duties to society, with so few obligations.

What was expected of Gaspare? Only a willing service, well paid, which he
could leave forever at any moment he pleased. To his family he must, no
doubt, give some of his earnings, but in return he was looked up to by
all, even by his father, as a little god. And in everything else was not
he free, wonderfully free in this island of the south, able to be
careless, unrestrained, wild as a young hawk, yet to remain uncondemned,
unwondered at?

And he--Maurice?

He thought of Hermione's ardent and tenderly observant eyes with a sort
of terror. If she could know or even suspect his feelings of the previous
night, what a tragedy he would be at once involved in! The very splendor
of Hermione's nature, the generous nobility of her character, would make
that tragedy the more poignant. She felt with such intensity, she thought
she had so much. Careless though his own nature was, doubly careless here
in Sicily, Maurice almost sickened at the idea of her ever suspecting the
truth, that he was capable of being strongly drawn towards a girl like
Maddalena, that he could feel as if a peasant who could neither read nor
write caught at something within him that was like the essence of his
life, like the core of that by which he enjoyed, suffered, desired.

But, of course, she would never suspect. And he laughed at himself, and
made the promise about the fair, and, having made it and his resolution
in regard to it, almost violently resolved to take no thought for the
morrow, but to live carelessly and with gayety the days that lay before
him, the few more days of his utter freedom in Sicily.

After all, he was doing no wrong. He had lived and was going to live
innocently. And now that he realized things, realized himself, he would
be reasonable. He would be careless, gay--yes, but not reckless, not
utterly reckless as he felt inclined to be.

"What day of June is the fair?" he asked, looking at Maddalena.

"The 11th of June, signore," said Salvatore. "There will be many donkeys
there--good donkeys."

Gaspare began to look fierce.

"I think of buying a donkey," added Salvatore, carelessly, with his
small, shrewd eyes fixed upon Maurice's face.

Gaspare muttered something unintelligible.

"How much do they cost?" said Maurice.

"For a hundred lire you can get a very good donkey. It would be useful to
Maddalena. She could go to the village sometimes then--she could go to
Marechiaro