The drops were falling fast by the time they reached the building. They hastily dismounted and pushed forward to 130 the wide stone archway which served as entrance. A door of rudely joined boards swung across the opening, but it was ajar and banging in the wind. Sybert threw it open and led the horses into the gloomy interior. It proved to be a wine-cellar, probably belonging to the . The room was low but deep, with a dirt floor and rough walls; in the rear two huge rose dimly to the roof, and the floor was with farming-implements. The air was damp and musty and with the smell of grape-juice.  
Sybert fastened the horses to a low beam by means of their , while Marcia sat down upon a plough and regarded the landscape. He presently joined her.
 
‘This is not a very cheerful refuge,’ he remarked; ‘but at least it is drier than the open road.’
 
She moved along and offered him part of her seat.
 
‘I think I can improve on that,’ he said, as he out a board from a pile of and fitted it at a somewhat slope across the plough. They gingerly sat down upon it and Marcia observed—
 
‘I suppose if you had your way, Mr. Sybert, we should be sitting on a McCormick .’
 
‘It would at least be more comfortable,’ he returned.
 
The rain was beating fiercely by this time, and the lightning flashes were following each other in quick succession. Black clouds were rolling inland from across the Volscian mountains and piling layer upon layer above their heads. Marcia sat watching the storm, and presently she exclaimed:
 
‘This might be a situation out of a book! To be overtaken by a thunderstorm in the Sabine mountains and seek shelter in a wine-cellar—it sounds like one of the “Duchess’s” novels.’
 
‘It does have a familiar ring,’ he agreed. ‘It only for you to your ankle.’
 
She laughed softly, with an undertone of excitement in her voice.
 
‘I’ve never had so many adventures in my life as since we came out to Vivalanti—Marcellus, and Gervasio, and Gervasio’s stepfather, and now a cloud-burst in the mountains! If they’re going to rise to a , I can’t imagine what our stay will end with.’
 
131 ‘Henry James, you know, says that the only adventures worth having are intellectual adventures.’
 
Marcia considered this proposition doubtfully.
 
‘In an intellectual adventure,’ she objected, ‘you could never be quite sure that it really was an adventure; you’d always be afraid you’d imagined half of it. I think I prefer mine more visibly exciting. There’s something in a certain amount of real bloodshed.’
 
Sybert turned his eyes away from her with a gesture of .
 
‘Oh, if it’s merely bloodshed you’re after,’ he said dryly, ‘you’ll find as much as you like in any butcher’s shop.’
 
She watched him for a moment and then she observed, ‘I suppose you are disagreeable on purpose, Mr. Sybert. You have a—’ she hesitated for a word, and as none presented itself, substituted a term—‘horrid way of answering a person.’
 
He turned back toward her with a laugh. ‘If I really thought you meant it, I should have a still “horrider” way.’
 
‘Certainly I mean it,’ she declared. ‘I’ve always liked to read about fights and plots and murders in books. I think it’s nice to have a little blood spattered about. It’s a sort of concrete symbol of courage.’
 
‘Ah—I saw a concrete symbol of courage the other day, but I can’t say that it struck me as attractive.’
 
‘What was it?’
 
‘A fellow lying by the roadside, in a pool of dirty water and blood, with his mouth wide open, a couple of stiletto wounds in his neck, and his brains spattered over his face—brains may be useful, but they’re not pretty.’
 
She looked at him gravely, with a slow expression of disgust.
 
‘I suppose you think I’m horrider than ever now?’
 
‘Yes, said Marcia; ‘I do.’
 
‘Then don’t make any such absurd statement as that you think bloodshed picturesque. The world’s got beyond that. Do you object if I smoke? I don’t think it would hurt this place to have a bit of .’
 
She nodded permission, and watched him silently as he rolled a cigarette and hunted through his pockets for a match. The coat did not reward his search, and he commenced 132 on the waistcoat. Suddenly she broke out with—
 
‘What’s that in your pocket, Mr. Sybert?’
 
A shade of flashed over his face.
 
‘It’s a bomb.’
 
‘It’s a revolver! What are you carrying that for? It’s against the law.’
 
‘Don’t tell the police’ he pleaded. ‘I’ve always liked to play with fire-arms; it’s a habit I’ve never .’
 
‘Why are you carrying it?’ she repeated.
 
