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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?
Without saying anything Maddalena moved her broad body from the doorway, leaving enough space for Hermione to enter. "Thank you," said Hermione to Fabiano, giving him a couple of lire. "Grazie, Signora. I will wait down-stairs to take you back." He went off before she had time to tell him that was not necessary. Hermione walked into Ruffo's home. There were two rooms, one opening into the other.
She had reached the steps now near the Savoy Hotel. A happy-looking boatman, with hazel eyes and a sensitive mouth, hailed her from the water. It was Fabiano Lari, to whom Artois had once spoken, waiting for custom in his boat the Stella del Mare. Hermione was attracted to the man, as Artois had been, and she resolved to find out from him, if possible, where Ruffo's mother lived.
The fear that had been formless was increasing now in Hermione, and surely it was beginning at last to take a form, but as yet only a form that was vague and shadowy. "Yes. I think it very strange. Did you" an intense curiosity was alive in her now "did you know Ruffo's mother in Sicily?" "Signora, it does not matter where I knew her." "Why should she say that?" "What?"
Could it mean that this woman, Ruffo's mother, had once known Maurice, known him well enough to see in her son the resemblance to him? But then Hermione, as sometimes happened, having reached truth instinctively and with a sure swiftness, turned to retreat from it. She had lost confidence in herself. She feared her own impulses.
Only sometimes did she see in Ruffo's face the look that had drawn her to him. The resemblance to Maurice was startling, but it was nearly always fleeting. She could not tell when it was coming, nor retain it when it came. But she noticed that it was generally when Ruffo was moved by affection, by a sudden sympathy, by a warm and deferent impulse that the look came in him.
"Signora," he said, bluntly, "if I were you I would not have anything to do with these people. Ruffo's Patrigno is a bad man. Better leave them alone." "But, Ruffo?" "Signora?" "You like him, don't you?" "Si, Signora. There is no harm in him." "And the poor mother?" "I am not friends with his mother, Signora. I do not want to be." Hermione was surprised by his harshness. "But why not?"
And Maurice he had known Ruffo's mother. He must have known her. But when? How had he got to know her? Hermione stood still. "It must have been when I was in Africa!" A hundred details of her husband's conduct, from the moment of his return from the fair till the last kiss he had given her before he went away down the side of Monte Amato, flashed through her mind.
Hermione found in this new attitude of Ruffo's a curious solace for the sudden loneliness of soul that had come upon her. Originally Ruffo's chief friendship had obviously been for Vere, but now Vere, seeing her mother's new and deep interest in the boy, gave way a little to it, yet without doing anything ostentatious, or showing any pique.
"Vere must be quite a book-worm!" "Will you stay to dinner, Emile?" "Alas, I have promised the Marchesino Isidoro to dine with him. Give me a cup of tea a la Russe, and one of Ruffo's cigarettes, and then I must bid you adieu. I'll take the boat to the Antico Giuseppone, and then get another there as far as the gardens." "One of Ruffo's cigarettes!" Hermione echoed, as they went up the steps.
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