Sebastiano took his arm from Lucrezia's waist as Hermione came down to

the terrace, and said: "Buona sera, signora. Is the signore coming down yet?"

He flung out his arm towards the mountain.

"I don't know, Sebastiano. Why?"

"I've come with a message for him."

"Not for Lucrezia?"

Sebastiano laughed boldly, but Lucrezia, blushing red, disappeared into

the kitchen.

"Don't play with her, Sebastiano," said Hermione. "She's a good girl."

"I know that, signora."

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"She deserves to be well treated."

Sebastiano went over to the terrace wall, looked into the ravine, turned

round, and came back.

"Who's treating Lucrezia badly, signora?"

"I did not say anybody was."

"The girls in Marechiaro can take care of themselves, signora. You don't

know them as I do."

"D'you think any woman can take care of herself, Sebastiano?"

He looked into her face and laughed, but said nothing. Hermione sat down.

She had a desire to-day, after Lucrezia's conversation with her, to get

at the Sicilian man's point of view in regard to women.

"Don't you think women want to be protected?" she asked.

"What from, signora?"

There was still laughter in his eyes.

"Not from us, anyway," he added. "Lucrezia there--she wants me for her

husband. All Marechiaro knows it."

Hermione felt that under the circumstances it was useless to blush for

Lucrezia, useless to meet blatant frankness with sensitive delicacy.

"Do you want Lucrezia for your wife?" she said.

"Well, signora, I'm strong. A stick or a knife in my hand and no man can

touch me. You've never seen me do the scherma con coltello? One day I'll

show you with Gaspare. And I can play better even than the men from

Bronte on the ceramella. You've heard me. Lucrezia knows I can have any

girl I like."

There was a simplicity in his immense superiority to women that robbed it

of offensiveness and almost made Hermione laugh. In it, too, she felt the

touch of the East. Arabs had been in Sicily and left their traces there,

not only in the buildings of Sicily, but in its people's songs, and in

the treatment of the women by the men.

"And are you going to choose Lucrezia?" she asked, gravely.

"Signora, I wasn't sure. But yesterday, I had a letter from Messina. They

want me there. I've got a job that'll pay me well to go to the Lipari

Islands with a cargo."




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