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  • 1908
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That she had–her memory, and Gaspare’s loyal, open-hearted devotion. He knew what she had suffered. He loved her as he had loved his dead Padrone. He would always protect her, put her first without hesitation, conceal nothing from her that it was her right–for surely even the humblest, the least selfish, the least grasping, surely all who love have their rights–that it was her right to know.

Her cheeks were burning. She felt like one who had been making some physical exertion.

Deeply silent was the house. Her room was full of shadows, yet full of the hidden presence of the sun. There was a glory outside, against which she was protected. But outside, and against assaults that were inglorious, what protection had she? Her own personality must protect her, her own will, the determination, the strength, the courage that belong to all who are worth anything in the world. And she called upon herself. And it seemed to her that there was no voice that answered.

There was a hideous moment of drama.

She sat there quietly in her chair in the pretty room. And she called again, and she listened–and again there was silence.

Then she was afraid. She had a strange and horrible feeling that she was deserted by herself, by that which, at least, had been herself and on which she had been accustomed to rely. And what was left was surely utterly incapable, full of the flabby wickedness that seems to dwell in weakness. It seemed to her that if any one who knew her well, if Vere, Emile, or even Gaspare, had come into the room just then, the intruder would have paused on the threshold amazed to see a stranger there. She felt afraid to be seen and yet afraid to remain alone. Should she do something definite, something defiant, to prove to herself that she had will and could exercise it?

She got up, resolved to go to Vere. When she was there, with her child, she did not know what she was going to do. She had said to Vere, “Keep your secrets.” What if she went now and humbled herself, explained to the child quite simply and frankly a mother’s jealousy, a widow’s loneliness, made her realize what she was in a life from which the greatest thing had been ruthlessly withdrawn? Vere would understand surely, and all would be well. This shadow between them would pass away. Hermione had her hand on the door. But she did not open it. An imperious reserve, autocrat, tyrant, rose up suddenly within her. She could never make such a confession to Vere. She could never plead for her child’s confidence–a confidence already given to Emile, to a man. And now for the first time the common curiosity to which she had not yet fallen a victim came upon her, flooded her. What was Vere’s secret? That it was innocent, probably even childish, Hermione did not question even for a moment. But what was it?

She heard a light step outside and drew back from the door. The step passed on and died away down the paved staircase. Vere had gone out to the terrace, the garden, or the sea.

Hermione again moved forward, then stopped abruptly. Her face was suddenly flooded with red as she realized what she had been going to do, she who had exclaimed that every one has a right to their freedom.

For an instant she had meant to go to Vere’s room, to try to find out surreptitiously what Emile knew.

A moment later Vere, coming back swiftly for a pencil she had forgotten, heard the sharp grating of a key in the lock of her mother’s door.

She ran on lightly, wondering why her mother was locking herself in, and against whom.

CHAPTER XVIII

During the last days Artois had not been to the island, nor had he seen the Marchesino. A sudden passion for work had seized him. Since the night of Vere’s meeting with Peppina his brain had been in flood with thoughts. Life often acts subtly upon the creative artist, repressing or encouraging his instinct to bring forth, depressing or exciting him when, perhaps, he expects it least. The passing incidents of life frequently have their hidden, their unsuspected part in determining his activities. So it was now with Artois. He had given an impetus to Vere. That was natural, to be expected, considering his knowledge and his fame, his great experience and his understanding of men. But now Vere had given an impetus to him–and that was surely stranger. Since the conversation among the shadows of the cave, after the vision of the moving men of darkness and of fire, since the sound of Peppina sobbing in the night, and the sight of her passionate face lifted to show its gashed cross to Vere, Artois’ brain and head had been alive with a fury of energy that forcibly summoned him to work, that held him working. He even felt within him something that was like a renewal of some part of his vanished youth, and remembered old days of student life, nights in the Quartier Latin, his debut as a writer for the papers, the sensation of joy with which he saw his first article in the /Figaro/, his dreams of fame, his hopes of love, his baptism of sentiment. How he had worked in those days and nights! How he had hunted experience in the streets and the by-ways of the great city! How passionate and yet how ruthless he had been, as artists often are, governed not only by their quick emotions, but also by the something watchful and dogged underneath, that will not be swept away, that is like a detective hidden by a house door to spy out all the comers in the night. Something, some breath from the former days, swept over him again. In his ears there sounded surely the cries of Paris, urging him to the assault to the barricades of Fame. And he sat down, and he worked with the vehement energy, with the pulsating eagerness of one of “les jeunes.” Hour after hour he worked. He took coffee, and wrote through the night. He slept when the dawn came, got up, and toiled again.

He shut out the real world and he forgot it–until the fit was past. And then he pushed away his paper, he laid down his pen, he stretched himself, and he knew that his great effort had tired him tremendously –tremendously.

He looked at his right hand. It was cramped. As he held it up he saw that it was shaking. He had drunk a great deal of black coffee during those days, had drunk it recklessly as in the days of youth, when he cared nothing about health because he felt made of iron.

“Pf-f-f!”

And so there was Naples outside, the waters of the Bay dancing in the sunshine of the bright summer afternoon, people bathing and shouting to one another from the diving platforms and the cabins; people galloping by in the little carriages to eat oysters at Posilipo. Lazy, heedless, pleasure-loving wretches! He thought of Doro as he looked at them.

He had given strict orders that he was not to be disturbed while he was at work, unless Hermione came. And he had not once been disturbed. Now he rang the bell. An Italian waiter, with crooked eyes and a fair beard, stepped softly in.

“Has any one been to see me? Has any one asked for me lately?” he said. “Just go down, will you, and inquire of the concierge.”

The waiter departed, and returned to say that no one had been for the Signore.

“Not the Marchese Isidoro Panacci?

“The concierge says that no one has been, Signore.”

“Va bene.”

The man went out.

So Doro had not come even once! Perhaps he was seriously offended. At their last parting in the Villa he had shown a certain irony that had in it a hint of bitterness. Artois did not know of the fisherman’s information, that Doro had guessed who was Vere’s companion that night upon the sea. He supposed that his friend was angry because he believed himself distrusted. Well, that could soon be put right. He thought of the Marchesino now with lightness, as the worker who has just made a great and prolonged effort is inclined to think of the habitual idler. Doro was like a feather on the warm wind of the South. He, Artois, was not in the mood just then to bother about a feather. Still less was he inclined for companionship. He wanted some hours of complete rest out in the air, with gay and frivolous scenes before his eyes.

He wanted to look on, but not to join in, the merry life that was about him, and that for so long a time he had almost violently ignored.

He resolved to take a carriage, drive slowly to Posilipo, and eat his dinner there in some eyrie above the sea; watching the pageant that unfolds itself on the evenings of summer about the ristoranti and the osterie, round the stalls of the vendors of Fruitti di Mare, and the piano-organs, to the accompaniment of which impudent men sing love songs to the saucy, dark-eyed beauties posed upon balconies, or gathered in knots upon the little terraces that dominate the bathing establishments, and the distant traffic of the Bay. His brain longed for rest, but it longed also for the hum and the stir of men. His heart lusted for the sight of pleasure, and must be appeased.

Catching up his hat, almost with the hasty eagerness of a boy, he went down-stairs. On the opposite side of the road was a smart little carriage in which the coachman was asleep, with his legs cocked up on the driver’s seat, displaying a pair of startling orange-and-black socks. By the socks Artois knew his man.

“Pasqualino! Pasqualino!” he cried.

The coachman sprang up, showing a round, rosy face, and a pair of shrewd, rather small dark eyes.

“Take me to Posilipo.”

“Si, Signore.”

Pasqualino cracked his whip vigorously.

“Ah–ah! Ah–ah!” he cried to his gayly bedizened little horse, who wore a long feather on his head, flanked by bunches of artificial roses.

“Not too fast, Pasqualino. I am in no hurry. Keep along by the sea.”

The coachman let the reins go loose, and instantly the little horse went slowly, as if all his spirit and agility had suddenly been withdrawn from him.

“I have not seen you for several days, Signore. Have you been ill?”

Pasqualino had turned quite round on his box, and was facing his client.

“No, I’ve been working.”

“Si?”

Pasqualino made a grimace, as he nearly always did when he heard a rich Signore speak of working.

“And you? You have been spending money as usual. All your clothes are new.”

Pasqualino smiled, showing rows of splendid teeth under his little twisted-up mustache.

“Si, Signore, all! And I have also new underclothing.”

