"E cu saluti a li Zituzzi novi!Chi bellu 'nguaggiamentu furtunatu!Firma la menti, custanti lu cori,E si cci arriva a lu jornu biatu—"
"E cu saluti a li Zituzzi novi!Chi bellu 'nguaggiamentu furtunatu!Firma la menti, custanti lu cori,E si cci arriva a lu jornu biatu—"
Meanwhile, Maurice helped Maddalena onto her donkey, and paid and dismissed the boy who had brought it and Salvatore's beast from Marechiaro. Then he took out his watch.
"A quarter-past ten," he said. "Off we go! Now, Gaspare—uno! due! tre!"
They leaped simultaneously onto their donkeys, Salvatore clambered up on his, and the little cavalcade started off on the long, white road that ran close along the sea, Maddalena and Maurice in the van, Salvatore and Gaspare behind. Just at first they all kept close together, but Sicilians are very careful of their festa clothes, and soon Salvatore and Gaspare dropped farther behind to avoid the clouds of dust stirred up by the tripping feet of the donkeys in front. Their chattering voices died away, and when Maurice looked back he saw them at a distance which rendered his privacy with Maddalena more complete than anything he had dared to hope for so early in the day. Yet now that they were thus alone he felt as if he had nothing to say to her. He did not feel exactly constrained, but it seemed to him that, to-day, he could not talk the familiar commonplaces to her, or pay her obvious compliments. They might, they would please her, but something in himself would resent them. This was to be such a great day. He had wanted it with such ardor, he had been so afraid of missing it, he had gained it at the cost of so much self-respect, that it ought to be extraordinary from dawn to dark, and he and Maddalena to be unusual, intense—something, at least, more eager, more happy, more intimate than usual in it.
And then, too, as he looked at her riding along by the sea, with her young head held rather high and a smile of innocent pride in her eyes, he remembered that this day was their good-bye. Maddalena did not know that. Probably she did not think about the future. But he knew it. They might meet again. They would doubtless meet again. But it would all be different. He would be a serious married man, who could no longer frolic as if he were still a boy like Gaspare. This was the last day of his intimate friendship with Maddalena.
That seemed to him very strange. He had become accustomed to her society, to her naïve curiosity, her girlish, simple gayety, so accustomed to it all that hecould not imagine life without it, could scarcely realize what life had been before he knew Maddalena. It seemed to him that he must have always known Maddalena. And she—what did she feel about that?
"Maddalena!" he said.
"Si, signore."
She turned her head and glanced at him, smiling, as if she were sure of hearing something pleasant. To-day, in her pretty festa dress, she looked intended for happiness. Everything about her conveyed the suggestion that she was expectant of joy. The expression in her eyes was a summons to the world to be very kind and good to her, to give her only pleasant things, things that could not harm her.
"Maddalena, do you feel as if you had known me long?"
She nodded her head.
"Si, signore."
"How long?"
She spread out one hand with the fingers held apart.
"Oh, signore—but always! I feel as if I had known you always."
"And yet it's only a few days."
"Si, signore."
She acquiesced calmly. The problem did not seem to puzzle her, the problem of this feeling so ill-founded. It was so. Very well, then—so it was.
"And," he went on, "do you feel as if you would always know me?"
"Si, signore. Of course."
"But I shall go away, I am going away."
For a moment her face clouded. But the influence of joy was very strong upon her to-day, and the cloud passed.
"But you will come back, signorino. You will always come back."
"How do you know that?"
A pretty slyness crept into her face, showed in the curve of the young lips, in the expression of the young eyes.
"Because you like to be here, because you like the Siciliani. Isn't it true?"
"Yes," he said, almost passionately. "It's true! Ah, Maddalena—"
But at this moment a group of people from Marechiaro suddenly appeared upon the road beside them, having descended from the village by a mountain-path. There were exclamations, salutations. Maddalena's gown was carefully examined by the women of the party. The men exchanged compliments with Maurice. Then Salvatore and Gaspare, seeing friends, came galloping up, shouting, in a cloud of dust. A cavalcade was formed, and henceforth Maurice was unable to exchange any more confidences with Maddalena. He felt vexed at first, but the boisterous merriment of all these people, their glowing anticipation of pleasure, soon infected him. His heart was lightened of its burden and the spirit of the careless boy awoke in him. He would take no thought for the morrow, he would be able to take no thought so long as he was in this jocund company. As they trotted forward in a white mist along the shining sea Maurice was one of the gayest among them. No laugh rang out more frequently than his, no voice chatted more vivaciously. The conscious effort which at first he had to make seemed to give him an impetus, to send him onward with a rush so that he outdistanced his companions. Had any one observed him closely during that ride to the fair he might well have thought that here was a nature given over to happiness, a nature that was utterly sunny in the sun.
They passed through the town of Cattaro, where was the station for Marechiaro. For a moment Maurice felt a pang of self-contempt, and of something more, of something that was tender, pitiful even, as he thought ofHermione's expectation disappointed. But it died away, or he thrust it away. The long street was full of people, either preparing to start for the fair themselves or standing at their doors to watch their friends start. Donkeys were being saddled and decorated with flowers. Tall, painted carts were being harnessed to mules. Visions of men being lathered and shaved, of women having their hair dressed or their hair searched, Sicilian fashion, of youths trying to curl upward scarcely born mustaches, of children being hastily attired in clothes which made them wriggle and squint, came to the eyes from houses in which privacy was not so much scorned as unthought of, utterly unknown. Turkeys strolled in and out among the toilet-makers. Pigs accompanied their mistresses from doorway to doorway as dogs accompany the women of other countries. And the cavalcade of the people of Marechiaro was hailed from all sides with pleasantries and promises to meet at the fair, with broad jokes or respectful salutations. Many a "Benedicite!" or "C'ci basu li mano!" greeted Maurice. Many a berretto was lifted from heads that he had never seen to his knowledge before. He was made to feel by all that he was among friends, and as he returned the smiles and salutations he remembered the saying Hermione had repeated: "Every Sicilian, even if he wears a long cap and sleeps in a hut with the pigs, is a gentleman," and he thought it very true.
It seemed as if they would never get away from the street. At every moment they halted. One man begged them to wait a moment till his donkey was saddled, so that he might join them. Another, a wine-shop keeper, insisted on Maurice's testing his moscato, and thereupon Maurice felt obliged to order glasses all round, to the great delight of Gaspare, who always felt himself to be glorified by the generosity of his padrone, and who promptly took the proceedings in charge, measured out the wine in appropriate quantities, handed itabout, and constituted himself master of the ceremony. Already, at eleven o'clock, brindisi were invented, and Maurice was called upon to "drop into poetry." Then Maddalena caught sight of some girl friends, and must needs show them all her finery. For this purpose she solemnly dismounted from her donkey to be closely examined on the pavement, turned about, shook forth her pea-green skirt, took off her chain for more minute inspection, and measured the silken fringes of her shawl in order to compare them with other shawls which were hastily brought out from a house near-by.
