He shook his head.

"No you can't. I have plenty of soldi, but I can't always live here, I
can't always live as I do now. Some day I shall have to go away from
Sicily--I shall have to go back and live in London."

As he said the last words he seemed to see London rise up before him in
the night, with shadowy domes and towers and chimneys; he seemed to hear
through the exquisite silence of night upon the sea the mutter of its
many voices.

"It's beastly there! It's beastly!"

And he set his teeth almost viciously.

"Why must you go, then, signorino?"

"Why? Oh, I have work to do."

"But if you are rich why must you work?"

"Well--I--I can't explain in Italian. But my father expects me to."

"To get more rich?"

"Yes, I suppose."

"But if you are rich why cannot you live as you please?"

"I don't know, Maddalena. But the rich scarcely ever live really as they
please, I think. Their soldi won't let them, perhaps."

"I don't understand, signore."

"Well, a man must do something, must get on, and if I lived always here I
should do nothing but enjoy myself."

He was silent for a minute. Then he said:

"And that's all I want to do, just to enjoy myself here in the sun."

"Are you happy here, signorino?"

"Yes, tremendously happy."

"Why?"

"Why--because it's Sicily here! Aren't you happy?"

"I don't know, signorino."

She said it with simplicity and looked at him almost as if she were
inquiring of him whether she were happy or not. That look tempted him.

"Don't you know whether you are happy to-night?" he asked, putting an
emphasis on the last word, and looking at her more steadily, almost
cruelly.

"Oh, to-night--it is a festa."

"A festa? Why?"

"Why? Because it is different from other nights. On other nights I am
alone with my father."

"And to-night you are alone with me. Does that make it a festa?"

She looked down.

"I don't know, signorino."

The childish merriment and slyness had gone out of her now, and there was
a softness almost of sentimentality in her attitude, as she drooped her
head and moved one hand to and fro on the gunwale of the boat, touching
the wood, now here, now there, as if she were picking up something and
dropping it gently into the sea.

Suddenly Maurice wondered about Maddalena. He wondered whether she had
ever had a Sicilian lover, whether she had one now.

"You are not 'promised,' are you, Maddalena?" he asked, leaning a little
nearer to her. He s