“Per Bacco!”

“Ecco, Signore!”

He pulled his trousers up to his knees, showing a pair of pale-blue drawers.

“The suspenders–they are new, Signore!” He drew attention to the scarlet elastics that kept the orange-and-black socks in place. “My boots!” He put his feet up on the box that Artois might see his lemon- colored boots, then unbuttoned and threw open his waistcoat. “My shirt is new! My cravat is new! Look at the pin!” He flourished his plump, brown, and carefully washed hands. “I have a new ring.” He bent his head. “My hat is new.”

Artois broke into a roar of laughter that seemed to do him good after his days of work.

“You young dandy! And where do you get the money?”

Pasqualino looked doleful and hung his head.

“Signore, I am in debt. But I say to myself, ‘Thank the Madonna, I have a rich and generous Padrone who wishes his coachman to be chic. When he sees my clothes he will be contented, and who knows what he will do?’ “

“Per Bacco! And who is this rich and generous Signore?”

“Ma!” Pasqualino passionately flung out the ringed hand that was not holding the reins–“Ma!–you, Signore.”

“You young rascal! Turn round and attend to your driving!”

But Artois laughed again. The impudent boyishness of Pasqualino, and his childish passion for finery, were refreshing, and seemed to belong to a young and thoughtless world. The sea-breeze was soft as silk, the afternoon sunshine was delicately brilliant. The Bay looked as it often does in summer–like radiant liberty held in happy arms, alluring, full of promises. And a physical well-being invaded Artois such as he had not known since the day when he had tea with Vere upon the island.

He had been shut in. Now the gates were thrown open, and to what a brilliant world! He issued forth into it with almost joyous expectation.

They went slowly, and presently drew near to the Rotonda. Artois leaned a little forward and saw that the fishermen were at work. They stood in lines upon the pavement pulling at the immense nets which were still a long way out to sea. When the carriage reached them Artois told Pasqualino to draw up, and sat watching the work and the fierce energy of the workers. Half naked, with arms and legs and chests that gleamed in the sun like copper, they toiled, slanting backward, one towards another, laughing, shouting, swearing with a sort of almost angry joy. In their eyes there was a carelessness that was wild, in their gestures a lack of self-consciousness that was savage. But they looked like creatures who must live forever. And to Artois, sedentary for so long, the sight of them brought a feeling almost of triumph, but also a sensation of envy. Their vigor made him pine for movement.

“Drive on slowly, Pasqualino,” he said. “I will follow you on foot, and join you at the hill.”

“Si Signore.”

He got out, stood for a moment, then strolled on towards the Mergellina. As he approached this part of the town, with its harbor and its population of fisherfolk, the thought of Ruffo came into his mind. He remembered that Ruffo lived here. Perhaps he might see the boy this afternoon.

On the mole that serves as a slight barrier between the open sea and the snug little harbor several boys were fishing. Others were bathing, leaping into the water with shouts from the rocks. Beyond, upon the slope of dingy sand among the drawn-up boats, children were playing, the girls generally separated from the boys. Fishermen, in woolen shirts and white linen trousers, sat smoking in the shadow of their craft, or leaned muscular arms upon them, standing at ease, staring into vacancy or calling to each other. On the still water there was a perpetual movement of boats; and from the distance came a dull but continuous uproar, the yells and the laughter of hundreds of bathers at the Stabilimento di Bagni beyond the opposite limit of the harbor.

Artois enjoyed the open-air gayety, the freedom of the scene; and once again, as often before, found himself thinking that the out-door life, the life loosed from formal restrictions, was the only one really and fully worth living. There was a carelessness, a camaraderie among these people that was of the essence of humanity. Despite their frequent quarrels, their intrigues, their betrayals, their vendettas, they hung together. There was a true and vital companionship among them.

He passed on with deliberation, observing closely, yet half-lazily– for his brain was slack and needed rest–the different types about him, musing on the possibilities of their lives, smiling at the gambols of the intent girls, and the impudent frolics of the little boys who seemed the very spawn of sand and sea and sun, till he had nearly passed the harbor, and was opposite to the pathway that leads down to the jetty, to the left of which lie the steam-yachts.

At the entrance to this pathway there is always a knot of people gathered about the shanty where the seamen eat maccaroni and strange messes, and the stands where shell-fish are exposed for sale. On the far side of the tramway, beneath the tall houses which are let out in rooms and apartments for families, there is an open space, and here in summer are set out quantities of strong tables, at which from noon till late into the evening the people of Mergellina, and visitors of the humbler classes from Naples, sit in merry throngs, eating, smoking, drinking coffee, syrups, and red and white wine.

Artois stood still for a minute to watch them, to partake from a distance, and unknown to them, in their boisterous gayety. He had lit a big cigar, and puffed at it as his eyes roved from group to group, resting now on a family party, now on a quartet of lovers, now on two stout men obviously trying to drive a bargain with vigorous rhetoric and emphatic gestures, now on an elderly woman in a shawl spending an hour with her soldier son in placid silence, now on some sailors from a ship in the distant port by the arsenal bent over a game of cards, or a party of workmen talking wages or politics in their shirt-sleeves with flowers above their ears.

What a row they made, these people! Their animation was almost like the animation of a nightmare. Some were ugly, some looked wicked; others mischievous, sympathetic, coarse, artful, seductive, boldly defiant or boisterously excited. But however much they differed, in one quality they were nearly all alike. They nearly all looked vivid. If they lacked anything, at least it was not life. Even their sorrows should be energetic.

As this thought came into his mind Artois’ eyes chanced to rest on two people sitting a little apart at a table on which stood a coffee-cup, a thick glass half full of red wine, and a couple of tumblers of water. One was a woman, the other–yes, the other was Ruffo.

When Artois realized this he kept his eyes upon them. He forgot his interest in the crowd.

At first he could only see Ruffo’s side-face. But the woman was exactly opposite to him.

She was neatly dressed in some dark stuff, and wore a thin shawl, purple in color, over her shoulders. She looked middle-aged. Had she been an Englishwoman Artois would have guessed her to be near fifty. But as she was evidently a Southerner it was possible that she was very much younger. Her figure was broad and matronly. Her face, once probably quite pretty was lined, and had the battered and almost corrugated look that the faces of Italian women of the lower classes often reveal when the years begin to increase upon them. The cheek- bones showed harshly in it, by the long and dark eyes, which were surrounded by little puckers of yellow flesh. But Artois’ attention was held not by this woman’s quite ordinary appearance, but by her manner. Like the people about her she was vivacious, but her vivacity was tragic–she had not come here to be gay. Evidently she was in the excitement of some great grief or passion. She was speaking vehemently to Ruffo, gesticulating with her dark hands, on which there were two or three cheap rings, catching at her shawl, swaying her body, nodding her head, on which the still black hair was piled in heavy masses. And her face was distorted by an emotion that seemed of sorrow and anger mingled. In her ears, pretty and almost delicate in contrast to the ruggedness of her face, were large gold rings, such as Sicilian women often wear. They swayed in response to her perpetual movements. Artois watched her lips as they opened and shut, were compressed or thrust forward, watched her white teeth gleaming. She lifted her two hands, doubled into fists, till they were on a level with her shoulders, shook them vehemently, then dashed them down on the table. The coffee- cup was overturned. She took no notice of it. She was heedless of everything but the subject which evidently obsessed her.

The boy, Ruffo, sat quite still listening to her. His attitude was calm. Now and then he sipped his wine, and presently he took from his pocket a cigarette, lighted it carefully, and began to smoke. There was something very boyish and happy-go-lucky in his attitude and manner. Evidently, Artois thought, he was very much at home with this middle-aged woman. Probably her vehemence was to him an every-day affair. She laid one hand on his arm and bent forward. He slightly shrugged his shoulders and shook his head. She kept her hand on his arm, went on talking passionately, and suddenly began to weep. Tears rushed out of her eyes. Then the boy took her hand gently, stroked it, and began to speak to her, always keeping her hand in his. The woman, with a despairing movement, laid her face down on the table, with her forehead touching the wood. Then she lifted it up. The paroxysm seemed to have passed. She took out a handkerchief from inside the bodice of her dress and dried her eyes. Ruffo struck the table with his glass. An attendant came. He paid the bill, and the woman and he got up to go. As they did so Ruffo presented for a moment his full face to Artois, and Artois swiftly compared it with the face of the woman, and felt sure that they were mother and son.

