The Call of the Blood Part 37

"Well, here in Sicily, when a man goes to see a girl it is because he wants to love her."

"In England it is different, Gaspare. In England men and women can be friends. Why not?"

"You want just to be a friend of Maddalena?"

"Of course. I like to talk to the people. I want to understand them. Why shouldn't I be friends with Maddalena as--as I am with Lucrezia?"

"Oh, Lucrezia is your servant."

"It's all the same."

"But perhaps Maddalena doesn't know. We are Sicilians here, signore."

"What do you mean? That Maddalena might--nonsense, Gaspare!"

There was a sound as of sudden pleasure, even sudden triumph, in his voice.

"Are you sure you understand our girls, signore?"

"If Maddalena does like me there's no harm in it. She knows who I am now.

She knows I--she knows there is the signora."

"Si, signore. There is the signora. She is in Africa, but she is coming back."

"Of course!"

"When the sick signore gets well?"

Maurice said nothing. He felt sure Gaspare was wondering again, wondering that Hermione was in Africa.

"I cannot understand how it is in England," continued the boy. "Here it is all quite different."

Again jealousy stirred in Maurice and a sensation almost of shame. For a moment he felt like a Sicilian husband at whom his neighbors point the two fingers of scorn, and he said something in his wrath which was unworthy.

"You see how it is," he said. "If the signora can go to Africa to see her friend, I can come down here to see mine. That is how it is with the English."

He did not even try to keep the jealousy out of his voice, his manner.

Gaspare leaped to it.

"You did not like the signora to go to Africa!"

"Oh, she will come back. It's all right," Maurice answered, hastily.

"But, while she is there, it would be absurd if I might not speak to any one."

Gaspare's burden of doubt, perhaps laid on his young shoulders by his loyalty to his padrona, was evidently lightened.

"I see, signore," he said. "You can each have a friend. But have you explained to Maddalena?"

"If you think it necessary, I will explain."

"It would be better, because she is Sicilian and she must think you love her."

"Gaspare!"

The boy looked at him keenly and smiled.

"You would like her to think that?"

Maurice denied it vigorously, but Gaspare only shook his head and said:

"I know, I know. Girls are nicest when they think that, because they are pleased and they want us to go on. You think I see nothing, signorino, but I saw it all in Maddalena's face. Per Dio!"

And he laughed aloud, with the delight of a boy who has discovered something, and feels that he is clever and a man. And Maurice laughed too, not without a pride that was joyous. The heart of his youth, the wild heart, bounded within him, and the glory of the sun, and the pa.s.sionate blue of the sea seemed suddenly deeper, more intense, more sympathetic, as if they felt with him, as if they knew the rapture of youth, as if they were created to call it forth, to condone its carelessness, to urge it to some almost fierce fulfilment.

"Salvatore is there, signorino."

"How do you know?"

"I saw the smoke from his pipe. Look, there it is again!"

A tiny trail of smoke curled up; and faded in the blue.

"I will go first because of Maddalena. Girls are silly. If I do this at her she will understand. If not she may show her father you have been here before."

He closed one eye in a large and expressive wink.

"Birbante!"

"It is good to be birbante sometimes."

He went out from the trees and Maurice heard his voice, then a man's, then Maddalena's. He waited where he was till he heard Gaspare say:

"The padrone is just behind. Signorino, where are you?"

"Here!" he answered, coming into the open with a careless air.

Before the cottage door in the suns.h.i.+ne a great fis.h.i.+ng-net was drying, fastened to two wooden stakes. Near it stood Salvatore, dressed in a dark-blue jersey, with a soft black hat tilted over his left ear, above which was stuck a yellow flower. Maddalena was in the doorway looking very demure. It was evident that the wink of Gaspare had been seen and comprehended. She stole a glance at Maurice but did not move. Her father took off his hat with an almost wildly polite gesture, and said, in a loud voice:

"Buona sera, signore."

"Buona sera," replied Maurice, holding out his hand.

Salvatore took it in a large grasp.

"You are the signore who lives up on Monte Amato with the English lady?"

"Yes."

"I know. She has gone to Africa."