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 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 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 , 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 were this dog.’
Sybert glanced down at her feet, where a bedraggled cur was , shivering, and looking up with pleading eyes. The blood was running from a cut on its shoulder, and a motley 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 , and was just driving back to the station when I saw those 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 have not the perfect manners one could wish.’
‘Manners!’ Marcia indignantly. ‘I 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 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 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 .
‘You poor thing! Stop trembling. Nobody’s going to hurt you,’ and she over and kissed him on the nose.
Marcia was excited. She had not quite recovered her since the scene with Paul Dessart in the , and the affair of the dog had upset her afresh. She on now, with a gaiety quite at 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 . 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 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 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 his shoulders and they settled down into a walk.
‘Isn’t there any society for the prevention of cruelty to an............