"Oh, to-night—it is a festa."
"A festa? Why?"
"Why? Because it is different from other nights. On other nights I am alone with my father."
"And to-night you are alone with me. Does that make it a festa?"
She looked down.
"I don't know, signorino."
The childish merriment and slyness had gone out of her now, and there was a softness almost of sentimentality in her attitude, as she drooped her head and moved one hand to and fro on the gunwale of the boat, touching the wood, now here, now there, as if she were picking up something and dropping it gently into the sea.
Suddenly Maurice wondered about Maddalena. He wondered whether she had ever had a Sicilian lover, whether she had one now.
"You are not 'promised,' are you, Maddalena?" he asked, leaning a little nearer to her. He saw the red come into her brown skin. She shook her head without looking up or speaking.
"I wonder why," he said. "I think—I think there must be men who want you."