. At the same
+time I must do my duty. That is evident."
+
+"It seems to me you have done it with admirable thoroughness," said
+Artois.
+
+"Grazie, Signor Barone, grazie!"
+
+"Grazie, grazie, Signor Barone!" added the Cancelliere.
+
+"Grazie, Signor Barone!" said the deep voice of the Maresciallo.
+
+The authorities now slowly prepared to take their departure.
+
+"You are coming with us, Signor Barone?" said the Pretore.
+
+Artois was about to say yes, when he saw pass across the aperture of the
+doorway of the cottage the figure of a girl with bent head. It
+disappeared immediately.
+
+"That must be Maddalena!" he thought.
+
+"Scusi, signore," he said, "but I have been seriously ill. The ride down
+here has tired me, and I should be glad to rest for a few minutes longer,
+if--" He looked at Salvatore.
+
+"I will fetch a chair for the signore!" said the fisherman, quickly.
+
+He did not know what this stranger wanted, but he felt instinctively that
+it was nothing that would be harmful to him.
+
+The Pretore and his companions, after polite inquiries as to the illness
+of Artois, took their leave with many salutations. Only Gaspare remained
+on the edge of the plateau staring at the sea. As Salvatore went to fetch
+the chair Artois went over to the boy.
+
+"Gaspare!" he said.
+
+"Si!" said the boy.
+
+"I want you to go up with the Pretore. Go to the signora. Tell her the
+inquiry is finished. It will relieve her to know."
+
+"You will come with me, signore?"
+
+"No."
+
+The boy turned and looked him full in the face.
+
+"Why do you stay?"
+
+For a moment Artois did not speak. He was considering rapidly what to
+say, how to treat Gaspare. He was now sure that there had been a tragedy,
+with which the people of the sirens' house were, somehow, connected. He
+was sure that Gaspare either knew or suspected what had happened, yet
+meant to conceal his knowledge despite his obvious hatred for the
+fisherman. Was the boy's reason for this strange caution, this strange
+secretiveness, akin to his--Artois's--desire? Was the boy trying to
+protect his padrona or the memory of his padrone? Artois wondered. Then
+he said:
+
+"Gaspare, I shall only stay a few minutes. We must have no gossip that
+can get to the padrona's ears. We understand each other, I think, you and
+I. We want the same thing. Men can keep silence, but girls talk. I wish
+to see Maddalena for a minute."
+
+"Ma--"
+
+Gaspare stared at him almost fiercely. But something in the face of
+Artois inspired him with confidence. Suddenly his reserve disappeared. He
+put his hand on Artois's arm.
+
+"Tell Maddalena to be silent and not to go on crying, signore," he said,
+violently. "Tell her that if she does not stop crying I will come down
+here in the night and kill her."
+
+"Go, Gaspare! The Pretore is wondering--go!"
+
+Gaspare went down over the edge of the land and disappeared towards the
+sea.
+
+"Ecco, signore!"
+
+Salvatore reappeared from the cottage carrying a chair which he set down
+under an olive-tree, the same tree by which Maddalena had stood when
+Maurice first saw her in the dawn.
+
+"Grazie."
+
+Artois sat down. He was very tired, but he scarcely knew it. The
+fisherman stood by him, looking at him with a sort of shifty expectation,
+and Artois, as he noticed the hard Arab type of the man's face, the
+glitter of the small, cunning eyes, the nervous alertness of the thin,
+sensitive hands, understood a great deal about Salvatore. He knew Arabs
+well. He had slept under their tents, had seen them in joy and in anger,
+had witnessed scenes displaying fully their innate carelessness of human
+life. This fisherman was almost as much Arab as Sicilian. The blend
+scarcely made for gentleness. If such a man were wronged, he would be
+quick and subtle in revenge. Nothing would stay him. But had Maurice
+wronged him? Artois meant to assume knowledge and to act upon his
+assumption. His instinct advised him that in doing so he would be doing
+the best thing possible for the protection of Hermione.
+
+"Can you make much money here?" he said, sharply yet carelessly.
+
+The fisherman moved as if startled.
+
+"Signore!"
+
+"They tell me Sicily's a poor land for the poor. Isn't that so?"
+
+Salvatore recovered himself.
+
+"Si, signore, si, signore, one earns nothing. It is a hard life, Per
+Dio!"
+
+He stopped and stared hard at the stranger with his hands on his hips.
