When the Marchesino received the invitation of Artois to dine with him and the ladies from the island on the night of the Festa of the Madonna del Carmine he was again ill in bed with fever. But nevertheless he returned an immediate acceptance. Then he called in the family doctor, and violently demanded to be made well, “perfectly well,” by the evening of the sixteenth. The doctor, who guessed at once that some amorous adventure was on foot, promised to do his best, and so ingeniously plied his patient with drugs and potions that on the sixteenth Doro was out of bed, and busily doing gymnastics to test his strength for the coming campaign.
Artois’ invitation had surprised him. He had lost all faith in his friend, and at first almost suspected an ambush. Emilio had not invited him out of love—that was certain. But perhaps the ladies of the island had desired his presence, his escort. He was a Neapolitan. He knew the ways of the city. That was probably the truth. They wanted him, and Emilio had been obliged to ask him.
He saw his opportunity. His fever, coming at such a time, had almost maddened him, and during the days of forced inaction the Panacci temper had been vigorously displayed in the home circle. As he lay in bed his imagination ran riot. The day and the night were filled with thoughts and dreams of Vere. And always Emilio was near her, presiding over her doings with a false imitation of the paternal manner.
But now at the last the Marchesino saw his opportunity to strike a blow at Emilio. Every year of his life since he was a child he had been to the festa in honor of the Madonna del Carmine. He knew the crowd that assembled under the prison walls and beneath Nuvolo’s tall belfry, the crowds that overflowed into the gaunt Square of the Mercato and streamed down the avenues of fire into the narrow side streets. In those crowds it would be easy to get lost. Emilio, when he heard his friend’s voice singing, had hidden with the Signorina in the darkness of a cave. He might be alone with the Signorina when he would. The English ladies trusted his white hairs. Or the English ladies did not care for theconvenances. Since he had found Peppina in the Casa del Mare, the Marchesino did not know what to think of its Padrona. And now he was too reckless to care. He only knew that he was in love, and that circumstances so far had fought against him. He only knew that he had been tricked, and that he meant to trick Emilio in return. His anxiety to revenge himself on Emilio was quite as keen as his desire to be alone with Vere. The natural devilry of his temperament, a boy’s devilry, not really wicked, but compounded of sensuality, vanity, the passion for conquest, and the determination to hold his own against other males and to shine in his world’s esteem, was augmented by the abstinence from his usual life. The few days in the house seemed to him a lifetime already wasted. He meant to make up for it, and he did not care at whose expense, so long as some of the debt was paid by Emilio.
On the sixteenth he issued forth into life again in a mood that was dangerous. The fever that had abandoned his body was raging in his mind. He was in the temper which had governed his papa on the day of the slapping of Signora Merani’s face in the Chiaia.
The Marchesino always thought a great deal about his personal appearance, but his toilet on the night of the sixteenth was unusually prolonged. On several matters connected with it he was undecided. Should he wear a waistcoat of white pique or one of black silk? Should he put on a white tie, or a black? And what about rings?
He loved jewelry, as do most Neapolitans, both male and female, and had quantities of gaudy rings, studs, sleeve links, and waistcoat buttons. In his present mood he was inclined to adorn himself with as many of them as possible. But he was not sure whether the English liked diamonds and rubies on a man. He hesitated long, made many changes, and looked many times in the glass. At last he decided on a black tie, a white waistcoat with pearl buttons, a pearl shirt-stud surrounded with diamonds, pearl and diamond sleeve-links, and only three rings—a gold snake, a seal ring, and a ring set with turquoises. This was a modest toilet, suited, surely to the taste to the English, which he remembered to have heard of as sober.
He stood long before the mirror when he was ready, and had poured over his handkerchief a libation of “Rose d’amour.”
Certainly he was a fine-looking fellow—his natural sincerity obliged him to acknowledge it. Possibly his nose stuck out too much to balance perfectly the low forehead and the rather square chin. Possibly his cheek-bones were too prominent. But what of that? Women always looked at a man’s figure, his eyes, his teeth, his mustaches. And he had a splendid figure, enormous gray eyes, large and perfectly even white teeth between lips that were very full and very red, and blond mustaches whose turned-up points were like a cry of victory.
He drew himself up from the hips, enlarged his eyes by opening them exaggeratedly, stretched his lips till his teeth were well exposed, and vehemently twisted the ends of his mustaches.
Yes, he was a very handsome fellow, and boyish-looking, too—but not too boyish.
It really was absurd of Emilio to think of cutting him out with a girl—Emilio, an old man, all beard and brains! As if any living woman really cared for brains! Impertinence, gayety, agility, muscle—that was what women loved in men. And he had all they wanted.
He filled his case with cigarettes, slipped on a very smart fawn-colored coat, cocked a small-brimmed black bowler hat over his left ear, picked up a pair of white gloves and a cane surmounted by a bunch of golden grapes, and hurried down-stairs, humming “Lili Kangy,” the “canzonetta birichina” that was then the rage in Naples.
The dinner was to be at the Hotel des Etrangers. On consideration, Artois had decided against the Galleria. He had thought of those who wander there, of Peppina’s aunt, of certain others. And then he had thought of Vere. And his decision was quickly taken. When the Marchesino arrived, Artois was alone in his sitting-room. The two men looked into each other’s eyes as they met, and Artois saw at once that Doro was in a state of suppressed excitement and not in a gentle mood. Although Doro generally seemed full of good-humor, and readiness to please and to be pleased, he could look very cruel. And when, in rare moments, he did so, his face seemed almost to change its shape: the cheek-bones to become more salient, the nose sharper, the eyes catlike, the large but well-shaped mouth venomous instead of passionate. He looked older and also commoner directly his insouciance departed from him, and one could divine a great deal of primitive savagery beneath his lively grace and boyish charm.