But Gaspare, always a little ruthless with women, soon tired of such vanities.
"Avanti! Avanti!" he shouted. "Dio mio! Le donne sono pazze! Andiamo! Andiamo!"
He hustled Maddalena, who yielded, blushing and laughing, to his importunities, and at last they were really off again, and drowned in a sea of odor as they passed some buildings where lemons were being packed to be shipped away from Sicily. This smell seemed to Maurice to be the very breath of the island. He drank it in eagerly. Lemons, lemons, and the sun! Oranges, lemons, yellow flowers under the lemons, and the sun! Always yellow, pale yellow, gold yellow, red-gold yellow, and white, and silver-white, the white of the roads, the silver-white of dusty olive leaves, and green, the dark, lustrous, polished green of orange leaves, and purple and blue, the purple of sea, the blue of sky. What a riot of talk it was, and what a riot of color! It made Maurice feel almost drunk. It was heady, this island of the south—heady in the summer-time. It had a powerful influence, an influence that was surely an excuse for much. Ah, the stay-at-homes, who condemned the far-off passions and violences of men! What did they know of the various truths of the world? How should one in Clapham judge one at the fair of San Felice? Avanti! Avanti! Avanti along the blinding white roadby the sea, to the village on which great Etna looked down, not harshly for all its majesty. Nature understood. And God, who made Nature, who was behind Nature—did not He understand? There is forgiveness surely in great hearts, though the small hearts have no space to hold it.
Something like this Maurice thought for a moment, ere a large thoughtlessness swept over him, bred of the sun and the odors, the movement, the cries and laughter of his companions, the gay gown and the happy glances of Maddalena, even of the white dust that whirled up from the feet of the cantering donkeys.
And so, ever laughing, ever joking, gayly, almost tumultuously, they rushed upon the fair.
San Felice is a large village in the plain at the foot of Etna. It lies near the sea between Catania and Messina, but beyond the black and forbidding lava land. Its patron saint, Protettore di San Felice, is Sant' Onofrio, and this was his festival. In the large, old church in the square, which was the centre of the life of the fiera, his image, smothered in paint, sumptuously decorated with red and gold and bunches of artificial flowers, was exposed under a canopy with pillars; and thin squares of paper reproducing its formal charms—the oval face with large eyes and small, straight nose, the ample forehead, crowned with hair that was brought down to a point in the centre, the undulating, divided beard descending upon the breast, one hand holding a book, the other upraised in a blessing—were sold for a soldo to all who would buy them.
The first thing the party from Isola Bella and from Marechiaro did, when they had stabled their donkeys at Don Leontini's, in the Via Bocca di Leone, was to pay the visit of etiquette to Sant' Onofrio. Their laughter was stilled at the church doorway, through which women and men draped in shawls, lads and little children, were coming and going. Their faces assumedexpressions of superstitious reverence and devotion. And, going up one by one to the large image of the saint, they contemplated it with awe, touched its hand or the hem of its robe, made the sign of the cross, and retreated, feeling that they were blessed for the day.
Maddalena approached the saint with Maurice and Gaspare. She and Gaspare touched the hand that held the book, made the sign of the cross, then stared at Maurice to see why he did nothing. He quickly followed their example. Maddalena, who was pulling some of the roses from her tight bouquet, whispered to him:
"Sant' Onofrio will bring us good-fortune."
"Davvero?" he whispered back.
"Si! Si!" said Gaspare, nodding his head.
While Maddalena laid her flowers upon the lap of the saint, Gaspare bought from a boy three sheets of paper containing Sant' Onofrio's reproduction, and three more showing the effigies of San Filadelfo, Sant' Alfio, and San Cirino.
"Ecco, Donna Maddalena! Ecco, signorino!"
He distributed his purchases, keeping two for himself. These last he very carefully and solemnly folded up and bestowed in the inner pocket of his jacket, which contained a leather portfolio, given to him by Maurice to carry his money in.
"Ecco!" he said, once more, as he buttoned the flap of the pocket as a precaution against thieves.
And with that final exclamation he dismissed all serious thoughts.
"Mangiamo, signorino!" he said. "Ora basta!"
And they went forth into the sunshine. Salvatore was talking to some fishermen from Catania upon the steps. They cast curious glances at Maurice as he came out with Maddalena, and, when Salvatore went off with his daughter and the forestiere, they laughed among themselves and exchanged some remarks that were evidently merry. But Maurice did not heed them. Hewas not a self-conscious man. And Maddalena was far too happy to suppose that any one could be saying nasty things about her.
"Where are we going to eat?" asked Maurice.
"This way, this way, signorino!" replied Gaspare, elbowing a passage through the crowd. "You must follow me. I know where to go. I have many friends here."
The truth of this statement was speedily made manifest. Almost every third person they met saluted Gaspare, some kissing him upon both cheeks, others grasping his hand, others taking him familiarly by the arm. Among the last was a tall boy with jet-black, curly hair and a long, pale face, whom Gaspare promptly presented to his padrone, by the name of Amedeo Buccini.
"Amedeo is a parrucchiere, signorino," he said, "and my compare, and the best dancer in San Felice. May he eat with us?"
"Of course."
Gaspare informed Amedeo, who took off his hat, held it in his hand, and smiled all over his face with pleasure.
"Yes, Gaspare is my compare, signore," he affirmed. "Compare, compare, compareddu"—he glanced at Gaspare, who joined in with him:
"Compare, compare, compareddu,Io ti voglio molto bene,Mangiamo sempre insieme—Mangiamo carne e risoE andiamo in Paradiso!"
"Compare, compare, compareddu,Io ti voglio molto bene,Mangiamo sempre insieme—Mangiamo carne e risoE andiamo in Paradiso!"
"Carne e riso—si!" cried Maurice, laughing. "But Paradise! Must you go to Paradise directly afterwards, before the dancing and before the procession and before the fireworks?"
"No, signore," said Gaspare. "When we are very old, when we cannot dance any more—non è vero, Amedeo?—then we will go to Paradiso."
"Yes," agreed the tall boy, quite seriously, "then we will go to Paradiso."
"And I, too," said Maurice; "and Maddalena, but not till then."
What a long time away that would be!
"Here is the ristorante!"
They had reached a long room with doors open onto the square, opposite to the rows of booths which were set up under the shadow of the church. Outside of it were many small tables and numbers of chairs on which people were sitting, contemplating the movement of the crowd of buyers and sellers, smoking, drinking syrups, gazzosa, and eating ices and flat biscuits.
Gaspare guided them through the throng to a long table set on a sanded floor.
