xplains everything in
the most natural way. Is it not really natural that on the occasion of
my betrothal I should wish to give you a little remembrance, because you
have always been so obliging, and have been with the Marchesa since you
were a child? I could not do anything else, I am sure, and I beg you to
keep it and wear it. And as for my telling you that you are pretty and
young and fresh, I do not see why you need be so mortally offended at
that. However, Teresina, I am sorry if you misunderstood me. You will
keep the little chain?"

"No, Signor Conte. Take it. And I do not believe a word you say."

She held out the parcel to him, but he, still smiling, shook his head
and would not take it. Then she let it drop at his feet, and turned
quickly and left him. He watched her a moment, and his annoyance at his
discomfiture showed itself plainly enough, so soon as she was not there
to see it. Then he shrugged his shoulders, stooped and picked up the
package, restored it to his waistcoat pocket and went back to his bench.

"It is a pity," he muttered, as he took out his note-book again. "It
would have been such good practice!"

An hour later Bastianello was sitting alone in the boat, under the
awning, enjoying the cool breeze and wishing that the ladies would go
for a sail while it lasted, instead of waiting until late in the
afternoon as they generally did, at which time there was usually not a
breath of air on the water. He was smoking a clay pipe with a cane stem,
and he was thinking vaguely of Teresina, wondering whether Ruggiero
would never speak to her, and if he never did, whether he, Bastianello,
might not at last have his turn.

A number of small boys were bathing in the bright sunshine, diving off
the stones of the breakwater and running along the short pier, brown
urchins with lithe thin limbs, matted black hair and beady eyes.
Suddenly Bastianello was aware of a small dark face and two little hands
holding upon the gunwale of his boat. He knew the boy very well, for he
was the son of the Son of the Fool.

"Let go, Nenne!" he said; "do you take us for a bathing house?"

"You have a beautiful pair of padroni, you and your brother," observed
Nenne, making a hideous face over the boat's side.

Bastianello did not move, but stretched out his long arm to take up the
boat-hook, which lay within his reach.

"If you had seen what I saw in the garden up there just now," continued
the small boy. "Madonna mia,