pproach
of his enemy from the sea, but he did not neglect his two companions. For
he was fighting already. When he seemed natural in his cordiality to his
guest, when he spoke and laughed, when he apologized for the misfortune
of the previous day, he was fighting. The battle with circumstances was
joined. He must bear himself bravely in it. He must not allow himself to
be overwhelmed.

Nevertheless, there came presently a moment which brought with it a sense
of fear.

Hermione got up to go into the house.

"I must see what Lucrezia is doing," she said. "Your collazione must not
be a fiasco, Emile."

"Nothing could be a fiasco here, I think," he answered.

She laughed happily.

"But poor Lucrezia is not in paradise," she said. "Ah, why can't every
one be happy when one is happy one's self? I always think of that when
I----"

She did not finish her sentence in words. Her look at the two men
concluded it. Then she turned and went into the house.

"What is the matter with Lucrezia?" asked Artois.

"Oh, she--she's in love with a shepherd called Sebastiano."

"And he's treating her badly?"

"I'm afraid so. He went to the Lipari Isles, and he doesn't come back."

"A girl there keeps him captive?"

"It seems so."

"Faithful women must not expect to have a perfect time in Sicily," Artois
said.

As he spoke he noticed that a change came in his companion's face. It was
fleeting, but it was marked. It made Artois think:

"This man understands Sicilian faithlessness in love."

It made him, too, remember sharply some words of his own said long ago in
London:

"I love the South, but I distrust what I love, and I see the South in
him."

There was a silence between the two men. Heat was growing in the long
summer day, heat that lapped them in the influence of the South. Africa
had been hotter, but this seemed the breast of the South, full of glory
and of languor, and of that strange and subtle influence which inclines
the heart of man to passion and the body of man to yield to its desires.
It was glorious, this wonderful magic of the South, but was it wholesome
for Northern men? Was it not full of danger? As he looked at the great,
shining waste of the sea, purple and gold, dark and intense and jewelled,
at the outline of Etna, at the barbaric ruin of the Saracenic castle on
the cliff opposite, like a cry from the dead ages echoing out of the
quivering blue, at the man before him leaning against the blinding wh