It was the same song that Artois had heard that day as he leaned on the balcony of the Ristorante della Stella. But this singer of it sang the Italian words, and not the dialetto. The song that wins the prize at the Piedigrotta Festival is on the lips of every one in Naples. In houses, in streets, in the harbor, in every piazza, and upon the sea it is heard incessantly.
And now Ruffo was singing it softly and rather proudly in the Italian, to attract the attention of the dark figure he saw above him. He was not certain who it was, but he thought it was the mother of the Signorina, and—he did not exactly know why—he wished her to find out that he was there, squatting on the dry rock with his back against the cliff wall. The ladies of the Casa del Mare had been very kind to him, and to-night he was not very happy, and vaguely he longed for sympathy.
Hermione listened to the pretty, tripping words, the happy, youthful words. And Ruffo sang them again, still very softly.
“Oh, dolce luna bianca de l’ Estate—”
And the poor nomad wandering in the desert? But she had known the rapture of youth, the sweet white moons of summer in the South. She had known them long ago for a little while, and therefore she knew them while she lived. A woman’s heart is tenacious, and wide as the world, when it contains that world which is the memory of something perfect that gave it satisfaction.
“Mi destan le dolcissime serate
Gli occhi do Rosa e il mar di Mergellina.”
Dear happy, lovable youth that can sing to itself like that in the deep night! Like that once Maurice, her sacred possession of youth, sang. She felt a rush of tenderness for Ruffo, just because he was so young, and sang—and brought back to her the piercing truth of the everlasting renewal that goes hand in hand with the everlasting passing away.
“Ruffo—Ruffo!”
Almost as Vere had once called “Pescator!” she called. And as Ruffo had once come running up to Vere he came now to Vere’s mother.
“Good-evening, Ruffo.”