tone which had some quiet decision in it.
“No, I have nothing to tell.”
“As you please,” said Piero, “but perhaps you want shelter, and may not know how hospitable we Florentines are to visitors with torn doublets and empty stomachs. There’s an hospital for poor travellers outside all our gates, and, if you liked, I could put you in the way to one. There’s no danger from your French soldier. He has been sent off.”
Baldassarre nodded, and turned in silent acceptance of the offer, and he and Piero left the church together.
“You wouldn’t like to sit to me for your portrait, should you?” said Piero, as they went along the Via dell’ Oriuolo, on the way to the gate of Santa Croce. “I am a painter: I would give you money to get your portrait.”
The suspicion returned into Baldassarre’s glance, as he looked at Piero, and said decidedly, “No.”
“Ah!” said the painter, curtly. “Well, go straight on, and you’ll find the Porta Santa Croce, and outside it there’s an hospital for travellers. So you’ll not accept any service from me?”
“I give you thanks for what you have done already. I need no more.”
“It is well,” said Piero, with a shrug, and they turned away from each other.
“A mysterious old tiger!” thought the artist, “well worth painting. Ugly—with deep lines—looking as if the plough and the harrow had gone over his heart. A fine contrast to my bland and smiling Messer Greco—my Bacco trionfante , who has married the fair Antigone in contradiction to all history and fitness. Aha! his scholar’s blood curdled uncomfortably at the old fellow’s clutch!” When Piero reentered the