Don Agostino looked at him quickly.
"But you told me that Monsieur d'Antin did not know you by sight," he exclaimed.
"I thought he did not know me, because I did not know him by sight," returned Silvio; "but I was mistaken," he added. "It is true that I never saw Monsieur d'Antin before to-night, to my knowledge, but he has seen me. I saw that he knew me by the expression in his eyes when he looked at me, and I am quite sure that he whispered my name to his friend—Peretti, is it?"
"Ah!" said Don Agostino, "it is certainly unfortunate that they should have seen us together. One never knows—"
"They looked at me in such a way that for two soldi I would have gone up to them and asked what they wanted of me—and then there would have been a row. Yes, Giacinta, for two soldi I would have boxed both their ears—a soldo for each of them," and Silvio's eyes began to flash ominously.
"Less than a soldo," observed his father, quietly. "They have four ears, Silvio. That would be at the rate of two centesimi and a half for each ear. All the same, I am glad you did not do it."
"I thought he would have done it," said Giacinta, in an undertone to Don Agostino, "but I made him come away at once."
Don Agostino looked grave. "I do not understand," he said to Silvio. "How could Monsieur d'Antin know you if you had never seen him before?"
"Che ne so io?" answered Silvio, carelessly—"and what does it matter?" he added, with a laugh. "He probably knows now that I should like to break his head, just as I know that he would like to break mine."
"Not for anything that he would find inside it," interposed the professor, dryly. "Via, Silvio, what is there to wonder at if Baron d'Antin looks at you with some curiosity? He has probably heard his sister speak of you as a lunatic!"