“Where is the damigella?”
“In the library; she is quite ready, and Monna Brigida and Messer Bernardo are already there with Ser Braccio, but none of the rest of the company.”
“Ask her to give me a few minutes alone; I will await her in the salotto.”
Tito entered a room which had been fitted up in the utmost contrast with the half-pallid, half-sombre tints of the library. The walls were brightly frescoed with “caprices” of nymphs and loves sporting under the blue among flowers and birds. The only furniture besides the red leather seats and the central table were two tall white vases, and a young faun playing the flute, modelled by a promising youth named Michelangelo Buonarotti. It was a room that gave a sense of being in the sunny open air.
Tito kept his mantle round him, and looked towards the door. It was not long before Romola entered, all white and gold, more than ever like a tall lily. Her white silk garment was bound by a golden girdle, which fell with large tassels; and above that was the rippling gold of her hair, surmounted by the white mist of her long veil, which was fastened on her brow by a band of pearls, the gift of Bernardo del Nero, and was now parted off her face so that it all floated backward.
“Regina mia!” said Tito, as he took her hand and kissed it, still keeping his mantle round him. He could not help going backward to look at her again, while she stood in calm delight, with that exquisite self-consciousness which rises under the gaze of admiring love.
“Romola, will you show me the next room now?” said Tito, checking himself with the remembrance that the time might be short. “You said I should see it when you had arranged everything.”
Without speaking, she led the way into a long narrow room, painted brightly like the other, but only with birds and flowers. The furniture in it was all old; there were old faded objects for feminine use or ornament, arranged in an open cabinet between the two narrow windows; above the cabinet was the portrait of Romola’s mother; and below this, on the top of the cabinet, stood the crucifix which Romola had brought from San Marco.
“I have brought something under my mantle,” said Tito, smiling; and throwing off the large loose garment, he showed the little tabernacle which had been painted by Piero di Cosimo. The painter had carried out Tito’s intention charmingly, and so far had atoned for his long delay. “Do you know what this is for, my Romola?” added Tito, taking her by the hand, and leading her towards the cabinet. “It is a little shrine, which is to hide away from you forever that remembrancer of sadness. You have done with sadness now; and we will bury all images of it—bury them in a tomb of joy. See!”
A slight quiver passed across Romola’s face as Tito took hold of the crucifix. But she had no wish to prevent his purpose; on the contrary, she herself wished to subdue certain importunate memories and questionings which still flitted like unexplained shadows across her happier thought.
He opened the triptych and placed the crucifix within the central space; then closing it again, taking out the key, and setting the little tabernacle in the spot where the crucifix had stood, said—
“Now, Romola, look and see if you are satisfied with the portraits old Piero has made of us. Is it not a dainty device? and the credit of choosing it is mine.”
“Ah! it is you—it is perfect!” said Romola, looking with moist joyful eyes at the miniature Bacchus, with his purple clusters. “And I am Ariadne, and you are crowning me! Yes, it is true, Tito; you have crowned my poor life.”
They held each other’s hands while she spoke, and both looked at their imaged selves. But the reality was far more beautiful; she all lily-white and golden, and he with his dark glowing beauty above the purple red-bordered tunic.
“And it was our good strange Piero who painted it?” said Romola. “Did you put it into his head to paint me as Antigone, that he might have my likeness for this?”
“No, it was he who made my getting leave for him to paint you and your father, a condition of his doing this for me.”
“Ah! I see now what it was you gave up your precious ring for. I perceived you had some cunning plan to give me pleasure.”
Tito did not blench. Romola’s little illusions about himself had long ceased to cause him anything but satisfaction. He only smiled and said—
“I might have spared my ring; Piero will accept no money from me; he thinks himself paid by painting you. And now, while I am away, you will look every day at those pretty symbols of our life together—the ship on the calm sea, and the ivy that never withers, and those Loves that have left off wounding us and shower soft petals that are like our kisses; and the leopards and tigers, they are the troubles of your life that are all quelled now; and the strange sea-monsters, with their merry eyes—let us see—they are the dull passages in the heavy books, which have begun to be amusing since we have sat by each other.”
“Tito mio!” said Romola, in a half-laughing voice of love; “but you will give me the key?” she added, holding out her hand
