Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/126

 would have pleased you; it is good. It is good to go and see those poor muffled wretches who scarce ever feel the sun and move like ghosts about beneath their fogs; and then to come back to see our own shores, where all the sunshine is, and where the very moon makes us a second day, and where the lutes sound half the night, and the olive grows down to the sea, and in winter all the air is full of the smell of the orange-flower and of the coltsfoot in the grass.'

She gave an impatient movement as he paused, but he pursued the thread of his own thoughts aloud.

'If you had only come! It is at you only that I look. Though I have not seen your face seven long months, it has been with me always. Out of the grey and yellow fog you seemed to beckon me. Oh, yes! I know well you never do, you never even wish to see me. But I—I love you so well it seems to me that some time or another I must bring you to care a little. I am not much myself, though women have smiled on me before now; but the ship is a good ship, and will cradle you safely on the waves—and