had no idea I had called. But
each time I did, without hearing me he had the sudden wish to do what I
wanted. Now, isn't that curious?"

She paused.

"Madre?" she added.

"You think you influenced him?"

"Don't you think I did?"

"Perhaps so. There's a sympathetic link of youth between you. You
are gloriously young, both of you, little daughter. And youth turns
naturally to youth, though I'm afraid old age doesn't always turn
naturally to old age."

"What do you know about old age, Madre? You haven't a gray hair."

She spoke with anxious encouragement.

"It's true. My hair declines to get gray."

"I don't believe you'll ever be gray."

"Probably not. But there's another grayness--Life behind one instead of
before; the emotional--"

She stopped herself. This was not for Vere.

"They're close in," she said, looking out of the window.

She waved her hand. The big man in the stern of the boat took off
his hat in reply, and waved his hand, too. The rower pulled with the
vivacity that comes to men near the end of a task, and the boat shot
into the Pool of the Saint, where Ruffo was at that moment enjoying his
third cigarette.

"I'll run down and meet Monsieur Emile," said Vere.

And she disappeared as swiftly as she had come.

The big man who got out of the boat could not claim Hermione's immunity
from gray hairs. His beard was lightly powdered with them, and though
much of the still thick hair on his head was brown, and his figure was
erect, and looked strong and athletic--he seemed what he was, a man of
middle age, who had lived, and thought, and observed much. His eyes
had the peculiar expression of eyes that have seen very many and very
various sights. It was difficult to imagine them not looking keenly
intelligent. The vivacity of youth was no longer in them, but the
vividness of intellect, of an intellect almost fiercely alive and
tenacious of its life, was never absent from them.

As Artois got out, the boat's prow was being held by the Sicilian,
Gaspare, now a man of thirty-five, but still young-looking. Many
Sicilians grow old quickly--hard life wears them out. But Gaspare's fate
had been easier than that of most of his contemporaries and friends of
Marechiaro. Ever since the tragic death of the beloved master, whom he
still always spoke of as "mio Padrone," he had been Hermione's faithful
attendant and devoted friend. Yes, she knew him to be that--she wished
him to be that. Their stations in