“Look out now!”
Her arm was thrust out over the bridge, and Ruffo, staring up, saw a big cigarette—a cigarette such as he had never seen—in her small fingers. Quickly he made a receptacle of his joined hands, his eyes sparkling and his lips parted with happy anticipation.
“One!”
The cigarette fell and was caught.
“Two!”
A second fell. But this time Ruffo was unprepared, and it dropped on the rock by his bare feet.
“Stupido!” laughed the girl.
“Ma, Signorina—!”
“Three!”
It had become a game between them, and continued to be a game until all the ten cigarettes had made their journey through the air.