ito was quite unconscious of her movements--unconscious of his own
attitude: he was in that wrapt state in which a man will grasp painful
roughness, and press and press it closer, and never feel it. A new
possibility had risen before him, which might dissolve at once the
wretched conditions of fear and suppression that were marring his life.
Destiny had brought within his reach an opportunity of retrieving that
moment on the steps of the Duomo, when the Past had grasped him with
living quivering hands, and he had disowned it. A few steps, and he
might be face to face with his father, with no witness by; he might seek
forgiveness and reconciliation; and there was money now, from the sale
of the library, to enable them to leave Florence without disclosure, and
go into Southern Italy, where under the probable French rule, he had
already laid a foundation for patronage. Romola need never know the
whole truth, for she could have no certain means of identifying that
prisoner in the Duomo with Baldassarre, or of learning what had taken
place on the steps, except from Baldassarre himself; and if his father
forgave, he would also consent to bury, that offence.

But with this possibility of relief, by an easy spring, from present
evil, there rose the other possibility, that the fierce-hearted man
might refuse to be propitiated. Well--and if he did, things would only
be as they had been before; for there would be _no witness by_. It was
not repentance with a white sheet round it and taper in hand, confessing
its hated sin in the eyes of men, that Tito was preparing for: it was a
repentance that would make all things pleasant again, and keep all past
unpleasant things secret. And Tito's soft-heartedness, his
indisposition to feel himself in harsh relations with any creature, was
in strong activity towards his father, now his father was brought near
to him. It would be a state of ease that his nature could not but
desire, if the poisonous hatred in Baldassarre's glance could be
replaced by something of the old affection and complacency.

Tito longed to have his world once again completely cushioned with
goodwill, and longed for it the more eagerly because of what he had just
suffered from the collision with Romola. It was not difficult to him to
smile pleadingly on those whom he had injured, and offer to do them much
kindness: and no quickness of intellect could tell him exactly the taste
of that honey on the lips of the inj