"
A look that was surely a look of fear came into his face, rendering it
new to Hermione. Never before had she seen such an expression--or had
she once--long ago--one night in Sicily?
"That isn't all. Ruffo took his mother home, and when they got home
she said to him this, 'Has Gaspare ever said you were like
somebody?' "
Gaspare said nothing.
"Did you hear, Gaspare?"
"Si, Signora."
"Gaspare, it seems to me"--Hermione was speaking now very slowly, like
one shaping a thought in her mind while she spoke--"it seems to me
strange that you and Ruffo's mother should have known each other so
well long before Ruffo was born, and that she should cry because she
met you at the Festa, and that--afterwards--she should ask Ruffo
that."
"Strange?"
The fear that had been formless was increasing now in Hermione, and
surely it was beginning at last to take a form, but as yet only a form
that was vague and shadowy.
"Yes. I think it very strange. Did you"--an intense curiosity was
alive in her now--"did you know Ruffo's mother in Sicily?"
"Signora, it does not matter where I knew her.
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