"I do not want to think of to-morrow," she said. "There will be no fair then."
"And you would like always to be at the fair?"
"Si, signore, always."
There was a great conviction in her simple statement.
"And you, signorino?"
She was curious about him to-night.
"I don't know what I should like," he said.
He looked up at the great darkness of Etna, and again a longing came to him to climb up, far up, into those beech forests that looked towards the Isles of Lipari. He wanted greater freedom. Even the fair was prison.
"But I think," he said, after a pause—"I think I should like to carry you off, Maddalena, up there, far up on Etna."
He remembered his feeling when he had put his arms round her in the dance. It had been like putting his arms round ignorance that wanted to be knowledge. Who would be Maddalena's teacher? Not he. And yet he had almost intended to have his revenge upon Salvatore.