that Hermione did not understand. Her face became full of hatred.
Holding up the charm, and lifting her head, she exclaimed:

"Those who bring trouble shall have trouble!"

While she spoke she looked straight before her, and her voice became
harsh again, seemed to proclaim to the world unalterable destiny.

"Yes," said Hermione, in a low voice.

Maddalena hid the death-charm once more with a movement that was
surreptitious.

"Yes," Hermione said again, gazing into Maddalena's still beautiful
eyes. "And you have trouble!"

Maddalena looked afraid, like an ignorant person whose tragic
superstition is proved true by an assailing fact.

"Signora!"

"You have trouble in your house. Have you ever brought trouble to any
one? Have you?"

Maddalena stared at her with dilated eyes, but made no answer.

"Tell me something." Hermione leaned forward. "You know my servant,
Gaspare?"

Maddalena was silent.

"You know Gaspare. Did you know him in Sicily?"

"Sicily?" Her face and her voice had become stupid. "Sicily?" she
repeated.

The parrot shifted on the board, lifted its left claw, and craned its
head forward in the direction of the two women. The tram-bell sounded
its reiterated appeal.

"Yes, in Sicily. You are a Sicilian?"

"Who says so?"

"Your son is a Sicilian. At the port they call him 'Il Siciliano.'"

"Do they?"

Her intellect seemed to be collapsing. She looked almost bovine.

Hermione's excitement began to be complicated by a feeling of hot anger.

"But don't you know it? You must know it!"

The parrot shuffled slowly along the board, coming nearer to them,
and bowing its head obsequiously. Hermione could not help watching its
movements with a strained attention. Its presence distracted her. She
had a longing to take it up and wring its neck. Yet she loved birds.

"You must know it!" she repeated, no longer looking at Maddalena.

"Si!"

All ignorance and all stupidity were surely enshrined in that word thus
said.

"Where did you know Gaspare?"

"Who says I know Gaspare?"

The way in which she pronounced his name revealed to Hermione a former
intimacy between them.

"Ruffo says so."

The parrot was quite at the edge of the board now, listening apparently
with cold intensity to every word that was being said. And Hermione felt
that behind the kitchen door the two women were straining their ears
to catch the conversation. Was the whole world listening? Was the whole
world coldly, cr