The Call of the Blood - Page 139/317

Maurice lay on the big bed in the inner room of the siren's house, under

the tiny light that burned before Maria Addolorata. The door of the house

was shut, and he heard no more the murmur of the sea. Gaspare was curled

up on the floor, on a bed made of some old sacking, with his head buried

in his jacket, which he had taken off to use as a pillow. In the far room

Maddalena and her father were asleep. Maurice could hear their breathing,

Maddalena's light and faint, Salvatore's heavy and whistling, and

degenerating now and then into a sort of stifled snore. But sleep did not

come to Maurice. His eyes were open, and his clasped hands supported his

head. He was thinking, thinking almost angrily.

He loved joy as few Englishmen love it, but as many southerners love it.

His nature needed joy, was made to be joyous. And such natures resent the

intrusion into their existence of any complications which make for

tragedy as northern natures seldom resent anything. To-night Maurice had

a grievance against fate, and he was considering it wrathfully and not

without confusion.

Since he had kissed Maddalena in the night he was disturbed, almost

unhappy. And yet he was surely face to face with something that was more

than happiness. The dancing faun was dimly aware that in his nature there

was not only the capacity for gayety, for the performance of the

tarantella, but also a capacity for violence which he had never been

conscious of when he was in England. It had surely been developed within

him by the sun, by the coming of the heat in this delicious land. It was

like an intoxication of the blood, something that went to head as well as

heart. He wondered what it meant, what it might lead him to. Perhaps he

had been faintly aware of its beginnings on that day when jealousy dawned

within him as he thought of his wife, his woman, nursing her friend in

Africa. Now it was gathering strength like a stream flooded by rains, but

it was taking a different direction in its course.

He turned upon the pillow so that he could see the light burning before

the Madonna. The face of the Madonna was faintly visible--a long, meek

face with downcast eyes. Maddalena crossed herself often when she looked

at that face. Maurice put up his hand to make the sign, then dropped it

with a heavy sigh. He was not a Catholic. His religion--what was it?

Sunworship perhaps, the worship of the body, the worship of whim. He did

not know or care much. He felt so full of life and energy that the far,

far future after death scarcely interested him. The present was his

concern, the present after that kiss in the night. He had loved Hermione.

Surely he loved her now. He did love her now. And yet when he had kissed

her he had never been shaken by the headstrong sensation that had hold of

him to-night, the desire to run wild in love. He looked up to Hermione.

The feeling of reverence had been a governing factor in his love for her.

Now it seemed to him that a feeling of reverence was a barrier in the

path of love, something to create awe, admiration, respect, but scarcely

the passion that irresistibly draws man to woman. And yet he did love

Hermione. He was confused, horribly confused.