at they will. They know we shall
not mind. We are never shocked."

"And do you think we are easily shocked in Paris?"

"No, but it is not the same. You have not Vesuvius there. You have not
the sea, you have not the sun."

Artois began laughingly to protest against the last statement, but the
Marchesino would not have it.

"No, no, it shines--I know that,--but it is not the sun we have here."

He spoke to the seamen in the Neapolitan dialect. They were brown,
muscular fellows. In their eyes were the extraordinary boldness
and directness of the sea. Neither of them looked gay. Many of the
Neapolitans who are much upon the sea have serious, even grave faces.
These were intensely, almost overpoweringly male. They seemed to partake
of the essence of the elements of nature, as if blood of the sea ran in
their veins, as if they were hot with the grim and inner fires of the
sun. When they spoke their faces showed a certain changefulness that
denoted intelligence, but never lost the look of force, of an almost
tense masculinity ready to battle, perpetually alive to hold its own.

The Marchesino was also very masculine, but in a different way and more
consciously than they were. He was not cultured, but such civilization
as he had endowed him with a power to catch the moods of others not
possessed by these men, in whom persistence was more visible than
adroitness, unless indeed any question of money was to the fore.

"We shall get to the Giuseppone by eight, Emilio," the Marchesino said,
dropping his conversation with the men, which had been about the best
hour and place for their fishing. "Are you hungry?"

"I shall be," said Artois. "This wind brings an appetite with it. How
well you steer!"

The Marchesino nodded carelessly.

As the boat drew ever nearer to the point, running swiftly before
the light breeze, its occupants were silent. Artois was watching the
evening, with the eyes of a lover of nature, but also with the eyes
of one who takes notes. The Marchesino seemed to be intent on his
occupation of pilot. As to the two sailors, they sat in the accustomed
calm and staring silence of seafaring men, with wide eyes looking
out over the element that ministered to their wants. They saw it
differently, perhaps, from Artois, to whom it gave now an intense
aesthetic pleasure, differently from the Marchesino, to whom it was
just a path to possible excitement, possible gratification of a new
and dancing desire. They con