He went forward, stooped down to the picture, and lifting it away with its back to Romola, pretended to be giving it a passing examination, before putting it aside as a thing not good enough to show.
But Romola, who had the fact of the armour in her mind, and was penetrated by this strange coincidence of things which associated Tito with the idea of fear, went to his elbow and said—
“Don’t put it away; let me look again. That man with the rope round his neck—I saw him—I saw you come to him in the Duomo. What was it that made you put him into a picture with Tito?”
Piero saw no better resource than to tell part of the truth.
“It was a mere accident. The man was running away—running up the steps, and caught hold of your husband: I suppose he had stumbled. I happened to be there, and saw it, and I thought the savage-looking old fellow was a good subject. But it’s worth nothing—it’s only a freakish daub of mine.” Piero ended contemptuously, moving the sketch away with an air of decision, and putting it on a high shelf. “Come and look at the Oedipus.”
He had shown a little too much anxiety in putting the sketch out of her sight, and had produced the very impression he had sought to prevent—that there was really something unpleasant, something disadvantageous to Tito, in the circumstances out of which the picture arose. But this impression silenced her: her pride and delicacy shrank from questioning further, where questions might seem to imply that she could entertain even a slight suspicion against her husband. She merely said, in as quiet a tone as she could—
“He was a strange piteous-looking man, that prisoner. Do you know anything more of him?”
“No more: I showed him the way to the hospital, that’s all. See, now, the face of Oedipus is pretty nearly finished; tell me what you think of it.”
Romola now gave her whole attention to her father’s portrait, standing in long silence before it.
“Ah,” she said at last, “you have done what I wanted. You have given it more of the listening look. My good Piero,”—she turned towards him with bright moist eyes—“I am very grateful to you.”
“Now that’s what I can’t bear in you women,” said Piero, turning impatiently, and kicking aside the objects that littered the floor—“you are always pouring out feelings where there’s no call for them. Why should you be grateful to me for a picture you pay me for, especially when I make you wait for it? And if I paint a picture, I suppose it’s for my own pleasure and credit to paint it well, eh? Are you to thank a man for not being a rogue or a noodle? It’s enough if he himself thanks Messer Domeneddio, who has made him neither the one nor the other. But women think walls are held together with honey.”
“You crusty Piero! I forgot how snappish you are. Here, put this nice sweetmeat in your mouth,” said Romola, smiling through her tears, and taking something very crisp and sweet from the little basket.
Piero accepted it very much as that proverbial bear that dreams of pears might accept an exceedingly mellow “swan-egg”—really liking the gift, but accustomed to have his pleasures and pains concealed under a shaggy coat.
“It’s good, Madonna Antigone,” said Piero, putting his fingers in the basket for another. He had eaten nothing but hard eggs for a fortnight. Romola stood opposite him, feeling her new anxiety suspended for a little while by the sight of this naive enjoyment.
“Goodbye, Piero,” she said, presently, setting down the basket. “I promise not to thank you if you finish the portrait soon and well I will tell you, you were bound to do it for your own credit.”
“Good,” said Piero, curtly, helping her with much deftness to fold her mantle and veil round her.
“I’m glad she asked no more questions about that sketch,” he thought, when he had closed the door behind her. “I should be sorry for her to guess that I thought her fine husband a good model for a coward. But I made light of it; she’ll not think of it again.”
Piero was too sanguine, as openhearted men are apt to be when they attempt a little clever simulation. The thought of the picture pressed more and more on Romola as she walked homeward. She could not help putting together the two facts of the chain-armour and the encounter mentioned by Piero between her husband and the prisoner, which had happened on the morning of the day when the armour was adopted. That look of terror which the painter had given Tito, had he seen it? What could it all mean?
“It means nothing,” she tried to assure herself. “It was a mere coincidence. Shall I ask Tito about it?” Her mind said at last, “No: I will not question him about anything he did not tell me spontaneously. It is an offence against the trust I owe him.” Her heart said, “I dare not ask him.”
There was a terrible flaw in the trust: she was afraid of any hasty movement, as men are who hold something precious and want to believe that it is not broken.
XXIX
A Moment of Triumph
“The old fellow has vanished; went on towards Arezzo the next morning; not liking the smell of the French, I suppose, after being their prisoner. I went to the hospital to inquire after him; I wanted to know if those broth-making monks had found out whether he was in his right mind or not. However, they said he showed no signs of madness—only took no notice of questions, and seemed to be planting a vine twenty miles off. He was a mysterious old tiger. I should have liked to know something more about him.”
It was in Nello’s shop that Piero
