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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.
"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.
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.
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.
Gaspare said nothing, but followed him down to the foot of the cliff. One of the island boats was gone. When Gaspare saw that he ran to pull in the other. He held out his arm to help Artois into the boat, then took the oars, standing up and looking before him into the night. "Row towards the village, Gaspare." "Si, Signore." At that moment Gaspare understood much of what was in Artois's mind.
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.
"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."
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.
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.
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.
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