Perhaps he was among those bathing boys. She looked across the harbor to the rocks, and saw the brown body of one shoot through the shining air and disappear with a splash into the sea.
Perhaps that boy was he—how far away from her loneliness, her sadness, and her dread!
She began to despair of finding him.
“Barca! Barca!”
She had reached the steps now near the Savoy Hotel. A happy-looking boatman, with hazel eyes and a sensitive mouth, hailed her from the water. It was Fabiano Lari, to whom Artois had once spoken, waiting for custom in his boat the Stella del Mare.
Hermione was attracted to the man, as Artois had been, and she resolved to find out from him, if possible, where Ruffo’s mother lived. She went down the steps. The man immediately brought his boat right in.
“No,” she said, “I don’t want the boat.”
Fabiano looked a little disappointed.
“I am looking for some one who lives here, a Sicilian boy called Ruffo.”
“Ruffo Scarla, Signora? The Sicilian?”