“I don’t know which I envy him most,” said Macchiavelli, “the offence or the punishment. The offence will make him the most popular man in all Florence, and the punishment will take him among the only people in Italy who have known how to manage their own affairs.”
“Yes, if Soderini stays long enough at Venice,” said Cennini, “he may chance to learn the Venetian fashion, and bring it home with him. The Soderini have been fast friends of the Medici, but what has happened is likely to open Pagolantonio’s eyes to the good of our old Florentine trick of choosing a new harness when the old one galls us; if we have not quite lost the trick in these last fifty years.”
“Not we,” said Niccolò Caparra, who was rejoicing in the free use of his lips again. “Eat eggs in Lent and the snow will melt. That’s what I say to our people when they get noisy over their cups at San Gallo, and talk of raising a romor (insurrection): I say, never do you plan a romor; you may as well try to fill Arno with buckets. When there’s water enough Arno will be full, and that will not be till the torrent is ready.”
“Caparra, that oracular speech of yours is due to my excellent shaving,” said Nello. “You could never have made it with that dark rust on your chin. Ecco, Messer Domenico, I am ready for you now. By the way, my bel erudito,” continued Nello, as he saw Tito moving towards the door, “here has been old Maso seeking for you, but your nest was empty. He will come again presently. The old man looked mournful, and seemed in haste. I hope there is nothing wrong in the Via de’ Bardi.”
“Doubtless Messer Tito knows that Bardo’s son is dead,” said Cronaca, who had just come up.
Tito’s heart gave a leap—had the death happened before Romola saw him?
“No, I had not heard it,” he said, with no more discomposure than the occasion seemed to warrant, turning and leaning against the doorpost, as if he had given up his intention of going away. “I knew that his sister had gone to see him. Did he die before she arrived?”
“No,” said Cronaca; “I was in San Marco at the time, and saw her come out from the chapter-house with Fra Girolamo, who told us that the dying man’s breath had been preserved as by a miracle, that he might make a disclosure to his sister.”
Tito felt that his fate was decided. Again his mind rushed over all the circumstances of his departure from Florence, and he conceived a plan of getting back his money from Cennini before the disclosure had become public. If he once had his money he need not stay long in endurance of scorching looks and biting words. He would wait now, and go away with Cennini and get the money from him at once. With that project in his mind he stood motionless—his hands in his belt, his eyes fixed absently on the ground. Nello, glancing at him, felt sure that he was absorbed in anxiety about Romola, and thought him such a pretty image of self-forgetful sadness, that he just perceptibly pointed his razor at him, and gave a challenging look at Piero di Cosimo, whom he had never forgiven for his refusal to see any prognostics of character in his favourite’s handsome face. Piero, who was leaning against the other doorpost, close to Tito, shrugged his shoulders: the frequent recurrence of such challenges from Nello had changed the painter’s first declaration of neutrality into a positive inclination to believe ill of the much-praised Greek.
“So you have got your Fra Girolamo back again, Cronaca? I suppose we shall have him preaching again this next Advent,” said Nello.