“Two sorts,” said Bratti, separating the wet sheets with a slowness that tried Romola’s patience. “There’s ‘Law,’ and there’s ‘Justice.’ ”
“Which sort do you sell most of?”
“ ‘Justice’—‘Justice’ goes the quickest—so I raised the price, and made it two danari. But then I bethought me the ‘Law’ was good ware too, and had as good a right to be charged for as ‘Justice;’ for people set no store by cheap things, and if I sold the ‘Law’ at one danaro, I should be doing it a wrong. And I’m a fair trader. ‘Law,’ or ‘Justice,’ it’s all one to me; they’re good wares. I got ’em both for nothing, and I sell ’em at a fair profit. But you’ll want more than one of a sort?”
“No, no: here’s a white quattrino for the two,” said Romola, folding up the bills and hurrying away.
She was soon in the outer cloisters of San Marco, where Fra Salvestro was awaiting her under the cloister, but did not notice the approach of her light step. He was chatting, according to his habit, with lay visitors; for under the auspices of a government friendly to the Frate, the timidity about frequenting San Marco, which had followed on the first shock of the Excommunication, had been gradually giving way. In one of these lay visitors she recognised a well-known satellite of Francesco Valori, named Andrea Cambini, who was narrating or expounding with emphatic gesticulation, while Fra Salvestro was listening with that air of trivial curiosity which tells that the listener cares very much about news and very little about its quality. This characteristic of her confessor, which was always repulsive to Romola, was made exasperating to her at this moment by the certainty she gathered, from the disjointed words which reached her ear, that Cambini was narrating something relative to the fate of the conspirators. She chose not to approach the group, but as soon as she saw that she had arrested Fra Salvestro’s attention, she turned towards the door of the chapter-house, while he, making a sign of approval, disappeared within the inner cloister. A lay Brother stood ready to open the door of the chapter-house for her, and closed it behind her as she entered.
Once more looked at by those sad frescoed figures which had seemed to be mourning with her at the death of her brother Dino, it was inevitable that something of that scene should come back to her; but the intense occupation of her mind with the present made the remembrance less a retrospect than an indistinct recurrence of impressions which blended themselves with her agitating fears, as if her actual anxiety were a revival of the strong yearning she had once before brought to this spot—to be repelled by marble rigidity. She gave no space for the remembrance to become more definite, for she at once opened the handbills, thinking she should perhaps be able to read them in the interval before Fra Girolamo appeared. But by the time she had read to the end of the one that recommended the observance of the law, the door was opening, and doubling up the papers she stood expectant.
When the Frate had entered she knelt, according to the usual practice of those who saw him in private; but as soon as he had uttered a benedictory greeting she rose and stood opposite to him at a few yards’ distance. Owing to his seclusion since he had been excommunicated, it had been an unusually long while since she had seen him, and the late months had visibly deepened in his face the marks of overtaxed mental activity and bodily severities; and yet Romola was not so conscious of this change as of another, which was less definable. Was it that the expression of serene elevation and pure human fellowship which had once moved her was no longer present in the same force, or was it that the sense of his being divided from her in her feeling about her godfather roused the slumbering sources of alienation, and marred her own vision? Perhaps both causes were at work. Our relations with our fellow-men are most often determined by coincident currents of that sort; the inexcusable word or deed seldom comes until after affection or reverence has been already enfeebled by the strain of repeated excuses.
It was true that Savonarola’s glance at Romola had some of that hardness which is caused by an egotistic prepossession. He divined that the interview she had sought was to turn on the fate of the conspirators, a subject on which he had already had to quell inner voices that might become loud again when encouraged from without. Seated in his cell, correcting the sheets of his Triumph of the Cross, it was easier to repose on a resolution of neutrality.
“It is a question of moment, doubtless, on which you wished to see me, my daughter,” he began, in a tone which was gentle rather from self-control than from immediate inclination. “I know you are not wont to lay stress on small matters.”
“Father, you know what it is before I tell you,” said Romola, forgetting everything else as soon as she began to pour forth her plea. “You know what I am