+His eyes, his whole expression and attitude said, "What are you up to?"
+
+"America is the country for a sharp-witted man to make his fortune in,"
+said Artois, returning his gaze.
+
+"Si, signore. Many go from here. I know many who are working in America.
+But one must have money to pay the ticket."
+
+"Yes. This terreno belongs to you?"
+
+"Only the bit where the house stands, signore. And it is all rocks. It is
+no use to any one. And in winter the winds come over it. Why, it would
+take years of work to turn it into anything. And I am not a contadino.
+Once I had a wine-shop, but I am a man of the sea."
+
+"But you are a man with sharp wits. I should think you would do well in
+America. Others do, and why not you?"
+
+They looked at each other hard for a full minute. Then Salvatore said,
+slowly:
+
+"Signore, I will tell you the truth. It is the truth. I would swear it
+with sea-water on my lips. If I had the money I would go to America. I
+would take the first ship."
+
+"And your daughter, Maddalena? You couldn't leave her behind you?"
+
+"Signore, if I were ever to go to America you may be sure I should take
+Maddalena with me."
+
+"I think you would," Artois said, still looking at the man full in the
+eyes. "I think it would be wiser to take Maddalena with you."
+
+Salvatore looked away.
+
+"If I had the money, signore, I would buy the tickets to-morrow. Here I
+can make nothing, and it is a hard life, always on the sea. And in
+America you get good pay. A man can earn eight lire a day there, they
+tell me."
+
+"I have not seen your daughter yet," Artois said, abruptly.
+
+"No, signore, she is not well to-day. And the Signor Pretore frightened
+her. She will stay in the house to-day."
+
+"But I should like to see her for a moment."
+
+"Signore, I am very sorry, but--"
+
+Artois turned round in the chair and looked towards the house. The door,
+which had been open, was now shut.
+
+"Maddalena is praying, signore. She is praying to the Madonna for the
+soul of the dead signore."
+
+For the first time Artois noticed in the hard, bird-like face of the
+fisherman a sign of emotion, almost of softness.
+
+"We must not disturb her, signore."
+
+Artois got up and went a few steps nearer to the cottage.
+
+"Can one see the place where the signore's body was found?" he asked.
+
+"Si, signore, from the other side, among the trees."
+
+"I will come back in a moment," said Artois.
+
+He walked away from the fisherman and entered the wood, circling the
+cottage. The fisherman did not come with him. Artois's instinct had told
+him that the man would not care to come on such an errand. As Artois
+passed at the back of the cottage he noticed an open window, and paused
+near it in the long grass. From within there came the sound of a woman's
+voice, murmuring. It was frequently interrupted by sobs. After a moment
+Artois went close to the window, and said, but without showing himself:
+
+"Maddalena!"
+
+The murmuring voice stopped.
+
+"Maddalena!"
+
+There was silence.
+
+"Maddalena!" Artois said. "Are you listening?"
+
+He heard a faint movement as if the woman within came nearer to the
+casement.
+
+"If you loved the dead signore, if you care for his memory, do not talk
+of your grief for him to others. Pray for him, and be silent for him. If
+you are silent the Holy Mother will hear your prayers."
+
+As he said the last words Artois made his deep voice sound mysterious,
+mystical.
+
+Then he went away softly among the thickly growing trees.
+
+When he saw Salvatore again, still standing upon the plateau, he beckoned
+to him without coming into the open.
+
+"Bring the boat round to the inlet," he said. "I will cross from there."
+
+"Si, signore."
+
+"And as we cross we can speak a little more about America."
+
+The fisherman stared at him, with a faint smile that showed a gleam of
+sharp, white teeth.
+
+"Si, signore--a little more about America."
+
+
+
+XXV
+
+A night and a day had passed, and still Artois had not seen Hermione. The
+autopsy had been finished, and had revealed nothing to change the theory
+of Dr. Marini as to the determining cause of death. The English stranger
+had been crossing the dangerous wall of rock, probably in darkness, had
+fallen, been stunned upon the rocks in the sea beneath, and drowned
+before he recovered consciousness.
+
+Gaspare said nothing. Salvatore held his peace and began his preparations
+for America. And Maddalena, if she wept, wept now in secret; if she
+prayed, prayed in the lonely house of the sirens, near the window which
+had so often given a star to the eyes that looked down from the terrace
+of the Casa del Prete.
