Gaspare stared. "Eccomi!"

"Why, signorino, what is the matter? What has happened?"

"Happened? Nothing!"

"Then why do you look so black?"

"I! It's the shadow of the awning on my face."

He smiled. He kept on smiling.

"I say, Gasparino, how splendid the donkeys are! And you, too!"

He took hold of the boy by the shoulders and turned him round.

"Per Bacco! We shall make a fine show at the fair! I've got money, lot's

of money, to spend!"

He showed his portfolio, full of dirty notes. Gaspare's eyes began to

sparkle.

"Wait, signorino!"

He lifted his hands to Maurice's striped flannel jacket and thrust two

large bunches of flowers and ferns into the two button-holes, to right

and left.

"Bravo! Now, then."

"No, no, signorino! Wait!"

"More flowers! But where--what, over my ears, too!"

He began to laugh.

"But--"

"Si, signore, si! To-day you must be a real Siciliano!"

"Va bene!"

He bent down his head to be decorated.

"Pouf! They tickle! There, then! Now let's be off!"

He leaped onto Tito's back. Gaspare sprang up on the other donkey.

"Addio, Lucrezia!"

Maurice turned to her.

"Don't leave the house to-day."

"No, signore," said poor Lucrezia, in a deplorable voice.

"Mind, now! Don't go down to Marechiaro this afternoon."

There was an odd sound, almost of pleading, in his voice.

"No, signore."

"I trust you to be here--remember."

"Va bene, signorino!"

"Ah--a--a--ah!" shouted Gaspare.

They were off.

"Signorino," said Gaspare, presently, when they were in the shadow of the

ravine, "why did you say all that to Lucrezia?"

"All what?"

"All that about not leaving the house to-day?"

"Oh--why--it's better to have some one there."

"Si, signore. But why to-day specially?"

"I don't know. There's no particular reason."

"I thought there was."

"No, of course not. How could there be?"

"Non lo so."

"If Lucrezia goes down to the village they'll be filling her ears with

that stupid gossip about Sebastiano and that girl--Teodora."

"It was for Lucrezia then, signorino?"

"Yes, for Lucrezia. She's miserable enough already. I don't want her to

be a spectacle when--when the signora returns."

"I wonder when she is coming? I wonder why she has not written all these

days?"

"Oh, she'll soon come. We shall--we shall very soon have her here with

us."

He tried to speak naturally, but found the effort difficult, knowing what

he knew, that in the evening of that day Hermione would arrive at the

house of the priest and find no preparations made for her return, no one

to welcome her but Lucrezia--if, indeed, Lucrezia obeyed his orders and

refrained from descending to the village on the chance of hearing some

fresh news of her fickle lover. And Artois! There were no rooms engaged

for him at the Hôtel Regina Margherita. There were no flowers, no books.

Maurice tingled--his whole body tingled for a moment--and he felt like a

man guilty of some mean crime and arraigned before all the world. Then he

struck Tito with his switch, and began to gallop down the steep path at a

breakneck pace, sticking his feet far out upon either side. He would

forget. He would put away these thoughts that were tormenting him. He

would enjoy this day of pleasure for which he had sacrificed so much, for

which he had trampled down his self-respect in the dust.

When they reached the road by Isola Bella, Salvatore's boat was just

coming round the point, vigorously propelled by the fisherman's strong

arms over the radiant sea. It was a magnificent day, very hot but not

sultry, free from sirocco. The sky was deep blue, a passionate, exciting

blue that seemed vocal, as if it were saying thrilling things to the

world that lay beneath it. The waveless sea was purple, a sea, indeed, of

legend, a wine-dark, lustrous, silken sea. Into it, just here along this

magic coast, was surely gathered all the wonder of color of all the

southern seas. They must be blanched to make this marvel of glory, this

immense jewel of God. And the lemon groves were thick along the sea. And

the orange-trees stood in their decorative squadrons drinking in the

rays of the sun with an ecstatic submission. And Etna, snowless Etna,

rose to heaven out of this morning world, with its base in the purple

glory and its feather of smoke in the calling blue, child of the sea-god

and of the god that looks down from the height, majestically calm in the

riot of splendor that set the feet of June dancing in a great tarantella.

As Maurice saw the wonder of sea and sky, the boat coming in over the

sea, with Maddalena in the stern holding a bouquet of flowers, his heart

leaped up and he forgot for a moment the shadow in himself, the shadow of

his own unworthiness. He sprang off the donkey.

"I'll go down to meet them!" he cried. "Catch hold of Tito, Gaspare!"

The railway line ran along the sea, between road and beach. He had to

cross it. In doing so one of his feet struck the metal rail, which gave

out a dry sound. He looked down, suddenly recalled to a reality other

than the splendor of the morning, the rapture of this careless festa day.

And again he was conscious of the shadow. Along this line, in a few

hours, would come the train bearing Hermione and Artois. Hermione would

be at the window, eagerly looking out, full of happy anticipation,

leaning to catch the first sight of his face, to receive and return his

smile of welcome. What would her face be like when--? But Salvatore was

hailing him from the sea. Maddalena was waving her hand. The thing was

done. The die was cast. He had chosen his lot. Fiercely he put away from

him the thought of Hermione, lifted his voice in an answering hail, his

hand in a salutation which he tried to make carelessly joyous. The boat

glided in between the flat rocks. And then--then he was able to forget.

For Maddalena's long eyes were looking into his, with the joyousness of a

child's, and yet with something of the expectation of a woman's, too. And

her brown face was alive with a new and delicious self-consciousness,

asking him to praise her for the surprise she had prepared, in his honor

surely, specially for him, and not for her comrades and the public of the

fair.

"Maddalena!" he exclaimed.

He put out his hands to help her out. She stood on the gunwale of the

boat and jumped lightly down, with a little laugh, onto the beach.

"Maddalena! Per Dio! Ma che bellezza!"

She laughed again, and stood there on the stones before him smiling and

watching him, with her head a little on one side, and the hand that held

the tight bouquet of roses and ferns, round as a ring and red as dawn, up

to her lips, as if a sudden impulse prompted her now to conceal something

of her pleasure.

"Le piace?"

It came to him softly over the roses.

Maurice said nothing, but took her hand and looked at her. Salvatore was

fastening up the boat and putting the oars into their places, and getting

his jacket and hat.

What a transformation it was, making an almost new Maddalena! This

festival dress was really quite wonderful. He felt inclined to touch it

here and there, to turn Maddalena round for new aspects, as a child turns

round a marvellous doll.

Maddalena wore a tudischina, a bodice of blue cotton velvet, ornamented

with yellow silken fringes, and opening over the breast to show a section

of snowy white edged with little buttons of sparkling steel. Her

petticoat--the sinava--was of pea-green silk and thread, and was

partially covered by an apron, a real coquette of an apron, white and

green, with little pockets and puckers, and a green rosette where the

strings met round the supple waist. Her sleeves were of white muslin,

bound with yellow silk ribbons, and her stockings were blue, the color of

the bodice. On her feet were shining shoes of black leather, neatly tied

with small, black ribbons, and over her shoulders was a lovely shawl of

blue and white with a pattern of flowers. She wore nothing on her head,

but in her ears were heavy ear-rings, and round her neck was a thin

silver chain with bright-blue stones threaded on it here and there.

"Maddalena!" Maurice said, at last. "You are a queen to-day!"

He stopped, then he added:

"No, you are a siren to-day, the siren I once fancied you might be."

"A siren, signorino? What is that?"

"An enchantress of the sea with a voice that makes men--that makes men

feel they cannot go, they cannot leave it."

Maddalena lifted the roses a little higher to hide her face, but Maurice

saw that her eyes were still smiling, and it seemed to him that she

looked even more radiantly happy than when she had taken his hands to

spring down to the beach.

Now Salvatore came up in his glory of a dark-blue suit, with a gay shirt

of pink-and-white striped cotton, fastened at the throat with long, pink

strings that had tasselled ends, a scarlet bow-tie with a brass anchor

and the Italian flag thrust through it, yellow shoes, and a black hat,

placed well over the left ear. Upon the forefinger of his left hand he

displayed a thick snake-ring of tarnished metal, and he had a large,

overblown rose in his button-hole. His mustaches had been carefully

waxed, his hair cropped, and his hawklike, subtle, and yet violent face

well washed for the great occasion. With bold familiarity he seized

Maurice's hand.

"Buon giorno, signore. Come sta lei?"

"Benissimo."

"And Maddalena, signore? What do you think of Maddalena?"

He looked at his girl with a certain pride, and then back at Maurice

searchingly.

"Maddalena is beautiful to-day," Maurice answered, quickly. He did not

want to discuss her with her father, whom he longed to be rid of, whom he

meant to get rid of if possible at the fair. Surely it would be easy to

give him the slip there. He would be drinking with his companions, other

fishermen and contadini, or playing cards, or--yes, that was an idea!

"Salvatore!" Maurice exclaimed, catching hold of the fisherman's arm.

"Signore?"

"There'll be donkeys at the fair, eh?"

"Donkeys--per Dio! Why, last year there were over sixty, and--"

"And isn't there a donkey auction sometimes, towards the end of the day,

when they go cheap?"

"Si, signore! Si, signore!"

The fisherman's greedy little eyes were fixed on Maurice with keen

interrogation.

"Don't let us forget that," Maurice said, returning his gaze. "You're a

good judge of a donkey?"

Salvatore laughed.

"Per Bacco! There won't be a man at San Felice that can beat me at that!"

"Then perhaps you can do something for me. Perhaps you can buy me a

donkey. Didn't I speak of it before?"

"Si, signore. For the signora to ride when she comes back from Africa?"

He smiled.

"For a lady to ride," Maurice answered, looking at Maddalena.

Salvatore made a clicking noise with his tongue, a noise that suggested

eating. Then he spat vigorously and took from his jacket-pocket a long,

black cigar. This was evidently going to be a great day for him.

"Avanti, signorino! Avanti!"

Gaspare was shouting and waving his hat frantically from the road.

"Come along, Maddalena!"

They left the beach and climbed the bank, Maddalena walking carefully in

the shining shoes, and holding her green skirt well away from the bushes

with both hands. Maurice hurried across the railway line without looking

at it. He wanted to forget it. He was determined to forget it, and what

it was bringing to Cattaro that afternoon. They reached the group of four

donkeys which were standing patiently in the dusty white road.

"Mamma mia!" ejaculated Gaspare, as Maddalena came full into his sight.

"Madre mia! But you are like a burgisa dressed for the wedding-day, Donna

Maddalena!"

He wagged his head at her till the big roses above his ears shook like

flowers in a wind.

"Ora basta, ch' è tardu: jamu ad accumpagnari li Zitti!" he continued,

pronouncing the time-honored sentence which, at a rustic wedding, gives

the signal to the musicians to stop their playing, and to the assembled

company the hint that the moment has come to escort the bride to the new

home which her bridegroom has prepared for her.