Artois moved on towards the hill of Posilipo, but after taking a few steps turned to look back. The woman and Ruffo had come into the road by the tram-line. They stood there for a moment, talking. Then Ruffo crossed over to the path, and the woman went away slowly towards the Rotonda. Seeing Ruffo alone Artois turned to go back, thinking to have a word with the boy. But before he could reach him he saw a man step out from behind the wooden shanty of the fishermen and join him.

This man was Gaspare.

Ruffo and Gaspare strolled slowly away towards the jetty where the yachts lie, and presently disappeared.

Artois found Pasqualino waiting for him rather impatiently not far from the entrance to the Scoglio di Frisio.

“I thought you were dead, Signore,” he remarked, as Artois came up.

“I was watching the people.”

He got into the carriage.

“They are canaglia,” said Pasqualino, with the profound contempt of the Neapolitan coachman for those who get their living by the sea. He lived at Fuorigrotta, and thought Mergellina a place of outer darkness.

“I like them,” returned Artois.

“You don’t know them, Signore. I say–they are canaglia. Where shall I drive you?”

Artois hesitated, passing in mental review the various ristoranti on the hill.

“Take me to the Ristorante della Stella,” he said, at length.

Pasqualino cracked his whip, and drove once more merrily onward.

When Artois came to the ristorante, which was perched high up on the side of the road farthest from the sea, he had almost all the tables to choose from, as it was still early in the evening, and in the summer the Neapolitans who frequent the more expensive restaurants usually dine late. He sat down at a table in the open air close to the railing, from which he could see a grand view of the Bay, as well as all that was passing on the road beneath, and ordered a dinner to be ready in half an hour. He was in no hurry, and wanted to finish his cigar.

There was a constant traffic below. The tram-bell sounded its reiterated signal to the crowds of dusty pedestrians to clear the way. Donkeys toiled upward, drawing carts loaded with vegetables and fruit. Animated young men, wearing tiny straw hats cocked impertinently to one side, drove frantically by in light gigs that looked like the skeletons of carriages, holding a rein in each hand, pulling violently at their horses’ mouths, and shouting “Ah–ah!” as if possessed of the devil. Smart women made the evening “Passeggiata” in landaus and low victorias, wearing flamboyant hats, and gazing into the eyes of the watching men ranged along the low wall on the sea-side with a cool steadiness that was almost Oriental. Some of them were talking. But by far the greater number leaned back almost immobile against their cushions; and their pale faces showed nothing but the languid consciousness of being observed and, perhaps, desired. Stout Neapolitan fathers, with bulging eyes, immense brown cheeks, and peppery mustaches, were promenading with their children and little dogs, looking lavishly contented with themselves. Young girls went primly past, holding their narrow, well-dressed heads with a certain virginal stiffness that was yet not devoid of grace, and casting down eyes that were supposed not yet to be enlightened. Their governesses and duennas accompanied them. Barefooted brown children darted in and out, dodging pedestrians and horses. Priests and black-robed students chattered vivaciously. School-boys with peaked caps hastened homeward. The orphans from Queen Margherita’s Home, higher up the hill, marched sturdily through the dust to the sound of a boyish but desperately martial music. It was a wonderfully vivid world, but the eyes of Artois wandered away from it, over the terraces, the houses, and the tree-tops. Their gaze dropped down to the sea. Far off, Capri rose out of the light mist produced by the heat. And beyond was Sicily.

Why had that woman, Ruffo’s mother, wept just now? What was her tragedy? he wondered. Accurately he recalled her face, broad now, and seamed with the wrinkles brought by trouble and the years.

He recalled, too, Ruffo’s attitude as the boy listened to her vehement, her almost violent harangue. How boyish, how careless it had been–yet not unkind or even disrespectful, only wonderfully natural and wonderfully young.

“He was the deathless boy.”

Suddenly those words started into Artois’ mind. Had he read them somewhere? For a moment he wondered. Or had he heard them? They seemed to suggest speech, a voice whose intonations he knew. His mind was still fatigued by work, and would not be commanded by his will. Keeping his eyes fixed on the ethereal outline of Capri, he strove to remember, to find the book which had contained these words and given them to his eyes, or the voice that had spoken them and given them to his ears.

“He was the deathless boy.”

A piano-organ struck up below him, a little way up the hill to the right, and above its hard accompaniment there rose a powerful tenor voice singing. The song must have been struck forcibly upon some part of his brain that was sleeping, must have summoned it to activity. For instantly, ere the voice had sung the first verse, he saw imaginatively a mountain top in Sicily, evening light–such as was then shining over and transfiguring Capri–and a woman, Hermione. And he heard her voice, very soft, with a strange depth and stillness in it, saying those words: “He was the deathless boy.”

Of course! How could he have forgotten? They had been said of Maurice Delarey. And now idly, strangely, he had recalled them as he thought of Ruffo’s young and careless attitude by the table of the ristorante that afternoon.

The waiter, coming presently to bring the French Signore the plate of oysters from Fusaro, which he had ordered as the prelude to his dinner, was surprised by the deep gravity of his face, and said:

“Don’t you like ‘A Mergellina,’ Signore? We are all mad about it. And it won the first prize at last year’s festa of Piedigrotta.”

“Comment donc?” exclaimed Artois, as if startled. “What?–no–yes. I like it. It’s a capital song. Lemon? That’s right–and red pepper. Va bene!”

And he bent over his plate rather hurriedly and began to eat.

The piano-organ and the singing voice died away down the hill, going towards Mergellina.

But the effect, curious and surely unreasonable, of the song remained. Often, while he ate, Artois turned his eyes towards the mountain of Capri, and each time that he did so he saw, beyond it and its circling sea, Sicily, Monte Amato, the dying lights on Etna, the evening star above its plume of smoke, the figure of a woman set in the shadow of her sorrow, yet almost terribly serene; and then another woman, sitting at a table, vehemently talking, then bowing down her head passionately as if in angry grief.

When he had finished his dinner the sun had set, and night had dropped down softly over the Bay. Capri had disappeared. The long serpent of lights had uncoiled itself along the sea. Down below, very far down, there was the twang and the thin, acute whine of guitars and mandolines, the throbbing cry of Southern voices. The stars were out in a deep sky of bloomy purple. There was no chill in the air, but a voluptuous, brooding warmth, that shed over the city and the waters a luxurious benediction, giving absolution, surely, to all the sins, to all the riotous follies of the South.

Artois rested his arms on the balustrade.

The ristorante was nearly full now, gay with lights and with a tempest of talk. The waiter came to ask if the Signore would take coffee.

Artois hesitated a moment, then shook his head. He realized that his nerves had been tried enough in these last days and nights. He must let them rest for a while.

The waiter went away, and he turned once more towards the sea. To-night he felt the wonder of Italy, of this part of the land and of its people, as he had not felt it before, in a new and, as it seemed to him, a mysterious way. A very modern man and, in his art, a realist, to-night there was surely something very young alert within him, something of vague sentimentality that was like an echo from Byronic days. He felt over-shadowed, but not unpleasantly, by a dim and exquisite melancholy, in which he thought of nature and of human nature pathetically, linking them together; those singing voices with the stars, the women who leaned on balconies to listen with the sea that was murmuring below them, the fishermen upon that sea with the deep and marvellous sky that watched their labors.

In a beautiful and almost magical sadness he too was one with the night, this night in Italy. It held him softly in its arms. A golden sadness streamed from the stars. The voices below expressed it. The fishermen’s torches in the Bay, those travelling lights that are as the eyes of the South searching for charmed things in secret places, lifted the sorrows of earth towards the stars, and they were golden too. There was a joy even in the tears wept on such a night as this.

He loved detail. It was, perhaps, his fault to love it too much. But now he realized that the magician, Night, knew better than he what were the qualities of perfection. She had changed Naples into a diaper of jewels sparkling softly in the void. He knew that behind that lacework of jewels there were hotels, gaunt and discolored houses full of poverty, shame, and wickedness, galleries in which men hunted the things that gratify their lusts, alleys infected with disease and filth indescribable. He knew it, but he no longer felt it. The glamour of the magician was upon him. Perhaps behind the stars there were terrors, too. But who, looking upon them, could believe it? Detail might create a picture; its withdrawal let in upon the soul the spirit light of the true magic.

It was a mistake to search too much, to draw too near, to seek always to see clearly.

The Night taught that in Italy, and many things not to be clothed with words.

