ad
had the fever. It was bad for him to be out in the boat."

"So Ruffo's getting hold of you too!" thought Artois.

He pulled at his cigar once or twice. Then he said:

"Do you think he looks like a Sicilian?"

Gaspare's eyes met his steadily.

"A Sicilian, Signore?"

"Yes."

"Signore, he is a Sicilian. How should he not look like one?"

Gaspare's voice sounded rebellious.

"Va bene, Gaspare, va bene. Have you seen the Signorina?"

"I think she is at the wooden seat, Signore. The Signorina likes to look
at the sea from there."

"I will go and see if I can find her."

"Va bene, Signore. And I will go to speak with the Signora."

He took off his hat and went into the house. Artois stood for a moment
looking after him and pulling at his beard. There was something very
forcible in Gaspare's personality. Artois felt it the more because
of his knowledge of Gaspare's power of prolonged, perhaps of eternal
silence. The Sicilian was both blunt and subtle, therefore not always
easily read. To-night he puzzled Artois because he impressed him
strongly, yet vaguely. He seemed to be quietly concealing something
that was not small. What it was Artois could not divine. Only he felt
positive that there was something. In Gaspare's eyes that evening he
had seen an expression such as had been in them long ago in Sicily, when
Artois rode up after Maurice's death to see Hermione, and Gaspare turned
from him and looked over the wall of the ravine: an expression of dogged
and impenetrable reserve, that was like a door closing upon unseen, just
not seen, vistas.

"Che Diavolo!" muttered Artois.

Then he went up to look for Vere.

A little wind met him on the crest of the cliff, the definite caress of
the night, which had now fallen ever so softly. The troop of the stars
was posted in the immeasurable deeps of the firmament. There was, there
would be, no moon, yet it was not black darkness, but rather a dimly
purple twilight which lifted into its breast the wayward songs of the
sea. And the songs and the stars seemed twin children of the wedded wave
and night. Divinely soft was the wind, divinely dreamy the hour, and
bearing something of youth as a galley from the East bears odors.
Over the spirit of Artois a magical essence seemed scattered. And the
youngness that lives forever, however deeply buried, in the man who is
an artist, stirred, lifted itself up, stood erect to salute the night.
As he came towards Vere he forgot.