greedy. It was voluptuous. She remembered seeing somewhere a picture
of some Sultan of the East reclining on a divan and smoking a chibouk.
She thought Ruffo had looked rather like the Sultan, serenely secure
of all earthly enjoyment. At that moment the Pool of San Francesco had
stood to the boy for the Paradise of Mahomet.

But Ruffo had not come again.

Each morning Vere had listened for his voice, had looked down upon the
sea for his boat, but all in vain. On the third day she had felt
almost angry with him unreasonably. But then she remembered that he
was not his own master, not the owner of the boat. Of course, he could
not do what he liked. If he could--well, then he would have come back.
She was positive of that.

If he ever did come back, she said to herself now, she would question
him about the sea. She would get at his thoughts about the sea, at his
feelings. She wondered if they could possibly be at all like hers. It
was unlikely, she supposed. They two were so very different. And
yet--!

She smiled to herself again, imagining question and answer with Ruffo.
He would not think her mad, even if she puzzled him. They understood
each other. Even her mother had said that they seemed to be in
sympathy. And that was true. Difference of rank need not, indeed
cannot, destroy the magic chain if it exists, cannot prevent its links
from being forged. She knew that her mother was in sympathy with
Gaspare, and Gaspare with her mother. So there was no reason why she
should not be in sympathy with Ruffo.