"All right," quoth Uros, and in a twinkling the two young men disappeared down the hatchway.
Half-an-hour afterwards they were at the Albergo Cappello, the only inn of the town, where they found Giulianic awaiting them. The two women were very much astonished to see them. Ivanitza's eyes flashed with unrestrained delight on perceiving her lover, but then she looked down demurely—as every well-bred damsel should—and blushed like a pomegranate flower. Only, when she heard her father address him by his friend's name, she looked up astonished; but seeing Uros slily wink at her, she again cast down her eyes, wondering what it all meant.
After a while the mother whispered to her husband that she had always mistaken one of the young men for the other.
"Did you?" said he, laughing. "Well, I am astonished, for you women are so much keener in knowing people than we men are; for, to tell you the truth, I've often been puzzled myself; they are both the same age, they are like brothers, they are dressed alike, so it's easy to mistake them."
"Anyhow," added she, "I'm glad to have been mistaken, because, although I like both of them, still I prefer our future son-in-law to young Bellacic; he's more earnest and sedate than his friend."
"Yes, I think you are right; the other one is such a chatterbox."
"And, then, he displayed so much courage at the time of our shipwreck; indeed, had it not been for his bravery, we should all have been drowned."
"Yes, I remember; he was the first one to come to our rescue. Still, we must be just towards the other one, for he is a brave and a plucky fellow to boot."
"And so lively!"
"That's it; rather too much so; anyhow, I'm glad that Ivanka has fallen in love with the right man; because it would have been exactly like the perverseness of the gentle sex for her to have liked the other one better."