to sit still and see those boys. Gaspare's like
a merry devil tempting one."

As if Gaspare had understood what Maurice said, he suddenly spun round
from his companions, and began to dance in front of Maurice and Hermione,
provocatively, invitingly, bending his head towards them, and laughing
almost in their faces, but without a trace of impertinence. He did not
speak, though his lips were parted, showing two rows of even, tiny teeth,
but his radiant eyes called to them, scolded them for their inactivity,
chaffed them for it, wondered how long it would last, and seemed to deny
that it could last forever.

"What eyes!" said Hermione. "Did you ever see anything so expressive?"

Maurice did not answer. He was watching Gaspare, fascinated, completely
under the spell of the dance. The blood was beginning to boil in his
veins, warm blood of the south that he had never before felt in his body.
Artois had spoken to Hermione of "the call of the blood." Maurice began
to hear it now, to long to obey it.

Gaspare clapped his hands alternately in front of him and behind him,
leaping from side to side, with a step in which one foot crossed over the
other, and holding his body slightly curved inward. And all the time he
kept his eyes on Delarey, and the wily, merry invitation grew stronger in
them.

"Venga!" he whispered, always dancing. "Venga, signorino, venga--venga!"

He spun round, clapped his hands furiously, snapped his fingers, and
jumped back. Then he held out his hands to Delarey, with a gay authority
that was irresistible.

"Venga, venga, signorino! Venga, venga!"

All the blood in Delarey responded, chasing away something--was it a
shyness, a self-consciousness of love--that till now had held him back
from the gratification of his desire? He sprang up and he danced the
tarantella, danced it almost as if he had danced it all his life, with a
natural grace, a frolicsome abandon that no pure-blooded Englishman could
ever achieve, danced it as perhaps once the Sicilian grandmother had
danced it under the shadow of Etna. Whatever Gaspare did he imitated,
with a swiftness and a certainty that were amazing, and Gaspare,
intoxicated by having such a pupil, outdid himself in countless changing
activities. It was like a game and like a duel, for Gaspare presently
began almost to fight for supremacy as he watched Delarey's startling
aptitude in the tarantella, which, till this moment, he had considered
the possession of tho