erwise? He never jarred with what was
immediately around him, and his nature was too joyous, too
unapprehensive, for the hidden and the distant to grasp him in the shape
of a dread. As he turned out of the hot sunshine into the shelter of a
narrow street, took off the black cloth berretta, or simple cap with
upturned lappet, which just crowned his brown curls, pushing his hair
and tossing his head backward to court the cooler air, there was no
brand of duplicity on his brow; neither was there any stamp of candour:
it was simply a finely-formed, square, smooth young brow. And the slow
absent glance he cast around at the upper windows of the houses had
neither more dissimulation in it, nor more ingenuousness, than belongs
to a youthful well-opened eyelid with its unwearied breadth of gaze; to
perfectly pellucid lenses; to the undimmed dark of a rich brown iris;
and to a pure cerulean-tinted angle of whiteness streaked with the
delicate shadows of long eyelashes. Was it that Tito's face attracted
or repelled according to the mental attitude of the observer? Was it a
cypher with more than one key? The strong, unmistakable expression in
his whole air and person was a negative one, and it was perfectly
veracious; it declared the absence of any uneasy claim, any restless
vanity, and it made the admiration that followed him as he passed among
the troop of holiday-makers a thoroughly willing tribute.

For by this time the stir of the Festa was felt even in the narrowest
side-streets; the throng which had at one time been concentrated in the
lines through which the procession had to pass, was now streaming out in
all directions in pursuit of a new object. Such intervals of a Festa
are precisely the moments when the vaguely active animal spirits of a
crowd are likely to be the most petulant and most ready to sacrifice a
stray individual to the greater happiness of the greater number. As
Tito entered the neighbourhood of San Martino, he found the throng
rather denser; and near the hostelry of the _Bertucce_, or Baboons,
there was evidently some object which was arresting the passengers and
forming them into a knot. It needed nothing of great interest to draw
aside passengers unfreighted with a purpose, and Tito was preparing to
turn aside into an adjoining street, when, amidst the loud laughter, his
ear discerned a distressed childish voice crying, "Loose me! Holy
Virgin, help me!" which at once determined him to push his