The Call of the Blood Part 43

"Perhaps if she was there you could not give me the blue silk dress and the--and the ear-rings. Perhaps she would not like it."

For a moment he thought he was disappointed by her answer. Then he knew that he loved it, for its utter naturalness, its laughable navete. It seemed, too, to set him right in his own eyes, to sweep away a creeping feeling that had been beginning to trouble him. He was playing with a child. That was all. There was no harm in it. And when he had kissed her in the dawn he had been kissing a child, playfully, kindly, as a big brother might. And if he kissed her now it would mean nothing to her. And if it did mean something--just a little more--to him, that did not matter.

"Bambina mia!" he said.

"I am not a bambina," she said, turning towards him again.

"Yes you are."

"Then you are a bambino."

"Why not? I feel like a boy to-night, like a naughty little boy."

"Naughty, signorino?"

"Yes, because I want to do something that I ought not to do."

"What is it?"

"This, Maddalena."

And he kissed her. It was the first time he had kissed her in darkness, for on his second visit to the sirens' house he had only taken her hand and held it, and that was nothing. The kiss in the dawn had been light, gay, a sort of laughing good-bye to a kind hostess who was of a cla.s.s that, he supposed, thought little of kisses. But this kiss in the night, on the sea, was different. Only when he had given it did he understand how different it was, how much more it meant to him. For Maddalena returned it gently with her warm young lips, and her response stirred something at his heart that was surely the very essence of the life within him.

He held her hands.

"Maddalena!" he said, and there was in his voice a startled sound.

"Maddalena!"

Again Hermione had risen up before him in the night, almost as one who walked upon the sea. He was conscious of wrong-doing. The innocence of his relation with Maddalena seemed suddenly to be tarnished, and the happiness of the starry night to be clouded. He felt like one who, in summer, becomes aware of a heaviness creeping into the atmosphere, the message of a coming tempest that will presently transform the face of nature. Surely there was a mist before the faces of the stars.

She said nothing, only looked at him as if she wanted to know many things which only he could tell her, which he had begun to tell her. That was her fascination for his leaping youth, his wild heart of youth--this ignorance and this desire to know. He had sat in spirit at the feet of Hermione and loved her with a sort of boyish humbleness. Now one sat at his feet. And the att.i.tude woke up in him a desire that was fierce in its intensity--the desire to teach Maddalena the great realities of love.

"Hi--yi--yi--yi--yi!"

Faintly there came to them a cry across the sea.

"Gaspare!" Maurice said.

He turned his head. In the darkness, high up, he saw a light, descending, ascending, then describing a wild circle.

"Hi--yi--yi--yi!"

"Row back, signorino! They have done playing, and my father will be angry."

He moved, took the oars, and sent the boat towards the island. The physical exertion calmed him, restored him to himself.

"After all," he thought, "there is no harm in it."

And he laughed.

"Which has won, Maddalena?" he said, looking back at her over his shoulder, for he was standing up and rowing with his face towards the land.

"I hope it is my father, signorino. If he has got the money he will not be angry; but if Gaspare has it--"

"Your father is a fox of the sea, and can cheat better than a boy. Don't be frightened."

When they reached the land, Salvatore and Gaspare met them. Gaspare's face was glum, but Salvatore's small eyes were sparkling.

"I have won it all--all!" he said. "Ecco!"

And he held out his hand with the notes.

"Salvatore is birbante!" said Gaspare, sullenly. "He did not win it fairly. I saw him--"

"Never mind, Gaspare!" said Maurice.

He put his hand on the boy's shoulder.

"To-morrow I'll give you the same," he whispered.

"And now," he added, aloud, "let's go to bed. I've been rowing Maddalena round the island and I'm tired. I shall sleep like a top."

As they went up the steep path he took Salvatore familiarly by the arm.

"You are too clever, Salvatore," he said. "You play too well for Gaspare."

Salvatore chuckled and handled the five-lire notes voluptuously.

"Cci basu li manu!" he said. "Cci basu li manu!"

XIII

Maurice lay on the big bed in the inner room of the siren's house, under the tiny light that burned before Maria Addolorata. The door of the house was shut, and he heard no more the murmur of the sea. Gaspare was curled up on the floor, on a bed made of some old sacking, with his head buried in his jacket, which he had taken off to use as a pillow. In the far room Maddalena and her father were asleep. Maurice could hear their breathing, Maddalena's light and faint, Salvatore's heavy and whistling, and degenerating now and then into a sort of stifled snore. But sleep did not come to Maurice. His eyes were open, and his clasped hands supported his head. He was thinking, thinking almost angrily.

He loved joy as few Englishmen love it, but as many southerners love it.

His nature needed joy, was made to be joyous. And such natures resent the intrusion into their existence of any complications which make for tragedy as northern natures seldom resent anything. To-night Maurice had a grievance against fate, and he was considering it wrathfully and not without confusion.

Since he had kissed Maddalena in the night he was disturbed, almost unhappy. And yet he was surely face to face with something that was more than happiness. The dancing faun was dimly aware that in his nature there was not only the capacity for gayety, for the performance of the tarantella, but also a capacity for violence which he had never been conscious of when he was in England. It had surely been developed within him by the sun, by the coming of the heat in this delicious land. It was like an intoxication of the blood, something that went to head as well as heart. He wondered what it meant, what it might lead him to. Perhaps he had been faintly aware of its beginnings on that day when jealousy dawned within him as he thought of his wife, his woman, nursing her friend in Africa. Now it was gathering strength like a stream flooded by rains, but it was taking a different direction in its course.

He turned upon the pillow so that he could see the light burning before the Madonna. The face of the Madonna was faintly visible--a long, meek face with downcast eyes. Maddalena crossed herself often when she looked at that face. Maurice put up his hand to make the sign, then dropped it with a heavy sigh. He was not a Catholic. His religion--what was it?

Sunwors.h.i.+p perhaps, the wors.h.i.+p of the body, the wors.h.i.+p of whim. He did not know or care much. He felt so full of life and energy that the far, far future after death scarcely interested him. The present was his concern, the present after that kiss in the night. He had loved Hermione.

Surely he loved her now. He did love her now. And yet when he had kissed her he had never been shaken by the headstrong sensation that had hold of him to-night, the desire to run wild in love. He looked up to Hermione.

The feeling of reverence had been a governing factor in his love for her.

Now it seemed to him that a feeling of reverence was a barrier in the path of love, something to create awe, admiration, respect, but scarcely the pa.s.sion that irresistibly draws man to woman. And yet he did love Hermione. He was confused, horribly confused.

For he knew that his longing was towards Maddalena.