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Updated: May 5, 2025
Between them he faintly perceived a widely smiling face, and from this face broke at once a sickly torrent of speech, half Neapolitan dialect, half bastard French. "Silenzio!" Artois said, sternly. The old harridan stopped in surprise, showing her tooth. "What has become of Peppina?" "Maria Santissima!" she ejaculated, moving back a step in the darkness. She paused.
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.
Did Nora never dance upon the pavement? Was Violet but the figment of a poet's dreams? And was that painted angel, Peppina, a mere psychic snare? Could any man even a poet write as he did of Muriel at the Opera if there had been no Muriel? It seemed highly improbable.
They were beside me in the crowd." "Was he alone with his mother?" "Si, Signore. Quite alone." "Gaspare, I have seen Ruffo's mother." Gaspare looked startled. "Truly, Signore?" "Yes. I saw her with him one day at the Mergellina. She was crying." "Perhaps she is unhappy. Her husband is in prison." "Because of Peppina." "Si." "And to-night you spoke to her for the first time?"
"Is not the island when I wish to be quiet there." The lift descended. Artois went out once more onto the balcony, and watched her get into the carriage and drive away towards Naples. She did not look up again. "She has gone to fetch that girl Peppina," Artois said to himself, "and I might have prevented it." He knew very well the reason why he had not interfered.
She could scarcely believe that Vere, that Gaspare, that the servants were there among them Peppina with her cross. They said Peppina had the evil eye. Had she perhaps cast a spell to-night? Hermione did not smile at such an imagination as she dismissed it.
While the demurely sinister music ran its course, she remained absolutely immobile. Artois watched her with a keen interest. It had come into his mind that she was the aunt of Peppina, the disfigured girl, who perhaps to-night was sleeping in the Casa del Mare with Vere. Presently, attracted, no doubt, by his gaze, the old woman looked across at Artois and met his eyes.
But now she thought of the Marchesino, of Peppina, of her conversation with Monsieur Emile in the Grotto of Virgilio, and realized the blooming of her girlhood, was aware that she was changing. And she felt half frightened, then eager, ardently eager. An impulse filled her, the impulse towards a fulness of life that, till now, she had not known.
Why should Peppina have anything to do with my giving Vere permission to read your books?" Artois' instinct was not to tell what Vere had not told, and therefore had not wished to be known. Yet he hated to shuffle with Hermione. He chose a middle course. "My friend," he said quietly, but with determination, "I made a mistake. I was following foolishly a wrong track. Let us say no more about it.
"But you have put it in the house! Is it not there is it not there now to bring death upon the Signora, upon the Signorina, upon us all?" "It was made for Peppina. My mamma made it only against Peppina, because she has brought evil into our house. It will hurt only Peppina! It will kill only Peppina!" He spoke now with a vehemence and passion almost equal to Gaspare's. Artois stood still.
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