"Really and truly! Do you doubt me?"
"No."
She sighed.
"How I wish you had been there! But this year--"
She stopped, hesitating.
"Yes--this year?"
"In June there will be the fair again."
He moved from his seat, softly and swiftly, turned the boat's prow
towards the open sea, then went and sat down by her in the stern.
"We will go there," he said, "you and I and Gaspare--"
"And my father."
"All of us together."
"And if the signora is back?"
Maurice was conscious of a desire that startled him like a sudden stab
from something small and sharp--the desire that on that day Hermione
should not be with him in Sicily.
"I dare say the signora will not be back."
"But if she is, will she come, too?"
"Do you think you would like it better if she came?"
He was so close to her now that his shoulder touched hers. Their faces
were set seaward and were kissed by the breath of the sea. Their eyes saw
the same stars and were kissed by the light of the stars. And the subtle
murmur of the tide spoke to them both as if they were one.
"Do you?" he repeated. "Do you think so?"
"Chi lo sa?" she responded.
He thought, when she said that, that her voice sounded less simple than
before.
"You do know!" he said.
She shook her head.
"You do!" he repeated.
He stretched out his hand and took her hand. He had to take it.
"Why don't you tell me?"
She had turned her head away from him, and now, speaking as if to the
sea, she said: "Perhaps if she was there you could not give me the blue silk dress and
the--and the ear-rings. Perhaps she would not like it."
For a moment he thought he was disappointed by her answer. Then he knew
that he loved it, for its utter naturalness, its laughable naïveté. It
seemed, too, to set him right in his own eyes, to sweep away a creeping
feeling that had been beginning to trouble him. He was playing with a
child. That was all. There was no harm in it. And when he had kissed her
in the dawn he had been kissing a child, playfully, kindly, as a big
brother might. And if he kissed her now it would mean nothing to her. And
if it did mean something--just a little more--to him, that did not
matter.