The Call of the Blood Part 41

"I wonder why," he said. "I think--I think there must be men who want you."

She slightly raised her head.

"Oh yes, there are, signore. But--but I must wait till my father chooses one."

"Your father will choose the man who is to be your husband?"

"Of course, signore."

"But perhaps you won't like him."

"Oh, I shall have to like him, signore."

She did not speak with any bitterness or sarcasm, but with perfect simplicity. A feeling of pity that was certainly not Sicilian but that came from the English blood in him stole into Maurice's heart. Maddalena looked so soft and young in the dim beauty of the night, so ready to be cherished, to be treated tenderly, or with the ardor that is the tender cruelty of pa.s.sion, that her childlike submission to the Sicilian code woke in him an almost hot pugnacity. She would be given, perhaps, to some hard brute of a fisherman who had sc.r.a.ped together more soldi than his fellows, or to some coa.r.s.e, avaricious contadino who would make her toil till her beauty vanished, and she changed into a bowed, wrinkled withered, sun-dried hag, while she was yet young in years.

"I wish," he said--"I wish, when you have to marry, I could choose your husband, Maddalena."

She lifted her head quite up and regarded him with wonder.

"You, signorino! Why?"

"Because I would choose a man who would be very good to you, who would love you and work for you and always think of you, and never look at another woman. That is how your husband should be."

She looked more wondering.

"Are you like that, then, signore?" she asked. "With the signora?"

Maurice unclasped his hands from his knees, and dropped his feet down from the bench.

"I!" he said, in a voice that had changed. "Oh--yes--I don't know."

He took the oars again and began to row farther out to sea.

"I was talking about you," he said, almost roughly.

"I have never seen your signora," said Maddalena. "What is she like?"

Maurice saw Hermione before him in the night, tall, flat, with her long arms, her rugged, intelligent face, her enthusiastic brown eyes.

"Is she pretty?" continued Maddalena. "Is she as young as I am?"

"She is good, Maddalena," Maurice answered.

"Is she santa?"

"I don't mean that. But she is good to every one."

"But is she pretty, too?" she persisted. "And young?"

"She is not at all old. Some day you shall see--"

He checked himself. He had been going to say, "Some day you shall see her."

"And she is very clever," he said, after a moment.

"Clever?" said Maddalena, evidently not understanding what he meant.

"She can understand many things and she has read many books."

"But what is the good of that? Why should a girl read many books?"

"She is not a girl."

"Not a girl!"

She looked at him with amazed eyes and her voice was full of amazement.

"How old are you, signorino?" she asked.

"How old do you think?"

She considered him carefully for a long time.

"Old enough to make the visit," she said, at length.

"The visit?"

"Yes."

"What? Oh, do you mean to be a soldier?"

"Si, signore."

"That would be twenty, wouldn't it?"

She nodded.

"I am older than that. I am twenty-four."

"Truly?"

"Truly."

"And is the signora twenty-four, too?"

"Maddalena!" Maurice exclaimed, with a sudden impatience that was almost fierce. "Why do you keep on talking about the signora to-night? This is your festa. The signora is in Africa, a long way off--there--across the sea." He stretched out his arm, and pointed towards the wide waters above which the stars were watching. "When she comes back you can see her, if you wish--but now--"

"When is she coming back?" asked the girl.