The next day Tito remained away from home until late at night. It was a marked day to Romola, for Piero di Cosimo, stimulated to greater industry on her behalf by the fear that he might have been the cause of pain to her in the past week, had sent home her father’s portrait. She had propped it against the back of his old chair, and had been looking at it for some time, when the door opened behind her, and Bernardo del Nero came in.
“It is you, godfather! How I wish you had come sooner! it is getting a little dusk,” said Romola, going towards him.
“I have just looked in to tell you the good news, for I know Tito has not come yet,” said Bernardo. “The French king moves off to-morrow: not before it is high time. There has been another tussle between our people and his soldiers this morning. But there’s a chance now of the city getting into order once more and trade going on.”
“That is joyful,” said Romola. “But it is sudden, is it not? Tito seemed to think yesterday that there was little prospect of the king’s going soon.”
“He has been well barked at, that’s the reason,” said Bernardo, smiling. “His own generals opened their throats pretty well, and at last our Signoria sent the mastiff of the city, Fra Girolamo. The Cristianissimo was frightened at that thunder, and has given the order to move. I’m afraid there’ll be small agreement among us when he’s gone, but, at any rate, all parties are agreed in being glad not to have Florence stifled with soldiery any longer, and the Frate has barked this time to some purpose. Ah, what is this?” he added, as Romola, clasping him by the arm, led him in front of the picture. “Let us see.”
He began to unwind his long scarf while she placed a seat for him.
“Don’t you want your spectacles, godfather?” said Romola, in anxiety that he should see just what she saw.
“No, child, no,” said Bernardo, uncovering his grey head, as he seated himself with firm erectness. “For seeing at this distance, my old eyes are perhaps better than your young ones. Old men’s eyes are like old men’s memories; they are strongest for things a long way off.”
“It is better than having no portrait,” said Romola, apologetically, after Bernardo had been silent a little while. “It is less like him now than the image I have in my mind, but then that might fade with the years.” She rested her arm on the old man’s shoulder as she spoke, drawn towards him strongly by their common interest in the dead.
“I don’t know,” said Bernardo. “I almost think I see Bardo as he was when he was young, better than that picture shows him to me as he was when he was old. Your father had a great deal of fire in his eyes when he was young. It was what I could never understand, that he, with his fiery spirit, which seemed much more impatient than mine, could hang over the books and live with shadows all his life. However, he had put his heart into that.”