“He only stayed five minutes or so.”
“Oh, Madre, I wish I had known!”
There was a touch of reproach in Vere’s tone, and there was something so transparently natural, so transparently innocent and girlish in her disappointment, that it told her mother something she was glad to know. Not that she had doubted it—but she was glad to know.
“We came to look for you.”
“Well, but I was only on the cliff, where I always go. I was there having a little talk with Ruffo.”
“I know.”
“And you never called me, Madre!” Vere looked openly hurt. “Why didn’t you?”
In truth, Hermione hardly knew. Surely it had been Emile who had led them away from the singing voice of Ruffo.
“Ruffo was singing.”
“A song about Mergellina. Did you hear it? I do like it and the way he sings it.”