ir minds, too, were under the influence of a great
injection of cocaine. Her thoughts again returned to the parrot. She
wondered where it had been bought, whether it had come with Antonio from
America.

Presently she reached the tramway station and stood still. She had to
go back to the "Trattoria del Giardinetto." She must take the tram here,
one of those on which was written in big letters, "Capo di Posilipo."
No, not that! That did not go far enough. The other one--what was
written upon it? Something--"Sette Settembre." She looked for the words
"Sette Settembre."

Tram after tram came up, paused, passed on. But she did not see those
words on any of them. She began to think of the sea, of the brown
body of the bathing boy which she had seen shoot through the air and
disappear into the shining water before she had gone to that house where
the green parrot was. She would go down to the sea, to the harbor.

She threaded her way across the broad space, going in and out among the
trams and the waiting people. Then she went down a road not far from the
Grand Hotel and came to the Marina.

There were boys bathing still from the breakwater of the rocks. And
still they were shouting. She stood by the wall and watched them,
resting her hands on the stone.

How hot the stone was! Gaspare had been right. It was going to be a
glorious day, one of the tremendous days of summer.

The nails driven through the green lemon like nails driven through a
cross--Peppina--the cross cut on Peppina's cheek.

That broad-shouldered man who had come in at the door had cut that cross
on Peppina's cheek.

Was it true that Peppina had the evil eye? Had it been a fatal day for
the Casa del Mare when she had been allowed to cross its threshold? Vere
had said something--what was it?--about Peppina and her cross. Oh yes!
That Peppina's cross seemed like a sign, a warning come into the house
on the island, that it seemed to say, "There is a cross to be borne by
some one here, by one of us!"

And the fishermen's sign of the cross under the light of San Francesco?

Surely there had been many warnings in her life. They had been given to
her, but she had not heeded them.

She saw a brown body shoot through the air from the rocks and disappear
into the shining sea. Was it Ruffo? With an effort she remembered that
she had left Ruffo in the tall house, in the room where the green parrot
was.

She walked on slowly till she came to the place where