When the dawn came she got
up and looked out over the sea. The mist had vanished with the
darkness. The vaporous heat was replaced by a delicate freshness that
embraced the South as dew embraces a rose. On the as yet pale waters,
full of varying shades of gray, slate color, ethereal mauve, very
faint pink and white, were dotted many fishing-boats. Hermione looked
at them with her tired eyes. Ruffo's boat was no doubt among them.
There was one only a few hundred yards beyond the rocks from which
Vere sometimes bathed. Perhaps that was his.
Ruffo's boat! Ruffo!
She put her elbows on the sill of the window and rested her face in
her hands.
Her eyes felt very dry, like sand she thought, and her mind felt dry
too, as if insomnia was withering it up. She opened her lips to
breathe in the salt freshness of the morning.
Upon Anacapri a woolly white cloud lay lightly. The distant coast,
where dreams Sorrento, was becoming clearer every moment.
Often and often in the summer-time had Hermione been invaded by the
radiant cheerfulness of the Bay of Naples.
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