“Yes, when I tried to throw my mind and my heart down upon paper. How strange it was! I had Vere—but she wasn’t enough to still the ache. And I knew what work can be, what a consolation, because I knew you. And I stretched out my hands to it—I stretched out my soul. And it was no use; I wasn’t made to be a successful writer. When I spoke from my heart to try and move men and save myself, my words were seized, as yours were just now by the rock—seized, and broken, and flung back in confusion. They struck my heart like stones. Emile, I’m one of those people who can only do one thing: I can only feel.”
“It is true that you could never be an artist. Perhaps you were made to be an inspiration.”
“But that’s not enough. The role of starter to those who race—I haven’t the temperament to reconcile myself to that. It’s not that I have in me a conceit which demands to be fed. But I have in me a force that clamors to exercise itself. Only when I was living on Monte Amato with Maurice did I feel that the force was being used as God meant it to be used.”
“In loving?”
“In loving passionately something that was utterly worthy to be loved.”
Artois was silent. He knew Hermione’s mistake. He knew what had never been told him: that Maurice had been false to her for the love of the peasant girl Maddalena. He knew that Maurice had been done to death by the betrayed girl’s father, Salvatore. And Gaspare knew these things, too. But through all these years these two men had so respected silence, the nobility of it, the grand necessity of it in certain circumstances of life, that they had never spoken to each other of the black truth known to them both. Indeed, Artois believed that even now, after more than sixteen years, if he ventured one word against the dead man Gaspare would be ready to fly at his throat in defence of the loved Padrone. For this divined and persistent loyalty Artois had a sensation of absolute love. Between him and Gaspare there must always be the barrier of a great and mutual reserve. Yet that very reserve, because there was something truly delicate, and truly noble in it, was as a link of steel between them. They were watchdogs of Hermione. They had been watchdogs through all these years, guarding her from the knowledge of a truth. And so well had they done her service that now to-day she was able to say, with clasped hands and the light of passion in her eyes:
“Something that was utterly worthy to be loved.”
When Artois spoke again he said:
“And that force cannot be fully used in loving Vere?”
“No, Emile. Is that very horrible, very unnatural?”