e. Close by lay
the boat to which Ruffo belonged. The boy was already in it, and they
saw him strike a match and light one of the cigarettes. Then he lay back
at his ease, smoking, and staring up at the moon.

"A girl of sixteen is not a child, and I am sure the Signorina is
sixteen. But that is not all. Emilio, you do not know the Signorina."

Artois repressed a smile. The Marchesino was perfectly in earnest.

"And you--do you know the Signorina?" Artois asked.

"Certainly I know her," returned the Marchesino with gravity.

They reached Ruffo's boat. As they did so, the Marchesino glanced at it
with a certain knowing impudence that was peculiarly Neapolitan.

"When I came to the top of the islet the Signorina was with that boy,"
the Marchesino continued.

"Well?" said Artois.

"Oh, you need not be angry, Emilio caro."

"I am not angry," said Artois.

Nor was he. It is useless to be angry with racial characteristics,
racial points of view. He knew that well. The Marchesino stared at him.

"No, I see you are not."

"The Signorina was with that boy. She has talked to him before. He has
dived for her. He has sung for her! She has given him cigarettes,
taken from her mother's box, with her mother's consent. Everything the
Signorina does her mother knows and approves of. You saw the Signora
send the Signorina for more cigarettes to give the boy to-night.
Ebbene?"

"Ebbene. They are English!"

And he laughed.

"Madre mia!"

He laughed again, seized his mustaches, twisted them, and went on.

"They are English, but for all that the Signorina is a woman. And as to
that boy--"

"Perhaps he is a man."

"Certainly he is. Dio mio, the boy at least is a Neapolitan."

"No, he isn't."

"He is not?"

"He's a Sicilian."

"How do you know?"

"I was here the other day when he was diving for _frutti di mare_."

"I have seen him at the Mergellina ever since he was a child."

"He says he is a Sicilian."

"Boys like that say anything if they can get something by it. Perhaps
he thought you liked the Sicilians better than the Neapolitans. But
anyhow--Sicilian or Neapolitan, it is all one! He is a Southerner, and
at fifteen a Southerner is already a man. I was."

"I know it. But you were proving to me that the Signorina is a woman.
The fact that she, an English girl, is good friends with the fisher boy
does not prove it."

"Ah, well!"

The Marchesino hesitated.

"I had seen the Signorina before I came to