“It is a little shrine, which is to hide away from you forever that remembrancer of sadness. You have done with sadness now; and we will bury all images of it—bury them in a tomb of joy. See!”
A slight quiver passed across Romola’s face as Tito took hold of the crucifix. But she had no wish to prevent his purpose; on the contrary, she herself wished to subdue certain importunate memories and questionings which still flitted like unexplained shadows across her happier thought.
He opened the triptych and placed the crucifix within the central space; then closing it again, taking out the key, and setting the little tabernacle in the spot where the crucifix had stood, said—
“Now, Romola, look and see if you are satisfied with the portraits old Piero has made of us. Is it not a dainty device? and the credit of choosing it is mine.”
“Ah! it is you—it is perfect!” said Romola, looking with moist joyful eyes at the miniature Bacchus, with his purple clusters. “And I am Ariadne, and you are crowning me! Yes, it is true, Tito; you have crowned my poor life.”
They held each other’s hands while she spoke, and both looked at their imaged selves. But the reality was far more beautiful; she all lily-white and golden, and he with his dark glowing beauty above the purple red-bordered tunic.
“And it was our good strange Piero who painted it?” said Romola. “Did you put it into his head to paint me as Antigone, that he might have my likeness for this?”
“No, it was he who made my getting leave for him to paint you and your father, a condition of his doing this for me.”