It did not occur to him that he was anticipating that which might never
happen. He was as unreasonable as a boy who foresees possible
interference with his pleasures.
This decision of Hermione to bring with her to Sicily Artois, and its
communication to Maurice, pushed him on to the recklessness which he had
previously resolved to hold in check. Had Hermione been returning to him
alone he would have felt that a gay and thoughtless holiday time was
coming to an end, but he must have felt, too, that only tenderness and
strong affection were crossing the sea from Africa to bind him in chains
that already he had worn with happiness and peace. But the knowledge that
with Hermione was coming Artois gave to him a definite vision of
something that was like a cage. Without consciously saying it to himself,
he had in London been vaguely aware of Artois's coldness of feeling
towards him. Had any one spoken of it to him he would probably have
denied that this was so. There are hidden things in a man that he himself
does not say to himself that he knows of. But Maurice's vision of a cage
was conjured up by Artois's mental attitude towards him in London, the
attitude of the observer who might, in certain circumstances, be cruel,
who was secretly ready to be cruel. And, anticipating the unpleasant
probable, he threw himself with the greater violence into the enjoyment
of his few more days of complete liberty.
He wrote to Hermione, expressing as naturally as he could his ready
acquiescence in her project, and then gave himself up to the
light-heartedness that came with the flying moments of these last days of
emancipation in the sun. His mood was akin to the mood of the rich man,
"Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." The music, he knew, must
presently fail. The tarantella must come to an end. Well, then he would
dance with his whole soul. He would not husband his breath nor save his
strength. He would be thoughtless because for a moment he had thought too
much, too much for his nature of the dancing faun who had been given for
a brief space of time his rightful heritage.
Each day now he went down to the sea.
"How hot it is!" he would say to Gaspare. "If I don't have a bath I shall
be suffocated."
"Si, signore. At what time shall we go?"
"After the siesta. It will be glorious in the sea to-day."
"Si, signore, it is good to be in the sea."