A Spirit in Prison Part 70

"You love the sea, Signorina?" he asked.

But Vere's enthusiasm abruptly vanished, as if she feared that he might destroy its completeness by trying to share it.

"Oh yes," she said. "We all do here; Madre, Gaspare, Monsieur Emile--everybody."

It was the first time the name of Artois had been mentioned among them that day. The Marchesino's full red lips tightened over his large white teeth.

"I have not seen Signor Emilio for some days," he said.

"Nor have we," said Vere, with a touch of childish discontent.

He looked at her closely.

Emilio--he knew all about Emilio. But the Signorina? What were her feelings towards the "vecchio briccone"? He did not understand the situation, because he did not understand precisely the nature of madness of the English. Had the ladies been Neapolitans, Emilio an Italian, he would have felt on sure ground. But in England, so he had heard, there is a fantastic, cold, s.e.xless something called friendship that can exist between unrelated man and woman.

"Don Emilio writes much," he said, with less than his usual alacrity.

"When one goes to see him he has always a pen in his hand."

He tried to speak of Emilio with complete detachment, but could not resist adding:

"When one is an old man one likes to sit, one cannot be forever running to and fro. One gets tired, I suppose."

There was marked satire in the accent with which he said the last words.

And the shrug of his shoulders was an almost audible "What can I know of that?"

"Monsieur Emile writes because he has a great brain, not because he has a tired body," said Vere, with sudden warmth.

Her mother was looking at her earnestly.

"Oh, Signorina, I do not mean--But for a man to be always shut up,"

began the Marchesino, "it is not life."

"You don't understand, Marchese. One can live in a little room with the door shut as one can never live--"

Abruptly she stopped. A flush ran over her face and down to her neck.

Hermione turned away her eyes. But they had read Vere's secret. She knew what her child was doing in those hours of seclusion. And she remembered her own pa.s.sionate attempts to stave off despair by work. She remembered her own failure.

"Poor little Vere!" That was her first thought. "But what is Emile doing?" That was the second. He had discouraged her. He had told her the truth. What was he telling Vere? A flood of bitter curiosity seemed to rise in her, drowning many things.

"What I like is life, Signorina," said the Marchesino. "Driving, riding, swimming, sport, fencing, being with beautiful ladies--that is life."

"Yes, of course, that is life," she said.

What was the good of trying to explain to him the inner life? He had no imagination.

Her youth made her very drastic, very sweeping, in her secret mental a.s.sertions.

She labelled the Marchesino "Philistine," and popped him into his drawer.

Lunch was over, and they got up.

"Are you afraid of the heat out-of-doors, Marchese?" Hermione asked, "or shall we have coffee in the garden? There is a trellis, and we shall be out of the sun."

"Signora, I am delighted to go out."

He got his straw hat, and they went into the tiny garden and sat down on basket-work chairs under a trellis, set in the shadow of some fig-trees.

Giulia brought them coffee, and the Marchesino lighted a cigarette.

He said to himself that he had never been in love before.

Vere wore a white dress. She had no hat on, but held rather carelessly over her small, dark head a red parasol. It was evident that she was not afraid even of the midday sun. That new look in her face, soft womanhood at the windows gazing at a world more fully, if more sadly, understood, fascinated him, sent the blood up to his head. There was a great change in her. To-day she knew what before she had not known.

As he stared at Vere with adoring eyes suddenly there came into his mind the question: "Who has taught her?"

And then he thought of the night when all in vain he had sung upon the sea, while the Signorina and "un Signore" were hidden somewhere near him.

The blood sang in his head, and something seemed to expand in his brain, to press violently against his temples, as if striving to force its way out. He put down his coffee cup, and the two perpendicular lines appeared above his eyebrows, giving him an odd look, cruel and rather catlike.

"If Emilio--"

At that moment he longed to put a knife into his friend.

But he was not sure. He only suspected.

Hermione's role in this summer existence puzzled him exceedingly. The natural supposition in a Neapolitan would, of course, have been that Artois was her lover. But when the Marchesino looked at Hermione's eyes he could not tell.

What did it all mean? He felt furious at being puzzled, as if he were deliberately duped.

"Your cigarette has gone out, Marchese," said Hermione. "Have another."

The young man started.

"It's nothing."

"Vere, run in and get the Marchese a Khali Targa."

The girl got up quickly.

"No, no! I cannot permit--I have another here."

He opened his case. It was empty.

Vere laughed.

"You see!"

She went off before he could say another word, and the Marchesino was alone for a moment with Hermione.