The Clio messenger., 1921-01-20

II anu muuy OtHtTS. AL tucSt udhe
the setting for the lives of woman
and man and the progress of their
souls, the one upward and the other
downward, as wonderfully drawn as
ever human lives were portrayed by
pen OF man or woman.
Florence saw Tito Melema ever
making his way upward from the day
when he found himself adrift after
shipwreck. and was carried to the
market, by the omnipresent Bratti
merchant and huckster, and introduced
to breakfast and a kiss from pretty
little Tessa, and passed under the deft
hand of the wonder-working barber
philosopher Nello. That shrewd crafts
man with edged toOls-razor or tongue
introduced him TO the bright and
powerful folk who frequented his shop
as II II were club, and brought him
to the notice OF the blind scholar Bar
do, who needed Just such clever
young student as Tito for helper.
From that his path was easy to the
confidence of the great; Latin secre-
tary 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
n few who marked "the change that
came from the final departure of moral
youthfulness," who saw the pertidies
and desertions of the dextrous and fac
lie Greek, the baseness that smiles
and triumphs; 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, VINO 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.
Over against the figure Of the man
she married stands Romola, "fair as
the Florentine lily before II 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 ac-
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 aban-
doned father, even Tessa, her rival to
the title of wife, the mother Of Tito's
children, the majestic self-possession
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 IA
ther, Remember, Bardo, thou hast q
rare gem Of thy own; take care no
man gets 1t who is not likely to pay
worthy price. That pretty Greek
has a 1.-THE sickness about him that
seems maryellously 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 IL was
with Tito. He had made the last
preparation for departure to larger
field of action. Pursued in the night
by a crowd of angry men, he barely
had time to leap from a bridge into
the Arno. A long swim in the dark
ness-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 i;
he hardly knew where he was; ex-
haustion was bringing on the dreamy
state that precedes unconsciousness.
But now there were eyes that dis
cerned him-aged, strong for the dis
tance. Baldassare-his father-look-
ing up blankly from the search to
which his poverty had led him, had
seen a white object coming along the
tnat be any fortunate
chance for him? He looked and looked
till the object gathered form; then he
leaned forward with start as he sat
among the rank green stems, and his
eyes seemed to be filled with a new
light-yet he only watched-mOtion
less. 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 a look in the mans face.
Dead-was he dead? The eyes were
rigid. But no, il could not be-justlce
had brought him. Men looked dead
and yet the life came back
to them. Baldassare did not feel fee
BILE 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
the face. In his eyes there was only
fierceness.
Rigid-rigid still. Those eyes NTH
the half-fallen lids were locked against