"Ecco, signorino!"
He installed Maurice at the top of the table.
"And you sit here, Donna Maddalena."
He placed her at Maurice's right hand, and was going to sit down himself on the left, when Salvatore roughly pushed in before him, seized the chair, sat in it, and leaned his arms on the table with a loud laugh that sounded defiant. An ugly look came into Gaspare's face.
"Macchè—" he began, angrily.
But Maurice silenced him with a quick look.
"Gaspare, you come here, by Maddalena!"
"Ma—"
"Come along, Gasparino, and tell us what we are to have. You must order everything. Where's the cameriere? Cameriere! Cameriere!"
He struck on his glass with a fork. A waiter came running.
"Don Gaspare will order for us all," said Maurice to him, pointing to Gaspare.
His diplomacy was successful. Gaspare's face cleared, and in a moment he was immersed in an eager colloquywith the waiter, another friend of his from Marechiaro. Amedeo Buccini took a place by Gaspare, and all those from Marechiaro, who evidently considered that they belonged to the Inglese's party for the day, arranged themselves as they pleased and waited anxiously for the coming of the macaroni.
A certain formality now reigned over the assembly. The movement of the road in the outside world by the sea had stirred the blood, had loosened tongues and quickened spirits. But a meal in a restaurant, with a rich English signore presiding at the head of the table, was an unaccustomed ceremony. Dark faces that had been lit up with laughter now looked almost ludicrously discreet. Brown hands which had been in constant activity, talking as plainly, and more expressively, than voices, now lay limply upon the white cloth or were placed upon knees motionless as the knees of statues. And all eyes were turned towards the giver of the feast, mutely demanding of him a signal of conduct to guide his inquiring guests. But Maurice, too, felt for the moment tongue-tied. He was very sensitive to influences, and his present position, between Maddalena and her father, created within him a certain confusion of feelings, an odd sensation of being between two conflicting elements. He was conscious of affection and of enmity, both close to him, both strong, the one ready to show itself, the other determined to remain in hiding. He glanced at Salvatore, and met the fisherman's keen gaze. Behind the instant smile in the glittering eyes he divined, rather than saw, the shadow of his hatred. And for a moment he wondered. Why should Salvatore hate him? It was reasonable to hate a man for a wrong done, even for a wrong deliberately contemplated with intention—the intention of committing it. But he had done no real wrong to Salvatore. Nor had he any evil intention with regard to him or his. So far he had only brought pleasureinto their lives, his life and Maddalena's—pleasure and money. If there had been any secret pain engendered by their mutual intercourse it was his. And this day was the last of their intimacy, though Salvatore and Maddalena did not know it. Suddenly a desire, an almost weak desire, came to him to banish Salvatore's distrust of him, a distrust which he was more conscious of at this moment than ever before.
He did not know of the muttered comments of the fishermen from Catania as he and Maddalena passed down the steps of the church of Sant' Onofrio. But Salvatore's sharp ears had caught them and the laughter that followed them, and his hot blood was on fire. The words, the laughter had touched his sensitive Sicilian pride—the pride of the man who means never to be banished from the Piazza—as a knife touches a raw wound. And as Maurice had set a limit to his sinning—his insincerity to Hermione, his betrayal of her complete trust in him, nothing more—so Salvatore now, while he sat at meat with the Inglese, mentally put a limit to his own complaisance, a complaisance which had been born of his intense avarice. To-day he would get all he could out of the Inglese—money, food, wine, a donkey—who knew what? And then—good-bye to soft speeches. Those fishermen, his friends, his comrades, his world, in fact, should have their mouths shut once for all. He knew how to look after his girl, and they should know that he knew, they and all Marechiaro, and all San Felice, and all Cattaro. His limit, like Maurice's, was that day of the fair, and it was nearly reached. For the hours were hurrying towards the night and farewells.
Moved by his abrupt desire to stand well with everybody during this last festa, Maurice began to speak to Salvatore of the donkey auction. When would it begin?
"Chi lo sa?"
No one knew. In Sicily all feasts are movable.Even mass may begin an hour too late or an hour too early. One thought the donkey auction would start at fourteen, another at sixteen o'clock. Gaspare was imperiously certain, over the macaroni, which had now made its appearance, that the hour was seventeen. There were to be other auctions, auctions of wonderful things. A clock that played music—the "Marcia Reale" and the "Tre Colori"—was to be put up; suits of clothes, too; boots, hats, a chair that rocked like a boat on the sea, a revolver ornamented with ivory. Already—no one knew when, for no one had missed him—he had been to view these treasures. As he spoke of them tongues were loosed and eyes shone with excitement. Money was in the air. Prices were passionately discussed, values debated. All down the table went the words "soldi," "lire," "lire sterline," "biglietti da cinque," "biglietti da dieci." Salvatore's hatred died away, suffocated for the moment under the weight of his avarice. A donkey—yes, he meant to get a donkey with the stranger's money. But why stop there? Why not have the clock and the rocking-chair and the revolver? His sharpness of the Sicilian, a sharpness almost as keen and sure as that of the Arab, divined the intensity, the recklessness alive in the Englishman to-day, bred of that limit, "my last day of the careless life," to which his own limit was twin-brother, but of which he knew nothing. And as Maurice was intense to-day, because there were so few hours left to him for intensity, so was Salvatore intense in a different way, but for a similar reason. They were walking in step without being aware of it. Or were they not rather racing neck to neck, like passionate opponents?
There was little time. Then they must use what there was to the full. They must not let one single moment find them lazy, indifferent.
"'I AM CONTENT WITHOUT ANYTHING, SIGNORINO,' SHE SAID""'I AM CONTENT WITHOUT ANYTHING, SIGNORINO,' SHE SAID"
Under the cover of the flood of talk Maurice turned to Maddalena. She was taking no part in it, but waseating her macaroni gently, as if it were a new and wonderful food. So Maurice thought as he looked at her. To-day there was something strange, almost pathetic, to him in Maddalena, a softness, an innocent refinement that made him imagine her in another life than hers, and with other companions, in a life as free but less hard, with companions as natural but less ruthless to women.
"Maddalena," he said to her. "They all want to buy things at the auction."
"Si, signore."
"And you?"
"I, signorino?"
"Yes, don't you want to buy something?"
He was testing her, testing her memory. She looked at him above her fork, from which the macaroni streamed down.
"I am content without anything, signorino," she said.
"Without the blue dress and the ear-rings, longer than that?" He measured imaginary ear-rings in the air. "Have you forgotten, Maddalena?"
She blushed and bent over her plate. She had not forgotten. All the day since she rose at dawn she had been thinking of Maurice's old promise. But she did not know that he remembered it, and his remembrance of it came to her now as a lovely surprise. He bent his head down nearer to her.
