"He seems popular on the island."
"He had been ill, Signore, and it was raining hard. Poveretto! He had had the fever. It was bad for him to be out in the boat."
"So Ruffo"s getting hold of you too!" thought Artois.
He pulled at his cigar once or twice. Then he said:
"Do you think he looks like a Sicilian?"
Gaspare"s eyes met his steadily.
"A Sicilian, Signore?"
"Yes."
"Signore, he is a Sicilian. How should he not look like one?"
Gaspare"s voice sounded rebellious.
"Va bene, Gaspare, va bene. Have you seen the Signorina?"
"I think she is at the wooden seat, Signore. The Signorina likes to look at the sea from there."
"I will go and see if I can find her."
"Va bene, Signore. And I will go to speak with the Signora."
He took off his hat and went into the house. Artois stood for a moment looking after him and pulling at his beard. There was something very forcible in Gaspare"s personality. Artois felt it the more because of his knowledge of Gaspare"s power of prolonged, perhaps of eternal silence. The Sicilian was both blunt and subtle, therefore not always easily read. To-night he puzzled Artois because he impressed him strongly, yet vaguely. He seemed to be quietly concealing something that was not small. What it was Artois could not divine. Only he felt positive that there was something. In Gaspare"s eyes that evening he had seen an expression such as had been in them long ago in Sicily, when Artois rode up after Maurice"s death to see Hermione, and Gaspare turned from him and looked over the wall of the ravine: an expression of dogged and impenetrable reserve, that was like a door closing upon unseen, just not seen, vistas.
"Che Diavolo!" muttered Artois.
Then he went up to look for Vere.
A little wind met him on the crest of the cliff, the definite caress of the night, which had now fallen ever so softly. The troop of the stars was posted in the immeasurable deeps of the firmament. There was, there would be, no moon, yet it was not black darkness, but rather a dimly purple twilight which lifted into its breast the wayward songs of the sea. And the songs and the stars seemed twin children of the wedded wave and night. Divinely soft was the wind, divinely dreamy the hour, and bearing something of youth as a galley from the East bears odors.
Over the spirit of Artois a magical essence seemed scattered. And the youngness that lives forever, however deeply buried, in the man who is an artist, stirred, lifted itself up, stood erect to salute the night.
As he came towards Vere he forgot. The poppy draught was at his lips.
The extreme consciousness, which was both his strength and his curse, sank down for a moment and profoundly slept.
"Vere!" he said. "Vere, do I disturb you?"
The girl turned softly on the bench and looked at him.
"No. I often come here. I like to be here at nightfall. Madre knows that. Did she tell you?"
"No."
"You guessed?"
"I met Gaspare."
He stood near her.
"Where is Madre?"
"On the terrace. She preferred to stay quietly there. And so you have been working very hard?"
He spoke gently, half smilingly, but not at all derisively.
"Yes. But how did you know?"
"I gathered it from something your mother said. Do you know, Vere, I think soon she will begin to wonder what you do when you are shut up for so long in your room."
The girl"s face looked troubled for a moment.
"She doesn"t--she has no idea."
"Oh no."
Vere was silent for a while.
"I wonder if I ought to tell her, Monsieur Emile," she said at length.
"Tell her!" Artois said, hastily. "But I thought--"
He checked himself, suddenly surprised at the keenness of his own desire to keep their little secret.
"I know. You mean what I said the other day. But--if Madre should be hurt. I don"t think I have ever had a secret from her before, a real secret. But--it"s like this. If Madre knows I shall feel horribly self-conscious, because of what I told you--her having tried and given it up. I shall feel guilty. Is it absurd?"
"No."
"And--and--I don"t believe I shall be able to go on. Of course some day, if it turns out that I ever can do anything, I must tell. But that would be different. If it"s certain that you can do a thing well it seems to me that you have a right to do it. But--till then--I"m a little coward, really."
She ended with a laugh that was almost deprecating.
"Don"t tell your mother yet, Vere," said Artois, decisively. "It is as you say: if you told her before you have thoroughly tried your wings you might be paralyzed. When, if ever, you can show her something really good she will be the first to encourage you. But--till then--I think with you that her influence in that direction would probably be discouraging. Indeed, I feel sure of it."
"But if she should really begin to wonder! Perhaps she will ask. It"s absurd, but I can"t help feeling as if we, you and I, were conspirators, Monsieur Emile."
He laughed happily.
"What a blessed place this is!" he said. "One is made free of the ocean here. What is that far-away light?"
He pointed.
"Low down? Oh, that must be the light of a fisherman, one of those who seek in the rocks for sh.e.l.l-fish."
"How mysterious it looks, moving to and fro! One feels life there, the doings of unknown men in the darkness."