“Sicuro! Felice notte, signor.”
Colin went up to bed with no desire for sleep, for his blood tingled and bubbled in his veins. He wished now, amusing though it had been, that he had not made Nino tipsy so soon, for he longed to continue holding up the mirror to himself. In that reflecting surface he could see much that he had only suspected in himself, and this Nino unwaveringly confirmed. Never, till Nino had so gaily asserted that he did not fear the devil, for the devil was his very good friend, had Colin so definitely realised that, whatever the truth about his Elizabethan ancestor might be, he had accepted the legend as his own experience.
Twice before had some inkling of this come into his mind, once when lying here and listening to his father’s footfall on the terrace below he had realised that hate was as infinite as love, and once again this afternoon, when betwixt sleeping and waking on the top of Monte Solaro, he had received the impression of taking part in some dream-like colloquy. But on both these occasions he had but dealt in abstractions and imaginings, to-night Nino had shown him himself in the concrete. Ah, how good it was to be so well looked after, to have this superb youthful vitality, this rage for enjoyment; above all, never to be worried and perplexed by any conflict of motives; never to feel the faintest striving towards a catalogue of tedious aspirations. To take and never to give, to warm your hands at the glowing fires of hate and stoke those fires with the dry rubbish called love.... It was worth any price to secure immunity from these aches and pains of consciousness.
Colin announced to Violet his intention of taking his lunch down to the bathing-place next morning, and having his siesta there, and he saw with impatient amusement that she instantly put out of sight the fact that she would spend a solitary day and thought only of him.
“That will be lovely for you,” she said. “You’ll get a long enough bathe for once, and not have to break it off to get back to lunch.”
“And what will you do?” he asked.
“Think of you enjoying yourself,” said she.
Colin marvelled in silence. That was a good instance of the change in Violet; in the old days she would at the most have acquiesced, if argument were useless. Now the only argument that seemed to have any weight with her was his enjoyment. Anyhow they were at one about that.
Colin spent a most satisfactory day. There was Nino waiting for him at the Marina rather heavy-eyed, but looking precisely as a Bacchant should after a characteristic night.
“You were wonderfully drunk last night, Nino,” said Colin, as they pushed off over the waveless bay.