He
remembered the moments after the dinner, his sensation of loneliness
when he listened to the gay conversation of Vere and the Marchesino,
his almost irritable anxiety when she had left the restaurant and gone
out to the terrace in the darkness. He had felt angry with Panacci
then. Had he not always felt angry with Panacci for intruding into the
island life?
He followed the record of his intercourse with Vere until he reached
the Festa of that night, until he reached the moment in which he was
pacing the tiny balcony while the night wore on towards dawn.
That was the record of himself with Vere.
He began to think of Hermione. How had all this that he had just been
telling over in his mind affected her? What had she been thinking of
it--feeling about it? And Gaspare?
Even now Artois did not understand himself, did not know whither his
steps might have tended had not the brutality of the Marchesino roused
him abruptly to this self-examination, this self-consideration. He did
not fully understand himself, and he wondered very much how Hermione
and the Sicilian had understood him--judged him.
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