And she liked to have him near--but
not just at this moment. Yet she did not feel that she could ask him
to go.
"Thank you very much for your gratitude, Ruffo," she said. "You
mustn't think--"
She glanced at Gaspare.
"I didn't want to stop you," she continued, trying to steer an even
course. "But it's a very little thing. I hope your mother is getting
on pretty well. She must have courage."
As she said the last sentence she thought it came that night oddly
from her lips.
Gaspare moved as if he felt impatient, and suddenly Hermione knew an
anger akin to Vere's, an anger she had scarcely ever felt against
Gaspare.
She did not show it at first, but went on with a sort of forced
calmness and deliberation, a touch even perhaps of obstinacy that was
meant for Gaspare.
"I am interested in your mother, you know, although I have not seen
her. Tell me how she is."
Gaspare opened his lips to speak, but something held him silent; and
as he listened to Ruffo's carefully detailed reply, delivered with the
perfect naturalness of one sure of the genuine interest taken in his
concerns by his auditors, his large eyes travelled from the face of
the boy to the face of his Padrona with a deep and restless curiosity.
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