was not till his dread had been aggravated by the sight of
Baldassarre looking more like his sane self, not until he had begun to
feel that he might be compelled to flee from Florence, that he had
brought himself to resolve on using his legal right to sell the library
before the great opportunity offered by French and Milanese bidders
slipped through his fingers. For if he had to leave Florence he did not
want to leave it as a destitute wanderer. He had been used to an
agreeable existence, and he wished to carry with him all the means at
hand for retaining the same agreeable conditions. He wished among other
things to carry Romola with him, and _not_, if possible, to carry any
infamy. Success had given him a growing appetite for all the pleasures
that depend on an advantageous social position, and at no moment could
it look like a temptation to him, but only like a hideous alternative,
to decamp under dishonour, even with a bag of diamonds, and incur the
life of an adventurer. It was not possible for him to make himself
independent even of those Florentines who only greeted him with regard;
still less was it possible for him to make himself independent of
Romola. She was the wife of his first love--he loved her still; she
belonged to that furniture of life which he shrank from parting with.
He winced under her judgment, he felt uncertain how far the revulsion of
her feeling towards him might go; and all that sense of power over a
wife which makes a husband risk betrayals that a lover never ventures
on, would not suffice to counteract Tito's uneasiness. This was the
leaden weight which had been too strong for his will, and kept him from
raising his head to meet her eyes. Their pure light brought too near
him the prospect of a coming struggle. But it was not to be helped; if
they had to leave Florence, they must have money; indeed, Tito could not
arrange life at all to his mind without a considerable sum of money.
And that problem of arranging life to his mind had been the source of
all his misdoing. He would have been equal to any sacrifice that was
not unpleasant.

The rustling magnates came and went, the bargains had been concluded,
and Romola returned home; but nothing grave was said that night. Tito
was only gay and chatty, pouring forth to her, as he had not done
before, stories and descriptions of what he had witnessed during the
French visit. Romola thought she discerned an effort in his liveliness,
an