He commenced rolling a cigarette in a lazy, half-amused fashion, while Marcia occupied an interval of silence by checking the progress of a black beetle who found himself on the stone beside her, and who seemed in a great hurry to get somewhere else. In whichever way he turned, a mountain of a green leaf sprang up in his path. He ran wildly in a circle, vainly seeking an outlet, his six little legs twittering with anxiety.
Sybert stretched out a sympathetic hand and dropped him over the bank to a place of safety.
‘Now why must you do that?’ Marcia inquired.
‘A sense of fellow-feeling—I’ve watched too many women playing with too many men not to know how the poor beast felt. His progress was thwarted at every turn, without his being able to comprehend any underlying motive or reason or law.’
‘It was good for him,’ she affirmed. ‘I was giving him a new experience—was widening his horizon. When I finally let him go he would have been so thankful to think of the danger he had escaped, that he would have been twice as happy a beetle as ever before.’
‘That is one way of looking at it,’ Sybert agreed.
Marcia watched him a moment speculatively. She was thinking about the Contessa Torrenieri.
‘Mr. Sybert,’ she suggested, ‘there are a lot of things I should like to know about you.’
‘I can think of nothing in my past that ought to be hidden.’
‘These are things that you wouldn’t tell me.’
‘Try me and see.’
‘Anything I choose to ask?’
‘I am at your disposal.’
‘Have you ever been in love with any one?’
He glanced up from his cigarette with an amused stare. ‘What’s this—a confessional?’
‘Oh, no—only you don’t look as if you’d ever done such a foolish thing, and I just wondered–’
‘Half a dozen times.’
‘Really?’
‘Oh, I dare say not—really,’ he laughed. ‘In my cub days I used to be—well, interested sometimes.’
‘But you outgrew it?’
‘It would be a rash man who would affirm that! You never can tell what’s waiting for you around the next corner.’
She would have liked to put a question or so in regard to the contessa, but instead she remarked, ‘There are some other things I’d like to ask you.’
‘I’m not so sure I’ll answer if that’s a specimen.’
‘Why were you carrying a revolver yesterday?’
‘You strike me as a very inquisitive young woman, Miss Marcia.’
‘You strike me as a very mysterious man, Mr. Sybert.’
‘Why was I carrying a revolver? For a very simple reason. I have been travelling through the south, helping to quiet the rioters; and as that is not a popular occupation, I thought it wisest to go armed. A revolver is an excellent thing with which to persuade people, though in all probability I shall never have any occasion to use it. I hope you are satisfied.’
‘Thank you,’ said Marcia. ‘Not that I believe you at all,’ she added with a laugh.
He regarded her a moment with a slightly perplexed frown. ‘What on earth do you take me for, Miss Marcia? An anarchist, a bandit, a second Fra Diavolo in disguise? I am nothing so picturesque, I assure you—merely a peaceful private citizen of the United States.’
‘How do you come to know the baker’s son, Tarquinio, so well?’
‘I think I’ve answered questions enough. Suppose we have a confession from you, Miss Marcia. Have you ever been in love?’
Marcia rose. ‘It’s a quarter past four, and we ought to be going back. The Roystons have to catch the evening train into Rome.’
CHAPTER XVI
Marcia drove to the station with the travellers, leaving the rest of the party to return to the villa in the other carriage. She had a slight feeling of compunction in regard to Paul, and it made her more responsive to his nonsense than she might otherwise have been. In the rôle of cicerone he naïvely explained the story of the ruins they passed on the way, and the entire history of Rome, from Romulus and Remus to Garibaldi, unfolded itself upon that nine-mile stretch of dusty road. Marcia gave herself up gaily enough to the spirit of the play, forgetting for the time any troubling questions lurking in the background. When she bade him good-bye she smiled back, half laughingly, half seriously, at his parting speech—a repetition of the morning’s pretty phrase—‘non-te-scordar-di-me!’
As the carriage turned homeward she smiled to herself over her yesterday’s state at the prospect of meeting Paul. The actuality had not been so disconcerting. She did not quite comprehend his new attitude, but she accepted it as a tacit recognition of her desire to let matters stand, and was grateful. She felt very kindly toward him this evening. He was such a care-free, optimistic young fellow; and even supposing he were too ready to look on the bright side of things, was not Laurence Sybert, she asked herself, too ready also to look on the dark side? Since his words of yesterday, in the old wine-cellar, she had felt an undertone of sadness to her thoughts which she vaguely resented. As she rode along now between the fresh fields, glowing in the soft light of the April sunset, she was dimly conscious of a struggle, a rebellion, going on within her own nature.
She seemed pulled two ways. The beautiful sunshiny world of dreams was calling to her. And Paul stood at the crossways—laughing, careless, happy Paul—holding out his hand with a winning smile to show the way to Cytherea. But deep within her heart she felt the weight of the real world—the world which means misery to so many people—dragging on her spirits and holding her back. And in the background she saw Sybert watching her with folded arms and a half-quizzical smile—Sybert making no move either to lure her on or to turn her back—merely watching with inscrutable eyes.
Happiness seemed to be her portion. Why could she not accept it gladly, and shut her eyes to all else? If she once commenced seeing the misery in the world, there would be no end. Until a few weeks before she had scarcely realized that any existed outside of books, but she knew it now; she had seen it face to face. She thought of the crowded, squalid little houses of Castel Vivalanti; of the women who went out at sunrise to work all day in the fields, of the hordes of children only half fed. Oh, yes, she knew now that there was misery outside of books, but she asked herself, with an almost despairing cry, why need she know? Since she could do nothing to help, since she was not to blame, why not close her eyes and pretend it was not there? It was the shrinking cry of the soul that for the first time has tasted of knowledge; that with open eyes is hesitating on the threshold of the real world, with a longing backward glance toward the unreal world of dreams. But in life there is no going back; knowledge once gained may not be cancelled, and there was further knowledge waiting for Marcia not very far ahead.
Two little boys turning somersaults by the side of the carriage suddenly recalled to her mind the boys at the villa, and her promise to bring them a present from the festa. Not once had she thought of them during the day, and the only possible present now was the inevitable sweet chocolate of Castel Vivalanti. She glanced at her watch; there was still an hour before dinner, and she ordered Giovanni to drive up the hill to the town. Giovanni respectfully begged her pardon, with the suggestion that the horses were tired; they had had a long journey and the hill was steep. Marcia replied, with a touch of sharpness, that the horses could rest all day to-morrow. They wound up the gradual ascent at a walk, in company with the procession coming home for the night. It was a sight which Marcia always watched with fresh interest: field-workers with mattocks on their shoulders trudging wearily back to supper and bed; washerwomen, their clothes in baskets on their heads, calling cheery good-byes to one another; files of ragged little donkeys laden with brush, sheep and pigs and goats, and long-horned oxen—where they were all to be stowed for the night was an ever-recurring mystery.