Reluctantly at last he lifted his arms from the balcony rail and got up to leave the restaurant. He dreaded the bustle of the street. As he came out into it he heard the sharp “Ting! Ting!” of a tram-bell higher up the hill, and stepped aside to let the tram go by. Idly he looked at it as it approached. He was still in the vague, the almost sentimental mood that had come upon him with the night. The tram came up level with him and slipped slowly by. There was a number of people in it, but on the last seat one woman sat alone. He saw her clearly as she passed, and recognized Hermione.

She did not see him. She was looking straight before her.

“Ah-ah! Ah-ah!”

A shower of objurgations in the Neapolitan dialect fell upon Artois from the box of a carriage coming up the hill. He jumped back and gained the path. There again he stood still. The sweet and half- melancholy vagueness had quite left him now. The sight of his friend had swept it away. Why was she going to Mergellina at that hour? And why did she look like that?

And he thought of the expression he had seen on her face as the tram slipped by, an expression surely of excitement; but also a furtive expression.

Artois had seen Hermione in all her moods, and hers was a very changeful face. But never before had he seen her look furtive. Nor could he have conceived it possible that she could look so.

Perhaps the lights had deceived him. And he had only seen her for an instant.

But why was she going to Mergellina?

Then suddenly it occurred to him that she might be going to Naples, not to Mergellina at all. He knew no reason why her destination should be Mergellina. He began to walk down the hill rather quickly. Some hundreds of yards below the Ristorante della Stella there is a narrow flight of steps between high walls and houses, which leads eventually down to the sea at a point where there are usually two or three boats waiting for hire. Artois, when he started, had no intention of going to sea that night, but when he reached the steps he paused, and finally turned from the path and began to descend them.

He had realized that he was really in pursuit, and abruptly relinquished his purpose. Why should he wish to interfere with an intention of Hermione’s that night?

He would return to Naples by sea.

As he came in sight of the water there rose up to him in a light tenor voice a melodious cry:

“Barca! Barca!”

He answered the call.

“Barca!”

The sailor who was below came gayly to meet him.

“It is a lovely night for the Signore. I could take the Signore to Sorrento or to Capri to-night.”

He held Artois by the right arm, gently assisting him into the broad- bottomed boat.

“I only want to go to Naples.”

“To which landing, Signore?”

“The Vittoria. But go quietly and keep near the shore. Go round as near as you can to the Mergellina.”

“Va bene, Signore.”

They slipped out, with a delicious, liquid sound, upon the moving silence of the sea.

CHAPTER XIX

Hermione was not going to Mergellina, but to the Scoglio di Frisio. She had only come out of her room late in the afternoon. During her seclusion there she had once been disturbed by Gaspare, who had come to ask her if she wanted him for anything, and, if not, whether he might go over to Mergellina for the rest of the afternoon to see some friends he had made there. She told him he was free till night, and he went away quickly, after one searching, wide-eyed glance at the face of his Padrona.

When he had gone Hermione told herself that she was glad he was away. If he had been on the island she might have been tempted to take one of the boats, to ask him to row her to the Scoglio that evening. But now, of course, she would not go. It was true that she could easily get a boatman from the village on the mainland near by, but without Gaspare’s companionship she would not care to go. So that was settled. She would think no more about it. She had tea with Vere, and strove with all her might to be natural, to show no traces in face or manner of the storm that had swept over her that day. She hoped, she believed that she was successful. But what a hateful, what an unnatural effort that was!

A woman who is not at her ease in her own home with her own girl– where can she be at ease?

It was really the reaction from that effort that sent Hermione from the island that evening. She felt as if she could not face another meal with Vere just then. She felt transparent, as if Vere’s eyes would be able to see all that she must hide if they were together in the evening. And she resolved to go away. She made some excuse–that she wished for a little change, that she was fidgety and felt the confinement of the island.

“I think I’ll go over to the village,” she said; “and walk up to the road and take the tram.”

“Will you, Madre?”

Hermione saw in Vere’s eyes that the girl was waiting for something.

“I’ll go by myself, Vere,” she said. “I should be bad company to-day. The black dog is at my heels.”

She laughed, and added:

“If I am late in coming back, have dinner without me.”

“Very well, Madre.”

Vere waited a moment; then as if desiring to break forcibly through the restraint that bound them put out her hand to her mother’s and said:

“Why don’t you go to Naples and have dinner with Monsieur Emile? He would cheer you up, and it is ages since we have seen him.”

“Only two or three days. No, I won’t disturb Emile. He may be working.”

Vere felt that somehow her eager suggestion had deepened the constraint. She said no more, and Hermione presently crossed over to the mainland and began her walk to the road that leads from Naples to Bagnoli.

Where was she going? What was she really about to do?

Certainly she would not adopt the suggestion of Vere. Emile was the last person whom she wished to see–by whom she wished to be seen– just then.

The narrow path turned away from the sea into the shadow of high banks. She walked very slowly, like one out for a desultory stroll; a lizard slipped across the warm earth in front of her, almost touching her foot, climbed the bank swiftly, and vanished among the dry leaves with a faint rustle.

She felt quite alone to-day in Italy, and far off, as if she had no duties, no ties, as if she were one of those solitary, drifting, middle-aged women who vaguely haunt the beaten tracks of foreign lands. It was sultry in this path away from the sea. She was sharply conscious of the change of climate, the inland sensation, the falling away of the freedom from her, the freedom that seems to exhale from wave and wind of the wave.

She walked on, meeting no one and still undecided what to do. The thought of the Scoglio di Frisio returned to her mind, was dismissed, returned again. She might go and dine there quietly alone. Was she deceiving herself, and had she really made up her mind to go to the Scoglio before she left the island? No, she had come away mainly because she felt the need of solitude, the difficulty of being with Vere just for this one night. To-morrow it would be different. It should be different to-morrow.

She saw a row of houses in the distance, houses of poor people, and knew that she was nearing the road. Clothes were hanging to dry. Children were playing at the edge of a vineyard. Women were washing linen, men sitting on the doorsteps mending /nasse/. As she went by she nodded to them, and bade them “Buona sera.” They answered courteously, some with smiling faces, others with grave and searching looks–or so she thought.

The tunnel that runs beneath the road at the point where this path joins it came in sight. And still Hermione did not know what she was going to do. As she entered the tunnel she heard above her head the rumble of a tram going towards Naples. This decided her. She hurried on, turned to the right, and came out on the highway before the little lonely ristorante that is set here to command the view of vineyards and of sea.

The tram was already gliding away at some distance down the road.

A solitary waiter came forward in his unsuitable black into the dust to sympathize with the Signora, and to suggest that she should take a seat and drink some lemon water, or gazzosa, while waiting for the next tram. Or would not the Signora dine in the upper room and watch the /tramontare del sole/. It would be splendid this evening. And he could promise her an excellent risotto, sardines with pomidoro, and a bifteck such as certainly she could not get in the restaurants of Naples.

“Very well,” Hermione answered, quickly, “I will dine here, but not directly–in half an hour or three-quarters.”

What Artois was doing at the Ristorante della Stella she was doing at the Trattoria del Giardinetto.

She would dine quietly here, and then walk back to the sea in the cool of the evening.

That was her decision. Yet when evening fell, and her bill was paid, she took the tram that was going down to Naples, and passed presently before the eyes of Artois. The coming of darkness had revived within her much of the mood of the afternoon. She felt that she could not go home without doing something definite, and she resolved to go to the Scoglio di Frisio, have a cup of coffee there, look through the visitors’ book, and then take a boat and return by night to the island. The sea wind would cool her, would do her good.

Nothing told her when the eyes of her friend were for an instant fixed upon her, when the mind of her friend for a moment wondered at the strange, new look in her face. She left the tram presently at the doorway above which is Frisio’s name, descended to the little terrace from which Vere had run in laughing with the Marchesino, and stood there for a moment hesitating.

The long restaurant was lit up, and from it came the sound of music– guitars, and a voice singing. She recognized the throaty tenor of the blind man raised in a spurious and sickly rapture:

“Sa-anta-a Lu-u-ci-ia! Santa Luci–a!”

It recalled her sharply to the night of the storm. For a moment she felt again the strange, the unreasonable sense of fear, indefinable but harsh, which had come upon her then, as fear comes suddenly sometimes upon a child.

Then she stepped into the restaurant.

As on the other night, there were but few people dining there, and they were away at the far end of the big room. Near them stood the musicians under a light–seedy, depressed; except the blind man, who lifted his big head, rolled his tongue, and swelled and grew scarlet in an effort to be impressive.

