"Good-bye, Vere! I am just starting!" she cried out, trying to make her voice sound cheerful and ordinary.
Vere looked up for a second.
"Good-bye!"
She bent her head and returned to her book.
Hermione felt chilled.
She went down and met Giulia in the pa.s.sage.
"Giulia, is Gaspare anywhere about? I want to cross to the mainland. I am going to take the tram."
"Signora, are you going to Naples? Maria says--"
"I can"t do any commissions, because I shall probably not go beyond Mergellina. Find Gaspare, will you?"
Giulia went away and Hermione descended to the Saint"s Pool. She waited there two or three minutes. Then Gaspare appeared above.
"You want the boat, Signora?"
"Yes, Gaspare."
He leaped down the steps and stood beside her.
"Where do you want to go?"
She hesitated. Then she looked him straight in the face and said:
"To Mergellina."
He met her eyes without flinching. His face was quite calm.
"Shall I row you there, Signora?"
"I meant to go to the village, and walk up and take the tram."
"As you like, Signora. But I can easily row you there."
"Aren"t you tired after being out so early this morning?"
"No, Signora."
"Did you go far?"
"Not so very far, Signora."
Hermione hesitated. She knew Gaspare had been to Mergellina. She knew he had been to see Ruffo"s mother. If that were so her journey would probably be in vain. In their conflict Gaspare had struck the first blow. Could anything be gained by her going?
Gaspare saw, and perhaps read accurately, her hesitation.
"It will get very hot to-day, Signora," he said, carelessly.
His words decided Hermione. If obstacles were to be put in her way she would overleap them. At all costs she would emerge from the darkness in which she was walking. A heat of anger rushed over her. She felt as if Gaspare, and perhaps Artois, were treating her like a child.
"I must go to Mergellina, Gaspare," she said. "And I shall go by tram.
Please row me to the village."
"Va bene, Signora," he answered.
He went to pull in the boat.
CHAPTER x.x.xVI
When Hermione got out of the boat in the little harbor of the village on the mainland Gaspare said again:
"I could easily row you to Mergellina, Signore. I am not a bit tired."
She looked at him as he stood with his hand on the prow of the boat.
His shirt-sleeves were rolled up, showing his strong arms. There was something brave, something "safe"--so she called it to herself--in his whole appearance which had always appealed to her nature. How she longed at that moment to be quite at ease with him! Why would he not trust her completely? Perhaps in her glance just then she showed her thought, her desire. Gaspare"s eyes fell before her.
"I think I"ll take the tram," she said, "unless--"
She was still looking at him, longing for him to speak. But he said nothing. At that moment a fisherman ran down the steps from the village, and came over the sand to greet them.
"Good-bye, Gaspare," she said. "Don"t wait, of course. Giovanni can row me back."
The fisherman smiled, but Gaspare said:
"I can come for you, Signora. You will not be very long, will you? You will be back for colazione?"
"Oh yes, I suppose so."
"I will come for you, Signora."
Again she looked at him, and felt his deep loyalty to her, his strong and almost doglike affection. And, feeling them, she was seized once more by fear. The thing Gaspare hid from her must be something terrible.
"Thank you, Gaspare."
"A rivederci, Signora."
Was there not a sound of pleading in his voice, a longing to retain her?
She would not heed it. But she gave him a very gentle look as she turned to walk up the hill.
At the top, by the Trattoria del Giardinetto, she had to wait for several minutes before the tram came. She remembered her solitary dinner there on the evening when she had gone to the Scoglio di Frisio to look at the visitor"s book. She had felt lonely then in the soft light of the fading day. She felt far more lonely now in the brilliant sunshine of morning. And for an instant she saw herself travelling steadily along a straight road, from which she could not diverge. She pa.s.sed milestone after milestone. And now, not far off, she saw in the distance a great darkness in which the road ended. And the darkness was the ultimate loneliness which can encompa.s.s on earth the human spirit.
The tram-bell sounded. She lifted her head mechanically. A moment later she was rushing down towards Naples. Before the tram reached the harbor of Mergellina, on the hill opposite the Donn" Anna, Hermione got out.