"When they are all at the auction, we will go to buy the blue dress and the ear-rings," he almost whispered. "We will go by ourselves. Shall we?"
"Si, signore."
Her voice was very small and her cheeks still held their flush. She glanced, with eyes that were unusually conscious, to right and left of her, to see if the neighbors had noticed their colloquy. And that look of consciousness made Maurice suddenly understand that this limit which he had put to his sinning—so he hadcalled it with a sort of angry mental sincerity, summoned, perhaps, to match the tremendous sincerity of his wife which he was meeting with a lie to-day—his sinning against Hermione was also a limit to something else. Had he not sinned against Maddalena, sinned when he had kissed her, when he had shown her that he delighted to be with her? Was he not sinning now when he promised to buy for her the most beautiful things of the fair? For a moment he thought to himself that his fault against Maddalena was more grave, more unforgivable than his fault against Hermione. But then a sudden anger that was like a storm, against his own condemnation of himself, swept through him. He had come out to-day to be recklessly happy, and here he was giving himself up to gloom, to absurd self-torture. Where was his natural careless temperament? To-day his soul was full of shadows, like the soul of a man going to meet a doom.
"Where's the wine?" he called to Gaspare. "Wine, cameriere, wine!"
"You must not drink wine with the pasta, signorino!" cried Gaspare. "Only afterwards, with the vitello."
"Have you ordered vitello? Capital! But I've finished my pasta and I'm thirsty. Well, what do you want to buy at the auction, Gaspare, and you, Amedeo, and you Salvatore?"
He plunged into the talk and made Salvatore show his keen desires, encouraging and playing with his avarice, now holding it off for a moment, then coaxing it as one coaxes an animal, stroking it, tempting it to a forward movement. The wine went round now, for the vitello was on the table, and the talk grew more noisy, the laughter louder. Outside, too, the movement and the tumult of the fair were increasing. Cries of men selling their wares rose up, the hard melodies of a piano-organ, and a strange and ecclesiastical chantsung by three voices that, repeated again and again, at last attracted Maurice's attention.
"What's that?" he asked of Gaspare. "Are those priests chanting?"
"Priests! No, signore. Those are the Romani."
"Romans here! What are they doing?"
"They have a cart decorated with flags, signorino, and they are selling lemon-water and ices. All the people say that they are Romans and that is how they sing in Rome."
The long and lugubrious chant of the ice-venders rose up again, strident and melancholy as a song chanted over a corpse.
"It's funny to sing like that to sell ices," Maurice said. "It sounds like men at a funeral."
"Oh, they are very good ices, signorino. The Romans make splendid ices."
Turkey followed the vitello.
Maurice's guests were now completely at ease and perfectly happy. The consciousness that all this was going to be paid for, that they would not have to put their hands in their pockets for a soldo, warmed their hearts as the wine warmed their bodies. Amedeo's long, white face was becoming radiant, and even Salvatore softened towards the Inglese. A sort of respect, almost furtive, came to him for the wealth that could carelessly entertain this crowd of people, that could buy clocks, chairs, donkeys at pleasure, and scarcely know that soldi were gone, scarcely miss them. As he attacked his share of the turkey vigorously, picking up the bones with his fingers and tearing the flesh away with his white teeth, he tried to realize what such wealth must mean to the possessor of it, an effort continually made by the sharp-witted, very poor man. And this wealth—for the moment some of it was at his command! To ask to-day would be to have. Instinctively he knew that, and felt like one with moneyin the bank. If only it might be so to-morrow and for many days! He began to regret the limit, almost to forget the sound of the laughter of the Catania fishermen upon the steps of the church of Sant' Onofrio. His pride was going to sleep, and his avarice was opening its eyes wider.
When the meal was over they went out onto the pavement to take coffee in the open air. The throng was much greater than it had been when they entered, for people were continually arriving from the more distant villages, and two trains had come in from Messina and Catania. It was difficult to find a table. Indeed, it might have been impossible had not Gaspare ruthlessly dislodged a party of acquaintances who were comfortably established around one in a prominent position.
"I must have a table for my padrone," he said. "Go along with you!"
And they meekly went, smiling, and without ill-will—indeed, almost as if they had received a compliment.
"But, Gaspare," began Maurice, "I can't—"
"Here is a chair for you, signorino. Take it quickly."
"At any rate, let us offer them something."
"Much better spare your soldi now, signorino, and buy something at the auction. That clock plays the 'Tre Colori' just like a band."
"Buy it. Here is some money."
He thrust some notes into the boy's ready hand.
"Grazie, signorino. Ecco la musica!"
In the distance there rose the blare of a processional march from "Aïda," and round the corner of the Via di Polifemo came a throng of men and boys in dark uniforms, with epaulets and cocked hats with flying plumes, blowing with all their might into wind instruments of enormous size.
"That is the musica of the città, signore," explained Amedeo. "Afterwards there will be the Musica Mascagni and the Musica Leoncavallo."
"Mamma mia! And will they all play together?"
"No, signore. They have quarrelled. At Pasqua we had no music, and the archpriest was hooted by all in the Piazza."
"Why?"
"Non lo so. I think he had forbidden the Musica Mascagni to play at Madre Lucia's funeral, and the Musica Mascagni went to fight with the Musica della città. To-day they will all play, because it is the festa of the Santo Patrono, but even for him they will not play together."
The bandsmen had now taken their places upon a wooden dais exactly opposite to the restaurant, and were indulging in a military rendering of "Celeste Aïda," which struck most of the Sicilians at the small tables to a reverent silence. Maddalena's eyes had become almost round with pleasure, Gaspare was singing the air frankly with Amedeo, and even Salvatore seemed soothed and humanized, as he sipped his coffee, puffed at a thin cigar, and eyed the women who were slowly sauntering up and down to show their finery. At the windows of most of the neighboring houses appeared parties of dignified gazers, important personages of the town, who owned small balconies commanding the piazza, and who now stepped forth upon these coigns of vantage, and leaned upon the rails that they might see and be seen by the less favored ones below. Amedeo and Gaspare began to name these potentates. The stout man with a gray mustache, white trousers, and a plaid shawl over his shoulders was Signor Torloni, the syndic of San Felice. The tall, angry-looking gentleman, with bulging, black eyes and wrinkled cheeks, was Signor Carata, the avvocato; and the lady in black and a yellow shawl was his wife, who was the daughter of the syndic. Close by was Signorina Maria Sacchetti, the beauty of San Felice, already more than plump, but with a good complexion, and hair so thick that it stoodout from her satisfied face as if it were trained over a trellis. She wore white, and long, thread gloves which went above her elbows. Maddalena regarded her with awe when Amedeo mentioned a rumor that she was going to be "promised" to Dr. Marinelli, who was to be seen at her side, wearing a Gibus hat and curling a pair of gigantic black mustaches.
