"Si, signora."
"Well, then—"
They stood there in silence for a minute. Hermione broke it.
"He—you know how splendidly the padrone swims," she said. "Don't you, Gaspare?"
The boy said nothing.
"Gaspare, why don't you answer when I speak to you?"
"Because I've got nothing to say, signora."
His tone was almost rude. At that moment he nearly hated Hermione for holding him by the arm. If she had been a man he would have struck her off and gone.
"Gaspare!" she said, but not angrily.
Her instinct told her that he was obliged to be utterly natural just then under the spell of some violent feeling. She knew he loved his padrone. The feeling must be one of anxiety. But it was absurd to be so anxious. It was ridiculous, hysterical. She said to herself that it was Gaspare's excitement that was affecting her. She was catching his mood.