A Spirit in Prison Part 83

"Signora!"

He seemed startled, and slightly reddened, then looked hurt and almost sulky.

"May I not look at you, Signora?" he asked, rather defiantly. "Have I the evil eye?"

"No--no, Gaspare! Only--only you looked at me as if something were the matter. Do I look ill?"

She asked the question with a forced lightness, with a smile. He answered, bluntly:

"Si, Signora. You look very ill."

She put up her hand to her face instinctively, as if to feel whether his words were true.

"But I'm perfectly well," she said.

"You look very ill, Signora," he returned.

"I'm a little bit tired, perhaps."

He said no more, and rowed steadily on for a while. But presently she found him looking gravely at her again.

"Signora," he began, "the Signorina loves the island."

"Yes, Gaspare."

"Do you love it?"

The question startled her. Had he read her thoughts in the last days?

"Don't you think I love it?" she asked.

"You go away from it very often, Signora."

"But I must occasionally go in to Naples!" she protested.

"Si, Signora."

"Well, but mustn't I?"

"Non lo so, Signora. Perhaps we have been here long enough. Perhaps we had better go away from here."

He spoke slowly, and with something less than his usual firmness, as if in his mind there was uncertainty, some indecision or some conflict of desires.

"Do you want to go away?" she said.

"It is not for me to want, Signora."

"I don't think the Signorina would like to go, Gaspare. She hates the idea of leaving the island."

"The Signorina is not every one," he returned.

Habitually blunt as Gaspare was, Hermione had never before heard him speak of Vere like this, not with the least impertinence, but with a certain roughness. To-day it did not hurt her. Nor, indeed, could it ever have hurt her, coming from some one so proven as Gaspare. But to-day it even warmed her, for it made her feel that some one was thinking exclusively of her--was putting her first. She longed for some expression of affection from some one. She felt that she was starving for it. And this feeling made her say:

"How do you mean, Gaspare?"

"Signora, it is for you to say whether we shall go away or stay here."

"You--you put me first, Gaspare?"

She was ashamed of herself for saying it. But she had to say it.

"First, Signora? Of course you are first."

He looked genuinely surprised.

"Are you not the Padrona?" he added. "It is for you to command."

"Yes. But I don't quite mean that."

She stopped. But she had to go on:

"I mean, would you rather do what I wanted than what any one else wanted?"

"Si, Signora--much rather."

There was more in his voice than in his words.

"Thank you, Gaspare," she said.

"Signora," he said, "if you think we had better leave the island, let us leave it. Let us go away."

"Well, but I have never said I wished to go. I am--" she paused. "I have been very contented to be here."

"Va bene, Signora."

When they reached the island Hermione felt nervous--almost as if she were to meet strangers who were critical, who would appraise her and be ready to despise her. She told herself that she was mad to feel like that; but when she thought of Emile and Vere talking of her failure--of their secret combined action to keep from her the knowledge of the effort of the child--that seemed just then to her a successful rivalry concealed--she could not dismiss the feeling.

She dreaded to meet Emile and Vere.

"I wonder where they are," she said, as she got out. "Perhaps they are on the cliff, or out in the little boat. I'll go into the house."

"Signora, I will go to the seat and see if they are there."

"Oh, don't bother--" she began.

But he ran off, springing up the steps with a strong agility, like that of a boy.

She hurried after him and went into the house. After what he had said in the boat she wished to look at herself in the gla.s.s, to see if there was anything strange or painful, anything that might rouse surprise, in her appearance. She gained her bedroom, and went at once to the mirror.