a
tone which had some quiet decision in it.

"No, I have nothing to tell."

"As you please," said Piero, "but perhaps you want shelter, and may not
know how hospitable we Florentines are to visitors with torn doublets
and empty stomachs. There's an hospital for poor travellers outside all
our gates, and, if you liked, I could put you in the way to one.
There's no danger from your French soldier. He has been sent off."

Baldassarre nodded, and turned in silent acceptance of the offer, and he
and Piero left the church together.

"You wouldn't like to sit to me for your portrait, should you?" said
Piero, as they went along the Via dell' Oriuolo, on the way to the gate
of Santa Croce. "I am a painter: I would give you money to get your
portrait."

The suspicion returned into Baldassarre's glance, as he looked at Piero,
and said decidedly, "No."

"Ah!" said the painter, curtly. "Well, go straight on, and you'll find
the Porta Santa Croce, and outside it there's an hospital for
travellers. So you'll not accept any service from me?"

"I give you thanks for what you have done already. I need no more."

"It is well," said Piero, with a shrug, and they turned away from each
other.

"A mysterious old tiger!" thought the artist, "well worth painting.
Ugly--with deep lines--looking as if the plough and the harrow had gone
over his heart. A fine contrast to my bland and smiling Messer Greco--
my _Bacco trionfante_, who has married the fair Antigone in
contradiction to all history and fitness. Aha! his scholar's blood
curdled uncomfortably at the old fellow's clutch!" When Piero
re-entered the Piazza del Duomo the multitude who had been listening to
Fra Girolamo were pouring out from all the doors, and the haste they
made to go on their several ways was a proof how important they held the
preaching which had detained them from the other occupations of the day.
The artist leaned against an angle of the Baptistery and watched the
departing crowd, delighting in the variety of the garb and of the keen
characteristic faces--faces such as Masaccio had painted more than fifty
years before: such as Domenico Ghirlandajo had not yet quite left off
painting.

This morning was a peculiar occasion, and the Frate's audience, always
multifarious, had represented even more completely than usual the
various classes and political parties of Florence. There were men of
high birth, accustomed to public charges at home and abroad, w