“I happen to have the money,” said Tito, who had been winning at play the day before, and had not emptied his purse. “I’ll carry the armour home with me.”
Niccolò reached down the finely-wrought coat, which fell together into little more than two handfuls.
“There, then,” he said, when the florins had been told down on his palm. “Take the coat. It’s made to cheat sword, or poniard, or arrow. But, for my part, I would never put such a thing on. It’s like carrying fear about with one.”
Niccolò’s words had an unpleasant intensity of meaning for Tito. But he smiled and said—
“Ah, Niccolò, we scholars are all cowards. Handling the pen doesn’t thicken the arm as your hammer-wielding does. Addio!”
He folded the armour under his mantle, and hastened across the Ponte Rubaconte.
CHAPTER XXVII.
The Young Wife.
While Tito was hastening across the bridge with the new-bought armour under his mantle, Romola was pacing up and down the old library, thinking of him and longing for his return.
It was but a few fair faces that had not looked forth from windows that day to see the entrance of the French king and his nobles. One of the few was Romola’s. She had been present at no festivities since her father had died—died quite suddenly in his chair, three months before.