And he gazed at them calmly with his enormous liquid eyes.
"Do not say too much, signora. It makes people proud."
She thought that she heard an odd Sicilian echo of Artois. The peasant lad's mind reflected the mind of the subtle novelist for a moment.
"Very well, Gaspare," she said, submissively.
He smiled at her with satisfaction.
"I understand girls," he said. "You must keep them down or they will keep you down. Every girl in Marechiaro is like that. We keep them down therefore."
He spoke calmly, evidently quite without thought that he was speaking to a woman.
"May I go to bed, signora?" he added. "I got up at four this morning."
"At four!"