"Where is Gaspare?" he asked, putting his hand instinctively over the pocket in which were the letters.
"He is still out after the birds, signore. He has shot five already."
"Poor little wretches! And he's still out?"
"Si, signore. He has gone on to Don Peppino's terreno now. There are many birds there. How hot you are, signorino! Shall I—"
"No, no. Nothing, Lucrezia! Leave me alone!"
She disappeared.
Then Maurice drew the letters from his pocket and slowly spread out Hermione's in his lap. He had not read it through yet. He had only glanced at it and seen what he had feared to see. Now he read it word by word, very slowly and carefully. When he had come to the end he kept it on his knee and sat for some time quite still.
In the letter Hermione asked him to go to the Hôtel Regina Margherita at Marechiaro, and engage two good rooms facing the sea for Artois, a bedroom and a sitting-room. They were to be ready for the eleventh. She wrote with her usual splendid frankness. Her soul was made of sincerity as a sovereign is made of gold.
"I know"—these were her words—"I know you will try and make Emile's coming to Sicily a little festa. Don't think I imagine you are personally delighted at his coming, though I am sure you are delighted at his recovery. He is my old friend, not yours, and I am not such a fool as to suppose that you can care for him at all as I do, who have known him intimately and proved his loyalty and his nobility of nature. But I think, I am certain, Maurice, that you will make his coming a festa for my sake. He has suffered very much. He is as weak almost as a child still. There's something tremendously pathetic in the weakness of body of a man so brilliant in mind, so powerful of soul. It goes right to my heart as I think it would go to yours. Let us make his return to life beautiful and blessed. Sha'n't we? Put flowers in the rooms for me, won't you? Make them look homey. Put some books about. But I needn't tell you. We are one, you and I, and I needn't tell you any more. It would be like telling things to myself—as unnecessary as teaching an organ-grinder how to turn the handle of his organ! Oh, Maurice, I can laugh to-day! I could almost—I—get up and dance the tarantella all alone here in my little, bare room with no books and scarcely any flowers. And at the station show Emile he is welcome. He is a little diffident at coming. He fancies perhaps he will be in the way. But one look of yours, one grasp of your hand will drive it all out of him! God bless you, my dearest. How he has blessed me in giving you to me!"
As Maurice sat there, under his skin, burned deep brown by the sun, there rose a hot flush of red! Yes, he reddened at the thought of what he was going to do, but still he meant to do it. He could not forego his pleasure. He could not. There was something wild and imperious within him that defied his better self at this moment. But the better self was not dead. It was even startlingly alive, enough alive to stand almost aghast at that which was going, it knew, to dominate it—to dominate it for a time, but only for a time. On that he was resolved, as he was resolved to have this one pleasure to which he had looked forward, to which he was looking forward now. Men often mentally put a period to their sinning. Maurice put a period to his sinning as he sat staring at the letter on his knees. And the period which he put was the day of the fair at San Felice. After that day this book of his wild youth was to be closed forever.