But to-night, directly he spoke to Artois, his natural humor seemed to return. He explained his illness, which accounted for his not having come as usual to see his friend, and drew a humorous picture of a Panacci in a bed surrounded by terror-stricken nurses.
“And you, Emilio, what have you been doing?” he concluded.
“Working,” said Artois.
He pointed to the writing-table, on which lay a pile of manuscript.
The Marchesino glanced at it carelessly, but the two vertical lines suddenly appeared in his forehead just above the inside corners of his eyes.
“Work! work!” he said. “You make me feel quite guilty, amico mio. I live for happiness, for love, but you—you live for duty.”
He put his arm through his friend’s with a laugh, and drew him towards the balcony.
“Nevertheless,” he added, “even you have your moments of pleasure, haven’t you?”
He pressed Artois’ arm gently, but in the touch of his fingers there was something that seemed to hint a longing to close them violently and cause a shudder of pain.
“Even you have moments when the brain goes to sleep and—and the body wakes up. Eh, Emilio? Isn’t it true?”
“My dear Doro, when have I claimed to be unlike other men?”
“No, no! But you workers inspire reverence, you know. We, who do not work, we see your pale faces, your earnest eyes, and we think—mon Dieu, Emilio!—we think you are saints. And then, if, by chance, one evening we go to the Galleria, and find it is not so, that you are like ourselves, we are glad.”
He began to laugh.
“We are glad; we feel no longer at a disadvantage.”
Again he pressed Artois’ arm gently.
“But, amico mio, you are deceptive, you workers,” he said. “You take us all in. We are children beside you, we who say all we feel, who show when we hate and when we love. We are babies. If I ever want to become really birbante, I shall become a worker.”
He spoke always lightly, laughingly; but Artois understood the malice at his heart, and hesitated for a moment whether to challenge it quietly and firmly, or whether laughingly, to accept the sly imputations of secrecy, of hypocrisy, in a “not-worth-while” temper. If things developed—and Artois felt that they must with such a protagonist as the Marchesino—a situation might arise in which Doro’s enmity must come out into the open and be dealt with drastically. Till then was it not best to ignore it, to fall in with his apparent frivolity? Before Artois could decide—for his natural temper and an under-sense of prudence and contempt pulled different ways—the Marchesino suddenly released his arm, leaned over the balcony rail, and looked eagerly down the road. A carriage had just rattled up from the harbor of Santa Lucia only a few yards away.
“Ecco!” he exclaimed. “Ecco! But—but who is with them?”
“Only Gaspare,” replied Artois.
“Gaspare! That servant who came to the Guiseppone? Oh, no doubt he has rowed the ladies over and will return to the boat?”
“No, I think not. I think the Signora will bring him to the Carmine.”
“Why?” said the Marchesino, sharply.
“Why not? He is a strong fellow, and might be useful in a crowd.”
“Are we not strong? Are we not useful?”
“My dear Doro, what’s the matter?”
“Niente—niente!”
He tugged at his mustaches.
“Only I think the Signora might trust to us.”
“Tell her so, if you like. Here she is.”
At this moment the door opened and Hermione came in, followed by Vere.
As Artois went to welcome them he was aware of a strange mixture of sensations, which made these two dear and close friends, these intimates of his life, seem almost new. He was acutely conscious of the mist of which Hermione had thought. He wondered about her, as she about him. He saw again that face in the night under the trellis. He heard the voice that had called to him and Vere in the garden. And he knew that enmity, mysterious yet definite, might arise even between Hermione and him; that even they two—inexorably under the law that has made all human beings separate entities, and incapable of perfect fusion—might be victims of misunderstanding, of ignorance of the absolute truth of personality. Even now he was companioned by the sudden and horrible doubt which had attacked him in the garden: that perhaps she had been always playing a part when she had seemed to be deeply interested in his work, that perhaps there was within her some one whom he did not know, had never even caught a glimpse of until lately, once when she was in the tram going to the Scoglio di Frisio, and once the last time they had met. And yet this was the woman who had nursed him in Africa—and this was the woman against whose impulsive actions he had had the instinct to protect Vere—the Hermione Delarey whom he had known for so many years.
Never before had he looked at Hermione quite as he looked at her to-night. His sense of her strangeness woke up in him something that was ill at ease, doubtful, almost even suspicious, but also something that was quivering with interest.
For years this woman had been to him “dear Hermione,” “ma pauvre amie,” comrade, sympathizer, nurse, mother of Vere.
Now—what else was she? A human creature with a heart and brain capable of mystery; a soul with room in it for secret things; a temple whose outside he had seen, but whose god, perhaps, he had never seen.
And Vere was involved in her mother’s strangeness, and had her own strangeness too. Of that he had been conscious before to-night. For Vere was being formed. The plastic fingers were at work about her, moulding her into what she must be as a woman.
But Hermione! She had been a woman so long.
Perhaps, too, she was standing on the brink of a precipice. That suspicion, that fear, not to be banished by action, added to the curiosity, as about an unknown land, that she aroused.
And the new and vital sense of Hermione’s strangeness which was alive in Artois was met by a feeling in her that was akin to it, only of the feminine sex.
