The Net: A Novel | Page 3

moreover, and Norvin learned much of interest about Sicily and the disposition of her people. One phenomenon to which the good man referred with the extremest wonder was Blake's intimacy with a Sicilian nobleman. How an American signore had become such a close friend of the illustrious Conte, who was almost a stranger, even to his own people, seemed very puzzling indeed, until Norvin explained that they had been together almost constantly during the past three years.
"We met quite by chance, but we quickly became friends--what in my country we call chums--and we have been inseparable ever since."
"And you, then, are also a great artist?"
Blake laughed at the indirect compliment to his friend.
"I am not an artist at all. I have been exiled to Europe for three years, upon my mother's orders. She has her own ideas regarding a man's education and wishes me to acquire a Continental polish. My ability to tell you all this shows that I have at least made progress with the languages, although I have doubts about the practical value of anything else I have learned. Martel has taught me Italian; I have taught him English. We use both, and sometimes we understand each other. My three years are up now, and once I have seen my good friend safely married I shall return to America and begin the serious business of life."
"You are then in business? My mother's cousin, Alfio Amato, is likewise a business man. He deals in fruit. Beware of him, for he would sell you rotten oranges and swear by the saints that they were excellent."
"Like Martel, I have land which I lease. I am, or I will be, a cotton-planter."
This opened a new field of inquiry for the priest, who was making the most of it when the train drew into a station and was stormed by a horde of chattering country folk. The platform swarmed with vividly dressed women, most of whom carried bundles wrapped up in variegated handkerchiefs, and all of whom were tremendously excited at the prospect of travel. Lean-visaged, swarthy men peered forth from the folds of shawls or from beneath shapeless caps of many colors; a pair of carabinieri idled past, a soldier in jaunty feathered hat posed before the contadini. Dogs, donkeys, fowls added their clamor to the high-pitched voices.
Twilight had settled and lights were kindling in the village, while the heights above were growing black against a rose-pink and mother-of-pearl sky. The air was cool and fragrant with the odor of growing things and the open sea glowed with a subdued, pulsating fire.
The capo stazione rushed madly back and forth striving by voice and gesture to hasten the movements of his passengers.
"Partenza! Pronto!" he cried, then blew furiously upon his bugle.
After a series of shudders and convulsions the train began to hiss and clank and finally crept on into the twilight, while the priest sat knee to knee with his companion and resumed his endless questioning.
It was considerably after dark when Norvin Blake alighted at San Sebastiano, to be greeted effusively by a young man of about his own age who came charging through the gloom and embraced him with a great hug.
"So! At last you come!" Savigno cried. "I have been here these three hours eating my heart out, and every time I inquired of that head of a cabbage in yonder he said, 'Pazienza! The world was not made in a day!'
"'But when? When?' I kept repeating, and he could only assure me that your train was approaching with the speed of the wind. The saints in heaven--even the superintendent of the railway himself--could not tell the exact hour of its arrival, which, it seems, is never twice the same. And now, yourself? You are well?"
"Never better. And you? But there is no need to ask. You look disgustingly contented. One would think you were already married."
Martel Savigno showed a row of even, white teeth beneath his military mustache and clapped his friend affectionately on the back.
"It is good to be among my own people. I find, after all, that I am a Sicilian. But let me tell you, that train is not always late. Once, seven years ago, it arrived upon the moment. There were no passengers at the station to meet it, however, so it was forced to wait, and now, in order to keep our good-will it always arrives thus."
The Count was a well-set-up youth of an alert and active type, tall, dark, and vivacious, with a skin as smooth as a girl's. He had an impulsive, energetic nature that seldom left him in repose, and hence the contrast between the two men was marked, for Blake was of a more serious cast of features and possessed a decidedly Anglo-Saxon reserve. He was much the heavier in build,