“I am very human, for my part,” said San Miniato, holding Beatrice’s chair for her to sit down.

“There was really no use for the lamp, mamma,” she said, turning again to look at the moon.  “You see what an illumination we have!  San Miniato has provided us with something better than a lamp.”

“San Miniato, my dear child, is a man of the highest genius.  I always said so.  But if you begin to talk of eating without a lamp, you may as well talk of abolishing civilisation.”

“I wish we could!” exclaimed Beatrice.

“And so do I, with all my heart,” said San Miniato.

“Including baccarat and quinze?” enquired the Marchesa, lazily picking out the most delicate morsels from the cold fish on her plate.

“Including baccarat, quinze, the world, the flesh and the devil,” said San Miniato.

“Pray remember, dearest friend, that Beatrice is at the table,” observed the Marchesa, with indolent reproach in her voice.

“I do,” replied San Miniato.  “It is precisely for her sake that I would like to do away with the things I have named.”

“You might just leave a little of each for Sundays!” suggested the young girl.

“Beatrice!” exclaimed her mother.

CHAPTER VI.

While the little party sat at table, the sailors gathered together at a distance among the rocks, and presently the strong red light of their fire shot up through the shadows, lending new contrasts to the scene.  And there they slung their kettle on an oar and patiently waited for the water to boil, while the man known as the Gull, always cook in every crew in which he chanced to find himself, sat with the salt on one side of him and a big bundle of macaroni on the other, prepared to begin operations at any moment.

Ruggiero stood a little apart, his back against a boulder, his arms crossed and his eyes fixed on Beatrice’s face.  His keen sight could distinguish the changing play of her expression as readily at that distance as though he had been standing beside her, and he tried to catch the words she spoke, listening with a sort of hurt envy to the little silvery laugh that now and then echoed across the open space and lost itself in the crannies of the rocks.  It all hurt him, and yet for nothing in the world would he have turned away or shut his ears.  More than once, too, the thoughts that had disturbed him while he was steering in the afternoon, came upon him with renewed and startling strength.  He had in him some of that red old blood that does not stop for trifles such as life and death when the hour of passion burns, and the brain reels with overmastering love.