Hermione sat down at the first table.

For a moment no one saw her. She heard men’s voices talking loudly and gayly, the clatter of plates, the clink of knives and forks. She looked round for the visitors’ book. If it were lying near she thought she would open it, search for what Emile had written, and then slip away at once unobserved.

There was a furtive spirit within her to-night.

But she could not see the book; so she sat still, listening to the blind man and gazing at the calm sea just below her. A boat was waiting there. She could see the cushions, which were white and looked ghastly in the darkness, the dim form of the rower standing up to search for clients.

“Barca! Barca!”

He had seen her.

She drew back a little. As she did so her chair made a grating noise, and instantly the sharp ears of the Padrone caught a sound betokening the presence of a new-comer in his restaurant. It might be a queen, an empress! Who could tell?

With his stiff yet alert military gait, he at once came marching down towards her, staring hard with his big, bright eyes. When he saw who it was he threw up his brown hands.

“The Signora of the storm!” he exclaimed. He moved as if about to turn around. “I must tell–“

But Hermione stopped him with a quick, decisive gesture.

“One moment, Signore.”

The Padrone approached aristocratically.

“The Marchese Isidoro Panacci is here dining with friends, the Duca di–“

“Yes, yes. But I am only here for a moment, so it is not worth while to tell the Marchese.”

“You are not going to dine, Signora! The food of Frisio does not please you!”

He cast up his eyes in deep distress.

“Indeed it does. But I have dined. What I want is a cup of coffee, and –and a liqueur–une fine. And may I look over your wonderful visitors’ book? To tell the truth, that is what I have come for, to see the marvellous book. I hadn’t enough time the other night. May I?”

The Padrone was appeased. He smiled graciously and turned upon his heels.

“At once, Signora.”

“And–not a word to the Marchese! He is with friends. I would rather not disturb him.”

The Padrone threw up his chin and clicked his tongue against his teeth. A shrewd, though not at all impudent, expression had come into his face. A Signora alone, at night, in a restaurant! He was a man of the great world. He understood. What a mercy it was to be “educato”!

He came back again almost directly, bearing the book as a sacristan might bear a black-letter Bible.

“Ecco, Signora.”

With a superb gesture he placed it before her.

“The coffee, the fine. Attendez, Signora, pour un petit momento.”

He stood to see the effect of his French upon her. She forced into her face a look of pious admiration, and he at once departed. Hermione opened the book rather furtively. She had the unpleasant sensation of doing a surreptitious action, and she was an almost abnormally straightforward woman by nature. The book was large, and contained an immense number of inscriptions and signatures in handwritings that varied as strangely as do the characters of men. She turned the leaves hastily. Where had Emile written? Not at the end of the book. She remembered that his signature had been followed by others, although she had not seen, or tried to see, what he had written. Perhaps his name was near Tolstoy’s. They had read together Tolstoy’s /Vedi Napoli e poi Mori/.

But where was Tolstoy’s name?

A waiter came with the coffee and the brandy. She thanked him quickly, sipped the coffee without tasting it, and continued the search.

The voice of the blind man died away. The guitars ceased.

She started. She was afraid the musicians would come down and gather round her. Why had she not told the Padrone she wished to be quite alone? She heard the shuffle of feet. They were coming. Feverishly she turned the pages. Ah! here is was! She bent down over the page.

“La conscience, c’est la quantite de science innee que nous avons en nous. EMILE ARTOIS.

“Nuit d’orage. Juin.”

The guitars began a prelude. The blind man shifted from one fat leg to another, cast up his sightless eyes, protruded and drew in his tongue, coughed, spat–

“Cameriere!”

Hermione struck upon the table sharply. She had forgotten all about the Marchesino. She was full of the desire to escape, to get away and be out on the sea.

“Cameriere!”

She called more loudly.

A middle-aged waiter came shuffling over the floor.

“The bill, please.”

As she spoke she drank the brandy.

“Si, Signora.”

He stood beside her.

“One coffee?”

“Si.”

“One cognac!”

“Si, si.”

The blind man burst into song.

“One fifty, Signora.”

Hermione gave him a two-lire piece and got up to go.

“Signora–buona sera! What a pleasure!”

The Marchesino stood before her, smiling, bowing. He took her hand, bent over it, and kissed it.

“What a pleasure!” he repeated, glancing round. “And you are alone! The Signorina is not here?”

He stared suspiciously towards the terrace.

“And our dear friend Emilio?”

“No, no. I am quite alone.”

The blind man bawled, as if he wished to drown the sound of speech.

“Please–could you stop him, Marchese?” said Hermione. “I–really– give him this for me.”

She gave the Marchese a lira.

“Signora, it isn’t necessary. Silenzio! Silenzio! P-sh-sh-sh!”

He hissed sharply, almost furiously. The musicians abruptly stopped, and the blind man made a gurgling sound, as if he were swallowing the unfinished portion of his song.

“No; please pay them.”

“It’s too much.”

“Never mind.”

The Marchese gave the lire to the blind man, and the musicians went drearily out.

Then Hermione held out her hand at once.

“I must go now. It is late.”

“You are going by sea, Signora?”

“Yes.”

“I will accompany you.”

“No, indeed. I couldn’t think of it. You have friends.”

“They will understand. Have you your own boat?”

“No.”

“Then of course I shall come with you.”

But Hermione was firm. She knew that to-night the company of this young man would be absolutely unbearable.

“Marchese, indeed I cannot–I cannot allow it. We Englishwomen are very independent, you know. But you may call me a boat and take me down to it, as you are so kind.”

“With pleasure, Signora.”

He went to the open window. At once the boatman’s cry rose up.

“Barca! Barca!”

“That is Andrea’s voice,” said the Marchesino. “I know him. Barca– si!”

The boat began to glide in towards the land.

As they went out the Marchesino said:

“And how is the Signorina?”

“Very well.”

“I have had a touch of fever, Signora, or I should have come over to the island again. I stayed too long in the sea the other day, or–” He shrugged his shoulders.

“I’m sorry,” said Hermione. “You are very pale to-night.”

For the first time she looked at him closely, and saw that his face was white, and that his big and boyish eyes held a tired and yet excited expression.

“It is nothing. It has passed. And our friend–Emilio? How is he?”

A hardness had come into his voice. Hermione noticed it.

“We have not seen him lately. I suppose he has been busy.”

“Probably. Emilio has much to do in Naples,” said the Marchesino, with an unmistakable sneer. “Do allow me to escort you to the island, Signora.”

They had reached the boat. Hermione shook her head and stepped in at once.

“Then when may I come?”

“Whenever you like.”

“To-morrow?”

“Certainly.”

“At what time?”

Hermione suddenly remembered his hospitality and felt that she ought to return it.

“Come to lunch–half-past twelve. We shall be quite alone.”

“Signora, for loneliness with you and the Signorina I would give up every friend I have ever had. I would give up–“

“Half-past twelve, then, Marchese. Addio!”

“A rivederci, Signora! A demain! Andrea, take care of the Signora. Treat her as you would treat the Madonna. Do you hear?”

The boatman grinned and took off his cap, and the boat glided away across the path of yellow light that was shed from the window of Frisio’s.

Hermione leaned back against the white cushions. She was thankful to escape. She felt tired and confused. That dreadful music had distracted her, that–and something else, her tricked expectation. She knew now that she had been very foolish, perhaps even very fantastic. She had felt so sure that Emile had written in that book–what?

As the boat went softly on she asked herself exactly what she had expected to find written there, and she realized that her imagination had, as so often before, been galloping like a frightened horse with the reins upon its neck. And then she began to consider what he had written.

“La conscience, c’est la quantite de science innee que nous avons en nous.”

She did not know the words. Were they his own or another’s? And had he written them simply because they had chanced to come into his mind at the moment, or because they expressed some underthought or feeling that had surged up in him just then? She wished she knew.

It was a fine saying, she thought, but for the moment she was less interested in it than in Emile’s mood, his mind, when he had written it. She realized now, on this calm of the sea, how absurd had been the thought that a man so subtle as Emile would flagrantly reveal a passing phase of his nature, a secret irritability, a jealousy, perhaps, or a sudden hatred in a sentence written for any eyes that chose to see. But he might covertly reveal himself to one who understood him well.

She sat still, trying to match her subtlety against his.

