“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.