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 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 expectancy 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 hurl 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.’