Maurice listened to the music and the chatter which, silenced by the arrival of the music, had now burst forth again, with rather indifferent ears. He wanted to get away somewhere and to be alone with Maddalena. The day was passing on. Soon night would be falling. The fair would be at an end. Then would come the ride back, and then——But he did not care to look forward into that future. He had not done so yet. He would not do so now. It would be better, when the time came, to rush upon it blindly. Preparation, forethought, would only render him unnatural. And he must seem natural, utterly natural, in his insincere surprise, in his insincere regret.
"Pay for the coffee, Gaspare," he said, giving the boy some money. "Now I want to walk about and see everything. Where are the donkeys?"
He glanced at Salvatore.
"Oh, signore," said Gaspare, "they are outside the town in the watercourse that runs under the bridge—you know, that broke down this spring where the line is? They have only just finished mending it."
"I remember your telling me."
"And you were so glad the signora was travelling the other way."
"Yes, yes."
He spoke hastily. Salvatore was on his feet.
"What hour have we?"
Maurice looked at his watch.
"Half-past two already! I say, Salvatore, you mustn't forget the donkeys."
Salvatore came close up to him.
"Signore," he began, in a low voice, "what do you wish me to do?"
"Bid for a good donkey."
"Si, signore."
"For the best donkey they put up for sale."
Salvatore began to look passionately eager.
"Si, signore. And if I get it?"
"Come to me and I will give you the money to pay."
"Si, signore. How high shall I go?"
Gaspare was listening intently, with a hard face and sullen eyes. His whole body seemed to be disapproving what Maurice was doing. But he said nothing. Perhaps he felt that to-day it would be useless to try to govern the actions of his padrone.
"How high? Well"—Maurice felt that, before Gaspare, he must put a limit to his price, though he did not care what it was—"say a hundred. Here, I'll give it you now."
He put his hand into his pocket and drew out his portfolio.
"There's the hundred."
Salvatore took it eagerly, spread it over his hand, stared at it, then folded it with fingers that seemed for the moment almost delicate, and put it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He meant to go presently and show it to the fishermen of Catania, who had laughed upon the steps of the church, and explain matters to them a little. They thought him a fool. Well, he would soon make them understand who was the fool.
"Grazie, signore!"
He said it through his teeth. Maurice turned to Gaspare. He felt the boy's stern disapproval of what he had done, and wanted, if possible, to make amends.
"Gaspare," he said, "here is a hundred lire for you. I want you to go to the auction and to bid for anythingyou think worth having. Buy something for your mother and father, for the house, some nice things!"
"Grazie, signore."
He took the note, but without alacrity, and his face was still lowering.
"And you, signore?" he asked.
"I?"
"Yes. Are you not coming with me to the auction? It will be better for you to be there to choose the things."
For an instant Maurice felt irritated. Was he never to be allowed a moment alone with Maddalena?
"Oh, but I'm no good at——" he began.
Then he stopped. To-day he must be birbante—on his guard. Once the auction was in full swing—so he thought—Salvatore and Gaspare would be as they were when they gambled beside the sea. They would forget everything. It would be easy to escape. But till that moment came he must be cautious.
"Of course I'll come," he exclaimed, heartily. "But you must do the bidding, Gaspare."
The boy looked less sullen.
"Va bene, signorino. I shall know best what the things are worth. And Salvatore"—he glanced viciously at the fisherman—"can go to the donkeys. I have seen them. They are poor donkeys this year."
Salvatore returned his vicious glance and said something in dialect which Maurice did not understand. Gaspare's face flushed, and he was about to burst into an angry reply when Maurice touched his arm.
"Come along, Gaspare!"
As they got up, he whispered:
"Remember what I said about to-day!"
"Macchè——"
Maurice closed his fingers tightly on Gaspare's arm.
"Gaspare, you must remember! Afterwards what you like, but not to-day. Andiamo!"
They all got up. The Musica della città was nowplaying a violent jig, undoubtedly composed by Bellini, who was considered almost as a child of San Felice, having been born close by at Catania.
"Where are the women in the wonderful blue dresses?" Maurice asked, as they stepped into the road; "and the ear-rings? I haven't seen them yet."
"They will come towards evening, signorino," replied Gaspare, "when it gets cool. They do not care to be in the sun dressed like that. It might spoil their things."
Evidently the promenade of these proud beauties was an important function.
"We must not miss them," Maurice said to Maddalena.
She looked conscious.
"No, signore."
"They will all be here this evening, signore," said Amedeo, "for the giuochi di fuoco."
"The giuochi di fuoco—they will be at the end?"
"Si, signore. After the giuochi di fuoco it is all finished."
Maurice stifled a sigh. "It is all finished," Amedeo had said. But for him? For him there would be the ride home up the mountain, the arrival upon the terrace before the house of the priest. At what hour would he be there? It would be very late, perhaps nearly at dawn, in the cold, still, sad hour when vitality is at its lowest. And Hermione? Would she be sleeping? How would they meet? How would he——?
"Andiamo! Andiamo!"
He cried out almost angrily.
"Which is the way?"
"All the auctions are held outside the town, signore," said Amedeo. "Follow me."
Proudly he took the lead, glad to be useful and important after the benefits that had been bestowed upon him, and hoping secretly that perhaps the rich Inglesewould give him something to spend, too, since money was so plentiful for donkeys and clocks.
"They are in the fiume, near the sea and the railway line."
The railway line! When he heard that Maurice had a moment's absurd sensation of reluctance, a desire to hold back, such as comes to a man who is unexpectedly asked to confront some danger. It seemed to him that if he went to the watercourse he might be seen by Hermione and Artois as they passed by on their way to Marechiaro. But of course they were coming from Messina! What a fool he was to-day! His recklessness seemed to have deserted him just when he wanted it most. To-day he was not himself. He was a coward. What it was that made him a coward he did not tell himself.
"Then we can all go together," he said. "Salvatore and all."
"Si, signore."
Salvatore's voice was close at his ear, and he knew by the sound of it that the fisherman was smiling.
"We can all keep together, signore; then we shall be more gay."
They threaded their way through the throng. The violent jig of Bellini died away gradually, till it was faint in the distance. At the end of the narrow street Maurice saw the large bulk of Etna. On this clear afternoon it looked quite close, almost as if, when they got out of the street, they would be at its very foot, and would have to begin to climb. Maurice remembered his wild longing to carry Maddalena off upon the sea, or to some eyrie in the mountains, to be alone with her in some savage place. Why not give all these people the slip now—somehow—when the fun of the fair was at its height, mount the donkeys and ride straight for the huge mountain? There were caverns there and desolate lava wastes; there were almost impenetrable beechforests. Sebastiano had told him tales of them, those mighty forests that climbed up to green lawns looking down upon the Lipari Isles. He thought of their silence and their shadows, their beds made of the drifted leaves of the autumn. There, would be no disturbance, no clashing of wills and of interests, but calm and silence and the time to love. He glanced at Maddalena. He could hardly help imagining that she knew what he was thinking of. Salvatore had dropped behind for a moment. Maurice did not know it, but the fisherman had caught sight of his comrades of Catania drinking in a roadside wine-shop, and had stopped to show them the note for a hundred francs, and to make them understand the position of affairs between him and the forestiere. Gaspare was talking eagerly to Amedeo about the things that were likely to be put up for sale at the auction.
