which from noon till late
into the evening the people of Mergellina, and visitors of the humbler
classes from Naples, sit in merry throngs, eating, smoking, drinking
coffee, syrups, and red and white wine.

Artois stood still for a minute to watch them, to partake from a
distance, and unknown to them, in their boisterous gayety. He had lit
a big cigar, and puffed at it as his eyes roved from group to group,
resting now on a family party, now on a quartet of lovers, now on two
stout men obviously trying to drive a bargain with vigorous rhetoric and
emphatic gestures, now on an elderly woman in a shawl spending an hour
with her soldier son in placid silence, now on some sailors from a ship
in the distant port by the arsenal bent over a game of cards, or a party
of workmen talking wages or politics in their shirt-sleeves with flowers
above their ears.

What a row they made, these people! Their animation was almost like the
animation of a nightmare. Some were ugly, some looked wicked; others
mischievous, sympathetic, coarse, artful, seductive, boldly defiant or
boisterously excited. But however much they differed, in one quality
they were nearly all alike. They nearly all looked vivid. If they
lacked anything, at least it was not life. Even their sorrows should be
energetic.

As this thought came into his mind Artois' eyes chanced to rest on two
people sitting a little apart at a table on which stood a coffee-cup,
a thick glass half full of red wine, and a couple of tumblers of water.
One was a woman, the other--yes, the other was Ruffo.

When Artois realized this he kept his eyes upon them. He forgot his
interest in the crowd.

At first he could only see Ruffo's side-face. But the woman was exactly
opposite to him.

She was neatly dressed in some dark stuff, and wore a thin shawl, purple
in color, over her shoulders. She looked middle-aged. Had she been an
Englishwoman Artois would have guessed her to be near fifty. But as
she was evidently a Southerner it was possible that she was very much
younger. Her figure was broad and matronly. Her face, once probably
quite pretty was lined, and had the battered and almost corrugated look
that the faces of Italian women of the lower classes often reveal when
the years begin to increase upon them. The cheek-bones showed harshly in
it, by the long and dark eyes, which were surrounded by little puckers
of yellow flesh. But Artois' attention was held not by this woman's
quite or