rtherance your patronage may give him
under the transient need to which he has been reduced by shipwreck. His
name is Tito Melema, at your service."

Romola's astonishment could hardly have been greater if the stranger had
worn a panther-skin and carried a thyrsus; for the cunning barber had
said nothing of the Greek's age or appearance; and among her father's
scholarly visitors, she had hardly ever seen any but middle-aged or
grey-headed men. There was only one masculine face, at once youthful
and beautiful, the image of which remained deeply impressed on her mind:
it was that of her brother, who long years ago had taken her on his
knee, kissed her, and never come back again: a fair face, with sunny
hair, like her own. But the habitual attitude of her mind towards
strangers--a proud self-dependence and determination to ask for nothing
even by a smile--confirmed in her by her father's complaints against the
world's injustice, was like a snowy embankment hemming in the rush of
admiring surprise. Tito's bright face showed its rich-tinted beauty
without any rivalry of colour above his black _sajo_ or tunic reaching
to the knees. It seemed like a wreath of spring, dropped suddenly in
Romola's young but wintry life, which had inherited nothing but
memories--memories of a dead mother, of a lost brother, of a blind
father's happier time--memories of far-off light, love, and beauty, that
lay embedded in dark mines of books, and could hardly give out their
brightness again until they were kindled for her by the torch of some
known joy. Nevertheless, she returned Tito's bow, made to her on
entering, with the same pale proud face as ever; but, as he approached,
the snow melted, and when he ventured to look towards her again, while
Nello was speaking, a pink flush overspread her face, to vanish again
almost immediately, as if her imperious will had recalled it. Tito's
glance, on the contrary, had that gentle, beseeching admiration in it
which is the most propitiating of appeals to a proud, shy woman, and is
perhaps the only atonement a man can make for being too handsome. The
finished fascination of his air came chiefly from the absence of demand
and assumption. It was that of a fleet, soft-coated, dark-eyed animal
that delights you by not bounding away in indifference from you, and
unexpectedly pillows its chin on your palm, and looks up at you desiring
to be stroked--as if it loved you.

"Messere, I give you welcome," s