m on the preceding
night. Although she was gay and fearless, she was exquisitely sensitive.
Peppina's confession had roused her maidenhood to a theoretical
knowledge of certain things in life, of certain cruel phases of man's
selfishness and lust which, till then, she had never envisaged. The
Marchesino's madness had carried her one step further. She had not
actually looked into the abyss. But she had felt herself near to
something that she hated even more than she feared it. And she had
returned to the hotel full of a shrinking delicacy, not to be explained,
intense as snow, which had made the meeting with her mother and Artois
a torture to her, which had sealed her lips to silence that night, which
had made her half apology to Gaspare in the morning a secret agony,
which had even set a flush on her face when she looked at San Francesco.
The abrupt change in Monsieur Emile's demeanor towards her made her feel
as if she were despised by him because she had been the victim of the
Marchesino's trick. Or perhaps Monsieur Emile completely misunderstood
her; perhaps he thought--perhaps he dared to think, that she had helped
the Marchesino in his manoeuvre.

Vere felt almost crucified, but was too proud to speak of the pain and
bitterness within her. Only when her mother came out upon the terrace
did she suddenly feel that she could bear no more.

That night, directly she was in her room, she locked her door. She was
afraid that her mother might follow her, to ask what was the matter.

But Hermione did not come. She, too, wished to be alone that night. She,
too, felt that she could not be looked at by searching eyes that night.

She did not know when Artois left the terrace. Long after Ruffo's song
had died away she still leaned over the sea, following his boat with her
desirous heart. Artois, too, was on the sea. She did not know it. She
was, almost desperately, seeking a refuge in the past. The present
failed her. That was her feeling. Then she would cling to the past. And
in that song, prompted now by her always eager imagination, she seemed
to hear it. For she was almost fiercely, feverishly, beginning to
find resemblances in Ruffo to Maurice. At first she had noticed none,
although she had been strangely attracted by the boy. Then she had seen
that look, fleeting but vivid, that seemed for a moment to bring Maurice
before her. Then, on the cliff, she had discerned a likeness of line, a
definite similarity of features.