That day, ere he started with Gaspare for the house of the priest,

Maurice made a promise to Maddalena. He pledged himself to go with her

and her father to the great fair of San Felice, which takes place

annually in the early days of June, when the throng of tourists has

departed, and the long heats of the summer have not yet fully set in. He

gave this promise in the presence of Salvatore and Gaspare, and while he

did so he was making up his mind to something. That day at the fair

should be the day of his farewell to Maddalena. Hermione must surely be

coming back in June. It was impossible that she could remain in Kairouan

later. The fury of the African summer would force her to leave the sacred

city, her mission of salvation either accomplished or rendered forever

futile by the death of her friend. And then, when Hermione came, within a

short time no doubt they would start for England, taking Gaspare with

them. For Maurice really meant to keep the boy in their service. After

the strange scene of the morning he felt as if Gaspare were one of the

family, a retainer with whose devoted protection he could never dispense.

Hermione, he was sure, would not object.

Hermione would not object. As he thought that, Maurice was conscious of a

feeling such as sometimes moves a child, upon whom a parent or guardian

has laid a gently restraining hand, violently to shrug his shoulders and

twist his body in the effort to get away and run wild in freedom. He knew

how utterly unreasonable and contemptible his sensation was, yet he had

it. The sun had bred in him not merely a passion for complete personal

liberty, but for something more, for lawlessness. For a moment he envied

Gaspare, the peasant boy, whose ardent youth was burdened with so few

duties to society, with so few obligations.

What was expected of Gaspare? Only a willing service, well paid, which he

could leave forever at any moment he pleased. To his family he must, no

doubt, give some of his earnings, but in return he was looked up to by

all, even by his father, as a little god. And in everything else was not

he free, wonderfully free in this island of the south, able to be

careless, unrestrained, wild as a young hawk, yet to remain uncondemned,

unwondered at?

And he--Maurice?

He thought of Hermione's ardent and tenderly observant eyes with a sort

of terror. If she could know or even suspect his feelings of the previous

night, what a tragedy he would be at once involved in! The very splendor

of Hermione's nature, the generous nobility of her character, would make

that tragedy the more poignant. She felt with such intensity, she thought

she had so much. Careless though his own nature was, doubly careless here

in Sicily, Maurice almost sickened at the idea of her ever suspecting the

truth, that he was capable of being strongly drawn towards a girl like

Maddalena, that he could feel as if a peasant who could neither read nor

write caught at something within him that was like the essence of his

life, like the core of that by which he enjoyed, suffered, desired.




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