+
+There was gossip in Marechiaro, and the Pretore still preserved his air
+of faint suspicion. But that would probably soon vanish under the
+influence of the Cancelliere, with whom Artois had had some private
+conversation. The burial had been allowed, and very early in the morning
+of the day following that of Hermione's arrival at the hotel it took
+place from the hospital.
+
+Few people knew the hour, and most were still asleep when the coffin was
+carried down the street, followed only by Hermione, and by Gaspare in a
+black, ready-made suit that had been bought in the village of Cattaro.
+Hermione would not allow any one else to follow her dead, and as Maurice
+had been a Protestant there was no service. This shocked Gaspare, and
+added to his grief, till Hermione explained that her husband had been of
+a different religion from that of Sicily, a religion with different
+rites.
+
+"But we can pray for him, Gaspare," she said. "He loved us, and perhaps
+he will know what we are doing."
+
+The thought seemed to soothe the boy. He kneeled down by his padrona
+under the wall of the Campo Santo by which Protestants were buried, and
+whispered a petition for the repose of the soul of his padrone. Into the
+gap of earth, where now the coffin lay, he had thrown roses from his
+father's little terreno near the village. His tears fell fast, and his
+prayer was scarcely more than a broken murmur of "Povero
+signorino--povero signorino--Dio ci mandi buon riposo in Paradiso."
+Hermione could not pray although she was in the attitude of supplication;
+but when she heard the words of Gaspare she murmured them too. "Buon
+riposo!" The sweet Sicilian good-night--she said it now in the stillness
+of the lonely dawn. And her tears fell fast with those of the boy who had
+loved and served his master.
+
+When the funeral was over she walked up the mountain with Gaspare to the
+Casa del Prete, and from there, on the following day, she sent a message
+to Artois, asking him if he would come to see her.
+
+     "I don't ask you to forgive me for not seeing you before," she
+     wrote. "We understand each other and do not need explanations. I
+     wanted to see nobody. Come at any hour when you feel that you would
+     like to.
+                                                       HERMIONE."
+
+Artois rode up in the cool of the day, towards evening.
+
+He was met upon the terrace by Gaspare.
+
+"The signora is on the mountain, signore," he said. "If you go up you
+will find her, the povero signora. She is all alone upon the mountain."
+
+"I will go, Gaspare. I have told Maddalena. I think she will be silent."
+
+The boy dropped his eyes. His unreserve of the island had not endured. It
+had been a momentary impulse, and now the impulse had died away.
+
+"Va bene, signore," he muttered.
+
+He had evidently nothing more to say, yet Artois did not leave him
+immediately.
+
+"Gaspare," he said, "the signora will not stay here through the great
+heat, will she?"
+
+"Non lo so, signore."
+
+"She ought to go away. It will be better if she goes away."
+
+"Si, signore. But perhaps she will not like to leave the povero
+signorino."
+
+Tears came into the boy's eyes. He turned away and went to the wall, and
+looked over into the ravine, and thought of many things: of readings
+under the oak-trees, of the tarantella, of how he and the padrone had
+come up from the fishing singing in the sunshine. His heart was full, and
+he felt dazed. He was so accustomed to being always with his padrone that
+he did not know how he was to go on without him. He did not remember his
+former life, before the padrone came. Everything seemed to have begun for
+him on that morning when the train with the padrone and the padrona in it
+ran into the station of Cattaro. And now everything seemed to have
+finished.
+
+Artois did not say any more to him, but walked slowly up the mountain
+leaning on his stick. Close to the top, by a heap of stones that was
+something like a cairn, he saw, presently, a woman sitting. As he came
+nearer she turned her head and saw him. She did not move. The soft rays
+of the evening sun fell on her, and showed him that her square and rugged
+face was pale and grave and, he thought, empty-looking, as if something
+had deprived it of its former possession, the ardent vitality, the
+generous enthusiasm, the look of swiftness he had loved.
+
+When he came up to her he could only say: "Hermione, my friend--"
+
+The loneliness of this mountain summit was a fit setting for her
+loneliness, and these two solitudes, of nature and of this woman's soul,
+took hold of Artois and made him feel as if he were infinitely small, as
+if he could not matter to either. He loved nature, and he loved this
+woman. And of what use were he and his love to them?
+
+She stretched up her hand to him, and he bent down and took it and held
+it.
+
+"You said some day I should leave my Garden of Paradise, Emile."
+
+"Don't hurt me with my own words," he said.
+
+"Sit by me."
