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Wheat Princess

<h2 class='c009'>CHAPTER IX</h2></div> Sybert turned away from the wine-shop with a half-laugh at Tarquinio’s little play, with a half-frown at the fierce words of the Neapolitan, which were still ringing in his head. He walked along with his eyes upon the ground, scarcely aware of his surroundings, until an excited medley of voices close at hand suddenly startled him from his thoughts. He glanced up for a moment with unseeing eyes, and then with an astonished flash of recognition as he beheld Marcia Copley backed against one of the dark stone arches in the substructure of the theatre of Marcellus. Her head was thrown back and there were two angry red spots in her cheeks, while a struggling crowd of boys pressed around her with shouts and gesticulations. As he paused to take in the meaning of the scene, he heard Marcia—evidently so angry that she had forgotten her Italian—say in English: ‘You beastly little cowards! You wouldn’t dare hurt anything but a poor animal that can’t hit back.’ She accompanied this speech with a 82 vigorous shake to a small boy whom she held by the shoulder. The boy could not understand her words, but he did understand her action and he kicked back vigorously. The crowd laughed and began to close around her. She took out her purse. ‘Who owns this dog?’ she demanded. At sight of the money they pressed closer, and in another moment would have snatched it away; but Sybert stepped forward, and raising his cane, scattered them right and left. ‘What in the world are you doing here? What is the meaning of this?’ he asked. ‘Oh, Mr. Sybert! I’m so glad to see you. Look! those horrible little wretches were killing this dog.’ Sybert glanced down at her feet, where a bedraggled cur was crouching, shivering, and looking up with pleading eyes. The blood was running from a cut on its shoulder, and a motley assortment of tin was tied to its tail by a cord. He took out his knife and cut the dog loose, and Marcia stooped and picked it up. ‘Take care, Miss Marcia,’ he said in a disgusted tone. ‘He’s very dirty, and you will get covered with blood.’ Marcia put her handkerchief over the dog’s wound, and it lay in her arms, whimpering and shaking. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ he demanded again, almost roughly. ‘What are you doing in this part of the city alone?’ His tone at another time would have been irritating, but just now she was too grateful for his appearance to be anything but cordial, and she hastily explained— ‘I’ve been spending the afternoon at Tre Fontane with some friends. I left them at the English cemetery, and was just driving back to the station when I saw those miserable little boys chasing this dog. I jumped out and grabbed him, and they all followed me.’ ‘I see,’ said Sybert; ‘and it is fortunate that I happened by when I did, or you wouldn’t have had any money left to pay your cab-driver. These Roman urchins have not the perfect manners one could wish.’ ‘Manners!’ Marcia sniffed indignantly. ‘I loathe the Italians! I think they are the cruellest people I ever saw. Those boys were stoning this poor dog to death.’ ‘I dare say they have not enjoyed your advantages.’ 83 ‘They would have killed him if I hadn’t come just when I did.’ ‘You are not going out to the villa alone?’ ‘No; Aunt Katherine and Gerald are going to meet me at the station.’ ‘Oh, very well,’ he answered in a tone of evident relief, as they turned toward the waiting carriage. ‘Let me take the dog and I will drop him a few streets farther on, where the boys won’t find him again.’ ‘Certainly not,’ said Marcia indignantly. ‘Some other boys would find him. I shall take him home and feed him. He doesn’t look as if he had had anything to eat for weeks.’ ‘In that case,’ said Sybert resignedly, ‘I will drive to the station with you, for he is scarcely a lap-dog and you may have trouble getting him into the train.’ And while she was in the midst of her remonstrance he stepped into the carriage and put the dog on the floor between his feet. The dog, however, did not favour the change, and stretching up an appealing paw he touched Marcia’s knee, with a whine. ‘You poor thing! Stop trembling. Nobody’s going to hurt you,’ and she bent over and kissed him on the nose. Marcia was excited. She had not quite recovered her equanimity since the scene with Paul Dessart in the cloisters, and the affair of the dog had upset her afresh. She rattled on now, with a gaiety quite at variance with her usual attitude toward Sybert, of anything and everything that came into her mind—Gerald’s broken tooth, the departure of Marietta, the afternoon at Tre Fontane, and the episode of the dog. Sybert listened politely, but his thoughts were not upon her words. He was too full of what he had left behind in the little café for him to listen patiently to Marcia’s chatter. As he looked at her, flushed and smiling in her dainty clothes, which were faultless with the faultlessness that comes from money, he experienced a feeling almost of anger against her. He longed to face her with a few plain truths. What right had she to all her useless luxuries, when her father was—as the Neapolitan had truly put it—taking his money from the mouths of the poor? It was their work which made it possible for such as she to live—and was she worth it? The world had given her much: 84 she was educated, she was cultured, she had trained tastes and sensibilities, and in return what did she do for the world? She saved a dog. He made a movement of disgust and for a moment he almost obeyed his impulse to throw the dog out. But he brought himself back to reason with a half-laugh. It was not her fault. She knew nothing of her father’s transaction; she knew nothing of Italy’s need. There was no reason why she should not be happy. And, after all, he told himself wearily, it was a relief to meet some one who had no troubles. Marcia suddenly interrupted her own light discourse to look at her watch. ‘Gracious! I haven’t much time. Will you please tell him to hurry a little, Mr. Sybert?’ The driver obeyed by giving his horse a resounding cut with the whip, whereupon Marcia jerked him by the coat-tails and told him that if he whipped his horse again she would not give him any mancia. The fellow shrugged his shoulders and they settled down into a walk. ‘Isn’t there any society for the prevention of cruelty to animals?’ she asked. ‘These Italians are hopeless.’ ‘You can scarcely expect them to expend more consideration on animals than they receive themselves,’ Sybert threw off. ‘Oh, dear!’ she complained anew, suddenly becoming aware of their pace; ‘I’m afraid we’ll be late for the train. Don’t you suppose he could hurry just a little without whipping the horse?’ Sybert translated her wishes to the driver again, and they jogged on at a somewhat livelier rate; but by the time they reached the station the train had gone, and there were no Mrs. Copley and Gerald in the waiting-room. Marcia’s face was slightly blank as she realized the situation, and her first involuntary thought was a wish that it had been Paul Dessart instead of Sybert who had come with her. She carried off the matter with a laugh, however, and explained to her companion— ‘I suppose Aunt Katherine thought I had decided to stay in the city with the Roystons. I told her I was going to, but I found they had a dinner engagement. It doesn’t matter, though; I’ll wait here for the next train. There is one for Palestrina before very long—Aunt Katherine 85 went by way of Tivoli. Thank you very much, Mr. Sybert, for coming to the station with me, and really you mustn’t think you have to wait until the train goes. The dog will be company enough.’ Sybert consulted his time schedule in silence. ‘The next train doesn’t leave till seven, and there won’t be any carriage waiting for you. How do you propose to get out to the villa?’ ‘Oh, the station-man at Palestrina will find a carriage for me. There’s a very nice man who’s often driven us out.’ Sybert frowned slightly as he considered the question. It was rather inconvenient for him to go out to the villa that night; but he reflected that it was his duty toward Copley to get his niece back safely—as to letting her set out alone on a seven-mile drive with a strange Palestrina driver, that was clearly out of the question. ‘I think I’ll run out with you,’ he said, looking at his watch. She had seen his frown and feared some such proposition. ‘No, indeed!’ she cried. ‘I shouldn’t think of letting you. I’ve been over the same road hundreds of times, and I’m not in the least afraid. It won’t be late.’ ‘The Sabine mountains are infested with bandits,’ he declared. ‘I think you need an escort.’ ‘Mr. Sybert, how silly! I know your time is precious, (this was intended for irony, but as it happened to be true, he did not recognize it as such), ‘and I don’t want you to come with me.’ Sybert laughed. ‘I don’t doubt that, Miss Marcia; but I’m coming, just the same. I am sorry, but you will have to put up with me.’ ‘I should a lot rather you wouldn’t,’ she returned, ‘but do as you please.’ ‘Thank you for the invitation,’ he smiled. ‘There’s about an hour and a half before the train goes—you might run out to the Embassy and have a cup of tea.’ ‘Thank you for the invitation, but I think I’ll stay here. I don’t wish to miss a second train, and I shouldn’t know what to do with the dog.’ ‘Very well, if you don’t mind staying alone, I will drive out myself and leave a business message for the chief, and then I can take a vacation with a clear conscience. 86 I have a matter to consult your uncle about, and I shall be very glad to run out to the villa.’ He raised his hat in a sufficiently friendly bow and departed. When he returned, an hour later, he found Marcia feeding the dog with sausage amid an appreciative group of porters, one of whom had procured the meat. ‘Oh, dear!’ she cried. ‘I hoped Marcellus would have finished his meal before you came back. But you aren’t so particular about etiquette as the contessa,’ she added, ‘and don’t object to feeding dogs in the station?’ ‘I dare say the poor beast was hungry.’ ‘Hungry! I had a whole kilo of sausage, and you should have seen it disappear.’ ‘These facchini look as if they would not be averse to sharing his meal.’ ‘Poor fellows, they do look hungry.’ Marcia produced her purse and handed them a lira apiece. ‘Because I haven’t any luggage for you to carry, and because you like my dog,’ she explained in Italian. ‘Don’t tell Uncle Howard,’ she added in English. ‘I don’t believe one lira can make them paupers.’ ‘It would doubtless be difficult to pauperize them any more than they are at present,’ he agreed. ‘You don’t believe in Uncle Howard’s ideas of charity, do you?’ she inquired tentatively. ‘Oh, not entirely; but we don’t quarrel over it.—Perhaps,’ he suggested, ‘we’d better go out and find an empty compartment while the guards are not looking. I fear they might object to Marcellus—is that his name?—occupying a first-class carriage.’ ‘Marcellus, because I found him by the theatre.’ ‘Ah—I hope he will turn out as handsome a fellow as his namesake. Come, Marcellus; it’s time we were off.’ He picked the dog up by the nape of the neck and they started down the platform, looking for an empty carriage. They had their choice of a number; the train was not crowded, and first-class carriages in an Italian way-train are rarely in demand. As he was helping Marcia into the car, Sybert was amused to see Tarquinio, the proprietor of the Inn of the Italian People, hurrying into a third-class compartment, with a furtive glance over his shoulder as if he expected every corner to be an ambuscade of the 87 secret police. The warning had evidently fallen on good ground, and the poor fellow was fleeing for his life from the wicked machinations of an omniscient premier. ‘If you will excuse me a moment, I wish to speak to a friend,’ Sybert said as he got Marcia settled; and without waiting for her answer, he strode off down the platform. She had seen the young Italian, weighed down by a bundle tied up in a bed-quilt, give a glance of recognition as he passed them; and as she watched Sybert enter a third-class compartment she had not a doubt but that the Italian was the ‘friend’ he was searching. She leaned back in the corner with a puzzled frown. Why had Sybert so many queer friends in so many queer places, and why need he be so silent about them? <div class='chapter'> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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