Their eyes encountered like eyes that say, “What are you?”
After swift greeting they went down-stairs to dine in the public room. As there were but few people in the house, the large dining-room was not in use, and their table was laid in the small restaurant that looks out on the Marina, and was placed close to the window.
“At last we are repeating ourpartie carreeof the Guiseppone,” said Artois, as they sat down.
He felt that as host he must release himself from subtleties and under-feelings, must stamp down his consciousness of secret inquiries and of desires or hatreds half-concealed. He spoke cheerfully, even conventionally.
“Yes, but without the storm,” said Hermione, in the same tone. “There is no feeling of electricity in the air to-night.”
Even while she spoke she felt as if she were telling a lie which was obvious to them all. And she could not help glancing hastily round. She met the large round eyes of the Marchesino, eyes without subtlety though often expressive.
“No, Signora,” he said, smiling at her, rather obviously to captivate her by the sudden vision of his superb teeth—“La Bruna is safe to-night.”
“La Bruna?”
“The Madonna del Carmine.”
They talked of the coming festa.
Vere was rather quiet, much less vehement in appearance and lively in manner than she had been at the Marchesino’s dinner. Artois thought she looked definitely older than she had then, though even then she had played quite well the part of a little woman of the world. There was something subdued in her eyes to-night which touched him, because it made him imagine Vere sad. He wondered if she were still troubled about her mother, if she had fulfilled her intention and asked Gaspare what he thought. And he longed to ask her, to know what Gaspare had said. The remembrance of Gaspare made him say to Hermione:
“I gave orders that Gaspare was to have a meal here. Did they tell you?”
“Yes. He has gone to the servants’ room.”
The Marchesino’s face changed.
“Your Gaspare seems indispensable, Signora,” he said to Hermione in his lightest, most boyish manner—a manner that the determination in his eyes contradicted rather crudely. “Do you take him everywhere, like a little dog?”
“I often take him,—but not like a little dog, Marchese,” Hermione said, quietly.
“Signora, I did not mean—Here in Naples, we use that expression for anything, or any one, we like to have always with us.”
“I see. Well, call Gaspare a watch-dog if you like,” she answered, with a smile; “he watches over me carefully.”
“A watch-dog, Signora! But do you like to be watched? Is it not unpleasant?”
He was speaking now to get rid of the impression his first remark had evidently made upon her.
“I think it depends how,” she replied. “If Gaspare watches me it is only to protect me—I am sure of that.”
“But, Signora, do you not trust Don Emilio, do you not trust me, to be your watch-dogs to-night at the festa?”
There was a little pressure in his voice, but he still preserved his light and boyish manner. And now he turned to Vere.
“Speak for us, Signorina! Tell the Signora that we will take care of her to-night, that there is no need of the faithful Gaspare.”
Vere looked at him gravely. She had wondered a little why her mother had brought Gaspare, why, at least, she had not left him free till they returned to the boat at Santa Lucia. But her mother wanted him to come with them, and that was enough for her. She opened her lips, and Artois thought she was going to snub her companion. But perhaps she suddenly changed her mind, for she only said:
“Who would trust you, Marchese?”
She met his eyes with a sort of child’s impertinence. She had abruptly become the Vere of the Scoglio di Frisio.
“Who would take you for a watch-dog?”
“Ma—Signorina!”
“As a seal—yes, you are all very well! But—”
The young man was immediately in the seventh Heaven. The Signorina remembered his feats in the water. All his self-confidence returned, all his former certainty that the Signorina was secretly devoted to him. His days of doubt and fury were forgotten. His jealousy of Emilio vanished in a cloud of happy contempt for the disabilities of age, and he began to talk to Vere with a vivacity that was truly Neapolitan. When the Marchesino was joyous he had charm, the charm that emanates from the bounding life that flows in the veins of youth. Even the Puritan feels, and fears, the grace that is Pagan. The Marchesino had a Pagan grace. And now it returned to him and fell about him like a garment, clothing body and soul. And Vere seemed to respond to it. She began to chatter, too. She talked lightly, flicking him with little whips of sarcasm that did not hurt, but only urged him on. The humor of a festa might begin to flow from these two.
And again, instead of infecting Artois, it seemed to set him apart, to rebuke silently his gifts, his fame—to tell him that they were useless, that they could do nothing for him.
The Marchesino was not troubled with an intellect. Yet with what ease he found words to play with the words of Vere! His Latin vivacity seemed a perfect substitute for thought, for imagination, for every subtlety. He bubbled like champagne. And when champagne winks and foams at the edge of the shining glass, do the young think of, or care for, the sober gravity, the lingering bouquet of claret, even if it be Chateau Margaux?
As Artois half listened to the young people, while he talked quietly with Hermione, playing the host with discretion, he felt the peculiar cruelty which ordains that the weapons of youth, even if taken up and used by age with vigor and competence, shall be only reeds in those hands whose lines tell of the life behind.
Yet how Vere and he had laughed together on the day of his return from Paris! One gust of such mutual laughter is worth how many days of earnest talk!
Vere was gleaming with fun to-night.
The waiters, as they went softly about the table, looked at her with kind eyes. Secretly they were enjoying her gayety because it was so pretty. Her merriment was as airy as the flight of a bird.
The Marchesino was entranced. Did she care for that?