"Maddalena," Maurice said to the girl, in a low voice, "can you guess what I am thinking about?"
She shook her head.
"No, signore."
"You see the mountain!"
He pointed to the end of the little street.
"Si, signore."
"I am thinking that I should like to go there now with you."
"Ma, signorino—the fiera!"
Her voice sounded plaintive with surprise and she glanced at her pea-green skirt.
"And this, signorino!"—she touched it carefully with her slim fingers. "How could I go in this?"
"When the fair is over, then, and you are in your every-day gown, Maddalena, I should like to carry you off to Etna."
"They say there are briganti there."
"Brigands—would you be afraid of them with me?"
"I don't know, signore. But what should we do there on Etna far away from the sea and from Marechiaro?"
"We should"—he whispered in her ear, seizing this chance almost angrily, almost defiantly, with the thought of Salvatore in his mind—"we should love each other, Maddalena. It is quiet in the beech forests on Etna. No one would come to disturb us, and——"
A chuckle close to his ear made him start. Salvatore's hand was on his arm, and Salvatore's face, looking wily and triumphant, was close to his.
"Gaspare was wrong, there are splendid donkeys here. I have been talking to some friends who have seen them."
There was a tramp of heavy boots on the stones behind them. The fishermen from Catania were coming to see the fun. Salvatore was in glory. To get all and give nothing was, in his opinion, to accomplish the legitimate aim of a man's life. And his friends, those who had dared to sneer and to whisper, and to imagine that he was selling his daughter for money, now knew the truth and were here to witness his ingenuity. Intoxicated by his triumph, he began to show off his power over the Inglese for the benefit of the tramplers behind. He talked to Maurice with a loud familiarity, kept laying his hand on Maurice's arm as they walked, and even called him, with a half-jocose intonation, "compare." Maurice sickened at his impertinence, but was obliged to endure it with patience, and this act of patience brought to the birth within him a sudden, fierce longing for revenge, a longing to pay Salvatore out for his grossness, his greed, his sly and leering affectation of playing the slave when he was really indicating to his compatriots that he considered himself the master. Again Maurice heard the call of the Sicilian blood within him, but this time it did not call him to the tarantella or to love. It called him to strike a blow. But this blow could only be struck through Maddalena, could only be struck if he were traitor to Hermione. For a moment he saw everything red. Again Salvatore called him "compare." Suddenly Maurice could not bear it.
"Don't say that!" he said. "Don't call me that!"
He had almost hissed the words out. Salvatore started, and for an instant, as they walked side by side, the two men looked at each other with eyes that told the truth. Then Salvatore, without asking for any explanation of Maurice's sudden outburst, said:
"Va bene, signore, va bene! I thought for to-day we were all compares. Scusi, scusi."
There was a bitterness of irony in his voice. As he finished he swept off his soft hat and then replaced it more over his left ear than ever. Maurice knew at once that he had done the unforgivable thing, that he had stabbed a Sicilian's amour propre in the presence of witnesses of his own blood. The fishermen from Catania had heard. He knew it from Salvatore's manner, and an odd sensation came to him that Salvatore had passed sentence upon him. In silence, and mechanically, he walked on to the end of the street. He felt like one who, having done something swiftly, thoughtlessly, is suddenly confronted with the irreparable, abruptly sees the future spread out before him bathed in a flash of crude light, the future transformed in a second by that act of his as a landscape is transformed by an earthquake or a calm sea by a hurricane.
And when the watercourse came in sight, with its crowd, its voices, and its multitude of beasts, he looked at it dully for a moment, hardly realizing it.
In Sicily the animal fairs are often held in the great watercourses that stretch down from the foot of the mountains to the sea, and that resemble huge highroads in the making, roads upon which the stones have been dumped ready for the steam-roller. In winter there is sometimes a torrent of water rushing through them, but in summer they are dry, and look like wounds gashed in the thickly growing lemon and orange groves. The trampling feet of beasts can do no harm to the stones, and these watercourses in the summerseason are of no use to anybody. They are, therefore, often utilized at fair time. Cattle, donkeys, mules are driven down to them in squadrons. Painted Sicilian carts are ranged upon their banks, with sets of harness, and the auctioneers, whose business it is to sell miscellaneous articles, household furniture, stuffs, clocks, ornaments, frequently descend into them, and mount a heap of stones to gain command of their gaping audience of contadini and the shrewder buyers from the towns.
The watercourse of San Felice was traversed at its mouth by the railway line from Catania to Messina, which crossed it on a long bridge supported by stone pillars and buttresses, the bridge which, as Gaspare had said, had recently collapsed and was now nearly built up again. It was already in use, but the trains were obliged to crawl over it at a snail's pace in order not to shake the unfinished masonry, and men were stationed at each end to signal to the driver whether he was to stop or whether he might venture to go on. Beyond the watercourse, upon the side opposite to the town of San Felice, was a series of dense lemon groves, gained by a sloping bank of bare, crumbling earth, on the top of which, close to the line and exactly where it came to the bridge, was a group of four old olive-trees with gnarled, twisted trunks. These trees cast a patch of pleasant shade, from which all the bustle of the fair was visible, but at a distance, and as Maurice and his party came out of the village on the opposite bank, he whispered to Maddalena:
"Maddalena!"
"Si, signore?"
"Let's get away presently, you and I; let's go and sit under those trees. I want to talk to you quietly."
"Si, signore?"
Her voice was lower even than his own.
"Ecco, signore! Ecco!"
Salvatore was pointing to a crowd of donkeys.
"Signorino! Signorino!"
"What is it, Gaspare?"
"That is the man who is going to sell the clock!"
The boy's face was intent. His eyes were shining, and his glum manner had vanished, under the influence of a keen excitement. Maurice realized that very soon he would be free. Once his friends were in the crowd of buyers and sellers everything but the chance of a bargain would be forgotten. His own blood quickened but for a different reason.
"What beautiful carts!" he said. "We have no such carts in England!"
"If you would like to buy a cart, signore——" began Salvatore.
But Gaspare interrupted with violence.
"Macchè! What is the use of a cart to the signorino? He is going away to England. How can he take a cart with him in the train?"
