‘Probably angels’ ideas of happiness are more settled than men’s.’
‘In that case angels must be infinitely lower than men. To be happy in a place that has reached the end, that stands still, would require a very selfish man—and I don’t see why not a very selfish angel—to settle down contentedly to an eternity of bliss while there’s still so much work to be done in the world.’
‘I suppose,’ she suggested, ‘that when you get to be an angel, you forget about the world and leave all the sorrow and misery behind.’
‘A fools’ paradise!’ he maintained.
They were suddenly aroused from their talk by a peal of thunder. They looked up to see that the sun had disappeared. Sybert’s small cloud on the horizon had grown until it covered the sky.
‘Well, Miss Marcia,’ he laughed, ‘I am afraid we are going to get a wetting to pay for our immersion in philosophy and art. Shall we turn back?’
‘If we’re going to get wet anyway,’ she said, ‘I should prefer seeing the monastery first, since we’ve come so far.’ She looked across the valley in front of them, where, not half a mile away, the walls rose grim and gaunt amid a cluster of cypresses.
‘You can see about as much from here as you could if you went any nearer,’ he returned. ‘I should advise you to look and run.’
As he spoke a cool wind swept up the valley, swaying the olive trees and turning their leaves to silver. A flash of lightning followed, and a few big drops splashed in their faces.
‘We’re in for it!’ Marcia exclaimed, as she struggled to control Kentucky Lil, who was quivering and plunging.
Sybert glanced about quickly. The flying clouds overhead, and an ominous orange light that had suddenly settled down upon the landscape, betokened that a severe mountain storm was at hand. They would be drenched through before they could reach the monastery—which, after all, might not prove a hospitable order to ladies. He presently spied a low stone building nearer at hand on the slope of the hill they had just left behind. ‘We’d better make for that,’ he said, pointing it out with his whip. ‘Though it hasn’t a very promising look, it will at least be a shelter until the storm is over.’
CHAPTER XIII
The drops were falling fast by the time they reached the building. They hastily dismounted and pushed forward to 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 monastery. The room was low but deep, with a dirt floor and rough masonry walls; in the rear two huge vats rose dimly to the roof, and the floor was scattered with farming-implements. The air was damp and musty and pungent with the smell of fermenting grape-juice.
Sybert fastened the horses to a low beam by means of their bridles, while Marcia sat down upon a plough and pensively 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 rummaged out a board from a pile of lumber and fitted it at a somewhat precarious 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 reaper.’
‘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 gathering 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 deserted wine-cellar—it sounds like one of the “Duchess’s” novels.’
‘It does have a familiar ring,’ he agreed. ‘It only remains for you to sprain 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 Villa Vivalanti—Marcellus, and Gervasio, and Gervasio’s stepfather, and now a cloud-burst in the mountains! If they’re going to rise to a climax, I can’t imagine what our stay will end with.’
‘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 picturesque in a certain amount of real bloodshed.’
Sybert turned his eyes away from her with a gesture of indifference.
‘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 generic 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 fumigating.’
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 on the waistcoat. Suddenly she broke out with—
‘What’s that in your pocket, Mr. Sybert?’
A momentary shade of annoyance flashed over his face.
‘It’s a dynamite 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 outgrown.’
‘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 forth 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 deafening crash of thunder. A torrent 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 plunged and snorted in terror, and Sybert sprang to his feet to quiet them.