Marcia dropped into the chair and leaned her head on the back. She felt dazed and bewildered. Never before had she been treated with anything but friendliness and courtesy. Why had the people suddenly turned against her? What had she done that they should hate her? In the back of the room she heard Sybert explaining something in a low tone to Giuseppe, and she caught, the words, ‘she does not know.’
‘Poverina, she does not know,’ the woman murmured.
Sybert came across with a glass of wine.
‘Here, Marcia, drink this,’ he said peremptorily.
She received the glass with a hand that trembled, and took one or two swallows and then set it down.
‘It’s nothing. I shall be all right in a moment. They pressed around me so close that I couldn’t breathe.’
The wine brought some colour back to her face, and after a few minutes she rose to her feet.
‘I’m sorry to have made so much commotion. I feel better now; let’s go back to the carriage.’
Skirting the piazza, they returned to the porta by a narrow side-street, the boys behind still shouting after, but none approaching within reach of Sybert’s stick. They had regained the carriage and reached the bottom of the hill before either of them spoke. Marcia was the first to break the silence.
‘What is it, Mr. Sybert, that I don’t know?’