thought, almost
fretfully. "I wish she wouldn't keep me hung up in this condition of
uncertainty. She seems to think that I have nothing to do but just wait
here upon the pleasure of Artois."

With that last thought the old sense of injury rose in him again. This
friend of Hermione's was spoiling everything, was being put before every
one. It was really monstrous that even during their honeymoon this old
friendship should intrude, should be allowed to govern their actions and
disturb their serenity. Now that Artois was out of danger Maurice began
to forget how ill he had been, began sometimes to doubt whether he had
ever been so ill as Hermione supposed. Perhaps Artois was one of those
men who liked to have a clever woman at his beck and call. These literary
fellows were often terribly exigent, eaten up with the sense of their own
importance. But he, Maurice, was not going to allow himself to be made a
cat's-paw of. He would make Artois understand that he was not going to
permit his life to be interfered with by any one.

"I'll let him see that when he comes," he said to himself. "I'll take a
strong line. A man must be the master of his own life if he's worth
anything. These Sicilians understand that."

He began secretly to admire what before he had thought almost hateful,
the strong Arab characteristics that linger on in many Sicilians, to
think almost weak and unmanly the Western attitude to woman.

"I will be master," he said to himself again. "All these Sicilians are
wondering that I ever let Hermione go to Africa. Perhaps they think I'm a
muff to have given in about it. And now, when Hermione comes back with a
man, they'll suppose--God knows what they won't imagine!"

He had begun so to identify himself with the Sicilians about Marechiaro
that he cared what they thought, was becoming sensitive to their opinion
of him as if he had been one of themselves. One day Gaspare told him a
story of a contadino who had bought a house in the village, but who,
being unable to complete the payment, had been turned out into the
street.

"And now, signorino," Gaspare concluded, "they are all laughing at him in
Marechiaro. He dare not show himself any more in the Piazza. When a man
cannot go any more into the Piazza--Madonna!"

He shrugged his shoulders and spread out his hands in a gesture of
contemptuous pity.

"E' finito!" he exclaimed.

"Certo!" said Maurice.

He was resolved that he would never be in such a case.