"He is, through and through."
"I think so--now. But does he know his own blood? Our blood governs us
when the time comes. He is modest about his intellect. I think it quick,
but I doubt its being strong enough to prove a good restraining
influence."
"Against what?"
"The possible call of the blood that he doesn't understand."
"You speak almost as if he were a child," Hermione said. "He's much
younger than I am, but he's twenty-four."
"He is very young looking, and you are at least twenty years ahead of him
in all essentials. Don't you feel it?"
"I suppose--yes, I do."
"Mercury--he should be mercurial."
"He is. That's partly why I love him, perhaps. He is full of swiftness."
"So is the butterfly when it comes out into the sun."
"Emile, forgive me, but sometimes you seem to me deliberately to lie down
and roll in pessimism rather as a horse--"
"Why not say an ass?"
She laughed.
"An ass, then, my dear, lies down sometimes and rolls in dust. I think
you are doing it to-night. I think you were preparing to do it this
afternoon. Perhaps it is the effect of London upon you?"
"London--by-the-way, where are you going for your honeymoon? I am sure
you know, though Monsieur Delarey may not."
"Why are you sure?"
"Your face to-night when I asked if it was to be Italian."
She laid her hand again upon his arm and spoke eagerly, forgetting in a
moment his pessimism and the little cloud it had brought across her
happiness.
"You're right; I've decided."
"Italy--and hotels?"
"No, a thousand times no!"
"Where then?"
"Sicily, and my peasant's cottage."
"The cottage on Monte Amato where you spent a summer four or five years
ago contemplating Etna?"
"Yes. I've not said a word to Maurice, but I've taken it again. All the
little furniture I had--beds, straw chairs, folding-tables--is stored in
a big room in the village at the foot of the mountain. Gaspare, the
Sicilian boy who was my servant, will superintend the carrying up of it
on women's heads--his dear old grandmother takes the heaviest things,
arm-chairs and so on--and it will all be got ready in no time. I'm having
the house whitewashed again, and the shutters painted, and the stone
vases on the terrace will be filled with scarlet geraniums, and--oh,
Emile, I shall hear the piping of the shepherds in the ravine at twilight
again with him, and see the boys dance the tarantella under the moon
again with him, and--and--"