Artois wondered secretly, and was not sure. He had a theory that all women like to feel their power over men. Few men have not this theory. But there was in Vere something immensely independent, that seemed without sex, and that hinted at a reserve not vestal, but very pure—too pure, perhaps, to desire an empire which is founded certainly upon desire.
And the Marchesino was essentially and completely the young animal; not the heavy, sleek, and self-contented young animal that the northern countries breed, but the frolicsome, playful, fiery young animal that has been many times warmed by the sun.
Hermione felt that Artois’ mood to-night echoed his mood at Frisio’s, and suddenly she thought once more of the visitors’ book and of what he had written there, surely in a moment of almost heated impulse. And as she thought of it she was moved to speak of her thought. She had so many secret reserves from Emile now that this one she could dispense with.
“You remember that night when I met you on the sea?” she said to him.
He looked away from Vere and answered:
“Yes. What about it?”
“When I was at the Scoglio di Frisio I looked again over that wonderful visitors’ book.”
“Did you?”
“Yes. And I saw what you had written.”
Their eyes met. She wondered if by the expression in hers he divined why she had made that expedition, moved by what expectation, by what curiosity. She could tell nothing by his face, which was calm and inscrutable.
After an instant’s pause he said:
“Do you know from whom those words come?”
“No. Are they your own?”
“Victor Hugo’s. Do you like them?”
But her eyes were asking him a question, and he saw it.
“What is it?” he said.
“Why did you write them?” she said.
“I had to write something. You made me.”
“Vere suggested it first.”
He looked again at Vere, but only for a moment. She was laughing at something the Marchesino was saying.
“Did she?—Oh! Take some of that salade a la Russe. I gave the chef the recipe for it.—Did she?”
“Don’t you remember?”
“Those words were in my head. I put them down.”
“Are you fond of them?”
Her restless curiosity was still quite unsatisfied.
“I don’t know. But one has puzzled about conscience. Hasn’t one?”
He glanced at the Marchesino, who was bending forward to Vere, and illustrating something he was telling her by curious undulating gestures with both hands that suggested a flight.
“At least some of us have,” he continued. “And some never have, and never will.”
Hermione understood the comment on their fellow-guest.
“Do you think that saying explains it satisfactorily?” she said.
“I believe sometimes we know a great deal more than we know we know,” he answered. “That sounds like some nonsense game with words, but it’s the best way to put it. Conscience seems to speak out of the silence. But there may be some one in the prompter’s box—our secret knowledge.”
“But is it knowledge of ourselves, or of others?”
“Which do you think?”
“Of ourselves, I suppose. I think we generally know far less of others than we believe ourselves to know.”
She expressed his thought of her earlier in the evening.
“Probably. And nevertheless we may know things of them that we are not aware we know—till after we have instinctively acted on our knowledge.”
Their eyes met again. Hermione felt in that moment as if he knew why she had given Vere the permission to read his books.
But still she did not know whether he had written that sentence in the book at Frisio’s carelessly, or prompted by some violent impulse to express a secret thought or feeling of the moment.
“Things good or evil?” she said, slowly.
“Perhaps both.”
The Marchesino burst into a laugh. He leaned back in his chair, shaking his head, and holding the table with his two hands. His white teeth gleamed.
“What is the joke?” asked Artois.
Vere turned her head.
“Oh, nothing. It’s too silly. I can’t imagine why the Marchesino is so much amused by it.”
Artois felt shut out. But when Vere and he had laughed over the tea-table in a blessed community of happy foolishness, who could have understood their mirth? He remembered how he had pitied the imagined outsider.
He turned again to Hermione, but such conversation as theirs, and indeed all serious conversation, now seemed to him heavy, portentous, almost ludicrous. The young alone knew how to deal with life, chasing it as a child chases a colored air-ball, and when it would sink, and fall and be inert, sending it with a gay blow soaring once more towards the blue.
Perhaps Hermione had a similar thought, or perhaps she knew of it in him. At any rate, for a moment she had nothing to say. Nor had he. And so, tacitly excluded, as it seemed, from the merriment of the young ones, the two elders remained looking towards each other in silence, sunk in a joint exile.
Presently Artois began to fidget with his bread. He pulled out some of the crumb from his roll, and pressed it softly between his large fingers, and scattered the tiny fragments mechanically over the table-cloth near his plate. Hermione watched his moving hand. The Marchesino was talking now. He was telling Vere about a paper-chase at Capodimonte, which had started from the Royal Palace. His vivacity, his excitement made a paper-chase seem one of the most brilliant and remarkable events in a brilliant and remarkable world. He had been the hare. And such a hare! Since hares were first created and placed in the Garden of Eden there had been none like unto him. He told of his cunning exploits.
The fingers of Artois moved faster. Hermione glanced at his face. Its massiveness looked heavy. The large eyes were fixed upon the table-cloth. His hand just then was more expressive. And as she glanced at it again something very pitiful awoke in her, something pitiful for him and for herself. She felt that very often lately she had misunderstood him—she had been confused about him. But now, in this moment, she understood him perfectly.
He pulled some more crumb out of his roll.
She was fascinated by his hand. Much as it had written, it had never written more clearly on paper than it was writing now.
But suddenly she felt as if she could not look at it any more, as if it was intolerable to look at it. And she turned towards the open window.
“What is it?” Artois asked her. “Is there too much air for you?”
“Oh no. It isn’t that. I was only thinking what a quantity of people pass by, and wondering where they were all going, and what they were all thinking and hoping. I don’t know why they should have come into my head just then. I suppose it will soon be time for us to start for the festa.”
