nd by the war to get back Pisa,
that the prospect would be dismal enough without the rule of fanatics.
On the whole, Florence will be a delightful place for those worthies who
entertain themselves in the evening by going into crypts and lashing
themselves; but for everything else, the exiles have the best of it.
For my own part, I have been thinking seriously that we should be wise
to quit Florence, my Romola."

She started. "Tito, how could we leave Florence? Surely you do not
think I could leave it--at least, not yet--not for a long while." She
had turned cold and trembling, and did not find it quite easy to speak.
Tito must know the reasons she had in her mind.

"That is all a fabric of your own imagination, my sweet one. Your
secluded life has made you lay such false stress on a few things. You
know I used to tell you, before we were married, that I wished we were
somewhere else than in Florence. If you had seen more places and more
people, you would know what I mean when I say that there is something in
the Florentines that reminds me of their cutting spring winds. I like
people who take life less eagerly; and it would be good for my Romola,
too, to see a new life. I should like to dip her a little in the soft
waters of forgetfulness."

He leaned forward and kissed her brow, and laid his hand on her fair
hair again; but she felt his caress no more than if he had kissed a
mask. She was too much agitated by the sense of the distance between
their minds to be conscious that his lips touched her.

"Tito, it is not because I suppose Florence is the pleasantest place in
the world that I desire not to quit it. It is because I--because we
have to see my father's wish fulfilled. My godfather is old; he is
seventy-one; we could not leave it to him."

"It is precisely those superstitions which hang about your mind like
bedimming clouds, my Romola, that make one great reason why I could wish
we were two hundred leagues from Florence. I am obliged to take care of
you in opposition to your own will: if those dear eyes, that look so
tender, see falsely, I must see for them, and save my wife from wasting
her life in disappointing herself by impracticable dreams."

Romola sat silent and motionless: she could not blind herself to the
direction in which Tito's words pointed: he wanted to persuade her that
they might get the library deposited in some monastery, or take some
other ready means to rid themselves of a ta