"What do you mean? That Maddalena might—nonsense, Gaspare!"
There was a sound as of sudden pleasure, even sudden triumph, in his voice.
"Are you sure you understand our girls, signore?"
"If Maddalena does like me there's no harm in it. She knows who I am now. She knows I—she knows there is the signora."
"Si, signore. There is the signora. She is in Africa, but she is coming back."
"Of course!"
"When the sick signore gets well?"
Maurice said nothing. He felt sure Gaspare was wondering again, wondering that Hermione was in Africa.
"I cannot understand how it is in England," continued the boy. "Here it is all quite different."
Again jealousy stirred in Maurice and a sensation almost of shame. For a moment he felt like a Sicilian husband at whom his neighbors point the two fingers of scorn, and he said something in his wrath which was unworthy.