Page:In Maremma, by Ouida (vol 3).djvu/31

 her, seek to do him service? The greater nature, with its finer impulses, escaped him; he felt baffled and humiliated; he groped in the dark of dim conjecture after possible motives which he conjured up one moment to reject the next. Thinking long, again and again, over the words written to him, he ended in disbelieving them. Vague suspicion was easier and more natural than belief in instincts entirely unselfish and pure of origin.

'Is he truly gone?' he said, looking at her with eyes that doubted her.

'Gone? I do not know. He said that he was going. It does not matter; he will not come to us.'

'You know that he loves you?'

'No; that is not love; he does not speak as the Sicilian did'

Jealousy darted from the dreamful gaze of Este; it is a hooded snake that always lies beneath the amorous smile of all Italian eyes.

'There is another?' he said with a quick breath of rage and of suspicion.

She was vexed with herself that she had spoken without thought.

'It was only a sailor who wished me to