Delarey stirred on the great, white bed. A hand grasped him firmly, shook
him ruthlessly.
"Signorino! C'è il sole!"
He opened his eyes reluctantly. Maddalena was leaning over him. He saw
her bright face and curious young eyes, then the faces of the saints and
the actresses upon the wall, and he wondered where he was and where
Hermione was.
"Hermione!" he said.
"Cosa?" said Maddalena.
She shook him again gently. He stretched himself, yawned, and began to
smile. She smiled back at him.
"C'è il sole!"
Now he remembered, lifted himself up, and looked towards the doorway. The
first rays of the sun were filtering in and sparkling in the distance
upon the sea. The east was barred with red.
He slipped down from the bed.
"The frittura!" he said, in English. "I must make haste!"
Maddalena laughed. She had never heard English before.
"Ditelo ancora!" she cried, eagerly.
They went but together on to the plateau and stood looking seaward.
"I--must--make--haste!" he said, speaking slowly and dividing the words.
"Hi--maust--maiki--'ai--isti!" she repeated, trying to imitate his
accent.
He burst out laughing. She pouted. Then she laughed, too, peal upon peal,
while the sunlight grew stronger about them. How fresh the wind was! It
played with her hair, from which she had now removed the handkerchief,
and ruffled the little feathers of gold upon her brow. It blew about her
smooth, young face as if it loved to touch the soft cheeks, the innocent
lips, the candid, unlined brow. The leaves of the olive-trees rustled and
the brambles and the grasses swayed. Everything was in movement, stirring
gayly into life to greet the coming day. Maurice opened his mouth and
drew in the air to his lungs, expanding his chest. He felt inclined to
dance, to sing, and very much inclined to eat.
"Addio, Maddalena!" he said, holding out his hand.
He looked into her eyes and added: "Addio, Maddalena mia!"
She smiled and looked down, then up at him again.
"A rivederci, signorino!"
She took his hand warmly in hers.
"Yes, that's better. A rivederci!"
He held her hand for a moment, looking into her long and laughing eyes,
and thinking how like a young animal's they were in their unwinking
candor. And yet they were not like an animal's. For now, when he gazed
into them, they did not look away from him, but continued to regard him,
and always with an eager shining of curiosity. That curiosity stirred his
manhood, fired him. He longed to reply to it, to give a quick answer to
its eager question, its "what are you?" He glanced round, saw only the
trees, the sea all alight with sun-rays, the red east now changing slowly
into gold. Then he bent down, kissed the lips of Maddalena with a laugh,
turned and descended through the trees by the way he had come. He had no
feeling that he had done any wrong to Hermione, any wrong to Maddalena.
His spirits were high, and he sang as he leaped down, agile as a goat, to
the sea. He meant to return as he had come, and at the water's edge he
stripped off his clothes once more, tied them into a bundle, plunged into
the sea, and struck out for the beach opposite. As he did so, as the
cold, bracing water seized him, he heard far above him the musical cry
of the siren of the night. He answered it with a loud, exultant call.