d-handed sailor, was
not thinking of any of these things as he sat in his narrow place on the
stern behind his master, mechanically guiding the tiller in the latter's
unconscious hand, while he gazed silently at Beatrice's face, now turned
towards him in conversation, now half averted as she looked down or out
to sea. Ruggiero listened, too, to the talk, though he did not
understand all the fine words Beatrice and San Miniato used. If he had
never been away from the coast, the probability is that he would have
understood nothing at all; but in his long voyages he had been thrown
with men of other parts of Italy and had picked up a smattering of what
Neapolitans call Italian, to distinguish it from their own speech. Even
as it was, the most part of what they said escaped him, because they
seemed to think so very differently from him about simple matters, and
to be so heartily amused at what seemed so dull to him. And he began to
feel that the hurt he had was deep and not to be healed, while he
reflected that he was undoubtedly mad, since he loved this lady so much
while understanding her so little. The mere feeling that she could talk
and take pleasure in talking beyond his comprehension wounded him, as a
sensitive half-grown boy sometimes suffers real pain when his boyishness
shows itself among men.

Why, for instance, did the young girl's cheek flush and her eyes
sparkle, when San Miniato talked of Paris? Paris was in France. Ruggiero
knew that. But he had often heard that it was not so big a place as
London, where he had been. Therefore Beatrice must have some other
reason for liking it. Most probably she loved a Frenchman, and Ruggiero
hated Frenchmen with all his heart. Then they talked about the theatre
and Beatrice was evidently interested. Ruggiero had once seen a puppet
show and had not found it at all funny. The theatre was only a big
puppet show, and he could pay for a seat there if he pleased; but he did
not please, because he was sure that it would not amuse him to go. Why
should Beatrice like the theatre? And she liked the races at Naples,
too, and those at Paris much better. Why? Everybody knew that one horse
could run faster than another, without trying it, but it could not
matter a straw which of two, or twenty, got to the goal first. Horses
were not boats. Now there was sense in a boat race, or a yacht race, or
a steamer race. But a horse! He might be first to-day, and to-morrow if
he had not enough to