Meanwhile Gasparo was hastening towards Drea's house, with just that amount of additional pleasure in the action as would naturally follow on the sense of successful opposition to somebody else's will. As for Dino,—Gasparo saw no necessity of thinking about Dino. In any case, Dino could not afford to marry, and even if he did,—for, in arguing a point in one's own favour, why not take both sides of the question?—even if he did marry, there were other girls in Leghorn beside this brown-eyed Italia. 'Little witch! I wonder if she guesses what she could make me do when she looks up at me with that innocent baby face of hers?' He sauntered down the steps with an expression of deepening enjoyment, a glance of expectation.
She was sitting in the old place, by the corner of the wall. Her sad face brightened a little as she looked up at the sound of footsteps and saw the young Marchese approaching her. She rose instantly, but she waited for him to speak.
'My little Italia! you look very pale. What is the matter? Has anything been troubling you?'
'I am quite well, sir, thank you. I am only tired.'
'And what has been tiring you, then? Too much pilgrimage, eh? Too many prayers in a cold church; is that not so?'
He looked at her more closely.
'You are quite sure the father has not been scolding you?'
'Oh no, sir, my father never scolds me.'
'Because I have brought something with me to restore good humour to a dozen angry fathers. See here, little one,'—it seemed at first sight a curious name to apply to that tall, slender girl with the sad eyes, but there was something childlike and unconscious about Italia's beauty which suggested the use of caressing diminutives—'see!'
He drew a small fancifully-embroidered case out of an inner pocket and opened it before her. Inside were five crisp pink bank-notes of a hundred francs each.