From the shore came sounds of changing music, low down or falling to them from the illuminated heights where people were making merry in the night. Now and then a boat passed them. In one, young men were singing, and interrupting their song to shout with laughter. Here and there a fisherman’s torch glided like a great fire-fly above the oily darkness of the sea. The distant trees of the gardens climbing up the hill made an ebony blackness beneath the stars, a blackness that suggested impenetrable beauty that lay deep down with hidden face. And the lights dispersed among them, gaining significance by their solitude, seemed to summon adventurous or romantic spirits to come to them by secret paths and learn their revelation. Over the sea lay a delicate warmth, not tropical, not enervating, but softly inspiring. And beyond the circling lamps of Naples Vesuvius lit up the firmament with a torrent of rose-colored fire that glowed and died, and glowed again, constantly as beats a heart.

And to Hermione came a melancholy devoid of all violence, soft almost as the warmth upon this sea, quite as the resignation of the fatalistic East. She felt herself for a moment such a tiny, dark thing caught in the meshes of the great net of the Universe, this Universe that she could never understand. What could she do? She must just sink down upon the breast of this mystery, let it take her, hold her, do with her what it would.

Her subtlety against Emile’s! She smiled to herself in the dark. What a combat of midgets! She seemed to see two marionettes battling in the desert.

And yet–and yet! She remembered a saying of Flaubert’s, that man is like a nomad journeying on a camel through the desert; and he is the nomad, and the camel–and the desert.

How true that was, for even now, as she felt herself to be nothing, she felt herself to be tremendous.

She heard the sound of oars from the darkness before them, and saw the dim outline of a boat, then the eyes of Emile looking straight into hers.

“Emile!”

“Hermione!”

His face was gone. But yielding to her impulse she made Andrea stop, and, turning round, saw that the other boat had also stopped a little way from hers. It began to back, and in a moment was level with them.

“Emile! How strange to meet you! Have–you haven’t been to the island?”

“No. I was tired. I have been working very hard. I dined quietly at Posilipo.”

He did not ask her where she had been.

“Yes. I think you look tired,” she said. He did not speak, and she added: “I felt restless, so I took the tram from the Trattoria del Giardinetto as far as the Scoglio di Frisio, and am going back, as you see, by boat.”

“It is exquisite on the sea to-night,” he said.

“Yes, exquisite, it makes one sad.”

She remembered all she had been through that day, as she looked at his powerful face.

“Yes,” he answered. “It makes one sad.”

For a moment she felt that they were in perfect sympathy, as they used to be. Their sadness, born of the dreaming hour, united them.

“Come soon to the island, dear Emile,” she said, suddenly and with the impulsiveness that was part of her, forgetting all her jealousy and all her shadowy fears. “I have missed you.”

He noticed that she ruled out Vere in that sentence; but the warmth of her voice stirred warmth in him, and he answered:

“Let me come to-morrow.”

“Do–do!”

“In the morning, to lunch, and to spend a long day.”

Suddenly she remembered the Marchesino and the sound of his voice when he had spoken of his friend.

“Lunch?” she said.

Instantly he caught her hesitation, her dubiety.

“It isn’t convenient, perhaps?”

“Perfectly, only–only the Marchesino is coming.”

“To-morrow–To lunch?”

The hardness of the Marchesino’s voice was echoed now in the voice of Artois. There was antagonism between these men. Hermione realized it.

“Yes. I invited him this evening.”

There was a slight pause. Then Artois said:

“I’ll come some other day, Hermione. Well, my friend, au revoir, and bon voyage to the island.”

His voice had suddenly become cold, and he signed to his boatman.

“Avanti!”

The boat slipped away and was lost in the darkness.

Hermione had said nothing. Once again–why, she did not know–her friend had made her feel guilty.

Andrea, the boatman, still paused. Now she saw him staring into her face, and she felt like a woman publicly deserted, almost humiliated.

“Avanti, Andrea!” she said.

Her voice trembled as she spoke.

He bent to his oars and rowed on.

And man is the nomad, and the camel–and the desert.

Yes, she carried the desert within her, and she was wandering in it alone. She saw herself, a poor, starved, shrinking figure, travelling through a vast, a burning, a waterless expanse, with an iron sky above her, a brazen land beneath. She was in rags, barefoot, like the poorest nomad of them all.

But even the poorest nomad carries something.

Against her breast, to her heart, she clasped–a memory–the sacred memory of him who had loved her, who had taken her to be his, who had given her himself.

CHAPTER XX

That night when Hermione drew near to the island she saw the Saint’s light shining, and remembered how, in the storm, she had longed for it –how, when she had seen it above the roaring sea, she had felt that it was a good omen. To-night it meant nothing to her. It was just a lamp lit, as a lamp might be lit in a street, to give illumination in darkness to any one who passed. She wondered why she had thought of it so strangely.

Gaspare met her at the landing. She noticed at once a suppressed excitement in his manner. He looked at Andrea keenly and suspiciously.

“How late you are, Signora!”

He put out his strong arm to help her to the land.

“Am I, Gaspare? Yes, I suppose I am–you ought all to be in bed.”

“I should not go to bed while you were out, Signora.”

Again she linked Gaspare with her memory, saw the nomad not quite alone on the journey.

“I know.”

“Have you been to Naples, Signora?”

“No–only to–“

“To Mergellina?”

He interrupted her almost sharply.

“No, to the Scoglio di Frisio. Pay the boatman this, Gaspare. Good- night, Andrea.”

“Good-night, Signora.”

Gaspare handed the man his money, and at once the boat set out on its return to Posilipo.

Hermione stood at the water’s edge watching its departure. It passed below the Saint, and the gleam of his light fell upon it for a moment. In the gleam the black figure of Andrea was visible stooping to the water. He was making the fishermen’s sign of the Cross. The cross on Peppina’s face–was it an enemy of the Cross that carried with it San Francesco’s blessing? Vere’s imagination! She turned to go up to the house.

“Is the Signorina in bed yet, Gaspare?”

“No, Signora.”

“Where is she? Still out?”

“Si, Signora.”

“Did she think I was lost?”

“Signora, the Signorina is on the cliff with Ruffo.”

“With Ruffo?”

They were going up the steps.

“Si, Signora. We have all been together.”

Hermione guessed that Gaspare had been playing chaperone, and loved him for it.

“And you heard the boat coming from the cliff?”

“I saw it pass under the Saint’s light, Signora. I did not hear it.”

“Well, but it might have been a fisherman’s boat.”

“Si, Signora. And it might have been your boat.”

The logic of this faithful watcher was unanswerable. They came up to the house.

“I think I’ll go and see Ruffo,” said Hermione.

She was close to the door of the house, Gaspare stood immediately before her. He did not move now, but he said:

“I can go and tell the Signorina you are here, Signora. She will come at once.”

Again Hermione noticed a curious, almost dogged, excitement in his manner. It recalled to her a night of years ago when he had stood on a terrace beside her in the darkness and had said: “I will go down to the sea. Signora, let me go down to the sea!”

“There’s nothing the matter, is there, Gaspare?” she said, quickly. “Nothing wrong?”

“Signora, of course not! What should there be?”

“I don’t know.”

“I will fetch the Signorina.”

On that night, years ago, she had battled with Gaspare. He had been forced to yield to her. Now she yielded to him.

“Very well,” she answered. “Go and tell the Signorina I am here.”

She turned and went into the house and up to the sitting-room. Vere did not come immediately. To her mother it seemed as if she was a very long time coming; but at last her light step fell on the stairs, and she entered quickly.

“Madre! How late you are! Where have you been?”

“Am I late? I dined at the little restaurant at the top of the hill where the tram passes.”

“There? But you haven’t been there all this time?”

“No. Afterwards I took the tram to Posilipo and came home by boat. And what have you been doing?”

“Oh, all sorts of things–what I always do. Just now I’ve been with Ruffo.”

“Gaspare told me he was here.”

“Yes. We’ve been having a talk.”

Hermione waited for Vere to say something more, but she was silent. She stood near the window looking out, and the expression on her face had become rather vague, as if her mind had gone on a journey.

“Well,” said the mother at last, “and what does Ruffo say for himself, Vere?”

“Ruffo? Oh, I don’t know.”

She paused, then added:

“I think he has rather a hard time, do you know, Madre?”

Hermione had taken off her hat. She laid it on a table and sat down. She was feeling tired.

“But generally he looks so gay, so strong. Don’t you remember that first day you saw him?”

“Ah–then!”

