“Yes, Excellency, very much,” answered Ruggiero.  But his voice almost failed him.

“How much?  Tell us.”

Ruggiero was silent a moment.  Then his eyes flashed suddenly as he looked down at her and his voice came ringing and strong.

“So much that I would pray that Christ and the sea would take her, rather than that another man should get her!  Per Dio!”

There was such a vibration of strong passion in the words that Beatrice started a little and San Miniato looked up in surprise.  Even the Marchesa vouchsafed the sailor a glance of indolent curiosity.  Beatrice bent over to the Count and spoke in a low tone and in French.

“We must not tease him any more.  He is in love and very much in earnest.”

“So am I,” answered San Miniato with a half successful attempt to seem emotional, which might have done well enough if it had not come after Ruggiero’s heartfelt speech.

“You!” laughed Beatrice.  “You are never really in earnest.  You only think you are, and that pleases you as well.”

San Miniato bit his lip, for he was not pleased.  Her answer augured ill for the success of the plan he meant to put into execution that very evening.  He felt strongly incensed against Ruggiero, too, without in the least understanding the reason.

“You will find out some day, Donna Beatrice, that those who are most in earnest are not those who make the most passionate speeches.”

“Ah!  Is that true?  How strange!  I should have supposed that if a man said nothing it was because he had nothing to say.  But you have such novel theories!”

“Is this discussion never to end?” asked the Marchesa, wearily lifting her hand as though in protest, and letting it fall again beside the other.

“It has only just begun, mamma,” answered Beatrice cheerfully.  “When San Miniato jumps into the sea and drowns himself in despair, you will know that the discussion is over.”

“Beatrice!  My child!  What language!”

“Italian, mamma carissima.  Italian with a little Sicilian, such as we speak.”

“I am at your service, Donna Beatrice,” said the Count.  “Would you like me to drown myself immediately, or are you inclined for a little more conversation?”

Ruggiero had now taken the helm altogether.  As San Miniato spoke he nodded to his brother who was forward, intimating that he meant to go about.  He was certainly not in his normal frame of mind, for he had an evil thought at that moment.  Fortunately for every one concerned the breeze was very light and was indeed dying away as the sun sank lower.  They were already nearing the southernmost point of Capri, commonly called by sailors the Monaco, for what reason no one knows.  To reach Tragara where the Faraglioni, or needles, rise out of the deep sea close to the rocky shore under the cliffs, it is necessary to go round the point.  There was soon hardly any breeze at all, so that Bastianello and the other men shipped half-a-dozen oars and began to row.  The operation of going about involved a change of places in so small a boat and the slight confusion had interrupted the conversation.  A long silence followed, broken at last by the Marchesa’s voice.