"Si! Si! Sciora!" he answered eagerly. "Starò" (I will stay).
The Padrone came up and offered her his arm. The fat, kind-hearted woman also came up, though her great bust still ached from Sophy's frenzied blows.
"Cara signora," she pleaded humbly, "allow me to accompany you."
Between the Padrone and this kindly soul Sophy went obediently back to the hotel.
Tilda and Rosa had both gone for a walk with Bobby along the high-road. Tilda had missed one of the smaller bags, and wished to see if it had been left by mistake with Luigi. So the two women had gone back to Villa Bianca, and were there when the accident happened. Not until Morelli and Peppin had been at work together over Chesney for twenty minutes did they return with Luigi, who, on hearing the terrible news, ran straight to help resuscitate his master. All the women in the hotel gathered round Rosa. She yielded Bobby to one of them, and began to sob and strike her breast and forehead in despair.
Tilda, her round face blotched with pallor, went straight to her lady. She found Sophy standing by a window that overlooked the shore.
"Oh, Mrs. Chesney!" faltered the girl, beginning to tremble. "May I stay with you?"
"No ... please...." said her mistress without turning. The girl went out obediently, and sat crouched in a chair near the door. Some women stole up and began whispering gruesome details to her. She listened half-unwilling, half-fascinated. The insatiable craving of the lower classes for "le frisson" made her listen, but she hated herself for doing it, and them for telling her so eagerly. The fat woman, whom Sophy had not permitted to remain with her, and to whose care Rosa had given Bobby, took the boy to her room and fed him bonbons, eating some herself to encourage him, and turning aside every now and then to cry again over the poor tousin whose Babbo had just been drowned, and who was so innocently gay over this unexpected feast of sweetmeats.
And Sophy, all alone at her window in the bleak hotel bedroom, stood and gazed at the little group on the beach, where Morelli, Peppin, and Luigi were striving to restore her husband to life. The first rigorous methods having been used, they had moved him to the shadow of some trees and spread blankets under and over him—only his head and the upper part of his chest were now exposed. And on either side knelt the sailor and the doctor. They had each grasped one of the massive arms, and regularly, with a machine-like motion, they lifted these arms up above the prone head, then down again—up—then down again. So powerful did the huge man look, even thus outstretched upon the ground, that it seemed to Sophy as though with his naked, herculean arms, he were bending the two men back and forth—back and forth. She would not believe that he was dead. It was as if, should she allow herself for a moment to believe it, he would really die. It was as if his life depended on her will to believe in it. It was impossible—that thus, in the sunlight, within a few yards of shore, within the sound of her voice, with his midday-meal preparing for him, his clothes awaiting him on the warm beach—that thus in a moment—in the twinkling of an eye—he should be dead....
Up and down—up and down waved the massive arms, white and gleaming in the glare from sky and water. Another figure joined the group. Sophy recognised Tibaldo, the gardener's boy from Villa Bianca. The doctor said something, turning his head sharply. Then she saw Luigi turn back the blankets, and Tibaldo take up a bottle that had been standing near. He poured stuff from this bottle into Luigi's hands, then into his own. They began rubbing the naked man vigorously. The doctor and Peppin paused a moment. She saw Morelli mop his face with his handkerchief, and Peppin sling the sweat from his brow with the back of his hand. A change was made. Now it was Luigi and Tibaldo who were moving the great arms up and down, while Peppin and Morelli rubbed the outstretched body vigorously....