there except the force to accomplish, the initiative which oversteps the
bank of words, threats, and angry thoughts, and plunges boldly into the
stream, ready to sacrifice itself to lead others. The look of power, of
stern determination, which is never absent from the faces of men who
change their times, was not visible in the thin dark countenance of the
silver-chiseller. Marzio was destined never to rise above the common
howling mob which he aspired to lead.

This fact asserted itself outwardly as he sat there. After a few minutes
the features relaxed, a smile that was almost weak--the smile that shows
that a man lacks absolute confidence--passed quickly over his face, the
light in his eyes went out, and he rose from his stool with a short,
dissatisfied sigh, which was repeated once or twice as he put away his
work and arranged his tools. He made the rounds of the workshop, looked
to the fastenings of the windows, lighted a taper, and then extinguished
the lamp. He threw a loose overcoat over his shoulders without passing
his arms through the sleeves, and went out into the street. Glancing up
at the windows of his house opposite, he saw that the lights were
burning brightly, and he guessed that his wife and daughter were waiting
for him before sitting down to supper.

"Let them wait," he muttered with a surly grin, as he put out the taper
and went down the street in the opposite direction.

He turned the street corner by the dark Palazzo Antici Mattei, and
threaded the narrow streets towards the Pantheon and the Piazza Sant'
Eustachio. The weather had changed, and the damp south-east wind was
blowing fiercely behind him. The pavement was wet and slippery with the
strange thin coating of greasy mud which sometimes appears suddenly in
Rome even when it has not rained. The insufficient gas lamps flickered