The boy smiled, at last would sometimes laugh. He loved his padrona, but
he was a male and a Sicilian. And the signora had gone across the sea to
her friend. These visits to the sea seemed to him very natural. He would
have done the same as his padrone in similar circumstances with a light
heart, with no sense of doing wrong. Only sometimes he raised a warning
voice.
"Signorino," he would say, "do not forget what I have told you."
"What, Gaspare?"
"Salvatore is birbante. You think he likes you."
"Why shouldn't he like me?"
"You are a forestiere. To him you are as nothing. But he likes your
money."
"Well, then? I don't care whether he likes me or not. What does it
matter?"
"Be careful, signorino. The Sicilian has a long hand. Every one knows
that. Even the Napoletano knows that. I have a friend who was a soldier
at Naples, and--"
"Come, now, Gaspare! What reason will there ever be for Salvatore to turn
against me?"
"Va bene, signorino, va bene! But Salvatore is a bad man when he thinks
any one has tried to do him a wrong. He has blood in his eyes then, and
when we Sicilians see through blood we do not care what we do--no, not if
all the world is looking at us."
"I shall do no wrong to Salvatore. What do you mean?"
"Niente, signorino, niente!"
"Stick the cloth on Tito, and put something in the pannier. Al mare! Al
mare!"
The boy's warning rang in deaf ears. For Maurice really meant what he
said. He was reckless, perhaps, but he was going to wrong no one, neither
Salvatore, nor Hermione, nor Maddalena. The coming of Artois drove him
into the arms of pleasure, but it would never drive him into the arms of
sin. For it was surely no sin to make a little love in this land of the
sun, to touch a girl's hand, to snatch a kiss sometimes from the soft
lips of a girl, from whom he would never ask anything more, whatever
leaping desire might prompt him.
And Salvatore was always at hand. He seldom put to sea in these days
unless Maurice went with him in the boat. His greedy eyes shone with a
light of satisfaction when he saw Tito coming along the dusty white road
from Isola Bella, and at night, when he crossed himself superstitiously
before Maria Addolorata, he murmured a prayer that more strangers might
be wafted to his "Paese," many strangers with money in their pockets and
folly in their hearts. Then let the sea be empty of fish and the wind of
the storm break up his boat--it would not matter. He would still live
well. He might even at the last have money in the bank at Marechiaro,
houses in the village, a larger wine-shop than Oreste in the Corso.