time. One of the objects to be first borne in
mind, is that you should win the confidence of the men who hang about
San Marco; that is what Giannozzo and I shall do, but you may carry it
farther than we can, because you are less observed. In that way you can
get a thorough knowledge of their doings, and you will make a broader
screen for your agency on our side. Nothing of course can be done
before you start for Rome, because this bit of business between Piero
de' Medici and the French nobles must be effected at once. I mean when
you come back, of course; I need say no more. I believe you could make
yourself the pet votary of San Marco, if you liked; but you are wise
enough to know that effective dissimulation is never immoderate."

"If it were not that an adhesion to the popular side is necessary to
your safety as an agent of our party, Tito mio," said Giannozzo Pucci,
who was more fraternal and less patronising in his manner than
Tornabuoni, "I could have wished your skill to have been employed in
another way, for which it is still better fitted. But now we must look
out for some other man among us who will manage to get into the
confidence of our sworn enemies, the Arrabbiati; we need to know their
movements more than those of the Frate's party, who are strong enough to
play above-board. Still, it would have been a difficult thing for you,
from your known relations with the Medici a little while back, and that
sort of kinship your wife has with Bernardo del Nero. We must find a
man who has no distinguished connections, and who has not yet taken any
side."

Tito was pushing his hair backward automatically, as his manner was, and
looking straight at Pucci with a scarcely perceptible smile on his lip.

"No need to look out for any one else," he said, promptly. "I can
manage the whole business with perfect ease. I will engage to make
myself the special confidant of that thick-headed Dolfo Spini, and know
his projects before he knows them himself."

Tito seldom spoke so confidently of his own powers, but he was in a
state of exaltation at the sudden opening of a new path before him,
where fortune seemed to have hung higher prizes than any he had thought
of hitherto. Hitherto he had seen success only in the form of favour;
it now flashed on him in the shape of power--of such power as is
possible to talent without traditional ties, and without beliefs. Each
party that thought of him as a tool might become dep