"Maddalena," he said, letting the oars drift in the water, "there's only one good thing in the world, and that is to be free in a life that is natural to one."
He drew up his feet onto the wooden bench and clasped his hands round his knees, and sat thus, looking at her while she faced him in the stern of the boat. He had not turned the boat round. So Maddalena had her face towards the land, while his was set towards the open sea.
"It isn't having many soldi that makes happiness," he went on. "Gaspare thinks it is, and Lucrezia, and I dare say your father would—"
"Oh yes, signore! In Sicily we all think so!"
"And so they do in England. But it isn't true."
"But if you have many soldi you can do anything."
He shook his head.
"No you can't. I have plenty of soldi, but I can't always live here, I can't always live as I do now. Some day I shall have to go away from Sicily—I shall have to go back and live in London."
As he said the last words he seemed to see London rise up before him in the night, with shadowy domes and towers and chimneys; he seemed to hear through the exquisite silence of night upon the sea the mutter of its many voices.