But you have not betrayed him." "Since you do not love him--" began the sailor in a tone of doubt.
"Not him, but another." "And that other--" "It is perhaps you, Bastianello," said Teresina, growing rather pale again.
"Me!" He could only utter the one word just then.
"Yes, you." "My love!" Bastianello's arm went gently round her, and he whispered the words in her ear.

She let him hold her so without resistance, and looked up into his face with happy eyes.
"Yes, your love--did you never guess it, dearest ?" She was blushing still, and smiling at the same time, and her voice sounded sweet to Bastianello.
Only a sailor and a serving-maid, but both honest and both really loving.

There was not much eloquence about the courtship, as there had been about San Miniato's, and there was not the fierce passion in Bastianello's breast that was eating up his brother's heart.

Yet Beatrice, at least, would have changed places with Teresina if she could, and San Miniato could have held his head higher if there had ever been as much honesty in him as there was in Bastianello's every thought and action.
For Bastianello was very loyal, though he thought badly enough of his own doings, and when Beatrice called Teresina away a few minutes later, he marched down the corridor with resolute steps, meaning not to lose a moment in telling Ruggiero the whole truth, how he had honestly said the best things he could for him and had asked Teresina to marry him, and how he, Bastianello, had been betrayed into declaring his love, and had found, to his amazement, that he was loved in return.
Ruggiero was sitting alone on one of the stone pillars on the little pier, gazing at the sea, or rather, at a vessel far away towards Ischia, running down the bay with every stitch of canvas set from her jibs to her royals.

He looked round as Bastianello came up to him.
"Ruggiero," said the latter in a quiet tone.