eetly. But
Bastianello only said each time that "it was nothing," and then stood
silently waiting beside her till she should finish what she was eating
and be ready for more. Teresina would doubtless have enjoyed a little
conversation, and she looked up from time to time at the handsome sailor
beside her, with a look of enquiry in her eyes, as though to ask why he
said nothing. But Bastianello felt that he was on his honour, for he
never doubted that the little maid was the cause of Ruggiero's disease
of the heart and indeed of all that his brother evidently suffered, and
he was too modest by nature to think that Teresina could prefer him to
Ruggiero, who had always been the object of his own unbounded devotion
and admiration. Presently, when there was nothing more to offer her, and
the party at the table were lighting their cigarettes over their coffee,
he went away and going up to Ruggiero drew him a little further aside
from the group of sailors.

"I want to tell you something," he began. "You must not be as you are, a
man like you."

"How may that be?" asked Ruggiero, still looking towards the table, and
not pleased at being dragged from his former post of observation.

"I will tell you. I have been serving her with food. You could have done
that instead if you had wished. You could have talked to her, and she
would have liked it. It is easy when a woman is sitting apart and a man
brings her good food and wine--you could have spoken a word into her
ear."

Ruggiero was silent, but he slowly nodded twice, then shook his head.

"You do not say anything," continued Bastianello, "and you do wrong.
What I tell you is true, and you cannot deny it. After all, we are men
and they are women. Are they to speak first?"

"It is just," answered Ruggiero laconically.

"But then, per Dio, go and talk to her. Are you going to begin giving
her the gold before you have spoken?"

From which question it will be clear to the unsophisticated foreigner
that a regular series of presents in jewelry is the natural
accompaniment of a well-to-do courtship in the south. The trinkets are
called collectively "the gold."

Ruggiero did not find a ready answer to so strong an argument. Little
guessing that his brother was almost as much in love with Teresina as he
himself was with her mistress, he saw no reason for undeceiving him
concerning his own feelings. Since Bastianello had discovered that he,
Ruggiero, was suffering from an acute a