The invitation was not a disagreeable one, for he had been gnawing a remnant of dry bread, which had left plenty of appetite for anything warm and relishing.
Tessa watched the disappearance of two or three mouthfuls without speaking, for she had thought his eyes rather fierce at first; but now she ventured to put her mouth to his ear again and cry—
“I like my supper, don’t you?”
It was not a smile, but rather the milder look of a dog touched by kindness, but unable to smile, that Baldassarre turned on this round blue-eyed thing that was caring about him.
“Yes,” he said; “but I can hear well—I’m not deaf.”
“It is true; I forgot,” said Tessa, lifting her hands and clasping them. “But Monna Lisa is deaf, and I live with her. She’s a kind old woman, and I’m not frightened at her. And we live very well: we have plenty of nice things. I can have nuts if I like. And I’m not obliged to work now. I used to have to work, and I didn’t like it; but I liked feeding the mules, and I should like to see poor Giannetta, the little mule, again. We’ve only got a goat and two kids, and I used to talk to the goat a good deal, because there was nobody else but Monna Lisa. But now I’ve got something else—can you guess what it is?”
She drew her head back, and looked with a challenging smile at Baldassarre, as if she had proposed a difficult riddle to him.
“No,” said he, putting aside his bowl, and looking at her dreamily. It seemed as if this young prattling thing were some memory come back out of his own youth.