Maddalena laughed and blushed all over her face, and Salvatore shouted

out a verse of a marriage song in high favor at Sicilian weddings:

"E cu saluti a li Zituzzi novi!

Chi bellu 'nguaggiamentu furtunatu!

Firma la menti, custanti lu cori,

E si cci arriva a lu jornu biatu--"

Meanwhile, Maurice helped Maddalena onto her donkey, and paid and

dismissed the boy who had brought it and Salvatore's beast from

Marechiaro. Then he took out his watch.

"A quarter-past ten," he said. "Off we go! Now, Gaspare--uno! due! tre!"

They leaped simultaneously onto their donkeys, Salvatore clambered up on

his, and the little cavalcade started off on the long, white road that

ran close along the sea, Maddalena and Maurice in the van, Salvatore and

Gaspare behind. Just at first they all kept close together, but Sicilians

are very careful of their festa clothes, and soon Salvatore and Gaspare

dropped farther behind to avoid the clouds of dust stirred up by the

tripping feet of the donkeys in front. Their chattering voices died away,

and when Maurice looked back he saw them at a distance which rendered his

privacy with Maddalena more complete than anything he had dared to hope

for so early in the day. Yet now that they were thus alone he felt as if

he had nothing to say to her. He did not feel exactly constrained, but it

seemed to him that, to-day, he could not talk the familiar commonplaces

to her, or pay her obvious compliments. They might, they would please

her, but something in himself would resent them. This was to be such a

great day. He had wanted it with such ardor, he had been so afraid of

missing it, he had gained it at the cost of so much self-respect, that it

ought to be extraordinary from dawn to dark, and he and Maddalena to be

unusual, intense--something, at least, more eager, more happy, more

intimate than usual in it.

And then, too, as he looked at her riding along by the sea, with her

young head held rather high and a smile of innocent pride in her eyes, he

remembered that this day was their good-bye. Maddalena did not know that.

Probably she did not think about the future. But he knew it. They might

meet again. They would doubtless meet again. But it would all be

different. He would be a serious married man, who could no longer frolic

as if he were still a boy like Gaspare. This was the last day of his

intimate friendship with Maddalena.

That seemed to him very strange. He had become accustomed to her society,

to her naïve curiosity, her girlish, simple gayety, so accustomed to it

all that he could not imagine life without it, could scarcely realize

what life had been before he knew Maddalena. It seemed to him that he

must have always known Maddalena. And she--what did she feel about that?

"Maddalena!" he said.

"Si, signore."

She turned her head and glanced at him, smiling, as if she were sure of

hearing something pleasant. To-day, in her pretty festa dress, she looked

intended for happiness. Everything about her conveyed the suggestion that

she was expectant of joy. The expression in her eyes was a summons to the

world to be very kind and good to her, to give her only pleasant things,

things that could not harm her.

"Maddalena, do you feel as if you had known me long?"

She nodded her head.

"Si, signore."

"How long?"

She spread out one hand with the fingers held apart.

"Oh, signore--but always! I feel as if I had known you always."

"And yet it's only a few days."

"Si, signore."

She acquiesced calmly. The problem did not seem to puzzle her, the

problem of this feeling so ill-founded. It was so. Very well, then--so it

was.

"And," he went on, "do you feel as if you would always know me?"

"Si, signore. Of course."

"But I shall go away, I am going away."

For a moment her face clouded. But the influence of joy was very strong

upon her to-day, and the cloud passed.

"But you will come back, signorino. You will always come back."

"How do you know that?"

A pretty slyness crept into her face, showed in the curve of the young

lips, in the expression of the young eyes.

"Because you like to be here, because you like the Siciliani. Isn't it

true?"

"Yes," he said, almost passionately. "It's true! Ah, Maddalena--"

But at this moment a group of people from Marechiaro suddenly appeared

upon the road beside them, having descended from the village by a

mountain-path. There were exclamations, salutations. Maddalena's gown was

carefully examined by the women of the party. The men exchanged

compliments with Maurice. Then Salvatore and Gaspare, seeing friends,

came galloping up, shouting, in a cloud of dust. A cavalcade was formed,

and henceforth Maurice was unable to exchange any more confidences with

Maddalena. He felt vexed at first, but the boisterous merriment of all

these people, their glowing anticipation of pleasure, soon infected him.

His heart was lightened of its burden and the spirit of the careless boy

awoke in him. He would take no thought for the morrow, he would be able

to take no thought so long as he was in this jocund company. As they

trotted forward in a white mist along the shining sea Maurice was one of

the gayest among them. No laugh rang out more frequently than his, no

voice chatted more vivaciously. The conscious effort which at first he

had to make seemed to give him an impetus, to send him onward with a rush

so that he outdistanced his companions. Had any one observed him closely

during that ride to the fair he might well have thought that here was a

nature given over to happiness, a nature that was utterly sunny in the

sun.

They passed through the town of Cattaro, where was the station for

Marechiaro. For a moment Maurice felt a pang of self-contempt, and of

something more, of something that was tender, pitiful even, as he thought

of Hermione's expectation disappointed. But it died away, or he thrust

it away. The long street was full of people, either preparing to start

for the fair themselves or standing at their doors to watch their friends

start. Donkeys were being saddled and decorated with flowers. Tall,

painted carts were being harnessed to mules. Visions of men being

lathered and shaved, of women having their hair dressed or their hair

searched, Sicilian fashion, of youths trying to curl upward scarcely born

mustaches, of children being hastily attired in clothes which made them

wriggle and squint, came to the eyes from houses in which privacy was not

so much scorned as unthought of, utterly unknown. Turkeys strolled in and

out among the toilet-makers. Pigs accompanied their mistresses from

doorway to doorway as dogs accompany the women of other countries. And

the cavalcade of the people of Marechiaro was hailed from all sides with

pleasantries and promises to meet at the fair, with broad jokes or

respectful salutations. Many a "Benedicite!" or "C'ci basu li mano!"

greeted Maurice. Many a berretto was lifted from heads that he had never

seen to his knowledge before. He was made to feel by all that he was

among friends, and as he returned the smiles and salutations he

remembered the saying Hermione had repeated: "Every Sicilian, even if he

wears a long cap and sleeps in a hut with the pigs, is a gentleman," and

he thought it very true.

It seemed as if they would never get away from the street. At every

moment they halted. One man begged them to wait a moment till his donkey

was saddled, so that he might join them. Another, a wine-shop keeper,

insisted on Maurice's testing his moscato, and thereupon Maurice felt

obliged to order glasses all round, to the great delight of Gaspare, who

always felt himself to be glorified by the generosity of his padrone, and

who promptly took the proceedings in charge, measured out the wine in

appropriate quantities, handed it about, and constituted himself master

of the ceremony. Already, at eleven o'clock, brindisi were invented, and

Maurice was called upon to "drop into poetry." Then Maddalena caught

sight of some girl friends, and must needs show them all her finery. For

this purpose she solemnly dismounted from her donkey to be closely

examined on the pavement, turned about, shook forth her pea-green skirt,

took off her chain for more minute inspection, and measured the silken

fringes of her shawl in order to compare them with other shawls which

were hastily brought out from a house near-by.

But Gaspare, always a little ruthless with women, soon tired of such

vanities.

"Avanti! Avanti!" he shouted. "Dio mio! Le donne sono pazze! Andiamo!

Andiamo!"

He hustled Maddalena, who yielded, blushing and laughing, to his

importunities, and at last they were really off again, and drowned in a

sea of odor as they passed some buildings where lemons were being packed

to be shipped away from Sicily. This smell seemed to Maurice to be the

very breath of the island. He drank it in eagerly. Lemons, lemons, and

the sun! Oranges, lemons, yellow flowers under the lemons, and the sun!

Always yellow, pale yellow, gold yellow, red-gold yellow, and white, and

silver-white, the white of the roads, the silver-white of dusty olive

leaves, and green, the dark, lustrous, polished green of orange leaves,

and purple and blue, the purple of sea, the blue of sky. What a riot of

talk it was, and what a riot of color! It made Maurice feel almost drunk.

It was heady, this island of the south--heady in the summer-time. It had

a powerful influence, an influence that was surely an excuse for much.

Ah, the stay-at-homes, who condemned the far-off passions and violences

of men! What did they know of the various truths of the world? How should

one in Clapham judge one at the fair of San Felice? Avanti! Avanti!

Avanti along the blinding white road by the sea, to the village on which

great Etna looked down, not harshly for all its majesty. Nature

understood. And God, who made Nature, who was behind Nature--did not He

understand? There is forgiveness surely in great hearts, though the small

hearts have no space to hold it.

Something like this Maurice thought for a moment, ere a large

thoughtlessness swept over him, bred of the sun and the odors, the

movement, the cries and laughter of his companions, the gay gown and the

happy glances of Maddalena, even of the white dust that whirled up from

the feet of the cantering donkeys.

And so, ever laughing, ever joking, gayly, almost tumultuously, they

rushed upon the fair.

San Felice is a large village in the plain at the foot of Etna. It lies

near the sea between Catania and Messina, but beyond the black and

forbidding lava land. Its patron saint, Protettore di San Felice, is

Sant' Onofrio, and this was his festival. In the large, old church in the

square, which was the centre of the life of the fiera, his image,

smothered in paint, sumptuously decorated with red and gold and bunches

of artificial flowers, was exposed under a canopy with pillars; and thin

squares of paper reproducing its formal charms--the oval face with large

eyes and small, straight nose, the ample forehead, crowned with hair that

was brought down to a point in the centre, the undulating, divided beard

descending upon the breast, one hand holding a book, the other upraised

in a blessing--were sold for a soldo to all who would buy them.

The first thing the party from Isola Bella and from Marechiaro did, when

they had stabled their donkeys at Don Leontini's, in the Via Bocca di

Leone, was to pay the visit of etiquette to Sant' Onofrio. Their laughter

was stilled at the church doorway, through which women and men draped in

shawls, lads and little children, were coming and going. Their faces

assumed expressions of superstitious reverence and devotion. And, going

up one by one to the large image of the saint, they contemplated it with

awe, touched its hand or the hem of its robe, made the sign of the cross,

and retreated, feeling that they were blessed for the day.

Maddalena approached the saint with Maurice and Gaspare. She and Gaspare

touched the hand that held the book, made the sign of the cross, then

stared at Maurice to see why he did nothing. He quickly followed their

example. Maddalena, who was pulling some of the roses from her tight

bouquet, whispered to him:

"Sant' Onofrio will bring us good-fortune."

"Davvero?" he whispered back.

"Si! Si!" said Gaspare, nodding his head.

While Maddalena laid her flowers upon the lap of the saint, Gaspare

bought from a boy three sheets of paper containing Sant' Onofrio's

reproduction, and three more showing the effigies of San Filadelfo, Sant'

Alfio, and San Cirino.

"Ecco, Donna Maddalena! Ecco, signorino!"

