This time there was a flash of emotion across Tito’s face. He stood perfectly still; but the flash seemed to have whitened him. He took no notice of Romola’s appeal, but after a moment’s pause, said quietly—
“Your impetuosity about trifles, Romola, has a freezing influence that would cool the baths of Nero.” At these cutting words, Romola shrank and drew herself up into her usual self-sustained attitude. Tito went on. “If by ‘that old man’ you mean the mad Jacopo di Nola who attempted my life and made a strange accusation against me, of which I told you nothing because it would have alarmed you to no purpose, he, poor wretch, has died in prison. I saw his name in the list of dead.”
“I know nothing about his accusation,” said Romola. “But I know he is the man whom I saw with the rope round his neck in the Duomo—the man whose portrait Piero di Cosimo painted, grasping your arm as he saw him grasp it the day the French entered, the day you first wore the armour.”
“And where is he now, pray?” said Tito, still pale, but governing himself.
“He was lying lifeless in the street from starvation,” said Romola. “I revived him with bread and wine. I brought him to our door, but he refused to come in. Then I gave him some money, and he went away without telling me anything. But he had found out that I was your wife. Who is he?”
“A man, half mad, half imbecile, who was once my father’s servant in Greece, and who has a rancorous hatred towards me because I got him dismissed for theft. Now you have the whole mystery, and the further satisfaction of knowing that I am again in danger of assassination. The fact of my wearing the armour, about which you seem to have thought so much, must have led you to infer that I was in danger from this man. Was that the reason you chose to cultivate his acquaintance and invite him into the house?”
Romola was mute. To speak was only like rushing with bare breast against a shield.
Tito moved from his leaning posture, slowly took off his cap and mantle, and pushed back his hair. He was collecting himself for some final words. And Romola stood upright looking at him as she might have looked at some on-coming deadly force, to be met only by silent endurance.
“We need not refer to these matters again, Romola,” he said, precisely in the same tone as that in which he had spoken at first. “It is enough if you will remember that the next time your generous ardour leads you to interfere in political affairs, you are likely, not to save any one from danger, but to be raising scaffolds and setting houses on fire. You are not yet a sufficiently ardent Piagnone to believe that Messer Bernardo del Nero is the prince of darkness, and Messer Francesco Valori the archangel Michael. I think I need demand no promise from you?”
“I have understood you too well, Tito.”