The Call of the Blood - Page 315/317

He did not combat this intention then, for he was too thankful to have

gained her assent to the departure for which he longed. The further

future must take care of itself.

"I will take you to Italy, to Switzerland, wherever you wish to go."

"I have no wish for any other place. But I will go somewhere in Italy.

Wherever it is cool and silent will do. But I must be far away from

people; and when you have taken me there, dear Emile, you must leave me

there."

"Quite alone?"

"Gaspare will be with me. I shall always keep Gaspare. Maurice and he

were like two brothers in their happiness. I know they loved each other,

and I know Gaspare loves me."

Artois only said: "I trust the boy."

The word "trust" seemed to wake Hermione into a stronger life.

"Ah, Emile," she said, "once you distrusted the south. I remember your

very words. You said, 'I love the south, but I distrust what I love, and

I see the south in him.' I want to tell you, I want you to know, how

perfect he was always to me. He loved joy, but his joy was always

innocent. There was always something of the child in him. He was

unconscious of himself. He never understood his own beauty. He never

realized that he was worthy of worship. His thought was to reverence and

to worship others. He loved life and the sun--oh, how he loved them! I

don't think any one can ever have loved life and the sun as he did, ever

will love them as he did. But he was never selfish. He was just quite

natural. He was the deathless boy. Emile, have you noticed anything about

me--since?"

"What, Hermione?"

"How much older I look now. He was like my youth, and my youth has gone

with him."

"Will it not revive--when--?"

"No, never. I don't wish it to. Gaspare gathered roses, all the best

roses from his father's little bit of land, to throw into the grave. And

I want my youth to lie there with my Sicilian under Gaspare's roses. I

feel as if that would be a tender companionship. I gave everything to him

when he was alive, and I don't want to keep anything back now. I would

like the sun to be with him under Gaspare's roses. And yet I know he's

elsewhere. I can't explain. But two days ago at dawn I heard a child

playing the tarantella, and it seemed to me as if my Sicilian had been

taken away by the blue, by the blue of Sicily. I shall often come back to

the blue. I shall often sit here again. For it was here that I heard the

beating of the heart of youth. And there's no other music like that. Is

there, Emile?"