He distributed his purchases, keeping two for himself. These last he very

carefully and solemnly folded up and bestowed in the inner pocket of his

jacket, which contained a leather portfolio, given to him by Maurice to

carry his money in.

"Ecco!" he said, once more, as he buttoned the flap of the pocket as a

precaution against thieves.

And with that final exclamation he dismissed all serious thoughts.

"Mangiamo, signorino!" he said. "Ora basta!"

And they went forth into the sunshine. Salvatore was talking to some

fishermen from Catania upon the steps. They cast curious glances at

Maurice as he came out with Maddalena, and, when Salvatore went off with

his daughter and the forestiere, they laughed among themselves and

exchanged some remarks that were evidently merry. But Maurice did not

heed them. He was not a self-conscious man. And Maddalena was far too

happy to suppose that any one could be saying nasty things about her.

"Where are we going to eat?" asked Maurice.

"This way, this way, signorino!" replied Gaspare, elbowing a passage

through the crowd. "You must follow me. I know where to go. I have many

friends here."

The truth of this statement was speedily made manifest. Almost every

third person they met saluted Gaspare, some kissing him upon both cheeks,

others grasping his hand, others taking him familiarly by the arm. Among

the last was a tall boy with jet-black, curly hair and a long, pale face,

whom Gaspare promptly presented to his padrone, by the name of Amedeo

Buccini.

"Amedeo is a parrucchiere, signorino," he said, "and my compare, and the

best dancer in San Felice. May he eat with us?"

"Of course."

Gaspare informed Amedeo, who took off his hat, held it in his hand, and

smiled all over his face with pleasure.

"Yes, Gaspare is my compare, signore," he affirmed. "Compare, compare,

compareddu"--he glanced at Gaspare, who joined in with him:

"Compare, compare, compareddu,

Io ti voglio molto bene,

Mangiamo sempre insieme--

Mangiamo carne e riso

E andiamo in Paradiso!"

"Carne e riso--si!" cried Maurice, laughing. "But Paradise! Must you go

to Paradise directly afterwards, before the dancing and before the

procession and before the fireworks?"

"No, signore," said Gaspare. "When we are very old, when we cannot dance

any more--non è vero, Amedeo?--then we will go to Paradiso."

"Yes," agreed the tall boy, quite seriously, "then we will go to

Paradiso."

"And I, too," said Maurice; "and Maddalena, but not till then."

What a long time away that would be!

"Here is the ristorante!"

They had reached a long room with doors open onto the square, opposite to

the rows of booths which were set up under the shadow of the church.

Outside of it were many small tables and numbers of chairs on which

people were sitting, contemplating the movement of the crowd of buyers

and sellers, smoking, drinking syrups, gazzosa, and eating ices and flat

biscuits.

Gaspare guided them through the throng to a long table set on a sanded

floor.

"Ecco, signorino!"

He installed Maurice at the top of the table.

"And you sit here, Donna Maddalena."

He placed her at Maurice's right hand, and was going to sit down himself

on the left, when Salvatore roughly pushed in before him, seized the

chair, sat in it, and leaned his arms on the table with a loud laugh that

sounded defiant. An ugly look came into Gaspare's face.

"Macchè--" he began, angrily.

But Maurice silenced him with a quick look.

"Gaspare, you come here, by Maddalena!"

"Ma--"

"Come along, Gasparino, and tell us what we are to have. You must order

everything. Where's the cameriere? Cameriere! Cameriere!"

He struck on his glass with a fork. A waiter came running.

"Don Gaspare will order for us all," said Maurice to him, pointing to

Gaspare.

His diplomacy was successful. Gaspare's face cleared, and in a moment he

was immersed in an eager colloquy with the waiter, another friend of his

from Marechiaro. Amedeo Buccini took a place by Gaspare, and all those

from Marechiaro, who evidently considered that they belonged to the

Inglese's party for the day, arranged themselves as they pleased and

waited anxiously for the coming of the macaroni.

A certain formality now reigned over the assembly. The movement of the

road in the outside world by the sea had stirred the blood, had loosened

tongues and quickened spirits. But a meal in a restaurant, with a rich

English signore presiding at the head of the table, was an unaccustomed

ceremony. Dark faces that had been lit up with laughter now looked almost

ludicrously discreet. Brown hands which had been in constant activity,

talking as plainly, and more expressively, than voices, now lay limply

upon the white cloth or were placed upon knees motionless as the knees of

statues. And all eyes were turned towards the giver of the feast, mutely

demanding of him a signal of conduct to guide his inquiring guests. But

Maurice, too, felt for the moment tongue-tied. He was very sensitive to

influences, and his present position, between Maddalena and her father,

created within him a certain confusion of feelings, an odd sensation of

being between two conflicting elements. He was conscious of affection and

of enmity, both close to him, both strong, the one ready to show itself,

the other determined to remain in hiding. He glanced at Salvatore, and

met the fisherman's keen gaze. Behind the instant smile in the glittering

eyes he divined, rather than saw, the shadow of his hatred. And for a

moment he wondered. Why should Salvatore hate him? It was reasonable to

hate a man for a wrong done, even for a wrong deliberately contemplated

with intention--the intention of committing it. But he had done no real

wrong to Salvatore. Nor had he any evil intention with regard to him or

his. So far he had only brought pleasure into their lives, his life and

Maddalena's--pleasure and money. If there had been any secret pain

engendered by their mutual intercourse it was his. And this day was the

last of their intimacy, though Salvatore and Maddalena did not know it.

Suddenly a desire, an almost weak desire, came to him to banish

Salvatore's distrust of him, a distrust which he was more conscious of at

this moment than ever before.

He did not know of the muttered comments of the fishermen from Catania as

he and Maddalena passed down the steps of the church of Sant' Onofrio.

But Salvatore's sharp ears had caught them and the laughter that followed

them, and his hot blood was on fire. The words, the laughter had touched

his sensitive Sicilian pride--the pride of the man who means never to be

banished from the Piazza--as a knife touches a raw wound. And as Maurice

had set a limit to his sinning--his insincerity to Hermione, his betrayal

of her complete trust in him, nothing more--so Salvatore now, while he

sat at meat with the Inglese, mentally put a limit to his own

complaisance, a complaisance which had been born of his intense avarice.

To-day he would get all he could out of the Inglese--money, food, wine, a

donkey--who knew what? And then--good-bye to soft speeches. Those

fishermen, his friends, his comrades, his world, in fact, should have

their mouths shut once for all. He knew how to look after his girl, and

they should know that he knew, they and all Marechiaro, and all San

Felice, and all Cattaro. His limit, like Maurice's, was that day of the

fair, and it was nearly reached. For the hours were hurrying towards the

night and farewells.

Moved by his abrupt desire to stand well with everybody during this last

festa, Maurice began to speak to Salvatore of the donkey auction. When

would it begin?

"Chi lo sa?"

No one knew. In Sicily all feasts are movable. Even mass may begin an

hour too late or an hour too early. One thought the donkey auction would

start at fourteen, another at sixteen o'clock. Gaspare was imperiously

certain, over the macaroni, which had now made its appearance, that the

hour was seventeen. There were to be other auctions, auctions of

wonderful things. A clock that played music--the "Marcia Reale" and the

"Tre Colori"--was to be put up; suits of clothes, too; boots, hats, a

chair that rocked like a boat on the sea, a revolver ornamented with

ivory. Already--no one knew when, for no one had missed him--he had been

to view these treasures. As he spoke of them tongues were loosed and eyes

shone with excitement. Money was in the air. Prices were passionately

discussed, values debated. All down the table went the words "soldi,"

"lire," "lire sterline," "biglietti da cinque," "biglietti da dieci."

Salvatore's hatred died away, suffocated for the moment under the weight

of his avarice. A donkey--yes, he meant to get a donkey with the

stranger's money. But why stop there? Why not have the clock and the

rocking-chair and the revolver? His sharpness of the Sicilian, a

sharpness almost as keen and sure as that of the Arab, divined the

intensity, the recklessness alive in the Englishman to-day, bred of that

limit, "my last day of the careless life," to which his own limit was

twin-brother, but of which he knew nothing. And as Maurice was intense

to-day, because there were so few hours left to him for intensity, so was

Salvatore intense in a different way, but for a similar reason. They were

walking in step without being aware of it. Or were they not rather racing

neck to neck, like passionate opponents?

There was little time. Then they must use what there was to the full.

They must not let one single moment find them lazy, indifferent.

[Illustration: "'I AM CONTENT WITHOUT ANYTHING, SIGNORINO,' SHE SAID"]

Under the cover of the flood of talk Maurice turned to Maddalena. She was

taking no part in it, but was eating her macaroni gently, as if it

were a new and wonderful food. So Maurice thought as he looked at her.

To-day there was something strange, almost pathetic, to him in Maddalena,

a softness, an innocent refinement that made him imagine her in another

life than hers, and with other companions, in a life as free but less

hard, with companions as natural but less ruthless to women.

"Maddalena," he said to her. "They all want to buy things at the

auction."

"Si, signore."

"And you?"

"I, signorino?"

"Yes, don't you want to buy something?"

He was testing her, testing her memory. She looked at him above her fork,

from which the macaroni streamed down.

"I am content without anything, signorino," she said.

"Without the blue dress and the ear-rings, longer than that?" He measured

imaginary ear-rings in the air. "Have you forgotten, Maddalena?"

She blushed and bent over her plate. She had not forgotten. All the day

since she rose at dawn she had been thinking of Maurice's old promise.

But she did not know that he remembered it, and his remembrance of it

came to her now as a lovely surprise. He bent his head down nearer to

her.

"When they are all at the auction, we will go to buy the blue dress and

the ear-rings," he almost whispered. "We will go by ourselves. Shall we?"

"Si, signore."

Her voice was very small and her cheeks still held their flush. She

glanced, with eyes that were unusually conscious, to right and left of

her, to see if the neighbors had noticed their colloquy. And that look of

consciousness made Maurice suddenly understand that this limit which he

had put to his sinning--so he had called it with a sort of angry mental

sincerity, summoned, perhaps, to match the tremendous sincerity of his

wife which he was meeting with a lie to-day--his sinning against Hermione

was also a limit to something else. Had he not sinned against Maddalena,

sinned when he had kissed her, when he had shown her that he delighted to

be with her? Was he not sinning now when he promised to buy for her the

most beautiful things of the fair? For a moment he thought to himself

that his fault against Maddalena was more grave, more unforgivable than

his fault against Hermione. But then a sudden anger that was like a

storm, against his own condemnation of himself, swept through him. He had

come out to-day to be recklessly happy, and here he was giving himself up

to gloom, to absurd self-torture. Where was his natural careless

temperament? To-day his soul was full of shadows, like the soul of a man

going to meet a doom.

"Where's the wine?" he called to Gaspare. "Wine, cameriere, wine!"

"You must not drink wine with the pasta, signorino!" cried Gaspare. "Only

afterwards, with the vitello."

