"It's all the same."

"But perhaps Maddalena doesn't know. We are Sicilians here, signore."

"What do you mean? That Maddalena might--nonsense, Gaspare!"

There was a sound as of sudden pleasure, even sudden triumph, in his
voice.

"Are you sure you understand our girls, signore?"

"If Maddalena does like me there's no harm in it. She knows who I am now.
She knows I--she knows there is the signora."

"Si, signore. There is the signora. She is in Africa, but she is coming
back."

"Of course!"

"When the sick signore gets well?"

Maurice said nothing. He felt sure Gaspare was wondering again, wondering
that Hermione was in Africa.

"I cannot understand how it is in England," continued the boy. "Here it
is all quite different."

Again jealousy stirred in Maurice and a sensation almost of shame. For a
moment he felt like a Sicilian husband at whom his neighbors point the
two fingers of scorn, and he said something in his wrath which was
unworthy.

"You see how it is," he said. "If the signora can go to Africa to see her
friend, I can come down here to see mine. That is how it is with the
English."

He did not even try to keep the jealousy out of his voice, his manner.
Gaspare leaped to it.

"You did not like the signora to go to Africa!"

"Oh, she will come back. It's all right," Maurice answered, hastily.
"But, while she is there, it would be absurd if I might not speak to any
one."

Gaspare's burden of doubt, perhaps laid on his young shoulders by his
loyalty to his padrona, was evidently lightened.

"I see, signore," he said. "You can each have a friend. But have you
explained to Maddalena?"

"If you think it necessary, I will explain."

"It would be better, because she is Sicilian and she must think you love
her."

"Gaspare!"

The boy looked at him keenly and smiled.

"You would like her to think that?"

Maurice denied it vigorously, but Gaspare only shook his head and said:

"I know, I know. Girls are nicest when they think that, because they are
pleased and they want us to go on. You think I see nothing, signorino,
but I saw it all in Maddalena's face. Per Dio!"

And he laughed aloud, with the delight of a boy who has discovered
something, and feels that he is clever and a man. And Maurice laughed
too, not without a pride that was joyous. The heart of his youth, the
wild heart, bounded within him, and the glory of the sun, and the
passionate blue of the sea seemed suddenly deeper,