The Call of the Blood - Page 125/317

He did not even try to keep the jealousy out of his voice, his manner.

Gaspare leaped to it.

"You did not like the signora to go to Africa!"

"Oh, she will come back. It's all right," Maurice answered, hastily.

"But, while she is there, it would be absurd if I might not speak to any

one."

Gaspare's burden of doubt, perhaps laid on his young shoulders by his

loyalty to his padrona, was evidently lightened.

"I see, signore," he said. "You can each have a friend. But have you

explained to Maddalena?"

"If you think it necessary, I will explain."

"It would be better, because she is Sicilian and she must think you love

her."

"Gaspare!"

The boy looked at him keenly and smiled.

"You would like her to think that?"

Maurice denied it vigorously, but Gaspare only shook his head and said: "I know, I know. Girls are nicest when they think that, because they are

pleased and they want us to go on. You think I see nothing, signorino,

but I saw it all in Maddalena's face. Per Dio!"

And he laughed aloud, with the delight of a boy who has discovered

something, and feels that he is clever and a man. And Maurice laughed

too, not without a pride that was joyous. The heart of his youth, the

wild heart, bounded within him, and the glory of the sun, and the

passionate blue of the sea seemed suddenly deeper, more intense, more

sympathetic, as if they felt with him, as if they knew the rapture of

youth, as if they were created to call it forth, to condone its

carelessness, to urge it to some almost fierce fulfilment.

"Salvatore is there, signorino."

"How do you know?"

"I saw the smoke from his pipe. Look, there it is again!"

A tiny trail of smoke curled up; and faded in the blue.

"I will go first because of Maddalena. Girls are silly. If I do this at

her she will understand. If not she may show her father you have been

here before."

He closed one eye in a large and expressive wink.

"Birbante!"

"It is good to be birbante sometimes."

He went out from the trees and Maurice heard his voice, then a man's,

then Maddalena's. He waited where he was till he heard Gaspare say: "The padrone is just behind. Signorino, where are you?"

"Here!" he answered, coming into the open with a careless air.