‘Si, signore. They read the papers. The Avanti yesterday——’
Sybert nodded. ‘I know what the Avanti said.’
He turned back under the archway and set out for the baker’s—the place, as it happened, from which he had just come. He had been entertained there with some very plain comments on his friends in the villa—as Giovanni suggested, they read their papers, and the truth of whatever was stated in printer’s ink was not to be doubted. It was scarcely the time that Marcia should have chosen for an evening stroll through Castel Vivalanti; and Sybert was provoked that she should have paid so little heed to his warning of the afternoon. The fact that she was ignorant of the special causes for his warning did not at the moment present itself as an excuse. He had not gone far when he heard shouts ahead. The words were unmistakable.
‘Wheat! Wheat! Signorina Wheat!’
The volume of sound sent him hurrying forward in quick anxiety, almost fearing a riot. But his first glance, as he came out into the piazza, showed him that it was scarcely as serious as that. Marcia, looking hurt and astonished and angry, was standing in the midst of a fast-increasing crowd of dirty little street urchins, who were shrieking and jumping and gesticulating about her. She was in no possible danger, however; the boys meant no harm beyond being impudent. For a second Sybert hesitated, with the grim intention of teaching her a lesson, but the next moment he saw that she was already thoroughly frightened. She called out wildly to a group of men who had paused on the outskirts of the crowd; they laughed insolently, and made no move to drive the boys away. She closed her eyes and swayed slightly, while Sybert in quick compunction hurried forward. Pushing into the midst of the tumult, he cuffed the boys right and left out of the way. Marcia opened her eyes and regarded him dazedly.
‘Mr. Sybert!’ she gasped. ‘What’s the matter? What are they saying?’
‘Can you walk?’ he asked, stretching out a hand to steady her. ‘Come, we’ll get out of the piazza.’
By this time other men had joined the crowd, and low mutterings ran from mouth to mouth. Many recognized Sybert, and his name was shouted tauntingly. ‘Wheat! Wheat!’ however, was still the burden of the cry. One boy jostled against them impudently—it was Beppo of the afternoon—and Sybert struck him a sharp blow across the shoulders with his cane, sending him sprawling on the pavement. Half the crowd laughed, half called angrily, ‘Hit him, Beppo, hit him. Don’t let him knock you down,’ while a half-drunken voice in the rear shouted, ‘Behold Signor Siberti, the friend of the poor!’
‘Here, let’s get out of this,’ he said. And clearing an opening with a vigorous sweep of his cane, he hurried her down a narrow alley and around a corner out of sight of the piazza. Leading the way into a little trattoria, he drew a chair forward toward the door.
‘Giuseppe,’ he called, ‘bring the signorina some wine.’