"He can leave the cart with me," said Salvatore, with open impudence. "I can take care of it for the signore as well as the donkey."
"Macchè!" cried Gaspare, furiously.
Maurice took him by the arm.
"Help me down the bank! Come on!"
He began to run, pulling Gaspare with him. When they got to the bottom, he said:
"It's all right, Gaspare. I'm not going to be such a fool as to buy a cart. Now, then, which way are we going?"
"Signore, do you want to buy a very good donkey, a very strong donkey, strong enough to carry three Germans to the top of Etna? Come and see my donkey. He is very cheap. I make a special price because the signore is simpatico. All the English are simpatici. Come this way, signore! Gaspare knows me. Gaspare knows that I am not birbante."
"Signorino! Signorino! Look at this clock! It plays the 'Tre Colori.' It is worth twenty-five lire, but I will make a special price for you because you love Sicily and are like a Siciliano. Gaspare will tell you——"
But Gaspare elbowed away his acquaintances roughly.
"Let my padrone alone. He is not here to buy. He is only here to see the fair. Come on, signorino! Do not answer them. Do not take any notice. You must not buy anything or you will be cheated. Let me make the prices."
"Yes, you make the prices. Per Bacco, how hot it is!"
Maurice pulled his hat down over his eyes.
"Maddalena, you'll get a sunstroke!" he said.
"Oh no, signore. I am accustomed to the sun."
"But to-day it's terrific!"
Indeed, the masses of stones in the watercourse seemed to draw and to concentrate the sun-rays. The air was alive with minute and dancing specks of light, and in the distance, seen under the railway bridge, the sea looked hot, a fiery blue that was surely sweating in the glare of the afternoon. The crowd of donkeys, of cattle, of pigs—there were many pigs on sale—looked both dull and angry in the heat, and the swarms of Sicilians who moved slowly about among them, examining them critically, appraising their qualities and noting their defects, perspired in their festa clothes, which were mostly heavy and ill-adapted to summer-time. A small boy passed by, bearing in his arms a struggling turkey. He caught his foot in some stones, fell, bruised his forehead, and burst out crying, while the indignant and terrified bird broke away, leaving some feathers, and made off violently towards Etna. There was a roar of laughter from the people near. Some ran to catch the turkey, others picked up the boy. Salvatore had stopped to see this adventure, and was now at a little distance surrounded by the Catanesi, who were evidently determined to assist at his bidding for a donkey. The sight of the note for a hundred lire had greatly increased their respect for Salvatore, and with the Sicilian instinct to go, and to stay, where money is, they now kept close to their comrade, eying him almost with awe as one in possession of a fortune. Maurice saw them presently examining a group of donkeys. Salvatore, with an autocratic air, and the wild gestures peculiar to him, was evidently laying down the law as to what each animal was worth. The fishermen stood by, listening attentively. The fact of Salvatore's purchasing power gave him the right to pronounce an opinion. He was in glory. Maurice thanked Heaven for that. The man in glory is often the forgetful man. Salvatore, he thought, would not bother about his daughter and his banker for a little while. But how to get rid of Gaspare and Amedeo! It seemed to him that they would never leave his side.
There were many wooden stands covered with goods for sale in the watercourse, with bales of stuff for suits and dresses, with hats and caps, shirts, cravats, boots and shoes, walking-sticks, shawls, household utensils, crockery, everything the contadino needs and loves. Gaspare, having money to lay out, considered it his serious duty to examine everything that was to be bought with slow minuteness. It did not matter whether the goods were suited to a masculine taste or not. He went into the mysteries of feminine attire with almost as much assiduity as a mother displays when buying a daughter's trousseau, and insisted upon Maurice sharing his interest and caution. All sense of humor, all boyish sprightliness vanished from him in this important epoch of his life. The suspicion, the intensity of the bargaining contadino came to the surface. His usually bright face was quite altered. He looked elderly, subtle, and almost Jewish as he slowly passed from stall to stall, testing, weighing, measuring, appraising.
It seemed to Maurice that this progress would never end. Presently they reached a stand covered with women's shawls and with aprons.
"Shall I buy an apron for my mother, signorino?" asked Gaspare.
"Yes, certainly."
Maurice did not know what else to say. The result of his consent was terrible. For a full half-hour they stood in the glaring sun, while Gaspare and Amedeo solemnly tried on aprons over their suits in the midst of a concourse of attentive contadini. In vain did Maurice say: "That's a pretty one. I should take that one." Some defect was always discoverable. The distant mother's taste was evidently peculiar and not to be easily suited, and Maurice, not being familiar with it, was unable to combat such assertions of Gaspare as that she objected to pink spots, or that she could never be expected to put on an apron before the neighbors if the stripes upon it were of different colors and there was no stitching round the hem. For the first time since he was in Sicily the heat began to affect him unpleasantly. His head felt as if it were compressed in an iron band, and the vision of Gaspare, eagerly bargaining, looking Jewish, and revolving slowly in aprons of different colors, shapes, and sizes, began to dance before his eyes. He felt desperate, and suddenly resolved to be frank.
"Macchè!" Gaspare was exclaiming, with indignant gestures of protest to the elderly couple who were in charge of the aprons; "it is not worth two soldi! It is not fit to be thrown to the pigs, and you ask me——"
"Gaspare!"
"Two lire—Madonna! Sangue di San Pancrazio, they ask me two lire! Macchè!" (He flung down the apron passionately upon the stall.) "Go and find Lipari people to buy your dirt; don't come to one from Marechiaro."
He took up another apron.
"Gaspare!"
"One lira fifty? Madre mia, do you think I was born in a grotto on Etna and have never——"
"Gaspare, listen to me!"
"Scusi, signorino! I——"
"I'm going over there to sit down in the shade for a minute. After that wine I drank at dinner I'm a bit sleepy."
"Si, signore. Shall I come with you?"
For once there was reluctance in his voice, and he looked down at the blue-and-white apron he had on with wistful eyes. It was a new joy to him to be bargaining in the midst of an attentive throng of his compatriots.
"No, no. You stay here and spend the money. Bid for the clock when the auction comes on."
"Oh, signore, but you must be here, too, then."
"All right. Come and fetch me if you like. I shall be over there under the trees."
He waved his hand vaguely towards the lemon groves.
"Now, choose a good apron. Don't let them cheat you."
"Macchè!"
The boy laughed loudly, and turned eagerly to the stall again.
"Come, Maddalena!"
Maurice drew her quickly, anxiously, out of the crowd, and they began to walk across the watercourse towards the farther bank and the group of olive-trees. Salvatore had forgotten them. So had Gaspare. Both father and servant were taken by the fascination of the fair. At last! But how late it must be! How many hours had already fled away! Maurice scarcely dared to look at his watch. He feared to see the time. While they walked he said nothing to Maddalena, but whenthey reached the bank he took her arm and helped her up it, and when they were at the top he drew a long breath.
