stancy and on
their sticking to their colours, to go a-hunting with a fine net to
catch reasons in the air, like doctors of law. I say frankly that, as
the head of my family, I shall be true to my old alliances; and I have
never yet seen any chalk-mark on political reasons to tell me which is
true and which is false. My friend Bernardo Rucellai here is a man of
reasons, I know, and I have no objection to anybody's finding fine-spun
reasons for me, so that they don't interfere with my actions as a man of
family who has faith to keep with his connections."

"If that is an appeal to me, Niccolo," said Bernardo Rucellai, with a
formal dignity, in amusing contrast with Ridolfi's curt and pithy ease,
"I may take this opportunity of saying, that while my wishes are partly
determined by long-standing personal relations, I cannot enter into any
positive schemes with persons over whose actions I have no control. I
myself might be content with a restoration of the old order of things;
but with modifications--with important modifications. And the one point
on which I wish to declare my concurrence with Lorenzo Tornabuoni is,
that the best policy to be pursued by our friends is, to throw the
weight of their interest into the scale of the popular party. For
myself, I condescend to no dissimulation; nor do I at present see the
party or the scheme that commands my full assent. In all alike there is
crudity and confusion of ideas, and of all the twenty men who are my
colleagues in the present crisis, there is not one with whom I do not
find myself in wide disagreement."

Niccolo Ridolfi shrugged his shoulders, and left it to some one else to
take up the ball. As the wine went round the talk became more and more
frank and lively, and the desire of several at once to be the chief
speaker, as usual caused the company to break up into small knots of two
and three.

It was a result which had been foreseen by Lorenzo Tornabuoni and
Giannozzo Pucci, and they were among the first to turn aside from the
highroad of general talk and enter into a special conversation with
Tito, who sat between them; gradually pushing away their seats, and
turning their backs on the table and wine.

"In truth, Melema," Tornabuoni was saying at this stage, laying one
hose-clad leg across the knee of the other, and caressing his ankle, "I
know of no man in Florence who can serve our party better than you. You
see what most of our friends are: men who can