Before the cottage door in the sunshine a great fishing-net was drying,
fastened to two wooden stakes. Near it stood Salvatore, dressed in a
dark-blue jersey, with a soft black hat tilted over his left ear, above
which was stuck a yellow flower. Maddalena was in the doorway looking
very demure. It was evident that the wink of Gaspare had been seen and
comprehended. She stole a glance at Maurice but did not move. Her father
took off his hat with an almost wildly polite gesture, and said, in a
loud voice: "Buona sera, signore."
"Buona sera," replied Maurice, holding out his hand.
Salvatore took it in a large grasp.
"You are the signore who lives up on Monte Amato with the English lady?"
"Yes."
"I know. She has gone to Africa."
He stared at Maurice while he spoke, with small, twinkling eyes, round
which was a minute and intricate web of wrinkles, and again Maurice felt
almost--or was it quite?--ashamed. What were these Sicilians thinking of
him?
"The signora will be back almost directly," he said. "Is this your
daughter?"
"Yes, Maddalena. Bring a chair for the signore, Maddalena."
Maddalena obeyed. There was a slight flush on her face and she did not
look at Maurice. Gaspare stood pulling gently at the stretched-out net,
and smiling. That he enjoyed the mild deceit of the situation was
evident. Maurice, too, felt amused and quite at his ease now. His
sensation of shame had fleeted away, leaving only a conviction that
Hermione's absence gave him a right to snatch all the pleasure he could
from the hands of the passing hour.
He drew out his cigar-case and offered it to Salvatore.
"One day I want to come fishing with you if you'll take me," he said.
Salvatore looked eager. A prospect of money floated before him: "I can show you fine sport, signore," he answered, taking one of the long
Havanas and examining it with almost voluptuous interest as he turned it
round and round in his salty, brown fingers. "But you should come out at
dawn, and it is far from the mountain to the sea."
"Couldn't I sleep here, so as to be ready?"
He stole a glance at Maddalena. She was looking at her feet, and twisting
the front of her short dress, but her lips were twitching with a smile
which she tried to repress.
"Couldn't I sleep here to-night?" he added, boldly.
Salvatore looked more eager. He loved money almost as an Arab loves it,
with anxious greed. Doubtless Arab blood ran in his veins. It was easy to
see from whom Maddalena had inherited her Eastern appearance. She
reproduced, on a diminished scale, her father's outline of face, but that
which was gentle, mysterious, and alluring in her, in him was informed
with a rugged wildness. There was something bird-like and predatory in
his boldly curving nose with its narrow nostrils, in his hard-lipped
mouth, full of splendid teeth, in his sharp and pushing chin. His whole
body, wide-shouldered and deep-chested, as befitted a man of the sea,
looked savage and fierce, but full of an intensity of manhood that was
striking, and his gestures and movements, the glance of his penetrating
eyes, the turn of his well-poised head, revealed a primitive and
passionate nature, a nature with something of the dagger in it, steely,
sharp, and deadly.