not be condemned, nor the saint exalted. Conduct was
but obedience in one who had no choice but to obey. Could she believe
that?

The dance grew wilder, swifter. Sebastiano quickened the time till he was
playing it prestissimo. One of the boys, Giulio, dropped out exhausted.
Then another, Alfio, fell against the terrace wall, laughing and wiping
his streaming face. Finally Giuseppe gave in, too, obviously against his
will. But Gaspare and Maurice still kept on. The game was certainly a
duel now--a duel which would not cease till Sebastiano put an end to it
by laying down his flute. But he, too, was on his mettle and would not
own fatigue. Suddenly Hermione felt that she could not bear the dance any
more. It was, perhaps, absurd of her. Her brain, fatigued by travel, was
perhaps playing her tricks. But she felt as if Maurice were escaping from
her in this wild tarantella, like a man escaping through a fantastic
grotto from some one who called to him near its entrance. A faint
sensation of something that was surely jealousy, the first she had ever
known, stirred in her heart--jealousy of a tarantella.

"Maurice!" she said.

He did not hear her.

"Maurice!" she called. "Sebastiano--Gaspare--stop! You'll kill
yourselves!"

Sebastiano caught her eye, finished the tune, and took the flute from his
lips. In truth he was not sorry to be commanded to do the thing his pride
of music forbade him to do of his own will. Gaspare gave a wild, boyish
shout, and flung himself down on Giuseppe's knees, clasping him round the
neck jokingly. And Maurice--he stood still on the terrace for a moment
looking dazed. Then the hot blood surged up to his head, making it tingle
under his hair, and he came over slowly, almost shamefacedly, and sat
down by Hermione.

"This sun's made me mad, I think," he said, looking at her. "Why, how
pale you are, Hermione!"

"Am I? No, it must be the shadow of the awning makes me look so. Oh,
Maurice, you are indeed a southerner! Do you know, I feel--I feel as if I
had never really seen you till now, here on this terrace, as if I had
never known you as you are till now, now that I've watched you dance the
tarantella."

"I can't dance it, of course. It was absurd of me to try."

"Ask Gaspare! No, I'll ask him. Gaspare, can the padrone dance the
tarantella?"

"Eh--altro!" said Gaspare, with admiring conviction.

He got off Giuseppe's knee, where he had been curled up almost like a big
kitten, came and