After waiting an hour he started on foot, keeping along by the sea, as he did not wish to meet acquaintances, and was likely to meet them in the Villa. As he drew near to Mergellina he felt a great and growing reluctance to do what he had come to do, to make inquiries into a certain matter; and he believed that this reluctance, awake within him although perhaps he had scarcely been aware of it, had kept him inactive during many days. Yet he was not sure of this. He was not sure when a faint suspicion had first been born in his mind. Even now he said to himself that what he meant to do, if explained to the ordinary man, would probably seem to him ridiculous, that the ordinary man would say, “What a wild idea! Your imagination runs riot.” But he thought of certain subtle things which had seemed like indications, like shadowy pointing fingers; of a look in Gaspare’s eyes when they had met his—a hard, defiant look that seemed shutting him out from something; of a look in another face one night under the moon; of some words spoken in a cave with a passion that had reached his heart; of two children strangely at ease in each other’s society. And again the thought pricked him, “Is not everything possible—even that?” All through his life he had sought truth with persistence, sometimes almost with cruelty, yet now he was conscious of timidity, almost of cowardice—as if he feared to seek it.
Long ago he had known a cowardice akin to this, in Sicily. Then he had been afraid, not for himself but for another. To-day again the protective instinct was alive in him. It was that instinct which made him afraid, but it was also that instinct which kept him to his first intention, which pushed him on to Mergellina. No safety can be in ignorance for a strong man. He must know. Then he can act.
When Artois reached Mergellina he looked about for Ruffo, but he could not see the boy. He had never inquired Ruffo’s second name. He might make a guess at it. Should he? He looked at a group of fishermen who were talking loudly on the sand just beyond the low wall. One of them had a handsome face bronzed by the sun, frank hazel eyes, a mouth oddly sensitive for one of his class. His woolen shirt, wide open, showed a medal resting on his broad chest, one of those amulets that are said to protect the fishermen from the dangers of the sea. Artois resolved to ask this man the question he wished, yet feared to put to some one. Afterwards he wondered why he had picked out this man. Perhaps it was because he looked happy.
Artois caught the man’s eye.
“You want a boat, Signore?”
With a quick movement the fellow was beside him on the other side of the wall.
“I’ll take your boat—perhaps this evening.”
“At what hour, Signore?”
“We’ll see. But first perhaps you can tell me something.”
“What is it?”