it in his hand, he went to the head of the steps leading to the terrace
and looked out. Gaspare was sitting by the wall with a very dismal face.
He stared silently at his master for a minute. Then he said:

"The signora should have taken us with her to Africa. It would have been
better."

"It was impossible, Gaspare," Maurice said, rather hastily. "She is going
to a poor signore who is ill."

"I know."

The boy paused for a moment. Then he said:

"Is the signore her brother?"

"Her brother! No."

"Is he a relation?"

"No."

"Is he very old?"

"Certainly not."

Gaspare repeated:

"The signora should have taken us with her to Africa."

This time he spoke with a certain doggedness. Maurice, he scarcely knew
why, felt slightly uncomfortable and longed to create a diversion. He
looked at the book he was holding in his hand and saw that it was _The
Thousand and One Nights_, in Italian. He wanted to do something definite,
to distract his thoughts--more than ever now after his conversation with
Gaspare. An idea occurred to him.

"Come under the oak-trees, Gaspare," he said, "and I'll read to you. It
will be a lesson in accent. You shall be my professore."

"Si, signore."

The response was listless, and Gaspare followed his master with listless
footsteps down the little path that led to the grove of oak-trees that
grew among giant rocks, on which the lizards were basking.

"There are stories of Africa in this book," said Maurice, opening it.

Gaspare looked more alert.

"Of where the signora will be?"

"Chi lo sa?"

He lay down on the warm ground, set his back against a rock, opened the
book at hazard, and began to read slowly and carefully, while Gaspare,
stretched on the grass, listened, with his chin in the palm of his hand.
The story was of the fisherman and the Genie who was confined in a
casket, and soon Gaspare was entirely absorbed by it. He kept his
enormous brown eyes fixed upon Maurice's face, and moved his lips,
silently forming, after him, the words of the tale. When it was finished
he said:

"I should not like to be kept shut up like that, signore. If I could not
be free I would kill myself. I will always be free."

He stretched himself on the warm ground like a young animal, then added:

"I shall not take a wife--ever."

Maurice shut the book and stretched himself, too, then moved away from
the rock, and lay at full length with his hands clasped behind his head
and his eyes, ne