"Have you ordered vitello? Capital! But I've finished my pasta and I'm

thirsty. Well, what do you want to buy at the auction, Gaspare, and you,

Amedeo, and you Salvatore?"

He plunged into the talk and made Salvatore show his keen desires,

encouraging and playing with his avarice, now holding it off for a

moment, then coaxing it as one coaxes an animal, stroking it, tempting it

to a forward movement. The wine went round now, for the vitello was on

the table, and the talk grew more noisy, the laughter louder. Outside,

too, the movement and the tumult of the fair were increasing. Cries of

men selling their wares rose up, the hard melodies of a piano-organ, and

a strange and ecclesiastical chant sung by three voices that, repeated

again and again, at last attracted Maurice's attention.

"What's that?" he asked of Gaspare. "Are those priests chanting?"

"Priests! No, signore. Those are the Romani."

"Romans here! What are they doing?"

"They have a cart decorated with flags, signorino, and they are selling

lemon-water and ices. All the people say that they are Romans and that is

how they sing in Rome."

The long and lugubrious chant of the ice-venders rose up again, strident

and melancholy as a song chanted over a corpse.

"It's funny to sing like that to sell ices," Maurice said. "It sounds

like men at a funeral."

"Oh, they are very good ices, signorino. The Romans make splendid ices."

Turkey followed the vitello.

Maurice's guests were now completely at ease and perfectly happy. The

consciousness that all this was going to be paid for, that they would not

have to put their hands in their pockets for a soldo, warmed their hearts

as the wine warmed their bodies. Amedeo's long, white face was becoming

radiant, and even Salvatore softened towards the Inglese. A sort of

respect, almost furtive, came to him for the wealth that could carelessly

entertain this crowd of people, that could buy clocks, chairs, donkeys at

pleasure, and scarcely know that soldi were gone, scarcely miss them. As

he attacked his share of the turkey vigorously, picking up the bones with

his fingers and tearing the flesh away with his white teeth, he tried to

realize what such wealth must mean to the possessor of it, an effort

continually made by the sharp-witted, very poor man. And this wealth--for

the moment some of it was at his command! To ask to-day would be to have.

Instinctively he knew that, and felt like one with money in the bank. If

only it might be so to-morrow and for many days! He began to regret the

limit, almost to forget the sound of the laughter of the Catania

fishermen upon the steps of the church of Sant' Onofrio. His pride was

going to sleep, and his avarice was opening its eyes wider.

When the meal was over they went out onto the pavement to take coffee in

the open air. The throng was much greater than it had been when they

entered, for people were continually arriving from the more distant

villages, and two trains had come in from Messina and Catania. It was

difficult to find a table. Indeed, it might have been impossible had not

Gaspare ruthlessly dislodged a party of acquaintances who were

comfortably established around one in a prominent position.

"I must have a table for my padrone," he said. "Go along with you!"

And they meekly went, smiling, and without ill-will--indeed, almost as if

they had received a compliment.

"But, Gaspare," began Maurice, "I can't--"

"Here is a chair for you, signorino. Take it quickly."

"At any rate, let us offer them something."

"Much better spare your soldi now, signorino, and buy something at the

auction. That clock plays the 'Tre Colori' just like a band."

"Buy it. Here is some money."

He thrust some notes into the boy's ready hand.

"Grazie, signorino. Ecco la musica!"

In the distance there rose the blare of a processional march from "Aïda,"

and round the corner of the Via di Polifemo came a throng of men and boys

in dark uniforms, with epaulets and cocked hats with flying plumes,

blowing with all their might into wind instruments of enormous size.

"That is the musica of the città, signore," explained Amedeo. "Afterwards

there will be the Musica Mascagni and the Musica Leoncavallo."

"Mamma mia! And will they all play together?"

"No, signore. They have quarrelled. At Pasqua we had no music, and the

archpriest was hooted by all in the Piazza."

"Why?"

"Non lo so. I think he had forbidden the Musica Mascagni to play at Madre

Lucia's funeral, and the Musica Mascagni went to fight with the Musica

della città. To-day they will all play, because it is the festa of the

Santo Patrono, but even for him they will not play together."

The bandsmen had now taken their places upon a wooden dais exactly

opposite to the restaurant, and were indulging in a military rendering of

"Celeste Aïda," which struck most of the Sicilians at the small tables to

a reverent silence. Maddalena's eyes had become almost round with

pleasure, Gaspare was singing the air frankly with Amedeo, and even

Salvatore seemed soothed and humanized, as he sipped his coffee, puffed

at a thin cigar, and eyed the women who were slowly sauntering up and

down to show their finery. At the windows of most of the neighboring

houses appeared parties of dignified gazers, important personages of the

town, who owned small balconies commanding the piazza, and who now

stepped forth upon these coigns of vantage, and leaned upon the rails

that they might see and be seen by the less favored ones below. Amedeo

and Gaspare began to name these potentates. The stout man with a gray

mustache, white trousers, and a plaid shawl over his shoulders was Signor

Torloni, the syndic of San Felice. The tall, angry-looking gentleman,

with bulging, black eyes and wrinkled cheeks, was Signor Carata, the

avvocato; and the lady in black and a yellow shawl was his wife, who was

the daughter of the syndic. Close by was Signorina Maria Sacchetti, the

beauty of San Felice, already more than plump, but with a good

complexion, and hair so thick that it stood out from her satisfied face

as if it were trained over a trellis. She wore white, and long, thread

gloves which went above her elbows. Maddalena regarded her with awe when

Amedeo mentioned a rumor that she was going to be "promised" to Dr.

Marinelli, who was to be seen at her side, wearing a Gibus hat and

curling a pair of gigantic black mustaches.

Maurice listened to the music and the chatter which, silenced by the

arrival of the music, had now burst forth again, with rather indifferent

ears. He wanted to get away somewhere and to be alone with Maddalena. The

day was passing on. Soon night would be falling. The fair would be at an

end. Then would come the ride back, and then----But he did not care to

look forward into that future. He had not done so yet. He would not do so

now. It would be better, when the time came, to rush upon it blindly.

Preparation, forethought, would only render him unnatural. And he must

seem natural, utterly natural, in his insincere surprise, in his

insincere regret.

"Pay for the coffee, Gaspare," he said, giving the boy some money. "Now I

want to walk about and see everything. Where are the donkeys?"

He glanced at Salvatore.

"Oh, signore," said Gaspare, "they are outside the town in the

watercourse that runs under the bridge--you know, that broke down this

spring where the line is? They have only just finished mending it."

"I remember your telling me."

"And you were so glad the signora was travelling the other way."

"Yes, yes."

He spoke hastily. Salvatore was on his feet.

"What hour have we?"

Maurice looked at his watch.

"Half-past two already! I say, Salvatore, you mustn't forget the

donkeys."

Salvatore came close up to him.

"Signore," he began, in a low voice, "what do you wish me to do?"

"Bid for a good donkey."

"Si, signore."

"For the best donkey they put up for sale."

Salvatore began to look passionately eager.

"Si, signore. And if I get it?"

"Come to me and I will give you the money to pay."

"Si, signore. How high shall I go?"

Gaspare was listening intently, with a hard face and sullen eyes. His

whole body seemed to be disapproving what Maurice was doing. But he said

nothing. Perhaps he felt that to-day it would be useless to try to govern

the actions of his padrone.

"How high? Well"--Maurice felt that, before Gaspare, he must put a limit

to his price, though he did not care what it was--"say a hundred. Here,

I'll give it you now."

He put his hand into his pocket and drew out his portfolio.

"There's the hundred."

Salvatore took it eagerly, spread it over his hand, stared at it, then

folded it with fingers that seemed for the moment almost delicate, and

put it into the inside pocket of his jacket. He meant to go presently and

show it to the fishermen of Catania, who had laughed upon the steps of

the church, and explain matters to them a little. They thought him a

fool. Well, he would soon make them understand who was the fool.

"Grazie, signore!"

He said it through his teeth. Maurice turned to Gaspare. He felt the

boy's stern disapproval of what he had done, and wanted, if possible, to

make amends.

"Gaspare," he said, "here is a hundred lire for you. I want you to go to

the auction and to bid for anything you think worth having. Buy

something for your mother and father, for the house, some nice things!"

"Grazie, signore."

He took the note, but without alacrity, and his face was still lowering.

"And you, signore?" he asked.

"I?"

"Yes. Are you not coming with me to the auction? It will be better for

you to be there to choose the things."

For an instant Maurice felt irritated. Was he never to be allowed a

moment alone with Maddalena?

"Oh, but I'm no good at----" he began.

Then he stopped. To-day he must be birbante--on his guard. Once the

auction was in full swing--so he thought--Salvatore and Gaspare would be

as they were when they gambled beside the sea. They would forget

everything. It would be easy to escape. But till that moment came he must

be cautious.

"Of course I'll come," he exclaimed, heartily. "But you must do the

bidding, Gaspare."

The boy looked less sullen.

"Va bene, signorino. I shall know best what the things are worth. And

Salvatore"--he glanced viciously at the fisherman--"can go to the

donkeys. I have seen them. They are poor donkeys this year."

Salvatore returned his vicious glance and said something in dialect which

Maurice did not understand. Gaspare's face flushed, and he was about to

burst into an angry reply when Maurice touched his arm.

"Come along, Gaspare!"

As they got up, he whispered:

"Remember what I said about to-day!"

"Macchè----"

Maurice closed his fingers tightly on Gaspare's arm.

"Gaspare, you must remember! Afterwards what you like, but not to-day.

Andiamo!"

They all got up. The Musica della città was now playing a violent jig,

undoubtedly composed by Bellini, who was considered almost as a child of

San Felice, having been born close by at Catania.

"Where are the women in the wonderful blue dresses?" Maurice asked, as

they stepped into the road; "and the ear-rings? I haven't seen them yet."

"They will come towards evening, signorino," replied Gaspare, "when it

gets cool. They do not care to be in the sun dressed like that. It might

spoil their things."

Evidently the promenade of these proud beauties was an important

function.

"We must not miss them," Maurice said to Maddalena.

She looked conscious.

"No, signore."

"They will all be here this evening, signore," said Amedeo, "for the

giuochi di fuoco."

"The giuochi di fuoco--they will be at the end?"

"Si, signore. After the giuochi di fuoco it is all finished."

Maurice stifled a sigh. "It is all finished," Amedeo had said. But for

him? For him there would be the ride home up the mountain, the arrival

upon the terrace before the house of the priest. At what hour would he be

there? It would be very late, perhaps nearly at dawn, in the cold, still,

sad hour when vitality is at its lowest. And Hermione? Would she be

sleeping? How would they meet? How would he----?

"Andiamo! Andiamo!"

He cried out almost angrily.

"Which is the way?"

"All the auctions are held outside the town, signore," said Amedeo.

"Follow me."

