"Couldn't I sleep here, so as to be ready?"
He stole a glance at Maddalena. She was looking at her feet, and twisting the front of her short dress, but her lips were twitching with a smile which she tried to repress.
"Couldn't I sleep here to-night?" he added, boldly.
Salvatore looked more eager. He loved money almost as an Arab loves it, with anxious greed. Doubtless Arab blood ran in his veins. It was easy to see from whom Maddalena had inherited her Eastern appearance. She reproduced, on a diminished scale, her father's outline of face, but that which was gentle, mysterious, and alluring in her, in him was informed with a rugged wildness. There was something bird-like and predatory in his boldly curving nose with its narrow nostrils, in his hard-lipped mouth, full of splendid teeth, in his sharp and pushing chin. His whole body, wide-shouldered and deep-chested, as befitted a man of the sea, looked savage and fierce, but full of an intensity of manhood that was striking, and his gestures and movements, the glance of his penetrating eyes, the turn of his well-poised head, revealed a primitive and passionate nature, a nature with something of the dagger in it, steely, sharp, and deadly.
"But, signore, our home is very poor. Look, signore!"
A turkey strutted out through the doorway, elongating its neck and looking nervously intent.
"Ps—sh—sh—sh!"
He shooed it away, furiously waving his arms.
"And what could you eat? There is only bread and wine."
"And the yellow cheese!" said Maurice.