There came up a distant cry from the sea. Vere started.
“There is Madre! Of course, Monsieur Emile, I don’t want—but you understand!”
She hurried out of the room, carrying the packet with her.
Artois felt that the girl was strongly excited. She was revealing more of herself to him, this little Vere whom he had known, and not known, ever since she had been a baby. The gradual revelation interested him intensely—so intensely that in him, too, there was excitement now. So many truths go to make up the whole round truth of every human soul. Hermione saw some of these truths of Vere, Gaspare others, perhaps; he again others. And even Ruffo and the Marchesino—he put the Marchesino most definitely last—even they saw still other truths of Vere, he supposed.
To whom did she reveal the most? The mother ought to know most, and during the years of childhood had doubtless known most. But those years were nearly over. Certainly Vere was approaching, or was on, the threshold of the second period of her life.
And she and he had a secret from Hermione. This secret was a very innocent one. Still, of course, it had the two attributes that belong to every secret: of drawing together those who share it, of setting apart from them those who know it not. And there was another secret, too, connected with it, and known only to Artois: the fact that the child, Vere, possessed the very small but quite definite beginnings, the seed, as it were, of something that had been denied to the mother, Hermione.
“Emile, you have come back! I am glad!”
Hermione came into the room with her eager manner and rather slow gait, holding out both her hands, her hot face and prominent eyes showing forth with ardor the sincerity of her surprise and pleasure.
“Gaspare told me. I nearly gave him a hug. You know his sly look when he has something delightful up his sleeve for one! Bless you!”
She shook both his hands.