Proudly he took the lead, glad to be useful and important after the

benefits that had been bestowed upon him, and hoping secretly that

perhaps the rich Inglese would give him something to spend, too, since

money was so plentiful for donkeys and clocks.

"They are in the fiume, near the sea and the railway line."

The railway line! When he heard that Maurice had a moment's absurd

sensation of reluctance, a desire to hold back, such as comes to a man

who is unexpectedly asked to confront some danger. It seemed to him that

if he went to the watercourse he might be seen by Hermione and Artois as

they passed by on their way to Marechiaro. But of course they were coming

from Messina! What a fool he was to-day! His recklessness seemed to have

deserted him just when he wanted it most. To-day he was not himself. He

was a coward. What it was that made him a coward he did not tell himself.

"Then we can all go together," he said. "Salvatore and all."

"Si, signore."

Salvatore's voice was close at his ear, and he knew by the sound of it

that the fisherman was smiling.

"We can all keep together, signore; then we shall be more gay."

They threaded their way through the throng. The violent jig of Bellini

died away gradually, till it was faint in the distance. At the end of the

narrow street Maurice saw the large bulk of Etna. On this clear afternoon

it looked quite close, almost as if, when they got out of the street,

they would be at its very foot, and would have to begin to climb. Maurice

remembered his wild longing to carry Maddalena off upon the sea, or to

some eyrie in the mountains, to be alone with her in some savage place.

Why not give all these people the slip now--somehow--when the fun of the

fair was at its height, mount the donkeys and ride straight for the huge

mountain? There were caverns there and desolate lava wastes; there were

almost impenetrable beech forests. Sebastiano had told him tales of

them, those mighty forests that climbed up to green lawns looking down

upon the Lipari Isles. He thought of their silence and their shadows,

their beds made of the drifted leaves of the autumn. There, would be no

disturbance, no clashing of wills and of interests, but calm and silence

and the time to love. He glanced at Maddalena. He could hardly help

imagining that she knew what he was thinking of. Salvatore had dropped

behind for a moment. Maurice did not know it, but the fisherman had

caught sight of his comrades of Catania drinking in a roadside wine-shop,

and had stopped to show them the note for a hundred francs, and to make

them understand the position of affairs between him and the forestiere.

Gaspare was talking eagerly to Amedeo about the things that were likely

to be put up for sale at the auction.

"Maddalena," Maurice said to the girl, in a low voice, "can you guess

what I am thinking about?"

She shook her head.

"No, signore."

"You see the mountain!"

He pointed to the end of the little street.

"Si, signore."

"I am thinking that I should like to go there now with you."

"Ma, signorino--the fiera!"

Her voice sounded plaintive with surprise and she glanced at her

pea-green skirt.

"And this, signorino!"--she touched it carefully with her slim fingers.

"How could I go in this?"

"When the fair is over, then, and you are in your every-day gown,

Maddalena, I should like to carry you off to Etna."

"They say there are briganti there."

"Brigands--would you be afraid of them with me?"

"I don't know, signore. But what should we do there on Etna far away from

the sea and from Marechiaro?"

"We should"--he whispered in her ear, seizing this chance almost angrily,

almost defiantly, with the thought of Salvatore in his mind--"we should

love each other, Maddalena. It is quiet in the beech forests on Etna. No

one would come to disturb us, and----"

A chuckle close to his ear made him start. Salvatore's hand was on his

arm, and Salvatore's face, looking wily and triumphant, was close to his.

"Gaspare was wrong, there are splendid donkeys here. I have been talking

to some friends who have seen them."

There was a tramp of heavy boots on the stones behind them. The fishermen

from Catania were coming to see the fun. Salvatore was in glory. To get

all and give nothing was, in his opinion, to accomplish the legitimate

aim of a man's life. And his friends, those who had dared to sneer and to

whisper, and to imagine that he was selling his daughter for money, now

knew the truth and were here to witness his ingenuity. Intoxicated by his

triumph, he began to show off his power over the Inglese for the benefit

of the tramplers behind. He talked to Maurice with a loud familiarity,

kept laying his hand on Maurice's arm as they walked, and even called

him, with a half-jocose intonation, "compare." Maurice sickened at his

impertinence, but was obliged to endure it with patience, and this act of

patience brought to the birth within him a sudden, fierce longing for

revenge, a longing to pay Salvatore out for his grossness, his greed, his

sly and leering affectation of playing the slave when he was really

indicating to his compatriots that he considered himself the master.

Again Maurice heard the call of the Sicilian blood within him, but this

time it did not call him to the tarantella or to love. It called him to

strike a blow. But this blow could only be struck through Maddalena,

could only be struck if he were traitor to Hermione. For a moment he saw

everything red. Again Salvatore called him "compare." Suddenly Maurice

could not bear it.

"Don't say that!" he said. "Don't call me that!"

He had almost hissed the words out. Salvatore started, and for an

instant, as they walked side by side, the two men looked at each other

with eyes that told the truth. Then Salvatore, without asking for any

explanation of Maurice's sudden outburst, said:

"Va bene, signore, va bene! I thought for to-day we were all compares.

Scusi, scusi."

There was a bitterness of irony in his voice. As he finished he swept off

his soft hat and then replaced it more over his left ear than ever.

Maurice knew at once that he had done the unforgivable thing, that he had

stabbed a Sicilian's amour propre in the presence of witnesses of his own

blood. The fishermen from Catania had heard. He knew it from Salvatore's

manner, and an odd sensation came to him that Salvatore had passed

sentence upon him. In silence, and mechanically, he walked on to the end

of the street. He felt like one who, having done something swiftly,

thoughtlessly, is suddenly confronted with the irreparable, abruptly sees

the future spread out before him bathed in a flash of crude light, the

future transformed in a second by that act of his as a landscape is

transformed by an earthquake or a calm sea by a hurricane.

And when the watercourse came in sight, with its crowd, its voices, and

its multitude of beasts, he looked at it dully for a moment, hardly

realizing it.

In Sicily the animal fairs are often held in the great watercourses that

stretch down from the foot of the mountains to the sea, and that resemble

huge highroads in the making, roads upon which the stones have been

dumped ready for the steam-roller. In winter there is sometimes a torrent

of water rushing through them, but in summer they are dry, and look like

wounds gashed in the thickly growing lemon and orange groves. The

trampling feet of beasts can do no harm to the stones, and these

watercourses in the summer season are of no use to anybody. They are,

therefore, often utilized at fair time. Cattle, donkeys, mules are driven

down to them in squadrons. Painted Sicilian carts are ranged upon their

banks, with sets of harness, and the auctioneers, whose business it is to

sell miscellaneous articles, household furniture, stuffs, clocks,

ornaments, frequently descend into them, and mount a heap of stones to

gain command of their gaping audience of contadini and the shrewder

buyers from the towns.

The watercourse of San Felice was traversed at its mouth by the railway

line from Catania to Messina, which crossed it on a long bridge supported

by stone pillars and buttresses, the bridge which, as Gaspare had said,

had recently collapsed and was now nearly built up again. It was already

in use, but the trains were obliged to crawl over it at a snail's pace in

order not to shake the unfinished masonry, and men were stationed at each

end to signal to the driver whether he was to stop or whether he might

venture to go on. Beyond the watercourse, upon the side opposite to the

town of San Felice, was a series of dense lemon groves, gained by a

sloping bank of bare, crumbling earth, on the top of which, close to the

line and exactly where it came to the bridge, was a group of four old

olive-trees with gnarled, twisted trunks. These trees cast a patch of

pleasant shade, from which all the bustle of the fair was visible, but at

a distance, and as Maurice and his party came out of the village on the

opposite bank, he whispered to Maddalena:

"Maddalena!"

"Si, signore?"

"Let's get away presently, you and I; let's go and sit under those trees.

I want to talk to you quietly."

"Si, signore?"

Her voice was lower even than his own.

"Ecco, signore! Ecco!"

Salvatore was pointing to a crowd of donkeys.

"Signorino! Signorino!"

"What is it, Gaspare?"

"That is the man who is going to sell the clock!"

The boy's face was intent. His eyes were shining, and his glum manner had

vanished, under the influence of a keen excitement. Maurice realized that

very soon he would be free. Once his friends were in the crowd of buyers

and sellers everything but the chance of a bargain would be forgotten.

His own blood quickened but for a different reason.

"What beautiful carts!" he said. "We have no such carts in England!"

"If you would like to buy a cart, signore----" began Salvatore.

But Gaspare interrupted with violence.

"Macchè! What is the use of a cart to the signorino? He is going away to

England. How can he take a cart with him in the train?"

"He can leave the cart with me," said Salvatore, with open impudence. "I

can take care of it for the signore as well as the donkey."

"Macchè!" cried Gaspare, furiously.

Maurice took him by the arm.

"Help me down the bank! Come on!"

He began to run, pulling Gaspare with him. When they got to the bottom,

he said:

"It's all right, Gaspare. I'm not going to be such a fool as to buy a

cart. Now, then, which way are we going?"

"Signore, do you want to buy a very good donkey, a very strong donkey,

strong enough to carry three Germans to the top of Etna? Come and see my

donkey. He is very cheap. I make a special price because the signore is

simpatico. All the English are simpatici. Come this way, signore! Gaspare

knows me. Gaspare knows that I am not birbante."

"Signorino! Signorino! Look at this clock! It plays the 'Tre Colori.' It

is worth twenty-five lire, but I will make a special price for you

because you love Sicily and are like a Siciliano. Gaspare will tell

you----"

But Gaspare elbowed away his acquaintances roughly.

"Let my padrone alone. He is not here to buy. He is only here to see the

fair. Come on, signorino! Do not answer them. Do not take any notice. You

must not buy anything or you will be cheated. Let me make the prices."

"Yes, you make the prices. Per Bacco, how hot it is!"

Maurice pulled his hat down over his eyes.

"Maddalena, you'll get a sunstroke!" he said.

"Oh no, signore. I am accustomed to the sun."

"But to-day it's terrific!"

Indeed, the masses of stones in the watercourse seemed to draw and to

concentrate the sun-rays. The air was alive with minute and dancing

specks of light, and in the distance, seen under the railway bridge, the

sea looked hot, a fiery blue that was surely sweating in the glare of the

afternoon. The crowd of donkeys, of cattle, of pigs--there were many pigs

on sale--looked both dull and angry in the heat, and the swarms of

Sicilians who moved slowly about among them, examining them critically,

appraising their qualities and noting their defects, perspired in their

festa clothes, which were mostly heavy and ill-adapted to summer-time. A

small boy passed by, bearing in his arms a struggling turkey. He caught

his foot in some stones, fell, bruised his forehead, and burst out

crying, while the indignant and terrified bird broke away, leaving some

feathers, and made off violently towards Etna. There was a roar of

laughter from the people near. Some ran to catch the turkey, others

picked up the boy. Salvatore had stopped to see this adventure, and was

now at a little distance surrounded by the Catanesi, who were evidently

determined to assist at his bidding for a donkey. The sight of the note

for a hundred lire had greatly increased their respect for Salvatore, and

with the Sicilian instinct to go, and to stay, where money is, they now

kept close to their comrade, eying him almost with awe as one in

possession of a fortune. Maurice saw them presently examining a group of

donkeys. Salvatore, with an autocratic air, and the wild gestures

peculiar to him, was evidently laying down the law as to what each animal

was worth. The fishermen stood by, listening attentively. The fact of

Salvatore's purchasing power gave him the right to pronounce an opinion.

