‘Certainly not. It’s the great tragedy of life; and it comes to all, Miss Marcia—to you as well as to the poorest peasant girl in Castel Vivalanti. Life, after all, contains some justice.’
Marcia turned her back to the shining villa and looked down over the great Campagna stretching away darkly under the stars, with here and there the gleam of a shepherd’s fire, built to ward off the poison in the air.
‘Things are not very just,’ she said slowly.
‘Not very,’ he agreed; ‘and one has little faith that they ever will be—either in this world or the next.’
‘It would be comfortable, wouldn’t it, if you could only believe that people are unfortunate as a punishment—because they deserve to be.’
‘It would be a beautiful belief, but one which you can scarcely hold in Italy.’
‘Poor Italy!’ she sighed.
‘Ah—poor Italy!’ he echoed.
With a sudden motion he threw away his cigarette over the balustrade and immediately lit another. Marcia watched his face in the flare of the match. The eyes seemed deeper-set than usual, the jaw more boldly marked, and there were nervous lines about the mouth. His face seemed to have grown thinner in the last few weeks.
They turned away and sauntered toward the ilex grove.