The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-08-16

~ w Cu"tSH I1dTElS
ket by the omnipresent Bratti, mer-
chant and huckster, and introduced to
breakfast and kiss from pretty little
Tessa, and passed under the deft hand
OF the woodworking barber-philoso-
pher Nello. That shrewd craftsman
with edged tools-razor or tongue-in-
| troduced him to the bright and power
full folk who freQuented his shop as If
it were club, and brought him to the
notice of the blind scholar Bardo, who
needed just such clever young stud
| ent as Tito for a helper From that
his path was easy to the confidence of
the great; Latin secretary to the
State, embassies to Rome, everything
was his, even to the envy of Niccolo
! Machiavelli. The world saw only the
dazzling success; there were few
who marked 1.-The change that came
from the final departure of moral
youthfulness," who saw the perf1dies
and desertions Of the dextrous and
| facile Greek, the baseness that smiles
| and trtumphs; who knew how he had
left to slavery the adaptive father who
had rescued him and made him what
he was, how he proved false to the
| memory Of Romola's father, who set
him on his way TO triumph in Flor
ence, how he betrayed his great pat
! rons, how he deceived poor Tessa,
that sweet, pouting, innocent, round
| thing" how he threw away the great
treasure of Romola's love, and how
his only bitter thought was that
timely well devised falsehood might
have saved him from every fatal con-
sequence.
q ~
she married stands Romola, fair as
the Florentine lily before it got quar-
relsome and turned red" as the rhap-
sodic Nello described her Her con-
tempt of all injustice and meanness,
the noble serenity with which she &C
cepted, though not without inward
struggle. all that life and duty brought
her, the willing service she rendered
her father. her husband, the poor, the
sufferers in the plague, Tito's aband-
oned father, even Tessa, her rival to
the title Of wife, the mother of Tito's
children, the majestic self-posse ssion
which at the slightest touch on the
fibres of affection or pity, could be-
come passionate with tenderness-all
this justified her godfather. Bernardo
del Nero in his eXhortation to her
father Remember, Bardo, thou hast
a rare gem of thine own; take care no
man gets it who is not likely to pay
worthy price That pretty Greek
has a 1.-THE sickness about him that
seems marvelously fitted for slipping
easily into any nest he fixes his eyes
upon"
But he that smiles and triumphs
does not always triumph to the end.
He is sometimes found out. So was
it with Tito. He had made the last
preparation for departure to a larger
field of action. Pursued in the night
by crowd Of angry men, he barely
had time to leap from bridge into the
Arno. A long swim in the darkness
in the tumult of his blood he could
only feel vaguely that he was safe and
might land But where? The current
was having its way with him; he hard
ly knew where he was; exhaustion
was bringing on the dreamy state that
precedes Inconsistencies.
But now there were eyes that dis
cerned hin-aged, strong for the
distance. Baldassare j his father -
looking up blankly from the search to
which his poverty had led him, had
seen white object coming along the
chance for him? He looked and
looked till the object gathered form;
then he leaned forward with a start as
he sat among the rank green stems,
and his eyes seemed to be filled with
a new light-yet he only watched
motionless, Something was being
brought to him.
The next instant a mans body was
cast violently on the grass two yards
from him, and he started forward like
a panther, clutching the velvet tunic
as he fell forward on the body and
flashed look in the mans face
Dead-was he dead? The eyes were
rigid. But no, it could not be-justice
had brought him. Men looked dead
sometimes, and yet the life came back
to them. Baldassare did not feel
feeble in that moment. He knew just
what he could do. He got his large
fingers within the neck of the tunic
and held them there, kneeling on one
knee beside the body and watching
theface In his eyes there was only
fierceness.
Rigid-rigid still. Those eyes with
the half-fallen lids were locked
against vengeance. Could it be that
he was dead? Surely at last the eye
lids were quivering; the eyes were no
longer rigid. There was vibrating
light in them-they opened wide.
"Ah, yes! You see me-you know
me-" (