Hermione was nearing the coast now. Soon she would be on board the

steamer and on her way across the sea to Africa. She would be on her way

to Africa--and to Artois.

Delarey recalled his conversation with Gaspare, when the boy had asked

him whether Artois was Hermione's brother, or a relation, or whether he

was old. He remembered Gaspare's intonation when he said, almost sternly,

"The signora should have taken us with her to Africa." Evidently he was

astonished. Why? It must have been because he--Delarey--had let his wife

go to visit a man in a distant city alone. Sicilians did not understand

certain things. He had realized his own freedom--now he began to realize

Hermione's. How quickly she had made up her mind. While he was sleeping

she had decided everything. She had even looked out the trains. It had

never occurred to her to ask him what to do. And she had not asked him to

go with her. Did he wish she had?

A new feeling began to stir within him, unreasonable, absurd. It had come

to him with the night and his absolute solitude in the night. It was not

anger as yet. It was a faint, dawning sense of injury, but so faint that

it did not rouse, but only touched gently, almost furtively, some spirit

drowsing within him, like a hand that touches, then withdraws itself,

then steals forward to touch again.

He began to walk a little faster up and down, always keeping along the

terrace wall.

He was primitive man to-night, and primitive feelings were astir in him.

He had not known he possessed them, yet he--the secret soul of him--did

not shrink from them in any surprise. To something in him, some part of

him, they came as things not unfamiliar.

Suppose he had shown surprise at Hermione's project? Suppose he had asked

her not to go? Suppose he had told her not to go? What would she have

said? What would she have done? He had never thought of objecting to this

journey, but he might have objected. Many a man would have objected. This

was their honeymoon--hers and his. To many it would seem strange that a

wife should leave her husband during their honeymoon, to travel across

the sea to another man, a friend, even if he were ill, perhaps dying. He

did not doubt Hermione. No one who knew her as he did could doubt her,

yet nevertheless, now that he was quite companionless in the night, he

felt deserted, he felt as if every one else were linked with life, while

he stood entirely alone. Hermione was travelling to her friend. Lucrezia

and Gaspare had gone to their festa, to dance, to sing, to joke, to make

merry, to make love--who knew? Down in the village the people were

gossiping at one another's doors, were lounging together in the piazza,

were playing cards in the caffès, were singing and striking the guitars

under the pepper-trees bathed in the rays of the moon. And he--what was

there for him in this night that woke up desires for joy, for the

sweetness of the life that sings in the passionate aisles of the south?




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