“Yes. We’ll have coffee in my sitting-room—when they are ready.” He looked again at Vere and the Marchesino.
“Have we all finished? I thought we would go and have coffee up-stairs. What do you say, Vere?”
He spoke cheerfully.
“Yes; do let us.”
They all got up. As Hermione and Vere moved towards the door Artois leaned out of the window for a moment.
“You needn’t be afraid. There will be no storm to-night, Emilio!” said the Marchesino, gayly—almost satirically.
“No—it’s quite fine.”
Artois drew in. “We ought to have a perfect evening,” he added, quietly.
“How are we going to drive to the Carmine?” said Artois to Hermione, when she had taken her cloak and was ready to go down.
“We must have two carriages.”
“Yes.”
“Vere and I will go in one, with Gaspare on the box, and you and the Marchese can follow in the other.”
“Signora,” said the Marchesino, drawing on his white gloves, “you still do not trust us? You are still determined to take the watch-dog? It is cruel of you. It shows a great want of faith in Emilio and in me.”
“Gaspare must come.”
The Marchesino said no more, only shrugged his shoulders with an air of humorous resignation which hid a real chagrin. He knew how watchful a Sicilian can be, how unyielding in attention to his mistresses, if he thinks they need protection.
But perhaps this Gaspare was to be bribed.
Instinctively the Marchesino put his hand into his waistcoat pocket, and began to feel the money there.
Yes, there was a gold piece.
“Come, Panacci!”
Emilio’s hand touched his shoulder, and he followed the ladies out of the room.
Emilio had called him “Panacci.” That sounded almost like a declaration of war. Well, he was ready. At dinner his had been the triumph, and Emilio knew it. He meant his triumph to be a greater one before the evening was over. The reappearance of the gay child in Vere, grafted upon the comprehending woman whom he had seen looking out of her eyes on the day of his last visit to the island, had put the finishing touch to the amorous madness of the Marchesino. He dreamed Vere an accomplished coquette. He believed that her cruelty on the night of his serenade, that her coldness and avoidance of him on the day of the lunch, were means devised to increase his ardor. She had been using Emilio merely as an instrument. He had been a weapon in her girlish hands. That was the suitable fate of the old—usefulness.
The Marchesino was in a fever of anticipation. Possibly Vere would play into his hands when they got to the festa. If not, he must manage things for himself. The Signora, of course, would make Emilio her escort. Vere would naturally fall to him, the Marchesino.
But there was the fifth—this Gaspare.
When they came out to the pavement the Marchesino cast a searching glance at the Sicilian, who was taking the cloaks, while the two carriages which had been summoned by the hotel porter were rattling up from the opposite side of the way. Gaspare had saluted him, but did not look at him again. When Hermione and Vere were in the first carriage, Gaspare sprang on to the box as a matter of course. The Marchesino went to tell the coachman which way to drive to the Carmine. When he had finished he looked at Gaspare and said:
“There will be a big crowd. Take care the Signora does not get hurt in it.”
He laid a slight emphasis on the word “Signora,” and put his hand significantly into his waistcoat-pocket.
Gaspare regarded him calmly.
“Va bene, Signor Marchese,” he replied. “I will take care of the Signora and the Signorina.”
The Marchesino turned away and jumped into the second carriage with Emilio, realizing angrily that his gold piece would avail him nothing.
As they drove off Artois drew out some small square bits of paper.
“Here’s your ticket for the enclosure,” he said, giving one to the Marchesino.
“Grazie. But we must walk about. We must show the ladies the fun in the Mercato. It is very dull to stay all the evening in the enclosure.”
“We will do whatever they like, of course.”
“Keep close to the other carriage! Do you hear?” roared the Marchesino to the coachman.
The man jerked his head, cracked his whip, pulled at his horse’s mouth. They shot forward at a tremendous pace, keeping close by the sea at first, then turning to the left up the hill towards the Piazza del Plebiscito. The Marchesino crossed his legs, folded his arms, and instinctively assumed the devil-may-care look characteristic of the young Neapolitan when driving through his city.
“Emilio,” he said, after a moment, looking at Artois out of the corners of his eyes without moving his head, “when I was at the island the other day, do you know whom I saw in the house?”
“No.”
“A girl of the town. A bad girl. You understand?”
“Do you mean a girl with a wounded cheek?”
“Yes. How can the Signora have her there?”
“The Signora knows all about her,” said Artois, dryly.
“She thinks so!”
“What do you mean?”
“If the Signora really knew, could she take such a girl to live with the Signorina?”
The conversation was rapidly becoming insupportable to Artois.
“This is not our affair,” he said.
“I do not say it is. But still, as I am a Neapolitan, I think it a pity that some one does not explain to the Signora how impossible—”
“Caro mio!” Artois exclaimed, unable to endure his companion’s obvious inclination to pose as a protector of Vere’s innocence. “English ladies do not care to be governed. They are not like your charming women. They are independent and do as they choose. You had much better not bother your head about what happens on the island. Very soon the Signora may be leaving it and going away from Naples.”
“Davvero?”
The Marchesino turned right round in the little carriage, forgetting his pose.
“Davvero? No. I don’t believe it. You play with me. You wish to frighten me.”
“To frighten you! I don’t understand what you mean. What can it matter to you? You scarcely know these ladies.”
The Marchesino pursed his lips together. But he only said, “Si, si.” He did not mean to quarrel with Emilio yet. To do so might complicate matters with the ladies.
