“Excellently well. First of all, the rain came and put an end to Luca Corsini’s oration, which nobody wanted to hear, and a ready-tongued personage—some say it was Gaddi, some say it was Melema, but really it was done so quickly no one knows who it was—had the honour of giving the Cristianissimo the briefest possible welcome in bad French.”
“Tito, it was you, I know,” said Romola, smiling brightly, and kissing him. “How is it you never care about claiming anything? And after that?”
“Oh! after that, there was a shower of armour and jewels, and trappings, such as you saw at the last Florentine giostra, only a great deal more of them. There was strutting, and prancing, and confusion, and scrambling, and the people shouted, and the Cristianissimo smiled from ear to ear. And after that there was a great deal of flattery, and eating, and play. I was at Tornabuoni’s. I will tell you about it to-morrow.”
“Yes, dearest, never mind now. But is there any more hope that things will end peaceably for Florence, that the Republic will not get into fresh troubles?”
Tito gave a shrug. “Florence will have no peace but what it pays well for; that is clear.”
Romola’s face saddened, but she checked herself, and said, cheerfully, “You would not guess where I went to-day, Tito. I went to the Duomo, to hear Fra Girolamo.”
Tito looked startled; he had immediately thought of Baldassarre’s entrance into the Duomo; but Romola gave his look another meaning.
“You are surprised, are you not? It was a sudden thought. I want to know all about the public affairs now, and I determined to hear for myself what the Frate promised the people about this French invasion.”
“Well, and what did you think of the prophet?”
“He certainly has a very mysterious power, that man. A great deal of his sermon was what I expected; but once I was strangely moved—I sobbed with the rest.”