"I don't think I understand."
He cleared his throat.
"They're Sicilians. They don't see things as the English do," he said.
There was a silence. Hermione felt a heat rush over her, over all her body and face. She did not speak, because, if she had, she might have said something vehement, even headstrong, such as she had never said, surely never would say, to Maurice.
"Of course I understand. It's not that," he added.
"No, it couldn't be that," she said. "You needn't tell me."
The hot feeling stayed with her. She tried to control it.
"You surely can't mind what ignorant people out here think of an utterly innocent action!" she said, at last, very quietly.
But even as she spoke she remembered the Sicilian blood in him.
"You have minded it!" she said. "You do mind now."