“Good-night, Signora.”
He put the cap on his dark hair with a free and graceful gesture.
Was not that, too, Maurice?
“A rivederci, Signora.”
He was gone.
Hermione stood alone in the fatal night. She had forgotten Vere. She had forgotten Artois. The words of Ruffo had led her on another step in the journey it was ordained that she should make. She felt the under-things. It seemed to her that she heard in the night the dull murmuring of the undercurrents that carry through wayward, or terrible, channels the wind-driven bark of life. What could it mean, this encounter just described to her: this pain, this emotion of a woman, her strange question to her son? And Gaspare’s agitation, his pallor, his “mysterious” face, the colloquy that Ruffo was not allowed to hear!
What did it mean? That woman’s question—that question!
“What is it? What am I near?” Ruffo’s mother knew Gaspare, must have known him intimately in the past. When? Surely long ago in Sicily; for Ruffo was sixteen, and Hermione felt sure—knew, in fact—that till they came to the island Gaspare had never seen Ruffo.
That woman’s question!
Hermione went slowly to the bench and sat down by the edge of the cliff.