The Syndic, accustomed to seek shelter from all plain speaking in the cover of flowery periods such as those in which he had been arrested, was driven from his usual refuge.  He could not resume the noble and enlightened discourse which had been thus recklessly cut in two.  He tied the strings of the portfolio into a bow, and undid them, and tied them again.

“I have received you, sir, ex officio,” he replied after a long silence.  “You address me as if I possessed some special individual power.  I have none.  I am but the mouthpiece, the representative of my administrative council.  You, a learned ecclesiastic, cannot want to be taught what are the functions of a Syndic.”

“I am to understand then that I must address myself on behalf of my people to the Prefect?”

Corradini was silent.  The last thing he desired was for this importunate priest to see the Prefect.

“I must go into council at once,” he said, again looking at his watch.  “Could you return?  Are you remaining here?”

“Some hours, sir.”

“Will you dine with me at my house at three?  You will give me much pleasure, and the Countess Corradini will be charmed.”

“I am grateful for so much offered honour, but I have promised to make my noonday meal with an old friend, the superior of the Cistercians.”

“An excellent, a holy person,” said Corradini, with a bend of his head.  “Be at my house, reverend sir, at five of the clock.  I shall then have spoken with the assessors of your errand, and it will be dealt with probably in council.”

Don Silverio made a low bow, and left him free to go to his awaiting councillors, who were already gathered round a long table covered by green cloth, in a vaulted and stately chamber, stories from Greek mythology carved on its oaken doors and stone cornices.

“Pray excuse me, gentleman,” said the courtly mayor to his assessors, taking his seat on an old walnut-wood throne at the head of the table.  “I have been detained by this matter of the Valdedera.  I fear the people of that valley will show an ungrateful and refractory temper.  How hard it is to persuade the ignorant where their true interests lie!  But let us to business.”

“It will be a hard matter,” said the Prior to Don Silverio as they walked together in the little burial-ground of the monastery between its lines of rose-trees and its lines of crosses, after the frugal noonday meal had been eaten in the refrectory.  “It will be a hard matter.  You will fail, I fear.  The municipalities here smell money.  That is enough to make them welcome the invasion.  What can you do against the force of gold?”

“Would it avail anything to see the Prefect?”

“Nothing.  He is cousin to the Minister of Agriculture, whose brother is chairman of the Teramo-Fermo Company.  We are governed solely by what the French call tripotage.”

“What character does this Syndic bear?”