ears came into Maddalena's eyes. He did not know whether they were
summoned by his previous roughness or his present pathos. He wanted to
know.

"Probably I shall never come back to Sicily again," he said, with
pressure.

She said nothing.

"It will be better not," he added. "Much better."

Now he was speaking for himself.

"There's something here, something that I love and that's bad for me. I'm
quite changed here. I'm like another man."

He saw a sort of childish surprise creeping into her face.

"Why, signorino?" she murmured.

He kept his hand on hers and held it on the warm ground.

"Perhaps it is the sun," he said. "I lose my head here, and I--lose my
heart!"

She still looked rather surprised, and again her ignorance fascinated
him. He thought that it was far more attractive than any knowledge could
have been.

"I'm horribly happy here, but I oughtn't to be happy."

"Why, signorino? It is better to be happy."

"Per Dio!" he exclaimed.

Now a deep desire to have his revenge upon Salvatore came to him, but not
at all because it would hurt Salvatore. The cruelty had gone out of him.
Maddalena's eyes of a child had driven it away. He wanted his revenge
only because it would be an intense happiness to him to have it. He
wanted it because it would satisfy an imperious desire of tender passion,
not because it would infuriate a man who hated him. He forgot the father
in the daughter.

"Suppose I were quite poor, Maddalena!" he said.

"But you are very rich, signorino."

"But suppose I were poor, like Gaspare, for instance. Suppose I were as I
am, just the same, only a contadino, or a fisherman, as your father is.
And suppose--suppose"--he hesitated--"suppose that I were not married!"

She said nothing. She was listening with deep but still surprised
attention.

"Then I could--I could go to your father and ask him----"

He stopped.

"What could you ask him, signorino?"

"Can't you guess?"

"No, signore."

"I might ask him to let me marry you. I should--if it were like that--I
should ask him to let me marry you."

"Davvero?"

An expression of intense pleasure, and of something more--of pride--had
come into her face. She could not divest herself imaginatively of her
conception of him as a rich forestiere, and she saw herself placed high
above "the other girls," turned into a lady.

"Magari!" she murmured, drawing in her breath, then breathing out.

"You would be happy if I did that?"