enough to call forth inexhaustible patience. How much more strongly he would feel this if he knew about her brother! A girl of eighteen imagines the feelings behind the face that has moved her with its sympathetic youth, as easily as primitive people imagined the humours of the gods in fair weather: what is she to believe in, if not in this vision woven from within?
And Tito was really very far from feeling impatient. He delighted in sitting there with the sense that Romola’s attention was fixed on him, and that he could occasionally look at her. He was pleased that Bardo should take an interest in him; and he did not dwell with enough seriousness on the prospect of the work in which he was to be aided, to feel moved by it to anything else than that easy, good-humoured acquiescence which was natural to him.
“I shall be proud and happy,” he said, in answer to Bardo’s last words, “if my services can be held a meet offering to the matured scholarship of Messere. But doubtless,”—here he looked towards Romola—“the lovely damigella, your daughter, makes all other aid superfluous; for I have learned from Nello that she has been nourished on the highest studies from her earliest years.”
“You are mistaken,” said Romola; “I am by no means sufficient to my father: I have not the gifts that are necessary for scholarship.”
Romola did not make this self-depreciatory statement in a tone of anxious humility, but with a proud gravity.
“Nay, my Romola,” said her father, not willing that the stranger should have too low a conception of his daughter’s powers; “thou art not destitute of gifts; rather, thou art endowed beyond the measure of women; but thou hast withal the woman’s delicate frame, which ever craves repose and variety, and so begets a wandering imagination. My daughter,”—turning to Tito—“has been very precious to me, filling up to the best of her power the place of a son. For I had once a son …”
Bardo checked himself: he did not wish to assume an attitude of complaint in the presence of a stranger, and he remembered that this young man, in whom he had unexpectedly become so much interested, was still a stranger, towards whom it became him rather to keep the position of a patron. His pride was roused to double activity by the fear that he had forgotten his dignity.
“But,” he resumed, in his original tone of condescension, “we are departing from what I believe is to you the most important business. Nello informed me that you had certain gems which you would fain dispose of, and that you desired a passport to some man of wealth and taste who would be likely to become a purchaser.”
“It is true; for, though I have obtained employment, as a corrector with the Cennini, my payment leaves little margin beyond the provision of necessaries, and would leave less but that my good friend Nello insists on my hiring a lodging from him, and saying nothing about the rent till better days.”
“Nello is a good-hearted prodigal,” said Bardo; “and though, with that ready ear and ready tongue of his, he is too much like the ill-famed Margites—knowing many things and knowing them all badly, as I hinted to him but now—he is nevertheless ‘abnormis sapiens,’ after the manner of our born Florentines. But have you the gems with you? I would willingly know what they are—yet it is useless: no, it might only deepen regret. I cannot add to my store.”
“I have one or two intaglios of much beauty,” said Tito, proceeding to draw from his wallet a small case.
But Romola no sooner saw the movement than she looked at him with significant gravity, and placed her finger on her lips—
“Con viso che tacendo dicea, Taci.”
If Bardo were made aware that the gems were within reach, she knew well he would want a minute description of them, and it would become pain to him that they should go away from him, even if he did not insist on some device for purchasing them in spite of poverty. But she had no sooner made this sign than she felt rather guilty and ashamed at having virtually confessed a weakness of her father’s to a stranger. It seemed that she was destined to a sudden confidence and familiarity with this young Greek, strangely at variance with her deep-seated pride and reserve; and this consciousness again brought the unwonted colour to her cheeks.
Tito understood her look and sign, and immediately withdrew his hand from the case, saying, in a careless tone, so as to make it appear that he was merely following up his last words, “But they are usually in the keeping of Messer Domenico Cennini, who has strong and safe places for these things. He estimates them as worth at least five hundred ducats.”
“Ah, then, they are fine intagli,” said Bardo. “Five hundred ducats! Ah, more than a man’s ransom!”
Tito gave a slight, almost imperceptible start, and opened his long dark eyes with questioning surprise at Bardo’s blind face, as if his words—a mere phrase of common parlance, at a time when men were often being ransomed from slavery or imprisonment—had had some special meaning for him. But the next moment he looked towards Romola, as if her eyes must be her father’s interpreters. She, intensely preoccupied with what related to her father, imagined that Tito was looking to her again for some guidance, and immediately spoke.
“Alessandra Scala delights in gems, you know, father; she calls them her winter flowers; and the Segretario would be almost sure to buy any gems that she wished for. Besides, he himself sets great store by rings and sigils, which he wears as a defence against pains in the joints.”
“It is true,” said Bardo. “Bartolommeo has overmuch confidence in the efficacy of gems—a confidence wider than what is sanctioned by Pliny, who clearly shows that he regards many beliefs of that sort as idle superstitions; though not to the utter denial of medicinal virtues in gems. Wherefore, I myself, as you observe, young man, wear certain rings, which the discreet Camillo Leonardi prescribed to me by letter when two years ago I had a certain infirmity of sudden numbness. But thou hast spoken well, Romola. I will dictate a letter to Bartolommeo, which Maso shall carry. But it were well that Messere should notify to thee what the gems are, together with the intagli they bear, as a warrant to Bartolommeo that they will be worthy of his attention.”
“Nay, father,” said Romola, whose dread lest a paroxysm of the collector’s mania should seize her father, gave her the courage to resist his proposal. “Your word will be sufficient that Messere is a scholar and has travelled much. The Segretario will need no further inducement to receive him.”
“True, child,” said Bardo, touched on a chord that was sure to respond. “I have no need to add proofs and arguments in confirmation of my word to Bartolommeo. And I doubt not that this young man’s presence is in accord with the tones of his voice, so that, the door being once opened, he will be his own best advocate.”
Bardo paused a few moments, but his silence was evidently charged with some idea that he was hesitating to express, for he once leaned forward a little as if he were going to speak, then turned his head aside towards Romola and sank backward again. At last, as if he had made up his mind, he said in a tone which might have become a prince giving the courteous signal of dismissal—
“I am somewhat fatigued this morning, and shall prefer seeing you again to-morrow, when I shall be able to give you the secretary’s answer, authorising you to present yourself to him at some given time. But before you go,”—here the old man, in spite of himself, fell into a more faltering tone—“you will perhaps permit me to touch your hand? It is long since I touched the hand of a young man.”
Bardo had stretched out his aged white hand, and Tito immediately placed his dark but delicate and supple fingers within it. Bardo’s cramped fingers closed over them, and he held them for a few minutes in silence. Then he said—
“Romola, has this young man the same complexion as thy brother—fair and pale?”
“No, father,” Romola answered, with determined composure, though her heart began to beat violently with mingled emotions. “The hair of Messere is dark—his complexion is dark.” Inwardly she said, “Will he mind it? will it be disagreeable? No, he looks so gentle and good-natured.” Then aloud again—
“Would Messere permit my father to touch