She shook her out-stretched forefinger to and fro near her nose, smiling, with her head a little on one side like a crafty child.
"But why, Maddalena—why should I wish your father to play cards till the dawn. Tell me that! Why should not I wish him, all of us, to go to bed?"
"You are not sleepy, signorino!"
"I shall be in the morning when it's time to fish."
"Then perhaps you will not fish."
"But I must. That is why I have stayed here to-night, to be ready to go to sea in the morning."
She said nothing, only smiled again. He felt a longing to shake her in joke. She was such a child now. And yet a few minutes ago her dark eyes had lured him, and he had felt almost as if in seeking her he sought a mystery.
"Don't you believe me?" he asked.
But she only answered, with her little gesture of smiling rebuke:
"Signorino! Signorino!"