“Where have you been, Gaspare? Not to Naples in all this heat?”
“I have been to Mergellina, Signorina.”
“Mergellina! Did you see Ruffo?”
“Si, Signorina.”
There was something very odd about Gaspare to-day, Vere thought. Or was she still not thoroughly awake? His eyes looked excited, surely, as if something unusual had been happening. And they were fixed upon her face with a scrutiny that was strange, almost as if he saw her now for the first time.
“What is it, Gaspare? Why do you look at me like that?”
Gaspare turned his eyes away.
“Like what, Signorina? Why should I not look at you?”
“What have you been doing at Mergellina?”
She spoke rather imperiously.