was coming—to have that talk about the sea.
CHAPTER IX
“Buona sera, Signorina.”
“Buona sera, Ruffo.”
She did not feign surprise when he came up to her.
“So you fish at night?” she said. “I thought the divers for frutti di mare did not do that.”
“Signorina, I have been taken into the boat of Mandano Giuseppe.”
He spoke rather proudly, and evidently thought she would know of whom he was telling her. “I fish for sarde now.”
“Is that better for you?”
“Si, Signorina, of course.”
“I am glad of that.”
“Si, Signorina.”
He stood beside her quite at his ease. To-night he had on a cap, but it was pushed well off his brow, and showed plenty of his thick, dark hair.
“When did you see me?” she asked.
“Almost directly, Signorina.”
“And what made you look up?”
“Signorina?”
“Why did you look up directly?”
“Non lo so, Signorina.”
“I think it was because I made you feel that I was there,” she said. “I think you obey me without knowing it. You did the same the other day.”
“Perhaps, Signorina.”
“Have you smoked all the cigarettes?”
She saw him smile, showing his teeth.
“Si, Signorina, long ago. I smoked them the same day.”
“You shouldn’t. It is bad for a boy, and you are younger than I am, you know.”
The smile grew wider.
“What are you laughing at?”
“I don’t know, Signorina.”
“Do you think it is funny to be younger than I am?”
“Si, Signorina.”
“I suppose you feel quite as if you were a man?”
“If I could not work as well as a man Giuseppe would not have taken me into his boat. But of course with a lady it is all different. A lady does not have to work. Poor women get old very soon, Signorina.”
“Your mother, is she old?”
“My mamma! I don’t know. Yes, I suppose she is rather old.”
He seemed to be considering.
“Si, Signorina, my mamma is rather old. But then she has had a lot of trouble, my poor mamma!”
“I am sorry. Is she like you?”
“I don’t know, Signorina; I have never thought about it. What does it matter?”
“It may not matter, but such things are interesting sometimes.”
“Are they, Signorina?”
Then, evidently with a polite desire to please her and carry on the conversation in the direction indicated by her, he added:
“And are you like your Signora Madre, Signorina?”
Vere felt inclined to smile, but she answered, quite seriously.
“I don’t believe I am. My mother is very tall, much taller than I am, and not so dark. My eyes are much darker than hers and quite different.”
“I think you have the eyes of a Sicilian, Signorina.”
Again Vere was conscious of a simple effort on the part of the boy to be gallant. And he had a good memory too. He had not forgotten her three-days’-old claim to Sicilian blood. The night mitigated the blunders of his temperament, it seemed. Vere could not help being pleased. There was something in her that ever turned towards the Sicily she had never seen. And this boy had not seen Sicily either.
“Isn’t it odd that you and I have never seen Sicily?” she said, “and that both our mothers have? And mine is all English, you know.”
“My mamma would be very glad to kiss the hand of your Signora Mother,” replied Ruffo. “I told her about the kind ladies who gave me cigarettes, and that the Signorina had never seen her father. When she heard that the Signorina was born after her father was dead, and that her father had died in Sicily, she said—my poor mamma!—‘If ever I see the Signorina’s mother, I shall kiss her hand. She was a widow before she was a mother; may the Madonna comfort her.’ My mamma spoke just like that, Signorina. And then she cried for a long time. But when Patrigno came in she stopped crying at once.”
“Did she? Why was that?”
“I don’t know, Signorina.”
Vere was silent for a moment. Then she said:
“Is your Patrigno kind to you, Ruffo?”
The boy looked at her, then swiftly looked away.
“Kind enough, Signorina,” he answered.
Then they both kept silence. They were standing side by side thus, looking down rather vaguely at the Saint’s pool, when another boat floated gently into it, going over to the far side, where already lay the two boats at the feet of San Francesco. Vere saw it with indifference. She was accustomed to the advent of the fishermen at this hour. Ruffo stared at it for a moment with a critical inquiring gaze. The boat drew up near the land and stopped. There was a faint murmur of voices, then silence again.
The Marchesino had told the two sailors that they could have an hour or two of sleep before beginning to fish.
The men lay down, shut their eyes, and seemed to sleep at once. But Artois and the Marchesino, lounging on a pile of rugs deftly arranged in the bottom of the stern of the boat, smoked their cigars in a silence laid upon them by the night silence of the Pool. Neither of them had as yet caught sight of the figures of Vere and Ruffo, which were becoming more clearly relieved as the moon rose and brought a larger world within its radiance, of its light.
