ince she had broken through her reserve and
submitted to him her poems, unveiling for him alone what was really to
her a holy of holies, the wish had enormously increased. He told himself
that Vere was unique, and that he longed to keep her unique, so that the
talent he discerned in her might remain unaffected. How great her talent
was he did not know. He would not know, perhaps, for a very long time.
But it was definite, it was intimate. It was Vere's talent, no one
else's.

He had made up his mind very soon about Hermione's incapacity to produce
work of value. Although Vere was such a child, so inexperienced, so
innocent, so cloistered, he knew at once that he dared not dash her
hopes. It was possible that she might eventually become what her mother
certainly could never be.

But she must not be interfered with. Her connection with the sea
must not be severed. And people were coming into her life--Ruffo, the
Marchesino, and now this wounded girl Peppina.

Artois felt uneasy. He wished Hermione were less generous-hearted, less
impulsive. She looked on him as a guide, a check. He knew that. But this
time he would not exercise his prerogative. Ruffo he did not mind--at
least he thought he did not. The boy was a sea creature. He might even
be an inspiring force to Vere. Something Artois had read had taught him
that. And Ruffo interested him, attracted him too.

But he hated Vere's acquaintance with the Marchesino. He knew that the
Marchesino would make love to her. And the knowledge was odious to him.
Let Vere be loved by the sea, but by no man as yet.

And this girl, Peppina?

He thought of the horrors of Naples, of the things that happen "behind
the shutter," of the lives led by some men and women, some boys and
girls of the great city beneath the watching volcano. He thought of
evenings he had spent in the Galleria. He saw before him an old woman
about whom he had often wondered. Always at night, and often in the
afternoon, she walked in the Galleria. She was invariably alone. The
first time he had seen her he had noticed her because she had a slightly
humped back. Her hair was snow white, and was drawn away from her long,
pale face and carefully arranged under a modest bonnet. She carried a
small umbrella and a tiny bag. Glancing at her casually, he had supposed
her to be a respectable widow of the borghese class. But then he had
seen her again and again, and by degrees he had come to believe that she
was somet