He was in glory. Maurice thanked Heaven for that. The man in glory is

often the forgetful man. Salvatore, he thought, would not bother about

his daughter and his banker for a little while. But how to get rid of

Gaspare and Amedeo! It seemed to him that they would never leave his

side.

There were many wooden stands covered with goods for sale in the

watercourse, with bales of stuff for suits and dresses, with hats and

caps, shirts, cravats, boots and shoes, walking-sticks, shawls, household

utensils, crockery, everything the contadino needs and loves. Gaspare,

having money to lay out, considered it his serious duty to examine

everything that was to be bought with slow minuteness. It did not matter

whether the goods were suited to a masculine taste or not. He went into

the mysteries of feminine attire with almost as much assiduity as a

mother displays when buying a daughter's trousseau, and insisted upon

Maurice sharing his interest and caution. All sense of humor, all boyish

sprightliness vanished from him in this important epoch of his life. The

suspicion, the intensity of the bargaining contadino came to the surface.

His usually bright face was quite altered. He looked elderly, subtle, and

almost Jewish as he slowly passed from stall to stall, testing, weighing,

measuring, appraising.

It seemed to Maurice that this progress would never end. Presently they

reached a stand covered with women's shawls and with aprons.

"Shall I buy an apron for my mother, signorino?" asked Gaspare.

"Yes, certainly."

Maurice did not know what else to say. The result of his consent was

terrible. For a full half-hour they stood in the glaring sun, while

Gaspare and Amedeo solemnly tried on aprons over their suits in the midst

of a concourse of attentive contadini. In vain did Maurice say: "That's a

pretty one. I should take that one." Some defect was always discoverable.

The distant mother's taste was evidently peculiar and not to be easily

suited, and Maurice, not being familiar with it, was unable to combat

such assertions of Gaspare as that she objected to pink spots, or that

she could never be expected to put on an apron before the neighbors if

the stripes upon it were of different colors and there was no stitching

round the hem. For the first time since he was in Sicily the heat began

to affect him unpleasantly. His head felt as if it were compressed in an

iron band, and the vision of Gaspare, eagerly bargaining, looking Jewish,

and revolving slowly in aprons of different colors, shapes, and sizes,

began to dance before his eyes. He felt desperate, and suddenly resolved

to be frank.

"Macchè!" Gaspare was exclaiming, with indignant gestures of protest to

the elderly couple who were in charge of the aprons; "it is not worth two

soldi! It is not fit to be thrown to the pigs, and you ask me----"

"Gaspare!"

"Two lire--Madonna! Sangue di San Pancrazio, they ask me two lire!

Macchè!" (He flung down the apron passionately upon the stall.) "Go and

find Lipari people to buy your dirt; don't come to one from Marechiaro."

He took up another apron.

"Gaspare!"

"One lira fifty? Madre mia, do you think I was born in a grotto on Etna

and have never----"

"Gaspare, listen to me!"

"Scusi, signorino! I----"

"I'm going over there to sit down in the shade for a minute. After that

wine I drank at dinner I'm a bit sleepy."

"Si, signore. Shall I come with you?"

For once there was reluctance in his voice, and he looked down at the

blue-and-white apron he had on with wistful eyes. It was a new joy to him

to be bargaining in the midst of an attentive throng of his compatriots.

"No, no. You stay here and spend the money. Bid for the clock when the

auction comes on."

"Oh, signore, but you must be here, too, then."

"All right. Come and fetch me if you like. I shall be over there under

the trees."

He waved his hand vaguely towards the lemon groves.

"Now, choose a good apron. Don't let them cheat you."

"Macchè!"

The boy laughed loudly, and turned eagerly to the stall again.

"Come, Maddalena!"

Maurice drew her quickly, anxiously, out of the crowd, and they began to

walk across the watercourse towards the farther bank and the group of

olive-trees. Salvatore had forgotten them. So had Gaspare. Both father

and servant were taken by the fascination of the fair. At last! But how

late it must be! How many hours had already fled away! Maurice scarcely

dared to look at his watch. He feared to see the time. While they walked

he said nothing to Maddalena, but when they reached the bank he took her

arm and helped her up it, and when they were at the top he drew a long

breath.

"Are you tired, signorino?"

"Tired--yes, of all those people. Come and sit down, Maddalena, under the

olive-trees."

He took her by the hand. Her hand was warm and dry, pleasant to touch, to

hold. As he felt it in his the desire to strike at Salvatore revived

within him. Salvatore was laughing at him, was triumphing over him,

triumphing in the get-all and give-nothing policy which he thought he was

pursuing with such complete success. Would it be very difficult to turn

that success into failure? Maurice wondered for a moment, then ceased to

wonder. Something in the touch of Maddalena's hand told him that, if he

chose, he could have his revenge upon Salvatore, and he was assailed by a

double temptation. Both anger and love tempted him. If he stooped to do

evil he could gratify two of the strongest desires in humanity, the

desire to conquer in love and the desire to triumph in hate. Salvatore

thought him such a fool, held him in such contempt! Something within him

was burning to-day as a cheek burns with shame, something within him that

was like the kernel of him, like the soul of his manhood, which the

fisherman was sneering at. He did not say to himself strongly that he did

not care what such men thought of him. He could not, for his nature was

both reckless and sensitive. He did care, as if he had been a Sicilian

half doubtful whether he dared to show his face in the piazza. And he had

another feeling, too, which had come to him when Salvatore had answered

his exclamation of irresistible anger at being called "compare," the

feeling that, whether he sinned against the fisherman or not, the

fisherman meant to do him harm. The sensation might be absurd, would have

seemed to him probably absurd in England. Here, in Sicily, it sprang up

and he had just to accept it, as a man accepts an instinct which guides

him, prompts him.

Salvatore had turned down his thumb that day.

Maurice was not afraid of him. Physically, he was quite fearless. But

this sensation of having been secretly condemned made him feel hard,

cruel, ready, perhaps, to do a thing not natural to him, to sacrifice

another who had never done him wrong. At that moment it seemed to him

that it would be more manly to triumph over Salvatore by a double

betrayal than to "run straight," conquer himself and let men not of his

code think of him as they would.

Not of his code! But what was his code? Was it that of England or that of

Sicily? Which strain of blood was governing him to-day? Which strain

would govern him finally? Artois would have had an interesting specimen

under his observant eyes had he been at the fair of San Felice.

Maddalena willingly obeyed Maurice's suggestion.

"Get well into the shade," he said. "There's just enough to hold us, if

we sit close together. You don't mind that, do you?"

"No, signore."

"Put your back against the trunk--there."

He kept his hat off. Over the railway line from the hot-looking sea there

came a little breeze that just moved his short hair and the feathers of

gold about Maddalena's brow. In the watercourse, but at some distance,

they saw the black crowd of men and women and beasts swarming over the

hot stones.

"How can they?" Maurice muttered, as he looked down.

"Cosa?"

He laughed.

"I was thinking out loud. I meant how can they bargain and bother hour

after hour in all that sun!"

"But, signorino, you would not have them pay too much!" she said, very

seriously. "It is dreadful to waste soldi."

"I suppose--yes, of course it is. Oh, but there are so many things worth

more than soldi. Dio mio! Let's forget all that!"

He waved his hand towards the crowd, but he saw that Maddalena was

preoccupied. She glanced towards the watercourse rather wistfully.

"What is it, Maddalena? Ah, I know! The blue dress and the ear-rings! Per

Bacco!"

"No, signore--no, signore!"

She disclaimed quickly, reddening.

"Yes, it is. I had forgotten. But we can't go now. Maddalena, we will buy

them this evening. Directly it gets cool we'll go, directly we've rested

a little. But don't think of them now. I've promised, and I always keep a

promise. Now, don't think of that any more!"

He spoke with a sort of desperation. The fair seemed to be his enemy, and

he had thought that it would be his friend. It was like a personage with

a stronger influence than his, an influence that could take away that

which he wished to retain, to fix upon himself.

"No, signore," Maddalena said, meekly, but still wistfully.

"Do you care for a blue dress and a pair of ear-rings more than you do

for me?" cried Maurice, with sudden roughness. "Are you like your father?

Do you only care for me for what you can get out of me? I believe you

do!"

Maddalena looked startled, almost terrified, by his outburst. Her lips

trembled, but she gazed at him steadily.

"Non è vero."

The words sounded almost stern.

"I do--" he said. "I do want to be cared for a little--just for myself."

[Illustration: "HE KEPT HIS HAND ON HERS AND HELD IT ON THE WARM GROUND"]

At that moment he had a sensation of loneliness like that of an

utterly unloved man. And yet at that moment a great love was travelling

to him--a love that was complete and flawless. But he did not think of

it. He only thought that perhaps all this time he had been deceived, that

Maddalena, like her father, was merely pleased to see him because he had

money and could spend it. He sickened.

"Non è vero!" Maddalena repeated.

Her lips still trembled. Maurice looked at her doubtfully, yet with a

sudden tenderness. Always when she looked troubled, even for an instant,

there came to him the swift desire to protect her, to shield her.

"But why should you care for me?" he said. "It is better not. For I am

going away, and probably you will never see me again."

Tears 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?"

"Magari!" she said again.

He did not know what the word meant, but he thought it sounded like the

most complete expression of satisfaction he had ever heard.

"I wish," he said, pressing her hand--"I wish I were a Sicilian of

Marechiaro."

At this moment, while he was speaking, he heard in the distance the

shrill whistle of an engine. It ceased. Then it rose again, piercing,

prolonged, fierce surely with inquiry. He put his hands to his ears.

"How beastly that is!" he exclaimed.

He hated it, not only for itself, but for the knowledge it sharply

recalled to his mind, the knowledge of exactly what he was doing, and of

the facts of his life, the facts that the very near future held.

"Why do they do that?" he added, with intense irritation.

"Because of the bridge, signorino. They want to know if they can come

upon the bridge. Look! There is the man waving a flag. Now they can come.

It is the train from Palermo."

"Palermo!" he said, sharply.

"Si, signore."

"But the train from Palermo comes the other way, by Messina!"

"Si, signore. But there are two, one by Messina and one by Catania.

Ecco!"

From the lemon groves came the rattle of the approaching train.

"But--but----"

He caught at his watch, pulled it out.

Five o'clock!

