"What, Lucrezia?"
She looked into his twinkling eyes and reddened slightly, sticking out
her under lip.
"I'm not going to tell you."
"You have no business to know."
"And how can I help--they're coming!"
Sebastiano's dog had barked again on the terrace. Sebastiano lifted the
ceramalla quickly from the window-sill and turned round, while Lucrezia
darted out through the door, across the sitting-room, and out onto the
terrace.
"Are they there, Sebastiano? Are they there?"
He stood by the terrace wall, shading his eyes with his hand.
"Ecco!" he said, pointing across the ravine.
Far off, winding up from the sea slowly among the rocks and the
olive-trees, was a procession of donkeys, faintly relieved in the
brilliant sunshine against the mountain-side.
"One," counted Sebastiano, "two, three, four--there are four. The signore
is walking, the signora is riding. Whose donkeys have they got? Gaspare's
father's, of course. I told Gaspare to take Ciccio's, and--it is too far
to see, but I'll soon make them hear me. The signora loves the
'Pastorale.' She says there is all Sicily in it. She loves it more than
the tarantella, for she is good, Lucrezia--don't forget that--though she
is not a Catholic, and perhaps it makes her think of the coming of the
Bambino and of the Madonna. Ah! She will smile now and clap her hands
when she hears."
He put the pipe to his lips, puffed out his cheeks, and began to play the
"Pastorale" with all his might, while Lucrezia listened, staring across
the ravine at the creeping donkey, which was bearing Hermione upward to
her garden of paradise near the sky.