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But her bright eyes went for the fraction of a second to Ruffo, who close by in the boat was lying at his ease, his head thrown back, and one of the cigarettes between his lips. "What! That boy there?" "Nonsense! Come along! Madre has been sitting at the window for ages looking out for the boat. Couldn't you sail at all Gaspare?" Artois had let go her hands, and now she turned to the Sicilian.
"It's all so long ago," she repeated. "Years and years ago. We've forgotten it. We've forgotten Sicily, Gaspare. Why should we think of it or trouble about it any more? Good-night, Gaspare." She smiled at him, but her face was drawn and looked old. "Buona notte, Signora."
If only he could save her from another and more terrible death the death of the spirit that believes and trusts in life! He had been absorbed in thought and unconscious of time. Now he looked up, he was aware of things. He listened. Surely Gaspare had been away a long while. And Vere where was she? He had a strange desire to see Ruffo now.
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.
Simply she would stay in the garden, or on the terrace, later than usual, till after Ruffo was sure to be at the island, and let her mother stroll to the cliff top. Or, if she were there with him first, she would soon make an excuse to go away, and casually tell her mother that he was there alone or with Gaspare.
And his pose was meditative. Hermione watched him. The sight of him reminded her of another question she wished to ask. Gaspare had one hand in the pocket of his white trousers. With the other he held the cigarette. Hermione saw the wreaths of pale smoke curling up and evaporating in the shining, twinkling air, which seemed full of joyous, dancing atoms.
Vere came slowly from the house, and at once Hermione's newly made and not yet carried out resolution crumbled into dust. She forgot the sun, the sea, the peaceful situation and all material things. She was confronted by the painful drama of the island life! Vere with her secrets, Emile with his, Gaspare fighting to keep her, his Padrona, still in mystery.
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.
"Won't the crowd be very bad, though?" asked Hermione. "I'll get tickets for the enclosure in the Piazza. We shall have seats there. And you can bring Gaspare, if you like. Then you will have three cavaliers." "Yes, I should like Gaspare to come," said Hermione. There was a sound of warmth in her hitherto rather cold voice when she said that. "How you rely on Gaspare!"
It was difficult to imagine them not looking keenly intelligent. The vivacity of youth was no longer in them, but the vividness of intellect, of an intellect almost fiercely alive and tenacious of its life, was never absent from them. As Artois got out, the boat's prow was being held by the Sicilian, Gaspare, now a man of thirty-five, but still young-looking.
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