As they entered the Via del Popolo, and drew near to the Piazza di Masaniello, his excitement increased, stirred by the sight of the crowds of people, who were all streaming in the same direction past the iron rails of the port, beyond which, above the long and ghostly sheds that skirt the sea, rose the tapering masts of vessels lying at anchor. Plans buzzed in his head. He called upon all his shrewdness, all his trickiness of the South. He had little doubt of his capacity to out-manoeuvre Emilio and the Signora. And if the Signorina were favorable to him, he believed that he might even get the better of Gaspare, in whom he divined a watchful hostility. But would the Signorina help him? He could not tell. How can one ever tell what a girl will do at a given moment?
With a jerk the carriage drew up beneath the walls of the prison that frowns upon the Piazza di Masaniello, and the Marchesino roused himself to the battle and sprang out. The hum of the great crowd already assembled, the brilliance of the illuminations that lit up the houses, Nuvolo’s tower, the façade of the Church of the Carmine, and the adjoining monastery, the loud music of the band that was stationed in the Kiosk before the enclosure, stirred his young blood. As he went quickly to help Hermione and Vere, he shot a glance almost of contempt at the gray hairs of Emilio, who was getting out of the carriage slowly. Artois saw the glance and understood it. For a moment he stood still. Then he paid the coachman and moved on, encompassed by the masses of people who were struggling gayly towards the centre of the square, intent upon seeing the big doll that was enthroned there dressed as Masaniello.
“We had better go into the enclosure. Don’t you think so?” he said to Hermione.
“If you like. I am ready for anything.”
“We can walk about afterwards. Perhaps the crush will be less when the fire-balloon has gone up.”
The Marchesino said nothing, and they gained the enclosure, where rows of little chairs stood on the short grass that edges the side of the prison that looks upon the Piazza. Gaspare, who on such occasions was full of energy and singularly adroit, found them good places in a moment.
“Ecco, Signora! Ecco, Signorina!”
“Madre, may I stand on my chair?”
“Of course, Signorina. Look! Others are standing!”
Gaspare helped his Padroncina up, then took his place beside her, and stood like a sentinel. Artois had never liked him better than at that moment. Hermione, who looked rather tired, sat down on her chair. The loud music of the band, the lines of fire that brought the discolored houses into sharp relief, and that showed her with a distinctness that was fanciful and lurid the moving faces of hundreds of strangers, the dull roar of voices, and the heat that flowed from the human bodies, seemed to mingle, to become concrete, to lie upon her spirit like a weight. Artois stood by her, leaning on his stick and watching the crowd with his steady eyes. The Marchesino was looking up at Vere, standing in a position that seemed to indicate a longing that she should rest her hand upon his shoulder.
“You will fall, Signorina!” he said. “Be careful. Let me—”
“I am quite safe.”
But she dropped one hand to the shoulder of Gaspare.
The Marchesino moved, almost as if he were about to go away. Then he lit a cigarette and spoke to Hermione.
“You look tired, Signora. You feel the heat. It is much fresher outside, when one is walking. Here, under the prison walls, it is always like a furnace in summer. It is unwholesome. It puts one into a fever.”
Hermione looked at him, and saw a red spot burning on each side of his face near his cheek-bones.
“Perhaps it would be better to walk,” she said, doubtfully.
Her inclination was for movement, for her fatigue was combined with a sensation of great restlessness.
“What do you say, Vere?” she added.
“Oh, I should love to go among the people and see everything,” she answered, eagerly.
The Marchesino’s brow cleared.
“Let us go, Emilio! You hear what the Signorina says.”
“Very well,” said Artois.
His voice was reluctant, even cold. Vere glanced at him quickly.
“Would you rather stay here, Monsieur Emile?” she said.
“No, Vere, no. Let us go and see the fun.”
He smiled at her.
“We must keep close together,” he added, looking at the Marchesino. “The crowd is tremendous.”
“But they are all in good humor,” he answered, carelessly. “We Neapolitans, we are very gay, that is true, but we do not forget our manners when we have a festa. There is nothing to fear. This is the best way out. We must cross the Mercato. The illuminations of the streets beyond are always magnificent. The Signorina shall walk down paths of fire, but she shall not be burned.”
He led the way with Vere, going in front to disarm the suspicion which he saw plainly lurking in Emilio’s eyes. Artois followed with Hermione, and Gaspare came last. The exit from the enclosure was difficult, as many people were pouring in through the narrow opening, and others, massed together outside the wooden barrier, were gazing at the seated women within; but at length they reached the end of the Piazza, and caught a glimpse of the Masaniello doll, which faced a portrait of the Madonna del Carmine framed in fire. Beyond, to the right, above the heads of the excited multitude, rose the pale-pink globe of the fire-balloon, and as for a moment they stood still to look at it the band struck up a sonorous march, the balloon moved sideways, swayed, heeled over slightly like a sailing-yacht catching the breeze beyond the harbor bar, recovered itself, and lifted the blazing car above the gesticulating arms of the people. A long murmur followed it as it glided gently away, skirting the prodigious belfry with the apparent precaution of a living thing that longed for, and sought, the dim freedom of the sky. The children instinctively stretched out their arms to it. All faces were lifted towards the stars, as if a common aspiration at that moment infected the throng, a universal, though passing desire to be free of the earth, to mount, to travel, to be lost in the great spaces that encircle terrestrial things. At the doors of the trattorie the people, who had forsaken their snails, stood to gaze, many of them holding glasses of white wine in their hands. The spighe arrosto, the watermelons, were for a moment forgotten on the stalls of their vendors, who ceased from shouting to the passers-by. There was a silence in which was almost audible the human wish for wings. Presently the balloon, caught by some vagrant current of air, began to travel abruptly, and more swiftly, sideways, passing over the city towards its centre. At once the crowd moved in the same direction. Aspiration was gone. A violence of children took its place, and the instinct to follow where the blazing toy led. The silence was broken. People called and gesticulated, laughed and chattered. Then the balloon caught fire from the brazier beneath it. A mass of flames shot up. A roar broke from the crowd and it pressed more fiercely onward, each unit of it longing to see where the wreck would fall. Already the flames were sinking towards the city.
