How, then, was Hermione to live? How was she to find happiness or peace? It was a problem which he debated with an ardor that had in it something of passion. And he began to wonder how it would have been if he had acted differently, if he had allowed her to find out what he suspected to be the exact truth of the dead man. Long ago he had saved her from suffering. But by doing so had he not dedicated her, not to a greater, but to a longer suffering? He might have defiled a beautiful memory. He must have done so had he acted differently. But if he had defiled it, might not Hermione have been the subject of a great revulsion? Horror can kill, but it can also cure. It can surely root out love. But from such a heart as Hermione’s?
Despite all his understanding of women, Artois felt at a loss to-day. He could not make up his mind what would have been the effect upon Hermione if she had learned that her husband had betrayed her.
Presently he left that subject and came to Vere.
When he did this he was conscious at once of a change within him. His tenderness and pity for Hermione were replaced by another tenderness and pity. And these were wholly for Vere. Hermione was suffering because of Maurice. But Vere was surely suffering, subconsciously, because of Hermione.
There were two links in the chain of suffering, that between Maurice and Hermione, and that between Hermione and Vere.
For a moment he felt as if Vere were bereaved, were motherless. The sensation passed directly he realized the exaggeration in his mind. But he still felt as if the girl were deprived of something which she ought to possess, which, till now, he had thought she did possess. It seemed to him that Vere stood quite outside of her mother’s life, instead of in it, in its centre, its core; and he pitied the child, almost as he pitied other children from time to time, children to whom their parents were indifferent. And yet Hermione loved Vere, and Vere could not know what he had only known completely to-day—that the mother often felt lonely with the child.
Vere did not know that, but surely some day she would find it out.
Artois knew her character well, knew that she was very sensitive, very passionate, quick to feel and quick to understand. He discovered in her qualities inherited both from her father and her mother, attributes both English and Sicilian. In appearance she resembled her father. She had “thrown back” to the Sicilian ancestor, as he had. She had the Southern eyes, the Southern grace, the Southern vivacity and warmth that had made him so attractive. But Artois divined a certain stubbornness in Vere that had been lacking in the dead man, a stubbornness that took its rise not in stupidity but in a secret consciousness of force.
Vere, Artois thought, might be violent, but would not be fickle. She had a loyalty in her that was Sicilian in its fervor, a sense of gratitude such as the contadini have, although by many it is denied to them; a quick and lively temper, but a disposition that responded to joy, to brightness, to gayety, to sunlight, with a swiftness, almost a fierceness, that was entirely un-English.
Her father had been the dancing Faun. She had not, could never have his gift of thoughtlessness. For she had intellect, derived from Hermione, and an old truthfulness that was certainly not Sicilian. Often there were what Artois called “Northern Lights” in her sincerity. The strains in her, united, made, he thought, a fascinating blend. But as yet she was undeveloped—an interesting, a charming child, but only a child. In many ways she was young for her age. Highly intelligent, she was anything rather than “knowing.” Her innocence was like clear water in a spring. The graciousness of youth was hers to the full.
As Artois thought of it he was conscious, as of a new thing, of the wonderful beauty of such innocent youth.
It was horrible to connect it with suffering. And yet that link in the chain did exist. Vere had not something that surely she ought to have, and, without consciously missing it, she must sometimes subtly, perhaps vaguely, be aware that there was a lack in her life. Her mother gave her great love. But she was not to her mother what a son would have been. And the love that is mingled with regret has surely something shadowy in it.
Maurice Delarey had been as the embodiment of joy. It was strange that from the fount of joy sorrow was thrown up. But so it was. From him sorrow had come. From him sorrow might still come, even for Vere.
In the white and silent day Artois again felt the stirring of intuition, as he had felt it long ago. But now he roused himself, and resolutely, almost angrily, detached his mind from its excursions towards the future.
“Do you often think of to-morrow?” he suddenly said to the boatman, breaking from his silence.
“Signore?”
“Do you often wonder what is going to happen to-morrow, what you will do, whether you will be happy or sad?”
The man threw up his head.
“No, Signore. Whatever comes is destiny. If I have food to-day it is enough for me. Why should I bother about to-morrow’s maccheroni?”
Artois smiled. The boat was close in now to the platform of stone that projected beneath the wall of the Marina.
As he stepped out he gave the boatman a generous buonamano.
“You are quite right, comrade,” he said. “It is the greatest mistake in the world to bother about to-morrow’s maccheroni.”
CHAPTER V
Three days after Artois’ conversation with Hermione in the Grotto of Virgil the Marchesino Isidoro Panacci came smiling into his friend’s apartments in the Hotel Royal des Etrangers. He was smartly dressed in the palest possible shade of gray, with a bright pink tie, pink socks, brown shoes of the rather boat-like shape affected by many young Neopolitans, and a round straw hat, with a small brim, that was set slightly on the side of his curly head. In his mouth was a cigarette, and in his buttonhole a pink carnation. He took Artois’ hand with his left hand, squeezed it affectionately, murmured “Caro Emilio,” and sat down in an easy attitude on the sofa, putting his hat and stick on a table near by.
It was quite evident that he had come for no special reason. He had just dropped in, as he did whenever he felt inclined, to gossip with “Caro Emilio,” and it never occurred to him that possibly he might be interrupting an important piece of work. The Marchesino could not realize work. He knew his friend published books. He even saw him sometimes actually engaged in writing them, pen in hand. But he was sure anybody would far rather sit and chatter with him, or hear him play a valse on the piano, or a bit of the “Boheme,” than bend over a table all by himself. And Artois always welcomed him. He liked him. But it was not only that which made him complaisant. Doro was a type, and a singularly perfect one.
Now Artois laid down his pen, and pulled forward an arm-chair opposite to the sofa.
“Mon Dieu, Doro! How fresh you look, like a fish just pulled out of the sea!”
The Marchesino showed his teeth in a smile which also shone in his round and boyish eyes.
“I have just come out of the sea. Papa and I have been bathing at the Eldorado. We swam round the Castello until we were opposite your windows, and sang ‘Funiculi, funicula!’ in the water, to serenade you. Why didn’t you hear us? Papa has a splendid voice, almost like Tamagno’s in the gramophone, when he sings the ‘Addio’
