lved upon
rather suddenly; for although preparations towards the marriage had been
going forward for some time--chiefly in the application of Tito's
florins to the fitting up of rooms in Bardo's dwelling, which, the
library excepted, had always been scantily furnished--it had been
intended to defer both the betrothal and the marriage until after
Easter, when Tito's year of probation, insisted on by Bernardo del Nero,
would have been complete. But when an express proposition had come,
that Tito should follow the Cardinal Giovanni to Rome to help Bernardo
Dovizi with his superior knowledge of Greek in arranging a library, and
there was no possibility of declining what lay so plainly on the road to
advancement, he had become urgent in his entreaties that the betrothal
might take place before his departure: there would be the less delay
before the marriage on his return, and it would be less painful to part
if he and Romola were outwardly as well as inwardly pledged to each
other--if he had a claim which defied Messer Bernardo or any one else to
nullify it. For the betrothal, at which rings were exchanged and mutual
contracts were signed, made more than half the legality of marriage, to
be completed on a separate occasion by the nuptial benediction.
Romola's feeling had met Tito's in this wish, and the consent of the
elders had been won.

And now Tito was hastening, amidst arrangements for his departure the
next day, to snatch a morning visit to Romola, to say and hear any last
words that were needful to be said before their meeting for the
betrothal in the evening. It was not a time when any recognition could
be pleasant that was at all likely to detain him; still less a
recognition by Tessa. And it was unmistakably Tessa whom he had caught
sight of moving along, with a timid and forlorn look, towards that very
turn of the Lung' Arno which he was just rounding. As he continued his
talk with the young Dovizi, he had an uncomfortable undercurrent of
consciousness which told him that Tessa had seen him and would certainly
follow him: there was no escaping her along this direct road by the
Arno, and over the Ponte Rubaconte. But she would not dare to speak to
him or approach him while he was not alone, and he would continue to
keep Dovizi with him till they reached Bardo's door. He quickened his
pace, and took up new threads of talk; but all the while the sense that
Tessa was behind him, though he had no physical eviden