“Where are Vere and the Marchesino?”
Hermione had spoken. Artois, whose imagination had been fascinated by the instincts of the crowd, and whose intellect had been chained to watchfulness during its strange excitement, looked sharply round.
“Vere—isn’t she here?”
He saw at once that she was gone. But he saw, too, that Gaspare was no longer with them. The watch-dog had been more faithful than he.
“They must be close by,” he added. “The sudden movement separated us, no doubt.”
“Yes. Gaspare has vanished too!”
“With them,” Artois said.
He spoke with an emphasis that was almost violent.
“But—you didn’t see—” began Hermione.
“Don’t you know Gaspare yet?” he asked.
Their eyes met. She was startled by the expression in his.
“You don’t think—” she began.
She broke off.
“I think Gaspare knows his Southerner,” Artois replied. “We must look for them. They are certain to have gone with the crowd.”
They followed the people into the Mercato. The burning balloon dropped down and disappeared.
“It has fallen into the Rettifilo!” cried a young man close to them.
“Macche!” exclaimed his companion.
“I will bet you five lire—”
He gesticulated furiously.
“We shall never find them,” Hermione said.
“We will try to find them.”
His voice startled her now, as his eyes had startled her. A man in the crowd pressed against her roughly. Instinctively she caught hold of Artois’ arm.
“Yes, you had better take it,” he said.
“Oh, it was only—”
“No, take it.”
And he drew her hand under his arm.
The number of people in the Mercato was immense, but it was possible to walk on steadily, though slowly. Now that the balloon had vanished the crowd had forgotten it, and was devoting itself eagerly to the pleasures of the bar. In the tall and barrack-like houses candles gleamed in honor of Masaniello. The streets that led away towards the city’s heart were decorated with arches of little lamps, with columns and chains of lights, and the pedestrians passing through them looked strangely black in this great frame of fire. From the Piazza before the Carmine the first rocket rose, and, exploding, showered its golden rain upon the picture of the Virgin.
“Perhaps they have gone back into the Piazza.”
Hermione spoke after a long silence, during which they had searched in vain. Artois stood still and looked down at her. His face was very stern.
“We sha’n’t find them,” he said.
“In this crowd, of course, it is difficult, but—”
“We sha’n’t find them.”
“At any rate, Gaspare is with them.”
“How do you know that?”
The expression in his face frightened her.
“But you said you were sure—”
“Panacci was too clever for us; he may have been too clever for Gaspare.”
Hermione was silent for a moment. Then she said:
“You surely don’t think the Marchese is wicked?”
“He is young, he is Neapolitan, and to-night he is mad. Vere has made him mad.”
“But Vere was only gay at dinner as any child—”
“Don’t think I am blaming Vere. If she has fascination, she cannot help it.”
“What shall we do?”
“Will you let me put you into a cab? Will you wait in my room at the hotel until I come back with Vere? I can search for her better alone. I will find her—if she is here.”
Their eyes met steadily as he finished speaking, and he saw, or thought he saw, in hers a creeping menace, as if she had the intention to attack or to defy him.
“I am Vere’s mother,” she said.
“Let me take you to a cab, Hermione.”
He spoke coldly, inexorably. This moment of enforced inactivity was a very difficult one for him. And the violence that was blazing within him made him fear that if Hermione did not yield to his wish he might lose his self-control.
“You can do nothing,” he added.
Her eyes left his, her lips quivered. Then she said:
“Take me, then.”
She did not look at him again until she was in a cab and Artois had told the driver to go to the Hotel Royal. Then she glanced at him with a strange expression of acute self-consciousness which he had never before seen on her face.
“You don’t believe that—that there is any danger to Vere?” she said, in a low voice. “You cannot believe that.”
“I don’t know.”
She leaned forward, and her face changed.
“Go and bring her back to me.”
The cabman drove off, and Artois was lost in the crowd.
He never knew how long his search lasted, how long he heard the swish and the bang of rockets, the vehement music of the band, the cries and laughter of the people, the sound of footsteps as if a world were starting on some pilgrimage; how long he saw the dazzling avenues of fire stretching away into the city’s heart; how long he looked at the faces of strangers, seeking Vere’s face. He was excessively conscious of almost everything except of time. It might have been two hours later, or much less, when he felt a hand upon his arm, turned round, and saw Gaspare beside him.
“Where is the Signora?”
“Gone to the hotel? And the Signorina?”
Gaspare looked at Artois with a sort of heavy gloom, then looked down to the ground.
“You have lost her?”
“Si.”
There was a dulness of fatalism in his voice.
Artois did not reproach him.
“Did you lose them when the balloon went up?” he asked.
