"Go back? Santa Maria! I suffer: I go back so soona that I can!" As he spoke, with the soft round harp-like Tuscan tone which the east wind of New England had not rasped, he glanced around apprehensively. "With money, nexta month, I sail on the sea, and I arrive." "Well, that might be worse," said the elder man, indulgently. "May I ask your name?" "Ralph Power." "Ralph Power? That is not an Italian name." "Sir, I know. My mother, she have the marriage name Potenza. Rodolfo, that is mine. I translate the two, and that is Ralph Power, whicha make it easy for the tongue of many." Mr. Openshaw had drawn his hand over his eyelids, as if feeling the sting of memory. "What do you do for a living here?" "I serva the market. Once I assist to builda boats for the Capitan, but now he work no more; the beautiful Anne, she is his daughter. Ah, signor!" Ingenuously, boyishly, he sighed. "How old are you?" "Twenty-two." "How many questions I have asked you! I am afraid I have kept you from your duties. Pray go now." The other bowed, and turned townwards. But Openshaw felt on the instant a sort of loneliness. "Rodolfo!" he exclaimed, "do me the favor to spend this." He slipped a coin into an uninviting hand, partly, as he would have said himself, from natural depravity, partly, from the sheer luxury of his own incognito, and that of giving away to a young man what no young man could inherit. "It may help you out of your trouble. Trouble is very hard to bear, sometimes." If he were aware of expecting anything in return, from a poor Italian, it was the usual ecstatic thankful benediction of poor Italians in like luck. Once he had lived among them on their own soil; he knew the simple-hearted, engaging, vagabond breed through and through. But this specimen of it flushed and scowled, while trying to seem courteous; and his would-be benefactor was puzzled. As they stood opposite, they were of equal height; for the younger had drawn himself up a good inch. "I am afraid you are proud. You have picked that up in New England." Rodolfo answered resentfully: "Sir, I have the blood of New England also, and it is for me the destiny to earn my money, most of all after what I promise to the beautiful Anne."