Hermione shook her head impatiently. But when Giulia was gone she thought of her words about Gaspare. Words, even the simplest, spoken just before some great moment of a life, some high triumph, or deep catastrophe, stick with resolution in the memory. Lucrezia had once said of Gaspare on the terrace before the Casa del Prete: “One cannot speak with him to-day.” That was on the evening of the night on which Maurice’s dead body was found. Often since then Hermione had thought that Gaspare had seemed to have a prevision of the disaster that was approaching.
And now Giulia said of him: “One cannot speak with him now.”
The same words. Was Gaspare a stormy petrel?
There came a knock at the door of the sitting-room, to which Hermione had gone to wait for the coming of Peppina.
“Come in.”
The door opened and the disfigured girl entered, looking anxious.
“Come in, Peppina. It’s all right. I only want to speak to you for a moment.”
Hermione spoke kindly, but Peppina still looked nervous.
“Si, Signora,” she murmured.
And she remained standing near the door, looking down.