erant Tito, incapable of hatred,
incapable almost of impatience, disposed always to be gentle towards the
rest of the world, felt himself becoming strangely hard towards this
wife whose presence had once been the strongest influence he had known.
With all his softness of disposition, he had a masculine effectiveness
of intellect and purpose which, like sharpness of edge, is itself an
energy, working its way without any strong momentum. Romola had an
energy of her own which thwarted his, and no man, who is not
exceptionally feeble, will endure being thwarted by his wife. Marriage
must be a relation either of sympathy or of conquest.

No emotion darted across his face as he heard Romola for the first time
speak of having gone away from him. His lips only looked a little
harder as he smiled slightly and said--

"My Romola, when certain conditions are ascertained, we must make up our
minds to them. No amount of wishing will fill the Arno, as your people
say, or turn a plum into an orange. I have not observed even that
prayers have much efficacy that way. You are so constituted as to have
certain strong impressions inaccessible to reason: I cannot share those
impressions, and you have withdrawn all trust from me in consequence.
You have changed towards me; it has followed that I have changed towards
you. It is useless to take any retrospect. We have simply to adapt
ourselves to altered conditions."

"Tito, it would not be useless for us to speak openly," said Romola,
with the sort of exasperation that comes from using living muscle
against some lifeless insurmountable resistance. "It was the sense of
deception in you that changed me, and that has kept us apart. And it is
not true that I changed first. You changed towards me the night you
first wore that chain-armour. You had some secret from me--it was about
that old man--and I saw him again yesterday. Tito," she went on, in a
tone of agonised entreaty, "if you would once tell me everything, let it
be what it may--I would not mind pain--that there might be no wall
between us! Is it not possible that we could begin a new life?"

This time there was a flash of emotion across Tito's face. He stood
perfectly still; but the flash seemed to have whitened him. He took no
notice of Romola's appeal, but after a moment's pause, said quietly--

"Your impetuosity about trifles, Romola, has a freezing influence that
would cool the baths of Nero." At these cutting wor