Then with a jerk she dropped the girl's hand and squared her shoulders like a soldier, so that the dowdy blue suit strained more than ever at its seams; and the line that had settled about her mouth the night before faded slowly, as though a muscle too tightly drawn had relaxed.
In the carriages they were seated as before. The horses started up, with the smaller cab but a dozen paces behind. Mary Gowd leaned forward. She began to speak—her voice very low, her accent clearly English, her brevity wonderfully American.
"Listen to me!" she said. "You must leave Rome to-night!"
"Leave Rome to-night!" echoed the Greggs as though rehearsing a duet.
"Be quiet! You must not shout like that. I say you must go away."
Mamma Gregg opened her lips and shut them, wordless for once. Henry Gregg laid one big hand on his wife's shaking knees and eyed Mary Gowd very quietly.
"I don't get you," he said.
Mary Gowd looked straight at him as she said what she had to say:
"There are things in Rome you cannot understand. You could not understand unless you lived here many years. I lived here many months before I learned to step meekly off into the gutter to allow a man to pass on the narrow sidewalk. You must take your pretty daughter and go away. To-night! No—let me finish. I will tell you what happened to me fifteen years ago, and I will tell you what this Caldini has in his mind. You will believe me and forgive me; and promise me that you will go quietly away."
When she finished Mrs. Gregg was white-faced and luckily too frightened to weep. Henry Gregg started up in the carriage, his fists white-knuckled, his lean face turned toward the carriage crawling behind.