"Are you tired, signorino?"
"Tired—yes, of all those people. Come and sit down, Maddalena, under the olive-trees."
He took her by the hand. Her hand was warm and dry, pleasant to touch, to hold. As he felt it in his the desire to strike at Salvatore revived within him. Salvatore was laughing at him, was triumphing over him, triumphing in the get-all and give-nothing policy which he thought he was pursuing with such complete success. Would it be very difficult to turn that success into failure? Maurice wondered for a moment, then ceased to wonder. Something in the touch of Maddalena's hand told him that, if he chose, he could have his revenge upon Salvatore, and he was assailed by a double temptation. Both anger and love tempted him. If he stooped to do evil he could gratify two of the strongest desires in humanity, the desire to conquer in love and the desire to triumph in hate. Salvatore thought him such a fool, held him in such contempt! Something within him was burning to-day as a cheek burns with shame, something within him that was like the kernel of him, like the soul of his manhood, which the fisherman was sneering at. He did not say to himself strongly that he did not care what such men thought of him. He could not, for his nature was both reckless and sensitive. He did care, as if he had been a Sicilian half doubtful whether he dared to show his face in the piazza. And he had another feeling, too, which had come to him when Salvatore had answered his exclamation of irresistible anger at being called "compare," the feeling that, whether he sinned against the fisherman or not, the fisherman meant to do him harm. The sensation might be absurd, would have seemed to him probably absurd in England. Here, in Sicily, it sprang up and he hadjust to accept it, as a man accepts an instinct which guides him, prompts him.
Salvatore had turned down his thumb that day.
Maurice was not afraid of him. Physically, he was quite fearless. But this sensation of having been secretly condemned made him feel hard, cruel, ready, perhaps, to do a thing not natural to him, to sacrifice another who had never done him wrong. At that moment it seemed to him that it would be more manly to triumph over Salvatore by a double betrayal than to "run straight," conquer himself and let men not of his code think of him as they would.
Not of his code! But what was his code? Was it that of England or that of Sicily? Which strain of blood was governing him to-day? Which strain would govern him finally? Artois would have had an interesting specimen under his observant eyes had he been at the fair of San Felice.
Maddalena willingly obeyed Maurice's suggestion.
"Get well into the shade," he said. "There's just enough to hold us, if we sit close together. You don't mind that, do you?"
"No, signore."
"Put your back against the trunk—there."
He kept his hat off. Over the railway line from the hot-looking sea there came a little breeze that just moved his short hair and the feathers of gold about Maddalena's brow. In the watercourse, but at some distance, they saw the black crowd of men and women and beasts swarming over the hot stones.
"How can they?" Maurice muttered, as he looked down.
"Cosa?"
He laughed.
"I was thinking out loud. I meant how can they bargain and bother hour after hour in all that sun!"
"But, signorino, you would not have them pay toomuch!" she said, very seriously. "It is dreadful to waste soldi."
"I suppose—yes, of course it is. Oh, but there are so many things worth more than soldi. Dio mio! Let's forget all that!"
He waved his hand towards the crowd, but he saw that Maddalena was preoccupied. She glanced towards the watercourse rather wistfully.
"What is it, Maddalena? Ah, I know! The blue dress and the ear-rings! Per Bacco!"
"No, signore—no, signore!"
She disclaimed quickly, reddening.
"Yes, it is. I had forgotten. But we can't go now. Maddalena, we will buy them this evening. Directly it gets cool we'll go, directly we've rested a little. But don't think of them now. I've promised, and I always keep a promise. Now, don't think of that any more!"
He spoke with a sort of desperation. The fair seemed to be his enemy, and he had thought that it would be his friend. It was like a personage with a stronger influence than his, an influence that could take away that which he wished to retain, to fix upon himself.
"No, signore," Maddalena said, meekly, but still wistfully.
"Do you care for a blue dress and a pair of ear-rings more than you do for me?" cried Maurice, with sudden roughness. "Are you like your father? Do you only care for me for what you can get out of me? I believe you do!"
Maddalena looked startled, almost terrified, by his outburst. Her lips trembled, but she gazed at him steadily.
"Non è vero."
The words sounded almost stern.
"I do—" he said. "I do want to be cared for a little—just for myself."
"HE KEPT HIS HAND ON HERS AND HELD IT ON THE WARM GROUND""HE KEPT HIS HAND ON HERS AND HELD IT ON THE WARM GROUND"
At that moment he had a sensation of loneliness likethat of an utterly unloved man. And yet at that moment a great love was travelling to him—a love that was complete and flawless. But he did not think of it. He only thought that perhaps all this time he had been deceived, that Maddalena, like her father, was merely pleased to see him because he had money and could spend it. He sickened.
"Non è vero!" Maddalena repeated.
Her lips still trembled. Maurice looked at her doubtfully, yet with a sudden tenderness. Always when she looked troubled, even for an instant, there came to him the swift desire to protect her, to shield her.
"But why should you care for me?" he said. "It is better not. For I am going away, and probably you will never see me again."
Tears came into Maddalena's eyes. He did not know whether they were summoned by his previous roughness or his present pathos. He wanted to know.
"Probably I shall never come back to Sicily again," he said, with pressure.
She said nothing.
"It will be better not," he added. "Much better."
Now he was speaking for himself.
"There's something here, something that I love and that's bad for me. I'm quite changed here. I'm like another man."
He saw a sort of childish surprise creeping into her face.
"Why, signorino?" she murmured.
He kept his hand on hers and held it on the warm ground.
"Perhaps it is the sun," he said. "I lose my head here, and I—lose my heart!"
She still looked rather surprised, and again her ignorance fascinated him. He thought that it was far more attractive than any knowledge could have been.
"I'm horribly happy here, but I oughtn't to be happy."
"Why, signorino? It is better to be happy."
"Per Dio!" he exclaimed.
Now a deep desire to have his revenge upon Salvatore came to him, but not at all because it would hurt Salvatore. The cruelty had gone out of him. Maddalena's eyes of a child had driven it away. He wanted his revenge only because it would be an intense happiness to him to have it. He wanted it because it would satisfy an imperious desire of tender passion, not because it would infuriate a man who hated him. He forgot the father in the daughter.
"Suppose I were quite poor, Maddalena!" he said.
"But you are very rich, signorino."
"But suppose I were poor, like Gaspare, for instance. Suppose I were as I am, just the same, only a contadino, or a fisherman, as your father is. And suppose—suppose"—he hesitated—"suppose that I were not married!"
She said nothing. She was listening with deep but still surprised attention.
"Then I could—I could go to your father and ask him——"
He stopped.
"What could you ask him, signorino?"