Surely the moment was sweet, was peaceful. She would live in it.
Vere came slowly from the house, and at once Hermione's newly made and
not yet carried out resolution crumbled into dust. She forgot the sun,
the sea, the peaceful situation and all material things. She was
confronted by the painful drama of the island life! Vere with her
secrets, Emile with his, Gaspare fighting to keep her, his Padrona,
still in mystery. And she was confronted by her own passions, those
hosts of armed men that have their dwelling in every powerful nature.
Vere came up listlessly.
"Good-morning, Madre," she said.
She kissed her mother's cheek with cold lips.
"What lovely roses!"
She smelled them and sat down in her place facing the sea-wall.
"Yes, aren't they?"
"And such a heavenly morning after the mist! What are we going to do
to-day?"
Hermione gave her her coffee, and the little dry tap of a spoon on an
egg-shell was heard in the stillness of the garden.
"Well, I--I am going across to take the tram.
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