and looked
fixedly into Teresina's eyes. Since she did not love Ruggiero, why
should he not speak? Yet he felt as though he were not quite loyal to
his brother.

Teresina's cheeks grew red and then a little pale. She twisted the cord
of the Venetian blind round and round her hand, looking down at it all
the time. Bastianello stood motionless before her, staring at her thick
black hair.

"Well?" asked Teresina looking up and meeting his eyes and then lowering
her own quickly again.

"What, Teresina?" asked Bastianello in a changed voice.

"You say you also might do that man an injury whom I love. I suppose
that is because you are so fond of your brother. Is it so?"

"Yes--and also--"

"Bastianello, do you love me too?" she asked in a very low tone,
blushing more deeply than before.

"Yes. I do. God knows it. I would not have said it, though. Ah,
Teresina, you have made a traitor of me! I have betrayed my
brother--and for what?"

"For me, Bastianello. But you have not betrayed him."

"Since you do not love him--" began the sailor in a tone of doubt.

"Not him, but another."

"And that other--"

"It is perhaps you, Bastianello," said Teresina, growing rather pale
again.

"Me!" He could only utter the one word just then.

"Yes, you."

"My love!" Bastianello's arm went gently round her, and he whispered the
words in her ear. She let him hold her so without resistance, and looked
up into his face with happy eyes.

"Yes, your love--did you never guess it, dearest?" She was blushing
still, and smiling at the same time, and her voice sounded sweet to
Bastianello.

Only a sailor and a serving-maid, but both honest and both really
loving. There was not much eloquence about the courtship, as there had
been about San Miniato's, and there was not the fierce passion in
Bastianello's breast that was eating up his brother's heart. Yet
Beatrice, at least, would have changed places with Teresina if she
could, and San Miniato could have held his head higher if there had
ever been as much honesty in him as there was in Bastianello's every
thought and action.

For Bastianello was very loyal, though he thought badly enough of his
own doings, and when Beatrice called Teresina away a few minutes later,
he marched down the corridor with resolute steps, meaning not to lose a
moment in telling Ruggiero the whole truth, how he had honestly said the
best things he could for him and had asked Teresina to marry him, and
how