Vere did not know that, but surely some day she would find it out.
Artois knew her character well, knew that she was very sensitive, very
passionate, quick to feel and quick to understand. He discovered in
her qualities inherited both from her father and her mother,
attributes both English and Sicilian. In appearance she resembled her
father. She had "thrown back" to the Sicilian ancestor, as he had. She
had the Southern eyes, the Southern grace, the Southern vivacity and
warmth that had made him so attractive. But Artois divined a certain
stubbornness in Vere that had been lacking in the dead man, a
stubbornness that took its rise not in stupidity but in a secret
consciousness of force.
Vere, Artois thought, might be violent, but would not be fickle. She
had a loyalty in her that was Sicilian in its fervor, a sense of
gratitude such as the contadini have, although by many it is denied to
them; a quick and lively temper, but a disposition that responded to
joy, to brightness, to gayety, to sunlight, with a swiftness, almost a
fierceness, that was entirely un-English.
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