“Macche! It was not the balloon!” Gaspare said, fiercely.
“What was it?”
Artois felt suddenly that Gaspare had some perfect excuse for his inattention.
“Some one spoke to me. When I—when I had finished the Signorina and that Signore were gone.”
“Some one spoke to you. Who was it?”
“It was Ruffo.”
Artois stared at Gaspare.
“Ruffo! Was he alone?”
“No, Signore.”
“Who was with him?”
“His mother was with him.”
“His mother. Did you speak to her?”
“Si, Signore.”
There was a silence between them. It was broken by a sound of bells.
“Signore, it is midnight.”
Artois drew out his watch quickly. The hands pointed to twelve o’clock. The crowd was growing thinner, was surely melting away.
“We had better go to the hotel,” Artois said. “Perhaps they are there. If they are not there—”
He did not finish the sentence. They found a cab and drove swiftly towards the Marina. All the time the little carriage rattled over the stony streets Artois expected Gaspare to speak to him, to tell him more, to tell him something tremendous. He felt as if the Sicilian were beset by an imperious need to break a long reserve. But, if it were so, this reserve was too strong for its enemy. Gaspare’s lips were closed. He did not say a word till the cabman drew up before the hotel.
As Artois got out he knew that he was terribly excited. The hall was almost dark, and the night concierge came from his little room on the right of the door to turn on the light and accompany Artois to the lift.
“There is a lady waiting in your room, Signore,” he said.
Artois, who was walking quickly towards the lift, stopped. He looked at Gaspare.
“A lady!” he said.
“Shall I go back to the Piazza, Signore?”
He half turned towards the swing door.
“Wait a minute. Come up-stairs first and see the Signora.”
The lift ascended. As Artois opened the door of his sitting-room he heard a woman’s dress rustle, and Hermione stood before them.
“Vere?” she said.
She laid her hand on his arm.
“Gaspare!”
There was a sound of reproach in her voice. She took her hand away from Artois.
“Gaspare?” she repeated, interrogatively.
“Signora!” he answered, doggedly.
He did not lift his eyes to hers.
“You have lost the Signorina?”
“Si, Signora.”
He attempted no excuse, he expressed no regret.
“Gaspare!” Hermione said.
Suddenly Artois put his hand on Gaspare’s shoulder. He said nothing, but his touch told the Sicilian much—told him how he was understood, how he was respected, by this man who had shared his silence.
“We thought they might be here,” Artois said.
“They are not here.”
Her voice was almost hard, almost rebuking. She was still standing in the door-space.
“I will go back and look again, Signora.”
“Si,” she said.
She turned back into the room. Artois held out his hand to Gaspare:
“Signore?”
Gaspare looked surprised, hesitating, then moved. He took the out-stretched hand, grasped it violently, and went away.
Artois shut the sitting-room door and went towards Hermione.
“You are staying?” she said.
By her intonation he could not tell whether she was glad or almost angrily astonished.
“They may come here immediately,” he said. “I wish to see Panacci—when he comes.”
She looked at him quickly.
“It must be an accident,” she said. “I can’t—I won’t believe that—no one could hurt Vere.”
He said nothing.
“No one could hurt Vere,” she repeated.
He went out on to the balcony and stood there for two or three minutes, looking down at the sea and at the empty road. She did not follow him, but sat down upon the sofa near the writing-table. Presently he turned round.
“Gaspare has gone.”
“It would have been better if he had never come!”
“Hermione,” he said, “has it come to this, that I must defend Gaspare to you?”
“I think Gaspare might have kept with Vere, ought to have kept with Vere.”
Artois felt a burning desire to make Hermione understand the Sicilian, but he only said, gently:
“Some day, perhaps, you will know Gaspare’s character better, you will understand all this.”
“I can’t understand it now. But—oh, if Vere—No, that’s impossible, impossible!”
She spoke with intense vehemence.
“Some things cannot happen,” she exclaimed, with a force that seemed to be commanding destiny.
Artois said nothing. And his apparent calm seemed to punish her, almost as if he struck her with a whip.
“Why don’t you speak?” she said.
She felt almost confused by his silence.
He went out again to the balcony, leaned on the railing and looked over. She felt that he was listening with his whole nature for the sound of wheels. She felt that she heard him listening, that she heard him demanding the sound. And as she looked at his dark figure, beyond which she saw the vagueness of night and some stars, she was conscious of the life in him as she had never been conscious of it before, she was conscious of all his manhood terribly awake.
That was for Vere.
A quarter of an hour went by. Artois remained always on the balcony, and scarcely moved. Hermione watched him, and tried to learn a lesson; tried to realize without bitterness and horror that in the heart of man everything has been planted, and that therefore nothing which grows there should cause too great amazement, too great condemnation, or the absolute withdrawal of pity; tried to face something which must completely change her life, sweeping away more than mere illusions, sweeping away a long reverence which had been well founded, and which she had kept very secret in her heart, replacing its vital substance with a pale shadow of compassion.
She watched him, and she listened for the sound of wheels, until at last she could bear it no longer.
“Emile, what are we to do? What can we do?” she said, desperately.
“Hush!” he said.
He held up his hand. They both listened and heard far off the noise of a carriage rapidly approaching. He looked over the road. The carriage rattled up. She heard it stop, and saw him bend down. Then suddenly he drew himself up, turned, and came into the room.
“They have come,” he said.
He went to the door and opened it, and stood by it.
And his face was terrible.