Annina complied, though not without making sure that her suitor was alone.
"Thou art come unseasonably, Gino," said the wine-seller's daughter; "I was about to go to St. Mark's to breathe the evening air. My father and brothers are already departed, and I only stay to make sure of the bolts."
"Their gondola will hold a fourth?"
"They have gone by the footways."
"And thou walkest the streets alone at this hour, Annina?"
"I know not thy right to question it, if I do," returned the girl with spirit. "San Theodore be praised, I am not yet the slave of a Neapolitan's servitor!"
"The Neapolitan is a powerful noble, Annina, able and willing to keep his servitors in respect."
"He will have need of all his interest—but why hast thou come at this unseasonable hour? Thy visits are never too welcome, Gino, and when I have other affairs they are disagreeable."
Had the passion of the gondolier been very deep or very sensitive, this plain dealing might have given him a shock; but Gino appeared to take the repulse as coolly as it was given.
"I am used to thy caprices, Annina," he said, throwing himself upon a bench like one determined to remain where he was. "Some young patrician has kissed his hand to thee as thou hast crossed San Marco, or thy father has made a better day of it than common on the Lido; thy pride always mounts with thy father's purse."