“Of course, when he had fever–“

“No, it wasn’t that. Any one might be ill. I think he has things at home to make him unhappy sometimes.”

“Has he been telling you so?”

“Oh, he doesn’t complain,” Vere said, quickly, and almost with a touch of heat. “A boy like that couldn’t whine, you know, Madre. But one can understand things without hearing them said. There is some trouble. I don’t know what it is exactly. But I think his step-father–his Patrigno, as he calls him–must have got into some bother, or done something horrible. Ruffo seemed to want to tell me, and yet not to want to tell me. And, of course, I couldn’t ask. I think he’ll tell me to-morrow, perhaps.”

“Is he coming here to-morrow?”

“Oh, in summer I think he comes nearly every night.”

“But you haven’t said anything about him just lately.”

“No. Because he hasn’t landed till to-night since the night of the storm.”

“I wonder why?” said Hermione.

She was interested; but she still felt tired, and the fatigue crept into her voice.

“So do I,” Vere said. “He had a reason, I’m sure. You’re tired Madre, so I’ll go to bed. Good-night.”

She came to her mother and kissed her. Moved by a sudden overwhelming impulse of tenderness, Hermione put her arms round the child’s slim body. But even as she did so she remembered Vere’s secret, shared with Emile and not with her. She could not abruptly loose her arms without surprising her child. But they seemed to her to stiffen, against her will, and her embrace was surely mechanical. She wondered if Vere noticed this, but she did not look into her eyes to see.

“Good-night, Vere.”

“Good-night.”

Vere was at the door when Hermione remembered her two meetings of that evening.

“By-the-way,” she said, “I met the Marchesino to-night. He was at the Scoglio di Frisio.”

“Was he?”

“And afterwards on the sea I met Emile.”

“Monsieur Emile! Then he isn’t quite dead!”

There was a sound almost of irritation in Vere’s voice.

“He has been working very hard.”

“Oh, I see.”

Her voice had softened.

“The Marchesino is coming here to lunch to-morrow.”

“Oh, Madre!”

“Does he bore you? I had to ask him to something after accepting his dinner, Vere.”

“Yes, yes, of course. The Marchese is all right.”

She stood by the door with her bright, expressive eyes fixed on her mother. Her dark hair had been a little roughened by the breeze from Ischia, and stuck up just above the forehead, giving to her face an odd, almost a boyish look.

“What is it, Vere?”

“And when is Monsieur Emile coming? Didn’t he say?”

“No. He suggested to-morrow, but when I told him the Marchese was coming he said he wouldn’t.”

As Hermione said this she looked very steadily at her child. Vere’s eyes did not fall, but met hers simply, fearlessly, yet not quite childishly.

“I don’t wonder,” she said. “To tell the truth, Madre, I can’t see how a man like the Marchesino could interest a man like Monsieur Emile–at any rate, for long. Well–” She gave a little sigh, throwing up her pretty chin. “A letto si va!”

And she vanished.

When she had gone Hermione thought she too would go to bed. She was very tired. She ought to go. Yet now she suddenly felt reluctant to go, and as if the doings of the day for her were not yet over. And, besides, she was not going to sleep well. That was certain. The dry, the almost sandy sensation of insomnia was upon her. What was the matter with Gaspare to-night? Perhaps he had had a quarrel with some one at Mergellina. He had a strong temper as well as a loyal heart.

Hermione went to a window. The breeze from Ischia touched her. She opened her lips, shut her eyes, drank it in. It would be delicious to spend the whole night upon the sea, like Ruffo. Had he gone yet? Or was he in the boat asleep, perhaps in the Saint’s Pool? How interested Vere was in all the doings of that boy–how innocently, charmingly interested!

Hermione stood by the window for two or three minutes, then went out of the room, down the stairs, to the front door of the house. It was already locked. Yet Gaspare had not come up to say good-night to her. And he always did that before he went to bed. She unlocked the door, went out, shut it behind her, and stood still.

How strangely beautiful and touching the faint noise of the sea round the island was at night, and how full of meaning not quite to be divined! It came upon her heart like the whisper of a world trying to tell its secret to the darkness. What depths, what subtleties, what unfailing revelations of beauty, and surely, too, of love, there were in Nature! And yet in Nature what terrible indifference there was: a powerful, an almost terrific inattention, like that of the sphinx that gazes at what men cannot see. Hermione moved away from the house. She walked to the brow of the island and sat down on the seat that Vere was fond of. Presently she would go to the bridge and look over into the Pool and listen for the voices of the fishermen. She sat there for some time gaining a certain peace, losing something of her feeling of weary excitement and desolation under the stars. At last she thought that sleep might come if she went to bed. But before doing so she made her way to the bridge and leaned on the rail, looking down into the Pool.

It was very dark, but she saw the shadowy shape of a fishing-boat lying close to the rock. She stood and watched it, and presently she lost herself in a thicket of night thoughts, and forgot where she was and why she had come there. She was recalled by hearing a very faint voice singing, scarcely more than humming, beneath her.

“Oh, dolce luna bianca de l’ Estate
Mi fugge il sonno accanto a la marina: Mi destan le dolcissime serate
Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina.”

It was the same song that Artois had heard that day as he leaned on the balcony of the Ristorante della Stella. But this singer of it sang the Italian words, and not the dialetto. The song that wins the prize at the Piedigrotta Festival is on the lips of every one in Naples. In houses, in streets, in the harbor, in every piazza, and upon the sea it is heard incessantly.

And now Ruffo was singing it softly and rather proudly in the Italian, to attract the attention of the dark figure he saw above him. He was not certain who it was, but he thought it was the mother of the Signorina, and–he did not exactly know why–he wished her to find out that he was there, squatting on the dry rock with his back against the cliff wall. The ladies of the Casa del Mare had been very kind to him, and to-night he was not very happy, and vaguely he longed for sympathy.

Hermione listened to the pretty, tripping words, the happy, youthful words. And Ruffo sang them again, still very softly.

“Oh, dolce luna bianca de l’ Estate–“

And the poor nomad wandering in the desert? But she had known the rapture of youth, the sweet white moons of summer in the South. She had known them long ago for a little while, and therefore she knew them while she lived. A woman’s heart is tenacious, and wide as the world, when it contains that world which is the memory of something perfect that gave it satisfaction.

“Mi destan le dolcissime serate
Gli occhi do Rosa e il mar di Mergellina.”

Dear happy, lovable youth that can sing to itself like that in the deep night! Like that once Maurice, her sacred possession of youth, sang. She felt a rush of tenderness for Ruffo, just because he was so young, and sang–and brought back to her the piercing truth of the everlasting renewal that goes hand in hand with the everlasting passing away.

“Ruffo–Ruffo!”

Almost as Vere had once called “Pescator!” she called. And as Ruffo had once come running up to Vere he came now to Vere’s mother.

“Good-evening, Ruffo.”

“Good-evening, Signora.”

She was looking at the boy as at a mystery which yet she could understand. And he looked at her simply, with a sort of fearless gentleness, and readiness to receive the kindness which he knew dwealt in her for him to take.

“Are you better?”

“Si, Signora, much better. The fever has gone. I am strong, you know.”

“You are so young.”

She could not help saying it, and her eyes were tender just then.

“Si, Signora, I am very young.”

His simple voice almost made her laugh, stirred in her that sweet humor which has its dwelling at the core of the heart.

“Young and happy,” she said.

And as she said it she remembered Vere’s words that evening; “I think he has rather a hard time.”

“At least, I hope you are happy, Ruffo,” she added.

“Si, Signora.”

He looked at her. She was not sure which he meant, whether his assent was to her hope or to the fact of his happiness. She wondered which it was.

“Young people ought to be happy,” she said.

“Ought they, Signora?”

“You like your life, don’t you? You like the sea?”

“Si, Signora. I could not live away from the sea. If I could not see the sea every day I don’t know what I should do.”

“I love it, too.”

“The Signorina loves the sea.”

He had ignored her love for it and seized on Vere’s. She thought that this was very characteristic of his youth.

“Yes. She loves being here. You talked to her to-night, didn’t you?”

“Si, Signora.”

“And to Gaspare?”

“Si, Signora. And this afternoon, too. Gaspare was at Mergellina this afternoon.”

“And you met there, did you?”

“Si, Signora. I had been with my mamma, and when I left my mamma– poveretta–I met Gaspare.”

“I hope your mother is well.”

“Signora, she is not very well just now. She is a little sad just now.”

