Once Sybert shifted his position and his hand accidentally touched Marcia's on the seat between them. 'Pardon me,' he murmured, and folded his arms again. She looked up at him quickly. The touch had run through her like an electric shock. Who was this man? she asked herself suddenly. What was he underneath? He seemed to be burning up inside; and she had always considered him apathetic, indifferent. She looked at him wide-eyed; she had never seen him like this. He reminded her of a suppressed volcano that would burst out some day with a sudden explosion. She again set herself covertly to studying his face. His character seemed an anomaly; it contradicted itself. Was it good or bad, simple or complex? Marcia did not have the key. She put together all the things she knew of him, all the things she had heard--the result was largely negative; the different pieces of evil cancelled each other. She knew him in society--he was several different persons there, but what was he when not in society? In his off hours? This afternoon, for example. Why should he be so at home by the Theatre of Marcellus? It was a long distance from the Embassy. And the man on the front seat, who was he? She suddenly interrupted the silence with a question. Sybert started at if he had forgotten she were there.
She repeated it: 'Is that man on the front seat Tarquinio Paterno who keeps a little _trattoria_ in Rome?'
'Yes,' he returned, bringing a somewhat surprised gaze to rest upon her. 'How do you come to know his name?'
'Oh, I just guessed. I know Domenico Paterno, the Castel Vivalanti baker, and he told me about his son, Tarquinio. It's not such a very common name; so when you said this man was going to the village, and when I heard you call him Tarquinio, I thought--why were you surprised?' she broke off. 'Is there anything more to know about him?'
'You seem to have his family history pretty straight,' Sybert shrugged.
They lapsed into silence again, and Marcia did not attempt to break it a second time.
When they came to the turning where the steep road to Castel Vivalanti branches off from the highway, the driver halted to let Tarquinio get out. But Marcia remonstrated, that the bundle was too heavy for him to carry up the hill, and she told the man to drive on up to the gates of the town.