Sybert found his match and lighted his cigarette with slow deliberation. Then he rose to his feet and looked down at her. ‘You ask too many questions, Miss Marcia,’ he said, and he commenced pacing back and the length of the dirt floor.
 
She remained with her elbow resting on her knee and her chin in her hand, looking out at the storm. Presently he came back and sat down again.
 
‘Is our amnesty off?’ he asked.
 
Before she could open her mouth to respond a fierce white flash of lightning came, followed instantly by a crash of thunder. A of water came pouring down on the loose tiles with a roar that sounded like a cannonading. The air seemed quivering with electricity. The horses and snorted in terror, and Sybert sprang to his feet to quiet them.
 
‘Jove! It is a cloudburst,’ he cried.
 
Marcia ran to the open and stood looking out across the storm-swept valley. The water was coming down in an almost solid sheet; the clouds hung low and black and impenetrable except when a jagged line of lightning cut them in two. From the height across the valley the tall square monastery tower rose into the very midst of the storm, while the trees at its base swayed and and their hands in agony. Sybert came and stood beside her, and the two watched the storm in silence.
 
‘There,’ he suddenly flashed out, with a little undertone of triumph in his voice—‘there is Italy!’ He nodded toward the old walls rising so stanchly from the storm. ‘That’s the way the Italians have weathered tyranny and revolution and oppression for centuries, and that’s the way they will keep on doing.’
 
133 She looked up at him quickly, and caught a gleam of something she had never seen before in his face. It was as if an internal fire were blazing through. For an imperceptible second he held her look, then his again and his usual expression of reserve came back.
 
‘Come and sit down,’ he said; ‘you’re getting wet.’
 
They turned back to the plough again and sat side by side, looking out at the storm. The beating of the rain on the tiles above their heads made a difficult accompaniment for conversation, and they did not try to talk. But they were electrically aware of each other’s presence; the wild excitement of the storm had taken hold of both of them. Marcia’s breath came fast through slightly parted lips, her cheeks were flushed, her hair was tumbled, and there was a yellow glow in her deep grey eyes. Her face seemed to vivify the gloomy interior. Sybert glanced at her sidewise once or twice in half surprise; she did not seem exactly the person he had thought he knew. Her hand lay in her lap, idly clasping her gloves and whip. It looked white and soft against her black habit.
 
Suddenly Marcia asked a question.
 
‘Will you tell me something, Mr. Sybert?’
 
‘I am at your service,’ he bowed.
 
‘And the truth?’
 
‘Oh, certainly, the truth.’
 
She glanced down in her lap a moment and smoothed the fingers of her gloves in a thoughtful silence. ‘Well,’ she said finally, ‘I don’t know, after all, what I want to ask you; but there is something in the air that I don’t understand. Tell me the truth about Italy.’
 
‘The truth about Italy?’ He repeated the words with a slight accent of surprise.
 
‘Last week in Rome, at the Roystons’ hotel, everybody was talking about the wheat famine and the bread riots, and they all stopped suddenly when I asked any questions. Uncle Howard will never tell me a thing; he just jokes about it when I ask him.’
 
‘He’s afraid,’ said Sybert. ‘No one dares to tell the truth in Italy; it’s lèse majesté.’
 
She glanced up at him quickly to see what he meant. His face was quite grave, but there was a disagreeable suggestion of a smile about his lips. She looked out of 134 doors again with an angry light in her eyes. ‘Oh, I think you are beastly!’ she cried. ‘You and Uncle Howard both act as if I were ten years old. I don’t think that a wheat famine is any subject to joke about.’
 
‘Miss Marcia,’ he said quietly, ‘when things get to a certain point, if you wish to keep your senses you can’t do anything but joke about them.’
 
‘Tell me,’ she said.
 
There was a look of troubled in her face. Sybert half closed his eyes and studied the ground without speaking. Not very many days before he had felt a fierce desire to the story at her, to confront her with a picture of the suffering that her father had caused; now he felt as strongly as her uncle that she must not know.
 
‘Since you cannot do anything to help, why should you wish to understand? There are so many unpleasant things in the world, and so many of us already who know about them. It’s—’ he turned toward her with a little smile, but one which she did not resent—‘well, it’s a relief, you know, to see a few people who accept their happiness as a free gift from heaven and ask no questions.’
 
‘I am not a baby. I should not care to accept happiness on any such terms.’
 
‘And you want to know about Italy? Very well,’ h............