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.'