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"And I went to visit Ruffo's mother." Gaspare made no response. He looked down now as he plied his oars. "She seems a nice woman. I I dare say she was quite pretty once." The voice that was speaking now was the voice of a fanatic. "I am sure she must have been pretty." "Chi lo sa?" "If one looks carefully one can see the traces. But, of course, now " She stopped abruptly.
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.
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.
"Gaspare," he said quickly, "have you looked everywhere for the Signora?" "I have looked in the house, Signore. I have been on the terrace and to the Signorina in the garden. Then I came to tell you. I thought you should know about the Signora and the fattura della morte."
Gaspare moved, took his hands violently out of his pockets, then thrust them in again. Artois stood in silence. His face, generally so strong, so authoritative, showed his irresolution, and Vere, looking to him like a frightened child for guidance, felt her terror increase. "Shall I go up again. I didn't knock. You told me not to. Shall I go and knock? Or shall Gaspare go again?"
The Marchesino made no answer, but stepped out into the passage and looked up to the staircase that led to the top floor of the house. He listened. He heard nothing. "Is the French Signore here?" he said to Gaspare. "Do you hear me? Is he in this house?" "No, Signore!" The Marchesino again looked towards the staircase and hesitated.
And at one moment he understood her and at another he did not. "Gaspare and I we wished to spare you. And perhaps I wished to spare myself. I think I did. I am sure I did. I am sure that was partly my reason. I was secretly ashamed of my cowardice, my weakness in Africa; and when I knew no, when I guessed, for it was only that what my appeal to you had caused all it had caused " He paused.
Was it possible that his deep interest in Vere, his paternal delight in her talent, in her growing charm, in her grace and sweetness, could have been mistaken for something else, for the desire of man for woman? Vere had certainly never for a moment misunderstood him. That he knew as surely as he knew that he was alive. But Gaspare and Hermione?
"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.
With summer Vere could give herself up to the sea, and not only imaginatively but by a bodily act. Every day, and sometimes twice a day, she put on her bathing-dress in the Casa del Mare, threw a thin cloak over her, and ran down to the edge of the sea, where Gaspare was waiting with the boat. Hermione did not bathe. It did not suit her now. And Gaspare was Vere's invariable companion.
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