Maurice lay on the big bed in the inner room of the siren's house, under
the tiny light that burned before Maria Addolorata. The door of the house
was shut, and he heard no more the murmur of the sea. Gaspare was curled
up on the floor, on a bed made of some old sacking, with his head buried
in his jacket, which he had taken off to use as a pillow. In the far room
Maddalena and her father were asleep. Maurice could hear their breathing,
Maddalena's light and faint, Salvatore's heavy and whistling, and
degenerating now and then into a sort of stifled snore. But sleep did not
come to Maurice. His eyes were open, and his clasped hands supported his
head. He was thinking, thinking almost angrily.
He loved joy as few Englishmen love it, but as many southerners love it.
His nature needed joy, was made to be joyous. And such natures resent the
intrusion into their existence of any complications which make for
tragedy as northern natures seldom resent anything. To-night Maurice had
a grievance against fate, and he was considering it wrathfully and not
without confusion.
Since he had kissed Maddalena in the night he was disturbed, almost
unhappy. And yet he was surely face to face with something that was more
than happiness. The dancing faun was dimly aware that in his nature there
was not only the capacity for gayety, for the performance of the
tarantella, but also a capacity for violence which he had never been
conscious of when he was in England. It had surely been developed within
him by the sun, by the coming of the heat in this delicious land. It was
like an intoxication of the blood, something that went to head as well as
heart. He wondered what it meant, what it might lead him to. Perhaps he
had been faintly aware of its beginnings on that day when jealousy dawned
within him as he thought of his wife, his woman, nursing her friend in
Africa. Now it was gathering strength like a stream flooded by rains, but
it was taking a different direction in its course.
He turned upon the pillow so that he could see the light burning before
the Madonna. The face of the Madonna was faintly visible--a long, meek
face with downcast eyes. Maddalena crossed herself often when she looked
at that face. Maurice put up his hand to make the sign, then dropped it
with a heavy sigh. He was not a Catholic. His religion--what was it?
Sunworship perhaps, the worship of the body, the worship of whim. He did
not know or care much. He felt so full of life and energy that the far,
far future after death scarcely interested him. The present was his
concern, the present after that kiss in the night. He had loved Hermione.
Surely he loved her now. He did love her now. And yet when he had kissed
her he had never been shaken by the headstrong sensation that had hold of
him to-night, the desire to run wild in love. He looked up to Hermione.
The feeling of reverence had been a governing factor in his love for her.
Now it seemed to him that a feeling of reverence was a barrier in the
path of love, something to create awe, admiration, respect, but scarcely
the passion that irresistibly draws man to woman. And yet he did love
Hermione. He was confused, horribly confused.