Hermione wondered if he were jealous.
“I don’t mean that I put him with you, Gaspare. No—but he seems to me quite a friend. Tell me—do you know anything against Ruffo?”
“Non, Signora.”
It came very slowly from his lips.
“Absolutely nothing?”
“Signora, I don’t know anything bad of Ruffo.”
“I felt sure not. Don’t you like his coming to the island?”
Gaspare’s face was still flushed.
“Signora, it is nothing to do with me.”
A sort of dull anger seemed to be creeping into his voice, an accent of defiance that he was trying to control. Hermione noticed it, and it brought her to a resolve that, till now, she had avoided. Her secret fear had prompted her to delay, to a gradual method of arriving at the truth. Now she sat forward, clasping her hands together hard, and speaking quickly: