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.

But it was not probable that he ever would know it, and he sat in his place, silent and unmoved, steering the boat to her destination, and thinking of her.
It was not dusk when the boat was alongside of the low jagged rocks which lie between the landward needle and the cliffs, making a sort of rough platform in which there are here and there smooth flat places worn by the waves and often full of dry salt for a day or two after a storm.
There, to the Marchesa's inexpressible relief, the numberless objects inscribed in the catalogue of her comforts were already arranged, and she suffered herself to be lifted from the boat and carried ashore by Ruggiero and his brother, without once murmuring or complaining of fatigue--a truly wonderful triumph for San Miniato's generalship.
There was the table, the screen, and the lamp, the chairs and the carpet--all the necessary furniture for the Marchesa's dining-room.