Teresina's cheeks flushed with pleasure and her eyes sparkled each time
he brought her some dainty from the master's table, and she thanked him
in the prettiest way imaginable, so that her voice reminded him of the
singing of the yellow-beaked blackbird he kept in a cage at home--which
was saying much, for the blackbird sang well and sweetly. But
Bastianello only said each time that "it was nothing," and then stood
silently waiting beside her till she should finish what she was eating
and be ready for more. Teresina would doubtless have enjoyed a little
conversation, and she looked up from time to time at the handsome sailor
beside her, with a look of enquiry in her eyes, as though to ask why he
said nothing. But Bastianello felt that he was on his honour, for he
never doubted that the little maid was the cause of Ruggiero's disease
of the heart and indeed of all that his brother evidently suffered, and
he was too modest by nature to think that Teresina could prefer him to
Ruggiero, who had always been the object of his own unbounded devotion
and admiration. Presently, when there was nothing more to offer her, and
the party at the table were lighting their cigarettes over their coffee,
he went away and going up to Ruggiero drew him a little further aside
from the group of sailors.
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