When her voice died down into the sea-depths he rose from those depths, and she saw his eyes laughing, his lips laughing at her, freed from the strange veil of the water, which had cast upon him a spectral aspect, the likeness of a thing deserted by its soul.
"Did you hear me that time?" Vere said, rather eagerly.
The boy lifted his dark head from the water to shake it, drew a long breath, trod water, then threw up his chin with the touch of tongue against teeth which is the Neapolitan negative.
"You didn"t! Then why did you come up?"
He swam to the boat.
"It pleased me to come."
She looked doubtful.
"I believe you are birbante," she said, slowly. "I am nearly sure you are."
The boy was just getting out, pulling himself up slowly to the boat by his arms, with his wet hands grasping the gunwale firmly. He looked at Vere, with the salt drops running down his sunburnt face, and dripping from his thick, matted hair to his strong neck and shoulders. Again his whole face laughed, as, nimbly, he brought his legs from the water and stood beside her.
"Birbante, Signorina?"
"Yes. Are you from Naples?"
"I come from Mergellina, Signorina."
Vere looked at him half-doubtfully, but still with innocent admiration.
There was something perfectly fearless and capable about him that attracted her.
He rowed in to sh.o.r.e.
"How old are you?" she asked.
"Sixteen years old, Signorina."
"I am sixteen, too."
They reached the islet, and Vere got out. The boy followed her, fastened the boat, and moved away a few steps. She wondered why, till she saw him stop in a sun-patch and let the beams fall full upon him.
"You aren"t afraid of catching cold?" she asked.
He threw up his chin. His eyes went to the cigarettes.
"Yes," said Vere, in answer to the look, "you shall have one. Here!"
She held out the packet. Very carefully and neatly the boy, after holding his right hand for a moment to the sun to get dry, drew out a cigarette.
"Oh, you want a match!"
He sprang away and ran lightly to the boat. Without waking his companions he found a matchbox and lit the cigarette. Then he came back, on the way stopping to get into his jersey.
Vere sat down on a narrow seat let into the rock close to the sun-patch.
She was nursing the dolce on her knee.
"You won"t have it?" she asked.
He gave her his usual negative, again stepping full into the sun.
"Well, then, I shall eat it. You say a dolce is for women!"
"Si, Signorina," he answered, quite seriously.
She began to devour it slowly, while the boy drew the cigarette smoke into his lungs voluptuously.
"And you are only sixteen?" she asked.
"Si, Signorina."
"As young as I am! But you look almost a man."
"Signorina, I have always worked. I am a man."
He squared his shoulders. She liked the determination, the resolution in his face; and she liked the face, too. He was a very handsome boy, she thought, but somehow he did not look quite Neapolitan. His eyes lacked the round and staring impudence characteristic of many Neapolitans she had seen. There was something at times impa.s.sive in their gaze. In shape they were long, and slightly depressed at the corners by the cheeks, and they had full, almost heavy, lids. The features of the boy were small and straight, and gave no promise of eventual coa.r.s.eness. He was splendidly made. When Vere looked at him she thought of an arrow. Yet he was very muscular, and before he dived she had noticed that on his arms the biceps swelled up like smooth b.a.l.l.s of iron beneath the shining brown skin.
"What month were you born in?" she asked.
"Signorina, I believe I was born in March. I believe I was sixteen last March."
"Then I am older than you are!"
This seemed to the boy a matter of indifference, though it was evidently exercising the girl beside him. She had finished the dolce now, and he was smoking the last fraction of an inch of the cigarette, economically determined to waste none of it, even though he burnt his fingers.
"Have another cigarette," Vere added, after a pause during which she considered him carefully. "You can"t get anything more out of that one."
"Grazie, Signorina."
He took it eagerly.
"Do tell me your name, won"t you?" Vere went on.
"Ruffo, Signorina."
"Ruffo--that"s a nice name. It sounds strong and bold. And you live at Mergellina?"
"Si, Signorina. But I wasn"t born there. I wasn"t born in Naples at all."
"Where were you born?"
"In America, Signorina, near New York. I am a Sicilian."
"A Sicilian, are you!"