forcible in Gaspare's personality. Artois felt it the more because of
his knowledge of Gaspare's power of prolonged, perhaps of eternal
silence. The Sicilian was both blunt and subtle, therefore not always
easily read. To-night he puzzled Artois because he impressed him
strongly, yet vaguely. He seemed to be quietly concealing something
that was not small. What it was Artois could not divine. Only he felt
positive that there was something. In Gaspare's eyes that evening he
had seen an expression such as had been in them long ago in Sicily,
when Artois rode up after Maurice's death to see Hermione, and Gaspare
turned from him and looked over the wall of the ravine: an expression
of dogged and impenetrable reserve, that was like a door closing upon
unseen, just not seen, vistas.

"Che Diavolo!" muttered Artois.

Then he went up to look for Vere.

A little wind met him on the crest of the cliff, the definite caress
of the night, which had now fallen ever so softly. The troop of the
stars was posted in the immeasurable deeps of the firmament. There
was, there would be, no moon, yet it was not black darkness, but
rather a dimly purple twilight which lifted into its breast the
wayward songs of the sea. And the songs and the stars seemed twin
children of the wedded wave and night. Divinely soft was the wind,
divinely dreamy the hour, and bearing something of youth as a galley
from the East bears odors. Over the spirit of Artois a magical essence
seemed scattered. And the youngness that lives forever, however deeply
buried, in the man who is an artist, stirred, lifted itself up, stood
erect to salute the night. As he came towards Vere he forgot. The
poppy draught was at his lips. The extreme consciousness, which was