The Call of the Blood Part 60

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 e vero."

The words sounded almost stern.

"I do--" he said. "I do want to be cared for a little--just for myself."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "HE KEPT HIS HAND ON HERS AND HELD IT ON THE WARM GROUND"]

At that moment he had a sensation of loneliness like that 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 e 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 pa.s.sion, 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?"

"Can't you guess?"

"No, signore."

"I might ask him to let me marry you. I should--if it were like that--I should ask him to let me marry you."

"Davvero?"

An expression of intense pleasure, and of something more--of pride--had come into her face. She could not divest herself imaginatively of her conception of him as a rich forestiere, and she saw herself placed high above "the other girls," turned into a lady.

"Magari!" she murmured, drawing in her breath, then breathing out.

"You would be happy if I did that?"

"Magari!" she said again.

He did not know what the word meant, but he thought it sounded like the most complete expression of satisfaction he had ever heard.

"I wish," he said, pressing her hand--"I wish I were a Sicilian of Marechiaro."

At this moment, while he was speaking, he heard in the distance the shrill whistle of an engine. It ceased. Then it rose again, piercing, prolonged, fierce surely with inquiry. He put his hands to his ears.

"How beastly that is!" he exclaimed.

He hated it, not only for itself, but for the knowledge it sharply recalled to his mind, the knowledge of exactly what he was doing, and of the facts of his life, the facts that the very near future held.

"Why do they do that?" he added, with intense irritation.