His voice sounded incredulous.
“Don’t you believe me?” she cried, rather hotly.
“Ma si, Signorina! Only—that’s not very Sicilian, if the rest is English. You are English, Signorina, aren’t you?”
“The rest of me is. Are you all Sicilian?”
“Signorina, my mother is Sicilian.”
“And your father, too?”
“Signorina, my father is dead,” he said, in a changed voice. “Now I live with my mother and my step-father. He—Patrigno—he is Neapolitan.”
There was a movement in the boat. The boy looked round.
“I must go back to the boat, Signorina,” he said.
“Oh, must you?” Vere said. “What a pity! But look, they are really still asleep.”