A Spirit in Prison Part 67

Will you?"

"Si, Signora. I will do anything--anything for you."

Hermione put her hand on his shoulder.

"Be very, very kind to your poor mother, Ruffo."

"Signora, I always am good for my poor mamma."

He spoke with warm eagerness.

"I am sure you are. But just now, when she is sad, be very good to her."

"Si, Signora."

She took her hand from the boy's shoulder. He bent to kiss her hand, and again, as he was lifting up his head, she saw the melting look in his eyes. This time it was unmingled with amazement, and it startled her.

"Oh, Ruffo!" she said, and stopped, staring at him in the darkness.

"Signora! What is it? What have you?"

"Nothing. Good-night, Ruffo."

"Good-night, Signora."

He took off his cap and ran down to the boat. Hermione leaned over the railing, bending down to see the boy reappear below. When he came he looked like a shadow. From this shadow there rose a voice singing very softly.

"Oh, dolce luna bianca de l' Estate--"

The shadow went over to the boat, and the voice died away.

"Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."

Hermione still was bending down. And she formed the last words with lips that trembled a little.

"Gli occhi di Rosa e il mar di Mergellina."

Then she said: "Maurice--Maurice!"

And then she stood trembling.

Yes, it was Maurice whom she had seen again for an instant in the melting look of Ruffo's face. She felt frightened in the dark.

Maurice--when he kissed her for the last time, had looked at her like that. It could not be fancy. It was not.

Was this the very first time she had noticed in Ruffo a likeness to her dead husband? She asked herself if it was. Yes. She had never--or had there been something? Not in the face, perhaps. But--the voice? Ruffo's singing? His att.i.tude as he stood up in the boat? Had there not been something? She remembered her conversation with Artois in the cave. She had said to him that--she did not know why--the boy, Ruffo, had made her feel, had stirred up within her slumbering desires, slumbering yearnings.

"I have heard a hundred boys sing on the Bay--and just this one touches some chord, and all the strings of my soul quiver."

She had said that.

Then there was something in the boy, something not merely fleeting like that look of gentleness--something permanent, subtle, that resembled Maurice.

Now she no longer felt frightened, but she had a pa.s.sionate wish to go down to the boat, to see Ruffo again, to be with him again, now that she was awake to this strange, and perhaps only faint, imitation by another of the one whom she had lost. No--not imitation; this fragmentary reproduction of some characteristic, some--

She lifted herself up from the railing. And now she knew that her eyes were wet. She wiped them with her handkerchief, drew a deep breath, and went back to the house. She felt for the handle of the door, and, when she found it, opened the door, went in, and shut it rather heavily, then locked it. As she bent down to push home the bolt at the bottom a voice called out:

"Who's there?"

She was startled and turned quickly.

"Gaspare!"

He stood before her half dressed, with his hair over his eyes, and a revolver in his hand.

"Signora! It is you!"

"Si. What did you think? That it was a robber?"

Gaspare looked at her almost sternly, went to the door, bent down and bolted it, then he said:

"Signora, I heard a noise in the house a few minutes ago. I listened, but I heard nothing more. Still, I thought it best to get up. I had just put on my clothes when again I heard a noise at the door. I myself had locked it for the night. What should I think?"

"I was outside. I came back for something. That was what you heard. Then I went out again."

"Si."

He stood there staring at her in a way that seemed, she fancied, to rebuke her. She knew that he wished to know why she had gone out so late, returned to the house, then gone out once more.

"Come up-stairs for a minute, Gaspare," she said. "I want to speak to you."

He looked less stern, but still unlike himself.

"Si, Signora. Shall I put on my jacket?"

"No, no, never mind. Come like that."

She went up-stairs, treading softly, lest she might disturb Vere. He followed. When they were in her sitting-room she said:

"Gaspare, why did you go to bed without coming to say good-night to me?"

He looked rather confused.

"Did I forget, Signora? I was tired. Forgive me."

"I don't know whether you forgot. But you never came."

As Hermione spoke, suddenly she felt as if Gaspare, too, were going, perhaps, to drift from her. She looked at him with an almost sharp intensity which hardened her whole face. Was he, too, being insincere with her, he whom she trusted implicitly?

"Did you forget, Gaspare?" she said.