It would be good to be spoken to like that. It would be good to see the
colour in a man's face change, and come and go, red and white like life
and death. It would be supremely good to be loved once, madly,
passionately, with body, heart and soul, to the very breaking of all
three--to be held in strong arms, to be kissed half to death.
She stopped, conscious that her mother would certainly not approve such
thoughts, and well aware in her girlish heart that she did not approve
them in herself. And then she smiled faintly. The man of her waking
vision was not like San Miniato. He was more like Ruggiero, the poor
sailor, who sat perched on the stern close behind her. She smiled
uneasily at the idea, and then she thought seriously of it for a moment.
If such a man as Ruggiero appeared, not as a sailor, but as a man of her
own world, would he not be a very lovable person, would he not turn the
heads of the languid ladies on the terrace of the hotel at Sorrento? The
thought annoyed her. Ruggiero, poor fellow, would have given his good
right arm to know that such a possibility had even crossed her
reflections.
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