+
+He sat down on the warm ground close to the heap of stones.
+
+"You said I should leave the garden, but I don't think you meant like
+this. Did you?"
+
+"No," he said.
+
+"I think you thought we should be unhappy together. Well, we were never
+that. We were always very happy. I like to think of that. I come up here
+to think of that; of our happiness, and that we were always kind and
+tender to each other. Emile, if we hadn't been, if we had ever had even
+one quarrel, even once said cruel things to each other, I don't think I
+could bear it now. But we never did. God did watch us then, I think. God
+was with me so long as Maurice was with me. But I feel as if God had gone
+away from me with Maurice, as if they had gone together. Do you think any
+other woman has ever felt like that?"
+
+"I don't think I am worthy to know how some women feel," he said, almost
+falteringly.
+
+"I thought perhaps God would have stayed with me to help me, but I feel
+as if He hadn't. I feel as if He had only been able to love me so long as
+Maurice was with me."
+
+"That feeling will pass away."
+
+"Perhaps when my child comes," she said, very simply.
+
+Artois had not known about the coming of the child, but Hermione did not
+remember that now.
+
+"Your child!" he said.
+
+"I am glad I came back in time to tell him about the child," she said. "I
+think at first he was almost frightened. He was such a boy, you see. He
+was the very spirit of youth, wasn't he? And perhaps that--but at the end
+he seemed happy. He kissed me as if he loved not only me. Do you
+understand, Emile? He seemed to kiss me the last time--for us both. Some
+day I shall tell my baby that."
+
+She was silent for a little while. She looked out over the great view,
+now falling into a strange repose. This was the land he had loved, the
+land he had belonged to.
+
+"I should like to hear the 'Pastorale' now," she said, presently. "But
+Sebastiano--" A new thought seemed to strike her. "I wonder how some
+women can bear their sorrows," she said. "Don't you, Emile?"
+
+"What sorrows do you mean?" he asked.
+
+"Such a sorrow as poor Lucrezia has to bear. Maurice always loved me.
+Lucrezia knows that Sebastiano loves some one else. I ought to be trying
+to comfort Lucrezia. I did try. I did go to pray with her. But that was
+before. I can't pray now, because I can't feel sure of almost anything. I
+sometimes think that this happened without God's meaning it to happen."
+
+"God!" Artois said, moved by an irresistible impulse. "And the gods, the
+old pagan gods?"
+
+"Ah!" she said, understanding. "We called him Mercury. Yes, it is as if
+he had gone to them, as if they had recalled their messenger. In the
+spring, before I went to Africa, I often used to think of legends, and
+put him--my Sicilian--"
+
+She did not go on. Yet her voice had not faltered. There was no
+contortion of sorrow in her face. There was a sort of soft calmness about
+her almost akin to the calmness of the evening. It was the more
+remarkable in her because she was not usually a tranquil woman. Artois
+had never known her before in deep grief. But he had known her in joy,
+and then she had been rather enthusiastic than serene. Something of her
+eager humanity had left her now. She made upon him a strange impression,
+almost as of some one he had never previously had any intercourse with.
+And yet she was being wonderfully natural with him, as natural as if she
+were alone.
+
+"What are you going to do, my friend?" he said, after a long silence.
+
+"Nothing. I have no wish to do anything. I shall just wait--for our
+child."
+
+"But where will you wait? You cannot wait here. The heat would weaken
+you. In your condition it would be dangerous."
+
+"He spoke of going. It hurt me for a moment, I remember. I had a wish to
+stay here forever then. It seemed to me that this little bit of earth and
+rock was the happiest place in all the world. Yes, I will go, Emile, but
+I shall come back. I shall bring our child here."
+
+He did not combat this intention then, for he was too thankful to have
+gained her assent to the departure for which he longed. The further
+future must take care of itself.
+
+"I will take you to Italy, to Switzerland, wherever you wish to go."
+
+"I have no wish for any other place. But I will go somewhere in Italy.
+Wherever it is cool and silent will do. But I must be far away from
+people; and when you have taken me there, dear Emile, you must leave me
+there."
+
+"Quite alone?"
+
+"Gaspare will be with me. I shall always keep Gaspare. Maurice and he
+were like two brothers in their happiness. I know they loved each other,
+and I know Gaspare loves me."
+
+Artois only said:
+
+"I trust the boy."
+
+The word "trust" seemed to wake Hermione into a stronger life.
