He stood on the quay staring after young De Rossi with a look of the most sincere admiration dawning in his big blue eyes. Dino was in some sort of serious scrape, he reflected gravely. Else why didn't he come back to the old boat? And to have time, and opportunity, and invention enough to get into a serious scrape was in itself a distinction in honest Maso's eyes. It was almost like being a gentleman. They got into lots o' trouble, did the Padroni.
'It all comes of his having an eddication,' he pondered enviously, leaning against the parapet and looking at Dino's back.
It was not far to the corner house in the Via Bianchi. Dino went slowly up the many stairs; it was impossible to say what he expected, but his heart beat very fast as he stopped before Lucia's door, and at first he was not sure, he could not tell, if there had been any answer to his knock.
'Avanti, Avanti. Come in; I cannot leave the work,' a woman's voice repeated briskly, and he opened the door. The first glance showed him that the big room was empty of what he most desired. There was no one in it but Lucia, who was standing with her back to him engaged in pressing down the folds of a gown with a hot iron.
'Oh. So that's you, Dino; is it?' she said brusquely, without turning her head.
'I came as soon as I got your message. I have only just returned from Bocca d'Arno, Sora Lucia; and I met Maso on the quay.'
'Oh. 'Twas Maso that told you; was it? See there now. And I who always took him for a sort of two-legged sea-calf, with only just sense enough in him to fall in love with Italia.'
'Maso! that fellow!'
'Well, well. I am not talking Latin, am I? Santa Vergine, it would be a fine world if all the men in it were to keep their eyes shut because a certain young man—— Basta. I understand what I mean.'
She nodded her head several times, and took up another iron, holding it carefully near her face to determine the exact degree of heat.