The Call of the Blood

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."