+
+"Ah, Emile," she said, "once you distrusted the south. I remember your
+very words. You said, 'I love the south, but I distrust what I love, and
+I see the south in him.' I want to tell you, I want you to know, how
+perfect he was always to me. He loved joy, but his joy was always
+innocent. There was always something of the child in him. He was
+unconscious of himself. He never understood his own beauty. He never
+realized that he was worthy of worship. His thought was to reverence and
+to worship others. He loved life and the sun--oh, how he loved them! I
+don't think any one can ever have loved life and the sun as he did, ever
+will love them as he did. But he was never selfish. He was just quite
+natural. He was the deathless boy. Emile, have you noticed anything about
+me--since?"
+
+"What, Hermione?"
+
+"How much older I look now. He was like my youth, and my youth has gone
+with him."
+
+"Will it not revive--when--?"
+
+"No, never. I don't wish it to. Gaspare gathered roses, all the best
+roses from his father's little bit of land, to throw into the grave. And
+I want my youth to lie there with my Sicilian under Gaspare's roses. I
+feel as if that would be a tender companionship. I gave everything to him
+when he was alive, and I don't want to keep anything back now. I would
+like the sun to be with him under Gaspare's roses. And yet I know he's
+elsewhere. I can't explain. But two days ago at dawn I heard a child
+playing the tarantella, and it seemed to me as if my Sicilian had been
+taken away by the blue, by the blue of Sicily. I shall often come back to
+the blue. I shall often sit here again. For it was here that I heard the
+beating of the heart of youth. And there's no other music like that. Is
+there, Emile?"
+
+"No," he said.
+
+Had the music been wild? He suspected that the harmony she worshipped had
+passed on into the hideous crash of discords. And whose had been the
+fault? Who creates human nature as it is? In what workshop, of what
+brain, are forged the mad impulses of the wild heart of youth, are mixed
+together subtly the divine aspirations which leap like the winged Mercury
+to the heights, and the powerful appetites which lead the body into the
+dark places of the earth? And why is the Giver of the divine the
+permitter of those tremendous passions, which are not without their
+glory, but which wreck so many human lives?
+
+Perhaps a reason may be found in the sacredness of pity. Evil and agony
+are the manure from which spring some of the whitest lilies that have
+ever bloomed beneath that enigmatic blue which roofs the terror and the
+triumph of the world. And while human beings know how to pity, human
+beings will always believe in a merciful God.
+
+A strange thought to come into such a mind as Artois's! Yet it came in
+the twilight, and with it a sense of tears such as he had never felt
+before.
+
+With the twilight had come a little wind from Etna. It made something
+near him flutter, something white, a morsel of paper among the stones by
+which he was sitting. He looked down and saw writing, and bent to pick
+the paper up.
+
+     "Emile may leave at once. But there is no good boat till the 10th.
+     We shall take that...."
+
+Hermione's writing!
+
+Artois understood at once. Maurice had had Hermione's letter. He had
+known they were coming from Africa, and he had gone to the fair despite
+that knowledge. He had gone with the girl who wept and prayed beside the
+sea.
+
+His hand closed over the paper.
+
+"What is it, Emile? What have you picked up?"
+
+"Only a little bit of paper."
+
+He spoke quietly, tore it into tiny fragments and let them go upon the
+wind.
+
+"When will you come with me, Hermione? When shall we go to Italy?"
+
+"I am saying 'a rivederci' now"--she dropped her voice--"and buon
+riposo."
+
+The white fragments blew away into the gathering night, separated from
+one another by the careful wind.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Three days later Hermione and Artois left Sicily, and Gaspare, leaning
+out of the window of the train, looked his last on the Isle of the
+Sirens. A fisherman on the beach by the inlet, not Salvatore, recognized
+the boy and waved a friendly hand. But Gaspare did not see him.
+
+There they had fished! There they had bathed! There they had drunk the
+good red wine of Amato and called for brindisi! There they had lain on
+the warm sand of the caves! There they had raced together to Madre
+Carmela and her frying-pan! There they had shouted "O sole mio!"
+
+There--there they had been young together!
+
+The shining sea was blotted out from the boy's eyes by tears.
+
+"Povero signorino!" he whispered. "Povero signorino!"
+
+And then, as his "Paese" vanished, he added for the last time the words
+which he had whispered in the dawn by the grave of his padrone, "Dio ci
+mandi buon riposo in Paradiso."
+
+
+
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