A Spirit in Prison Part 37

"Shall we all go, Madame?" he said. "I have ordered coffee. It will be brought in a moment to the terrace."

Hermione glanced at Artois.

"I will stay here for a little. I want to look at the book," she said.

"We will come in a moment. I don't take coffee."

"Then--we will be upon the terrace. A rivederci per un momento--pour un moment, Madame."

He bowed over Hermione's hand, and hurried away after Vere.

The Padrone put his book very carefully down between Hermione and Artois, and left them with a murmured apology that he had to look after another party of guests which had just come into the restaurant.

"I thought you would be glad to get rid of those young things for a minute," said Hermione, in explanation of what she had done.

Artois did not reply, but turned over the leaves of the book mechanically.

"Oh, here is Tolstoy's signature," he said, stopping.

Hermione drew her chair nearer.

"What a clear handwriting!" she said.

"Yes, isn't it? 'Vedi Napoli e poi mori.'"

"Where are you going to write?"

He was looking towards the outer room of the restaurant which led onto the terrace.

He turned the leaves.

"I?--oh--here is a s.p.a.ce."

He took up a pen the Padrone had brought, dipped it into the ink.

"What's the good?" he said, making a movement as if to push the book away.

"No; do write."

"Why should I?"

"I agree with Vere. Your name will add something worth having to the book."

"Oh, well--"

A rather bitter expression had come into his face.

"Dead-sea fruit!" he muttered.

But he bent, wrote something quickly, signed his name, blotted and shut the book. Hermione had not been able to see the sentence he had written.

She did not ask what it was.

There was a noise of rather shuffling footsteps on the paved floor of the room. Three musicians had come in. They were shabbily dressed. One was very short, stout, and quite blind, with a gaping mouth that had an odd resemblance to an elephant's mouth when it lifts its trunk and shows its rolling tongue. He smiled perpetually. The other two were thin and dreary, middle-aged, and hopeless-looking. They stood not far from the table and began to play on guitars, putting wrong harmonies to a well-known Neapolitan tune, whose name Artois could not recall.

"What a pity it is they never put the right ba.s.s!" said Hermione.

"Yes. One would suppose they would hit it sometimes by mistake. But they seldom do."

Except for the thin and uncertain music the restaurant was almost silent. The people who had just come in were sitting down far away at the end of the long room. Hermione and Artois were the only other visitors, now that Vere and the Marchesino were outside on the terrace.

"Famous though it is, Frisio's does not draw the crowd," said Hermione.

To-night she found it oddly difficult to talk to her friend, although she had refused the Marchesino's invitation on purpose to do so.

"Perhaps people were afraid of the storm."

"Well, but it doesn't come."

"It is close," he said. "Don't you feel it? I do."

His voice was heavy with melancholy, and made her feel sad, even apprehensive.

"Where are the stars?" he added.

She followed his example and leaned out of the great window. Not a star was visible in all the sky.

"You are right. It is coming. I feel it now. The sea is like lead, and the sky, too. There is no sense of freedom to-night, no out-of-doors feeling. And the water is horribly calm."

As they both leaned out they heard, away to the left at some distance, the voices of Vere and the Marchesino.

"I stayed because I thought--I fancied all the chatter was getting a little on your nerves, Emile," Hermione said now. "They are so absurdly young, both of them. Wasn't it so?"

"Am I so old that youth should get upon my nerves?" he returned, with a creeping irritation, which, however, he tried to keep out of his voice.

"No. But of course we can hardly enjoy nonsense that might amuse them immensely. Vere is such a baby, and your friend is a regular boy, in spite of his self-a.s.surance."

"Women often fancy men to be young in ways in which they are not young,"

said Artois. "Panacci is very much of a man, I can a.s.sure you."

"Panacci! I never heard you call him that before."

Her eager brown eyes went to his face curiously for a moment. Artois saw that, and said, rather hastily:

"It's true that nearly every one calls him Doro."

Once more they heard the chattering voices, and then a sound of laughter in the darkness. It made Hermione smile, but Artois moved uneasily.

Just then there came to them from the sea, like a blow, a sudden puff of wind. It hit their faces.

"Do you want to avoid the storm?" Artois said.