He had taken his hand from Maddalena's, and now he made a movement as if

to get up. But he did not get up. Instead, he pressed back against the

olive-tree, upon whose trunk he was leaning, as if he wished to force

himself into the gnarled wood of it. He had an instinct to hide. The

train came on very slowly. During the two or three minutes that elapsed

before it was in his view Maurice lived very rapidly. He felt sure that

Hermione and Artois were in the train. Hermione had said that they would

arrive at Cattaro at five-thirty. She had not said which way they were

coming. Maurice had assumed that they would come from Messina because

Hermione had gone away by that route. It was a natural error. But now? If

they were at the carriage window! If they saw him! And surely they must

see him. The olive-trees were close to the line and on a level with it.

He could not get away. If he got up he would be more easily seen.

Hermione would call out to him. If he pretended not to hear she might,

she probably would, get out of the train at the San Felice station and

come into the fair. She was impulsive. It was just the sort of thing she

might do. She would do it. He was sure she would do it. He looked at the

watercourse hard. The crowd of people was not very far off. He thought he

detected the form of Gaspare. Yes, it was Gaspare. He and Amedeo were on

the outskirts of the crowd near the railway bridge. As he gazed, the

train whistled once more, and he saw Gaspare turn round and look towards

the sea. He held his breath.

"Ecco, signorino. Viene!"

Maddalena touched his arm, kept her hand upon it. She was deeply

interested in this event, the traversing by the train of the unfinished

bridge. Maurice was thankful for that. At least she did not notice his

violent perturbation.

"Look, signorino! Look!"

In despite of himself, Maurice obeyed her. He wanted not to look, but he

could not help looking. The engine, still whistling, crept out from the

embrace of the lemon-trees, with the dingy line of carriages behind it.

At most of the windows there were heads of people looking out. Third

class--he saw soldiers, contadini. Second class--no one. Now the

first-class carriages were coming. They were close to him.

"Ah!"

He had seen Hermione. She was standing up, with her two hands resting on

the door-frame and her head and shoulders outside of the carriage.

Maurice sat absolutely still and stared at her, stared at her almost as

if she were a stranger passing by. She was looking at the watercourse, at

the crowd, eagerly. Her face, much browner than when she had left Sicily,

was alight with excitement, with happiness. She was radiant. Yet he

thought she looked old, older at least than he had remembered. Suddenly,

as the train came very slowly upon the bridge, she drew in to speak to

some one behind her, and he saw vaguely Artois, pale, with a long beard.

He was seated, and he, too, was gazing out at the fair. He looked ill,

but he, too, looked happy, much happier than he had in London. He put up

a thin hand and stroked his beard, and Maurice saw wrinkles coming round

his eyes as he smiled at something Hermione said to him. The train came

to the middle of the bridge and stopped.

"Ecco!" murmured Maddalena. "The man at the other end has signalled!"

Maurice looked again at the watercourse. Gaspare was beyond the crowd

now, and was staring at the train with interest, like Maddalena. Would it

never go on? Maurice set his teeth and cursed it silently. And his soul

said; "Go on! Go on!" again and again. "Go on! Go on!" Now Hermione was

once more leaning out. Surely she must see Gaspare. A man waved a flag.

The train jerked back, jangled, crept forward once more, this time a

little faster. In a moment they would begone. Thank God! But what was

Hermione doing? She started. She leaned further forward, staring into

the watercourse. Maurice saw her face changing. A look of intense

surprise, of intense inquiry, came into it. She took one hand swiftly

from the door, put it behind her--ah, she had a pair of opera-glasses at

her eyes now! The train went on faster. It was nearly off the bridge. But

she was waving her hand. She was calling. She had seen Gaspare. And he?

Maurice saw him start forward as if to run to the bridge. But the train

was gone. The boy stopped, hesitated, then dashed away across the stones.

"Signorino! Signorino!"

Maurice said nothing.

"Signorino!" repeated Maddalena. "Look at Gaspare! Is he mad? Look! How

he is running!"

Gaspare reached the bank, darted up it, and disappeared into the village.

"Signorino, what is the matter?"

Maddalena pulled his sleeve. She was looking almost alarmed.

"Matter? Nothing."

Maurice got up. He could not remain still. It was all over now. The fair

was at an end for him. Gaspare would reach the station before the train

went on, would explain matters. Hermione would get out. Already Maurice

seemed to see her coming down to the watercourse, walking with her

characteristic slow vigor. It did not occur to him at first that Hermione

might refuse to leave Artois. Something in him knew that she was coming.

Fate had interfered now imperiously. Once he had cheated fate. That was

when he came to the fair despite Hermione's letter. Now fate was going to

have her revenge upon him. He looked at Maddalena. Was fate working for

her, to protect her? Would his loss be her gain? He did not know, for he

did not know what would have been the course of his own conduct if fate

had not interfered. He had been trifling, letting the current take him.

It might have taken him far, but--now Hermione was coming. It was all

over and the sun was still up, still shining upon the sea.

"Let us go into the fair. It is cooler now."

He tried to speak lightly.

"Si, signore."

Maddalena shook out her skirt and began to smile. She was thinking of the

blue dress and the ear-rings. They went down into the watercourse.

"Signorino, what can have been the matter with Gaspare?"

"I don't know."

"He was looking at the train."

"Was he? Perhaps he saw a friend in it. Yes, that must have been it. He

saw a friend in the train."

He stared across the watercourse towards the village, seeking two

figures, and he was conscious now of two feelings that fought within him,

of two desires: a desire that Hermione should not come, and a desire that

she should come. He wanted, he even longed, to have his evening with

Maddalena. Yet he wanted Hermione to get out of the train when Gaspare

told her that he--Maurice--was at San Felice. If she did not get out she

would be putting Artois before him. The pale face at the window, the eyes

that smiled when Hermione turned familiarly round to speak, had stirred

within him the jealousy of which he had already been conscious more than

once. But now actual vision had made it fiercer. The woman who had leaned

out looking at the fair belonged to him. He felt intensely that she was

his property. Maddalena spoke to him again, two or three times. He did

not hear her. He was seeing the wrinkles that came round the eyes of

Artois when he smiled.

"Where are we going, signorino? Are we going back to the town?"

Instinctively, Maurice was following in the direction taken by Gaspare.

He wanted to meet fate half-way, to still, by action, the tumult of

feeling within him.

"Aren't the best things to be bought there?" he replied. "By the church

where all those booths are? I think so."

Maddalena began to walk a little faster. The moment had come. Already she

felt the blue dress rustling about her limbs, the ear-rings swinging in

her ears.

Maurice did not try to hold her back. Nor did it occur to him that it

would be wise to meet Hermione without Maddalena. He had done no actual

wrong, and the pale face of Artois had made him defiant. Hermione came to

him with her friend. He would come to her with his. He did not think of

Maddalena as a weapon exactly, but he did feel as if, without her, he

would be at a disadvantage when he and Hermione met.

They were in the first street now. People were beginning to flow back

from the watercourse towards the centre of the fair. They walked in a

crowd and could not see far before them. But Maurice thought he would

know when Hermione was near him, that he would feel her approach. The

crowd went on slowly, retarding them, but at last they were near to the

church of Sant' Onofrio and could hear the sound of music. The

"Intermezzo" from "Cavalleria Rusticana" was being played by the Musica

Mascagni. Suddenly, Maurice started. He had felt a pull at his arm.

"Signorino! Signorino!"

Gaspare was by his side, streaming with perspiration and looking

violently excited.

"Gaspare!"

He stopped, cast a swift look round. Gaspare was alone.

"Signorino"--the boy was breathing hard--"the signora"--he gulped--"the

signora has come back."

The time had come for acting. Maurice feigned surprise.

"The signora! What are you saying? The signora is in Africa."

"No, signore! She is here!"

"Here in San Felice!"

"No, signore! But she was in the train. I saw her at the window. She

waved her hand to me and called out--when the train was on the bridge. I

ran to the station; I ran fast, but when I got there the train had just

gone. The signora has come back, and we are not there to meet her!"

His eyes were tragic. Evidently he felt that their absence was a matter

of immense importance, was a catastrophe.

"The signora here!" Maurice repeated, trying to make his voice amazed.

"But why did she not tell us? Why did not she say that she was coming?"

He looked at Gaspare, but only for an instant. He felt afraid to meet his

great, searching eyes.

"Non lo so."

Maddalena stood by in silence. The bright look of anticipation had gone

out of her face, and was replaced by a confused and slightly anxious

expression.

"I can't understand it," Maurice said, heavily. "I can't--was the signora

alone, or did you see some one with her?"

"The sick signore? I did not see him. I saw only the signora standing at

the window, waving her hand--così!"

He waved his hand.

"Madonna!" Maurice said, mechanically.

"What are we to do, signorino?"

"Do! What can we do? The train has gone!"

"Si, signore. But shall I fetch the donkeys?"

Maurice stole a glance at Maddalena. She was looking frankly piteous.

"Have you got the clock yet?" he asked Gaspare.

"No, signore."

Gaspare began to look rather miserable, too.

"It has not been put up. Perhaps they are putting it up now."

"Gaspare," Maurice said, hastily, "we can't be back to meet the signora

now. Even if we went at once we should be hours late--and the donkeys are

tired, perhaps. They will go slowly unless they have a proper rest. It is

a dreadful pity, but I think if the signora knew she would wish us to

stay now till the fair is over. She would not wish to spoil your

pleasure. Do you think she would?"

"No, signore. The signora always wishes people to be happy."

"Even if we went at once it would be night before we got back."

"Si, signore."

"I think we had better stay--at any rate till the auction is finished and

we have had something to eat. Then we will go."

"Va bene."

The boy sounded doubtful.

"La povera signora!" he said. "How disappointed she will be! She did want

to speak to me. Her face was all red; she was so excited when she saw me,

and her mouth was wide open like that!"

He made a grimace, with earnest, heart-felt sincerity.

"It cannot be helped. To-night we will explain everything and make the

signora quite happy. Look here! Buy something for her. Buy her a present

at the auction!"

"Signorino!" Gaspare cried. "I will give her the clock that plays the

'Tre Colori'! Then she will be happy again. Shall I?"

"Si, si. And meet me in the market-place. Then we will eat something and

we will start for home."

The boy darted away towards the watercourse. His heart was light again.

He had something to do for the signora, something that would make her

very happy. Ah, when she heard the clock playing the "Tre Colori"! Mamma

mia!

He tore towards the watercourse in an agony lest he should be too late.

* * * * *

Night was falling over the fair. The blue dress and the ear-rings had

been chosen and paid for. The promenade of the beauties in the famous

inherited brocades had taken place with éclat before the church of Sant'

Onofrio. Salvatore had acquired a donkey of strange beauty and wondrous

strength, and Gaspare had reappeared in the piazza accompanied by Amedeo,

both laden with purchases and shining with excitement and happiness.

Gaspare's pockets were bulging, and he walked carefully, carrying in his

hands a tortured-looking parcel.

