with their souls full of heaviness, and then looked in their neighbours’ faces to see if there was really such a thing as joy. Romola had lost her belief in the happiness she had once thirsted for: it was a hateful, smiling, soft-handed thing, with a narrow, selfish heart.
She ran down from the loggia, with her hands pressed against her ears, and was hurrying across the antechamber, when she was startled by unexpectedly meeting her husband, who was coming to seek her.
His step was elastic, and there was a radiance of satisfaction about him not quite usual.
“What! the noise was a little too much for you?” he said; for Romola, as she started at the sight of him, had pressed her hands all the closer against her ears.
He took her gently by the wrist, and drew her arm within his, leading her into the saloon surrounded with the dancing nymphs and fauns, and then went on speaking:
“Florence is gone quite mad at getting its Great Council, which is to put an end to all the evils under the sun; especially to the vice of merriment. You may well look stunned, my Romola, and you are cold. You must not stay so late under that windy loggia without wrappings. I was coming to tell you that I am suddenly called to Rome about some learned business for Bernardo Rucellai. I am going away immediately, for I am to join my party at San Gaggio tonight, that we may start early in the morning. I need give you no trouble; I have had my packages made already. It will not be very long before I am back again.”
He knew he had nothing to expect from her but quiet endurance of what he said and did. He could not even venture to kiss her brow this