Part 7 (1/2)
”I hope you are right,” she said at last. ”And yet--it is said that no one escapes the Mafia.”
”This isn't the Mafia. It is the work of some brigand--”
”What is the difference? The one merges into the other. Blood has been spilled; the forces are at work.”
Suddenly she seized him by the arm, and her eyes blazed. ”Look you,”
she cried, ”if Martel should be injured, if these men should dare--all Sicily would not hold them. No power could save them, no hiding-place could be so secret, no lies so cunning, that I would not know. You understand?”
Blake saw that the girl was at last aroused to that intensity of feeling which he had recognized as latent in her. Love had caused her to glow, but it had required this breath of fear to fan the fire into full strength. He was deeply moved and answered simply: ”I understand.
I--never knew how much you loved him.”
Her humor changed, and she smiled.
”One is foolish, perhaps, to be so frank, but that is my nature. You would not have me change it?”
”You couldn't if you tried.”
”Martel has always known I loved him. I could never conceal it. I never wished to. If he had not seen it I would have told him. Just now, when I heard he was threatened--well, you see.”
”Ippolito had no business to mention the matter. I suppose his tongue ran away with him. Tongues have a way of doing such things when their owners are in love.”
”He is not for Lucrezia.”
”Why? He's a fine fellow.”
”Oh, but Lucrezia is superior. I have taught her a great many things.
She is more like a sister to me than a servant, and I could not see her married to a farm-hand. She can do much better than to marry Ippolito.”
”Love goes where it pleases,” said the American with so much feeling that Margherita's eyes leaped to his.
”You know? Ah, my good friend, then you have loved?”
He nodded. ”I have. I do.”
She was instantly all eagerness, and beamed upon him with a frank delight that stabbed him.
”Martel? Does he know?”
”No, You see, there's no use--no possibility.”
”I'm sorry. There must be some great mistake. I cannot conceive of so sad a thing.”
”Please don't try,” he exclaimed, panic-stricken at thought of the dangerous ground he was treading and miserably afraid she would guess the truth in spite of him.
”I should think any woman might love you,” she said, critically, after a moment's meditation. ”You are good and brave and true.”
”Most discerning of women!” he cried, with an elaborate bow. ”Those are but a few of my admirable traits.” He was relieved to see that she had no suspicion of his feelings, for she was extremely quick of wit and her intuition was keen. No doubt, her failure to read him was due to her absorption in her own affairs. He had arrived at a better knowledge of her capabilities to-day and began to realize that she was as changeable as a chameleon. One moment she could be like the sirocco in warmth and languor, the next as sparkling as the sunlit ocean.
Again she could be steeped in a dreamy abstraction or alive with a pagan joy of life. She might have been sixteen or thirty, as her mood chanced to affect her. Of all the crossed strains that go to make up the Sicilian race she had inherited more of the Oriental than the Greek or Roman. Somewhere back in the Ginini family there was Saracen blood, he felt sure.