The window that faced the sea towards Capri was open. A little
moonlight began to mingle subtly with the light from the two lamps, to
make it whiter, cleaner, suggestive of outdoor things and large
spaces. Hermione had been reading when Vere was reading. She did not
read now Vere was gone. Laying down her book she sat listening to the
silence, realizing the world without. Almost at her feet was the sea,
before her a wide-stretching expanse, behind her, confronted by the
desolate rocks, the hollow and mysterious caverns. In the night, the
Saint, unwearied, watched his Pool. Not very far off, yet delightfully
remote, lay Naples with its furious activities, its gayeties, its
intensities of sin, of misery, of pleasure. In the Galleria, tourists
from the hotels and from the ships were wandering rather vaguely,
watched and followed by newspaper sellers, by touts, by greedy, pale-
faced boys, and old, worn-out men, all hungry for money and
indifferent how it was gained. Along the Marina, with its huge serpent
of lights, the street singers and players were making their nightly
pilgrimage, pausing, wherever they saw a lighted window or a dark
figure on a balcony, to play and sing the tunes of which they were
weary long ago.
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