Hermione felt that the boy had some trouble which, perhaps, he would like to tell her. Perhaps some instinct made him know that she felt tender towards him, very tender that night.

“I am sorry for that,” she said–“very sorry.”

“Si, Signora. There is trouble in our house.”

“What is it, Ruffo?”

The boy hesitated to answer. He moved his bare feet on the bridge and looked down towards the boat. Hermione did not press him, said nothing.

“Signora,” Ruffo said, at last, coming to a decision, “my Patrigno is not a good man. He makes my mamma jealous. He goes after others.”

It was the old story of the South, then! Hermione knew something of the persistent infidelities of Neapolitan men. Poor women who had to suffer them!

“I am sorry for your mother,” she said, gently. “That must be very hard.”

“Si, Signora, it is hard. My mamma was very unhappy to-day. She put her head on the table, and she cried. But that was because my Patrigno is put in prison.”

“In prison! What has he done?”

Ruffo looked at her, and she saw that the simple expression had gone out of his eyes.

“Signora, I thought perhaps you knew.”

“I? But I have never seen your step-father.”

“No, Signora. But–but you have that girl here in your house.”

“What girl?”

Suddenly, almost while she was speaking, Hermione understood.

“Peppina!” she said. “It was your Patrigno who wounded Peppina?”

“Si, Signora.”

There was a silence between them. Then Hermione said, gently:

“I am very sorry for your poor mother, Ruffo–very sorry. Tell me, can she manage? About money, I mean?”

“It is not so much the money she was crying about, Signora. But, of course, while Patrigno is in prison he cannot earn money for her. I shall give her my money. But my mamma does not like all the neighbors knowing about that girl. It is a shame for her.”

“Yes, of course it is. It is very hard.”

She thought a moment. Then she said:

“It must be horrible–horrible!”

She spoke with all the vehemence of her nature. Again, as long ago, when she knelt before a mountain shrine in the night, she had put herself imaginatively in the place of a woman, this time in the place of Ruffo’s mother. She realized how she would have felt if her husband, her “man,” had ever been faithless to her.

Ruffo looked at her almost in surprise.

“I wish I could see your poor mother, Ruffo,” she said. “I would go to see her, only–well, you see, I have Peppina here, and–“

She broke off. Perhaps the boy would not understand what she considered the awkwardness of the situation. She did not quite know how these people regarded certain things.

“Wait here a moment, Ruffo,” she said. “I am going to give you something for your mother. I won’t be a moment.”

“Grazie, Signora.”

Hermione went away to the house. The perfect naturalness and simplicity of the boy appealed to her. She was pleased, too, that he had not told all this to Vere. It showed a true feeling of delicacy. And she was sure he was a good son. She went up to her room, got two ten lira notes, and went quickly back to Ruffo, who was standing upon the bridge.

“There, Ruffo,” she said, giving them to him. “These are for your mother.”

The boy’s brown face flushed, and into his eyes there came an expression of almost melting gentleness.

“Oh, Signora!” he said.

And there was a note of protest in his voice.

“Take them to her, Ruffo. And–and I want you to promise me something. Will you?”

“Si, Signora. I will do anything–anything for you.”

Hermione put her hand on his shoulder.

“Be very, very kind to your poor mother, Ruffo.”

“Signora, I always am good for my poor mamma.”

He spoke with warm eagerness.

“I am sure you are. But just now, when she is sad, be very good to her.”

“Si, Signora.”

She took her hand from the boy’s shoulder. He bent to kiss her hand, and again, as he was lifting up his head, she saw the melting look in his eyes. This time it was unmingled with amazement, and it startled her.

“Oh, Ruffo!” she said, and stopped, staring at him in the darkness.

“Signora! What is it? What have you?”

“Nothing. Good-night, Ruffo.”

“Good-night, Signora.”

He took off his cap and ran down to the boat. Hermione leaned over the railing, bending down to see the boy reappear below. When he came he looked like a shadow. From this shadow there rose a voice singing very softly.

“Oh, dolce luna bianca de l’ Estate–“

The shadow went over to the boat, and the voice died away.

“Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina.”

Hermione still was bending down. And she formed the last words with lips that trembled a little.

“Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina.”

Then she said: “Maurice–Maurice!”

And then she stood trembling.

Yes, it was Maurice whom she had seen again for an instant in the melting look of Ruffo’s face. She felt frightened in the dark. Maurice –when he kissed her for the last time, had looked at her like that. It could not be fancy. It was not.

Was this the very first time she had noticed in Ruffo a likeness to her dead husband? She asked herself if it was. Yes. She had never–or had there been something? Not in the face, perhaps. But–the voice? Ruffo’s singing? His attitude as he stood up in the boat? Had there not been something? She remembered her conversation with Artois in the cave. She had said to him that–she did not know why–the boy, Ruffo, had made her feel, had stirred up within her slumbering desires, slumbering yearnings.

“I have heard a hundred boys sing on the Bay–and just this one touches some chord, and all the strings of my soul quiver.”

She had said that.

Then there was something in the boy, something not merely fleeting like that look of gentleness–something permanent, subtle, that resembled Maurice.

Now she no longer felt frightened, but she had a passionate wish to go down to the boat, to see Ruffo again, to be with him again, now that she was awake to this strange, and perhaps only faint, imitation by another of the one whom she had lost. No–not imitation; this fragmentary reproduction of some characteristic, some–

She lifted herself up from the railing. And now she knew that her eyes were wet. She wiped them with her handkerchief, drew a deep breath, and went back to the house. She felt for the handle of the door, and, when she found it, opened the door, went in, and shut it rather heavily, then locked it. As she bent down to push home the bolt at the bottom a voice called out:

“Who’s there?”

She was startled and turned quickly.

“Gaspare!”

He stood before her half dressed, with his hair over his eyes, and a revolver in his hand.

“Signora! It is you!”

“Si. What did you think? That it was a robber?”

Gaspare looked at her almost sternly, went to the door, bent down and bolted it, then he said:

“Signora, I heard a noise in the house a few minutes ago. I listened, but I heard nothing more. Still, I thought it best to get up. I had just put on my clothes when again I heard a noise at the door. I myself had locked it for the night. What should I think?”

“I was outside. I came back for something. That was what you heard. Then I went out again.”

“Si.”

He stood there staring at her in a way that seemed, she fancied, to rebuke her. She knew that he wished to know why she had gone out so late, returned to the house, then gone out once more.

“Come up-stairs for a minute, Gaspare,” she said. “I want to speak to you.”

He looked less stern, but still unlike himself.

“Si, Signora. Shall I put on my jacket?”

“No, no, never mind. Come like that.”

She went up-stairs, treading softly, lest she might disturb Vere. He followed. When they were in her sitting-room she said:

“Gaspare, why did you go to bed without coming to say good-night to me?”

He looked rather confused.

“Did I forget, Signora? I was tired. Forgive me.”

“I don’t know whether you forgot. But you never came.”

As Hermione spoke, suddenly she felt as if Gaspare, too, were going, perhaps, to drift from her. She looked at him with an almost sharp intensity which hardened her whole face. Was he, too, being insincere with her, he whom she trusted implicitly?

“Did you forget, Gaspare?” she said.

“Signora,” he repeated, with a certain, almost ugly doggedness, “I was tired. Forgive me.”

She felt sure that he had chosen deliberately not to come to her for the evening salutation. It was a trifle, yet to-night it hurt her. For a moment she was silent, and he was silent, looking down at the floor. Then she opened her lips to dismiss him. She intended to say a curt “Good-night”; but–no–she could not let Gaspare retreat from her behind impenetrable walls of obstinate reserve. And she did know his nature through and through. If he was odd to-night, unlike himself, there was some reason for it; and it could not be a reason that, known to her, would make her think badly of him. She was certain of that.

“Never mind, Gaspare,” she said gently. “But I like you to come and say good-night to me. I am accustomed to that, and I miss it if you don’t come.”

“Si, Signora,” he said, in a very low voice.

He turned a little away from her, and made a small noise with his nose as if he had a cold.

“Gaspare,” she said, with an impulse to be frank, “I saw Ruffo to-night.”

He turned round quickly. She saw moisture in his eyes, but they were shining almost fiercely.

“He told me something about his Patrigno. Did you know it?”

“His Patrigno and Peppina?”

Hermione nodded.

“Si Signora; Ruffo told me.”

“I gave the boy something for his mother.”

“His mother–why?”

There was quick suspicion in Gaspare’s voice.