hing very different. And then one night in late spring he had
seen her in a new light dress with white thread gloves. And she
had noticed him watching her, and had cast upon him a look that was
unmistakable, a look from the world "behind the shutter"; and he had
understood. Then she had followed him persistently. When he sat before
the "Gran caffe" sipping his coffee and listening to the orchestra of
women that plays on the platform outside the caffe, she had passed and
repassed, always casting upon him that glance of sinister understanding,
of invitation, of dreary wickedness that sought for, and believed that
it had found, an answering wickedness in him.

Terrible old woman! Peppina's aunt might well be like that. And Peppina
would sleep, perhaps to-night, in the Casa del Mare, under the same roof
as Vere.

He resolved to go that evening to the island, to see Peppina, to see
Vere. He wished, too, to have a little talk with Gaspare about Ruffo.

The watch-dog instinct, which dwelt also in Gaspare, was alive in him.

But to-day it was alive to do service for Vere, not for Hermione. He
knew that, and said to himself that it was natural. For Hermione was a
woman, with experience of life; but Vere was only upon the threshold of
the world. She needed protection more than Hermione.

Some time ago, when he was returning to Naples from the island on an
evening of scirocco, Artois had in thought transferred certain hopes
of his from Hermione to Vere. He had said to himself that he must
henceforth hope for Hermione in Vere.

Now was he not transferring something else from the mother to the child?

CHAPTER XV

Artois had intended to go that evening to the island. But he did not
fulfil his intention. When the sun began to sink he threw a light coat
over his arm and walked down to the harbor of Santa Lucia. A boatman
whom he knew met him and said:

"Shall I take you to the island, Signore?"

Artois was there to take a boat. He meant to say yes. Yet when the man
spoke he answered no. The fellow turned away and found another customer.
Two or three minutes later Artois saw his boat drawing out to sea in the
direction of Posilipo. It was a still evening, and very clear after the
storm of the preceding night. Artois longed to be in that travelling
boat, longed to see the night come from the summit of the island with
Hermione and Vere. But he resisted the sea, its wide peace, its subtle
summons, called a carriage and drove