Marcia regarded the pig with a laugh and a sigh.
‘Yes, it’s funny; but then, the first thing you know, you begin to think what a low standard of life the people must have who keep their pigs and their chickens in the house with them, and it doesn’t seem funny any more.’
‘Ah,’ he said. ‘You’re coming on.’
‘I’m afraid I am!’ she agreed.
As they strolled toward the upper part of the town, they came upon a group of men and boys talking and smoking and throwing dice in a prolonged noonday rest. It was a part of the pilgrimage from the village of Castel Vivalanti, and the group instantly recognized Marcia. The festal spirit of the day, joined to a double portion of wine, had made them more boisterous than usual; and one ragged little urchin, who had been playing the part of buffoon for the crowd, fell upon the two signori as a fresh subject for pleasantries. He set up the usual beggar’s whine, asking for soldi. The two paying no attention, he changed the form of his petition.
‘Signorina,’ he implored, running along at Marcia’s side and keeping a dirty hand extended impudently in front of her, ‘I have hunger, signorina; I have hunger. Spare me, for the love of God, a few grains of wheat.’
‘That’s a new formula,’ Marcia laughed. ‘It’s usually bread they want; I never heard them ask for wheat before.’
Sybert turned on the boy, with an air of threatening, and he hastily scrambled out of reach, though he still persevered in his petition, to the noisy amusement of the crowd.
Marcia spread out empty hands.
‘I have no wheat,’ she said, with a shake of her head.
The youngster turned to his following, mimicking her.
‘The signorina has no wheat,’ he cried. ‘Will no one give to the signorina? She is poor and she has hunger.’
Some one tossed a soldo. The boy pounced upon it and extended it toward her.
‘Behold, signorina! This good man is poor, but he is generous. He offers you money to get some wheat.’
Marcia laughed at the play in thorough enjoyment, while Sybert, with an angry light in his eye, seized the boy by the collar and cuffed him soundly.
‘Mr. Sybert,’ she cried, ‘take care; you’ll hurt him!’
‘I mean to hurt him,’ he said grimly, as with a final cuff he dropped him over the side of the bank.
The crowd jeered at his downfall as loudly as they had jeered at his impudence, and the two turned a corner and left them behind.
‘You needn’t have struck him,’ Marcia said. ‘The boy didn’t mean anything beyond being funny. He is one of my best friends; his name is Beppo, and he lives next door to the baker’s shop.’
‘If that is a specimen of your friends,’ Sybert answered dryly, ‘my advice is that you shake their acquaintance.’
‘I don’t mind a little impertinence,’ she said lightly. ‘It’s at least better than whining.’
‘I told you yesterday, Miss Marcia, that I didn’t think you ought to be running about the country alone—I think it even less to-day. It isn’t safe up here in the mountain towns, where the people aren’t used to foreigners.’
‘Why don’t you suggest to Uncle Howard that he engage a nurse for me?’
‘I begin to think you need one!’
Marcia laid a light hand on his arm.
‘Mr. Sybert, please don’t speak to me so harshly.’
‘I’ll speak to your uncle—that’s what I’ll do,’ he retorted.
They had by this time reached the castle, and having crossed the drawbridge and the stone courtyard, they came out on the other side, with the noisy little town left suddenly behind. The mountains rose above them, the valley lay beneath, and before them a straight, grassy road stretched into the hills, bordered by the tall arches of an old aqueduct. They strolled along, talking idly, Marcia well in command of the situation. There was a touch of audacity, even of provocation, underneath her glance, and Sybert was amusedly aware of the fact that he was being flirted with. Quite to Marcia’s astonishment, he met her on her own ground; he accepted the half-challenge in her manner and was never the first to lower his eyes. They had come to a bank starred pink with cyclamen and backed by one of the tall arches of the aqueduct.
‘Suppose we sit down and look at the view,’ he suggested.
Marcia seated herself on a projecting block of masonry, while Sybert lounged on the grass at her side.
‘Mr. Melville told me the other day,’ he remarked presently, ‘that he remembers having seen your mother when she was a little girl.’
Marcia nodded and laughed. ‘He told me about it—he says she was the worst tom-boy he ever saw.’
‘It was a very pretty picture he drew—I wonder if you ever rode the colts bareback?’
‘My mother was brought up on a Southern plantation; I, in a New York house and a Paris convent—there weren’t any colts to ride.’
‘And your mother died when you were a little girl?’
‘When I was twelve.’
‘Ah, that was hard,’ he said, with quick sympathy.
She glanced up in half surprise. It was the first time she had ever heard him say anything so kindly.
‘And the convent in Paris?’ he asked. ‘How did that happen?’
‘Some one suggested it to my father, and I suppose it struck him as an excellent way to dispose of me. Not that he isn’t an appreciative parent,’ she added quickly, in response to an expression on his face; ‘but the education of a daughter is a problem to a business man.’
‘I should think it might be,’ he agreed. ‘And how did the convent go?’
‘Not very well. I didn’t learn anything but prayers and French, and I was dreadfully homesick.’
‘And then?’
‘Oh, one or two governesses and a boarding-school, and after that college.’ Marcia laughed. ‘You should have seen my father when I suggested the college. He clutched at the idea like a drowning man; it was another four years’ reprieve.’
‘It’s a pity,’ he remarked, ‘that the French method of marrying one’s daughter offhand as soon as she gets out of school doesn’t prevail in America.’
‘I really did feel guilty when I graduated, the poor man looked so dazed through it all. He asked me if I would like to take a little trip into Venezuela with him to look into some mines. It would have been fun, wouldn’t it?’ she asked. ‘I should have liked to go.’
‘But, being charitable, you declined?’
‘Yes, and having another plan in my head. It had been years since I had seen Uncle Howard, and I thought it would be nice to come over and live with him for a while.’
‘And so here you are in Genazzano.’
‘Here I am,’ she agreed. ‘But as soon as papa is ready to settle down respectably like other people, I am going back to keep house for him, and I shall take with me some fourteenth-century Italian furniture, and some nice Italian servants, and give nice little Italian dinners.’
‘And shall you invite me sometimes?’
‘Drop in whenever you wish.’
Marcia began to laugh.
‘Well?’ he inquired. ‘What is so funny?’
‘To be talking to you this way—I shouldn’t have issued that invitation a week ago. You couldn’t help yourself yesterday,’ she added; ‘Aunt Katherine made you come; but really it’s your own fault to-day.’
‘Is that the impression I gave you? I am afraid I must have very bad manners.’
‘You have—rather bad,’ she agreed.
‘You hit straight,’ he laughed. ‘No,’ he added presently; ‘Aunt Katherine had nothing to do with our walk to-day. If you care to know, I’ll tell you why I wanted to come. Yesterday afternoon I took a ride with a most charming young woman, and I thought I’d like to renew the acquaintance.’
‘If that’s intended for a compliment, it’s of a very doubtful nature. You have known this same charming young woman for the last three months, and have never shown any marked desire for her company before.’
‘I was blind, but I have been made to see.’