"Dov'è il mio padrone?" he asked, as he and Amedeo pushed through the

dense throng. "Dov'è il mio padrone?"

He spied Maurice and Maddalena sitting before the ristorante listening to

the performance of a small Neapolitan boy with a cropped head, who was

singing street songs in a powerful bass voice, and occasionally doing a

few steps of a melancholy dance upon the pavement. The crowd billowed

round them. A little way off the "Musica della città," surrounded by a

circle of colored lamps, was playing a selection from the "Puritani." The

strange ecclesiastical chant of the Roman ice venders rose up against the

music as if in protest. And these three definite and fighting

melodies--of the Neapolitan, the band, and the ice venders--detached

themselves from a foundation of ceaseless sound, contributed by the

hundreds of Sicilians who swarmed about the ancient church, infested the

narrow side streets of the village, looked down from the small balconies

and the windows of the houses, and gathered in mobs in the wine-shops and

the trattorie.

"Signorino! Signorino! Look!"

Gaspare had reached Maurice, and now stood by the little table at which

his padrone and Maddalena were sitting, and placed the tortured parcel

tenderly upon it.

"Is that the clock?"

Gaspare did not reply in words, but his brown fingers deftly removed the

string and paper and undressed his treasure.

"Ecco!" he exclaimed.

The clock was revealed, a great circle of blue and white standing upon

short, brass legs, and ticking loudly,

"Speranza mia, non piangere,

E il marinar fedele,

Vedrai tornar dall' Africa

Tra un anno queste vele----"

bawled the little boy from Naples. Gaspare seized the clock, turned a

handle, lifted his hand in a reverent gesture bespeaking attention; there

was a faint whirr, and then, sure enough, the tune of the "Tre Colori"

was tinkled blithely forth.

"Ecco!" repeated Gaspare, triumphantly.

"Mamma mia!" murmured Maddalena, almost exhausted with the magic of the

fair.

"It's wonderful!" said Maurice.

He, too, was a little tired, but not in body.

Gaspare wound the clock again, and again the tune was trilled forth,

competing sturdily with the giant noises of the fair, a little voice that

made itself audible by its clearness and precision.

"Ecco!" repeated Gaspare. "Will not the signora be happy when she sees

what I have brought her from the fair?"

He sighed from sheer delight in his possession and the thought of his

padrona's joy and wonder in it.

"Mangiamo?" he added, descending from heavenly delights to earthly

necessities.

"Yes, it is getting late," said Maurice. "The fireworks will soon be

beginning, I suppose."

"Not till ten, signorino. I have asked. There will be dancing first.

But--are we going to stay?"

Maurice hesitated, but only for a second.

"Yes," he said. "Even if we went now the signora would be in bed and

asleep long before we got home. We will stay to the end, the very end."

"Then we can say 'Good-morning' to the signora when we get home," said

Gaspare.

He was quite happy now that he had this marvellous present to take back

with him. He felt that it would make all things right, would sweep away

all lingering disappointment at their absence and the want of welcome.

Salvatore did not appear at the meal. He had gone off to stable his new

purchase with the other donkeys, and now, having got a further sum of

money out of the Inglese, was drinking and playing cards with the

fishermen of Catania. But he knew where his girl and Maurice were, and

that Gaspare and Amedeo were with them. And he knew, too, that the

Inglese's signora had come back. He told the news to the fishermen.

"To-night, when he gets home, his 'cristiana' will be waiting for him.

Per Dio! it is over for him now. We shall see little more of him."

"And get little more from him!" said one of the fishermen, who was

jealous of Salvatore's good-fortune.

Salvatore laughed loudly. He had drunk a good deal of wine and he had had

a great deal of money given to him.

"I shall find another English fool, perhaps!" he said. "Chi lo sa?"

"And his cristiana?" asked another fisherman. "What is she like?"

"Like!" cried Salvatore, pouring out another glass of wine and spitting

on the discolored floor, over which hens were running; "what is any

cristiana like?"

And he repeated the contadino's proverb:

"'La mugghieri è comu la gatta: si l'accarizzi, idda ti gratta!'"

"Perhaps the Inglese will get scratched to-night," said the first

fisherman.

"I don't mind," rejoined Salvatore. "Get us a fresh pack of cards,

Fortunato. I'll pay for 'em."

And he flung down a lira on the wine-stained table.

Gaspare, now quite relieved in his mind, gave himself up with all his

heart to the enjoyment of the last hours of the fair, and was unwearied

in calling on his padrone to do the same. When the evening meal was over

he led the party forth into the crowd that was gathered about the music;

he took them to the shooting-tent, and made them try their luck at the

little figures which calmly presented grotesquely painted profiles to the

eager aim of the contadini; he made them eat ices which they bought at

the beflagged cart of the ecclesiastical Romans, whose eternally chanting

voices made upon Maurice a sinister impression, suggesting to his

mind--he knew not why--the thought of death. Finally, prompted by Amedeo,

he drew Maurice into a room where there was dancing.

It was crowded with men and women, was rather dark and very hot. In a

corner there was a grinding organ, whose handle was turned by a

perspiring man in a long, woollen cap. Beside him, hunched up on a

window-sill, was a shepherd boy who accompanied the organ upon a flute of

reed. Round the walls stood a throng of gazers, and in the middle of the

floor the dancers performed vigorously, dancing now a polka, now a waltz,

now a mazurka, now an elaborate country dance in which sixteen or twenty

people took part, now a tarantella, called by many of the contadini "La

Fasola." No sooner had they entered the room than Gaspare gently but

firmly placed his arm round his padrone's waist, took his left hand and

began to turn him about in a slow waltz, while Amedeo followed the

example given with Maddalena. Round and round they went among the other

couples. The organ in the corner ground out a wheezy tune. The reed-flute

of the shepherd boy twittered, as perhaps, long ago, on the great

mountain that looked down in the night above the village, a similar flute

twittered from the woods to Empedocles climbing upward for the last time

towards the plume of smoke that floated from the volcano. And then Amedeo

and Gaspare danced together and Maurice's arm was about the waist of

Maddalena.

It was the first time that he had danced with her, and the mutual act

seemed to him to increase their intimacy, to carry them a step forward in

this short and curious friendship which was now, surely, very close to

its end. They did not speak as they danced. Maddalena's face was very

solemn, like the face of one taking part in an important ceremonial. And

Maurice, too, felt serious, even sad. The darkness and heat of the room,

the melancholy with which all the tunes of a grinding organ seem

impregnated, the complicated sounds from the fair outside, from which now

and again the voices of the Roman ice-venders detached themselves, even

the tapping of the heavy boots of the dancers upon the floor of

brick--all things in this hour moved him to a certain dreariness of the

spirit which was touched with sentimentality. This fair day was coming to

an end. He felt as if everything were coming to an end.

Every dog has his day. The old saying came to his mind. "Every dog has

his day--and mine is over."

He saw in the dimness of the room the face of Hermione at the railway

carriage window. It was the face of one on the edge of some great

beginning. But she did not know. Hermione did not know.

The dance was over. Another was formed, a country dance. Again Maurice

was Maddalena's partner. Then came "La Fasola," in which Amedeo proudly

showed forth his well-known genius and Gaspare rivalled him. But Maurice

thought it was not like the tarantella upon the terrace before the house

of the priest. The brilliancy, the gayety of that rapture in the sun were

not present here among farewells. A longing to be in the open air under

the stars came to him, and when at last the grinding organ stopped he

said to Gaspare:

"I'm going outside. You'll find me there when you've finished dancing."

"Va bene, signorino. In a quarter of an hour the fireworks will be

beginning."

"And then we must start off at once."

"Si, signore."

The organ struck up again and Amedeo took hold of Gaspare by the waist.

"Maddalena, come out with me."

She followed him. She was tired. Festivals were few in her life, and the

many excitements of this long day had told upon her, but her fatigue was

the fatigue of happiness. They sat down on a wooden bench set against the

outer wall of the house. No one else was sitting there, but many people

were passing to and fro, and they could see the lamps round the "Musica

Leoncavallo," and hear it fighting and conquering the twitter of the

shepherd boy's flute and the weary wheezing of the organ within the

house. A great, looming darkness rising towards the stars dominated the

humming village. Etna was watching over the last glories of the fair.

"Have you been happy to-day, Maddalena?" Maurice asked.

"Si, signore, very happy. And you?"

He did not answer.

"It will all be very different to-morrow," he said.

He was trying to realize to-morrow, but he could not.

"We need not think of to-morrow," Maddalena said.

She arranged her skirt with her hands, and crossed one foot over the

other.

"Do you always live for the day?" Maurice asked her.

She did not understand him.

"I do not want to think of to-morrow," she said. "There will be no fair

then."

"And you would like always to be at the fair?"

"Si, signore, always."

There was a great conviction in her simple statement.

"And you, signorino?"

She was curious about him to-night.

"I don't know what I should like," he said.

He looked up at the great darkness of Etna, and again a longing came to

him to climb up, far up, into those beech forests that looked towards the

Isles of Lipari. He wanted greater freedom. Even the fair was prison.

"But I think," he said, after a pause--"I think I should like to carry

you off, Maddalena, up there, far up on Etna."

He remembered his feeling when he had put his arms round her in the

dance. It had been like putting his arms round ignorance that wanted to

be knowledge. Who would be Maddalena's teacher? Not he. And yet he had

almost intended to have his revenge upon Salvatore.

"Shall we go now?" he said. "Shall we go off to Etna, Maddalena?"

"Signorino!"

She gave a little laugh.

"We must go home after the fireworks."

"Why should we? Why should we not take the donkeys now? Gaspare is

dancing. Your father is playing cards. No one would notice. Shall we?

Shall we go now and get the donkeys, Maddalena?"

But she replied:

"A girl can only go like that with a man when she is married."

"That's not true," he said. "She can go like that with a man she loves."

"But then she is wicked, and the Madonna will not hear her when she

prays, signorino."

"Wouldn't you do anything for a man you really loved? Wouldn't you forget

everything? Wouldn't you forget even the Madonna?"

She looked at him.

"Non lo so."

It seemed to him that he was answered.

"Wouldn't you forget the Madonna for me?" he whispered, leaning towards

her.

There was a loud report close to them, a whizzing noise, a deep murmur

from the crowd, and in the clear sky above Etna the first rocket burst,

showering down a cataract of golden stars, which streamed towards the

earth, leaving trails of fire behind them.

The sound of the grinding organ and of the shepherd boy's flute ceased in

the dancing-room, and the crowd within rushed out into the market-place.

"Signorino! Signorino! Come with me! We cannot see properly here! I know

where to go. There will be wheels of fire, and masses of flowers, and a

picture of the Regina Margherita. Presto! Presto!"

Gaspare had hold of Maurice by the arm.

"E' finito!" Maurice murmured.

It seemed to him that the last day of his wild youth was at an end.

"E' finito!" he repeated.

But there was still an hour.

And who can tell what an hour will bring forth?