As he trod the stone stairs, when he was still outside the door, with no one but Maso near him, the influence seemed to have begun its work by the mere nearness of anticipation.
“Welcome, Tito mio,” said the old man’s voice, before Tito had spoken. There was a new vigour in the voice, a new cheerfulness in the blind face, since that first interview more than two months ago. “You have brought fresh manuscript, doubtless; but since we were talking last night I have had new ideas: we must take a wider scope—we must go back upon our footsteps.”
Tito, paying his homage to Romola as he advanced, went, as his custom was, straight to Bardo’s chair, and put his hand in the palm that was held to receive it, placing himself on the cross-legged leather seat with scrolled ends, close to Bardo’s elbow.
“Yes,” he said, in his gentle way; “I have brought the new manuscript, but that can wait your pleasure. I have young limbs, you know, and can walk back up the hill without any difficulty.”
He did not look at Romola as he said this, but he knew quite well that her eyes were fixed on him with delight.
“That is well said, my son.” Bardo had already addressed Tito in this way once or twice of late. > “And I perceive with gladness that you do not shrink from labour, without which, the poet has wisely said, life has given nothing to mortals. It is too often the ‘ palma sine pulvere ,’ the prize of glory without the dust of the race, that attracts young ambition. But what says the Greek? ‘In the morning of life, work; in the midday, give counsel; in the evening, pray.’ It is true, I might be thought to have reached that helpless evening; but not so, while I