He had a good understanding of his friend's character, and though in his
present mood he would have been glad to fix the wedding day, and sign
the marriage contract at once, he had no intention of yielding to
Carnesecchi's exorbitant demands. The lawyer was in need of money,
Marzio thought, and as he himself was the possessor of what the other
coveted, there could be little doubt as to the side on which the
advantage would ultimately be taken. Marzio went half-way up the steps
of the Capitol, and then stopped to look at the two wretched wolves
which the Roman municipality thinks it incumbent on the descendants of
Romulus to support. He thought one of them very like Carnesecchi. He
watched the poor beasts a moment or two as they tramped and swung and
pressed their lean sides against the bars of their narrow cage.

"What a sympathetic animal it is!" he exclaimed aloud. A passer-by
stared at him and then went on hurriedly, fearing that he might be mad.
Indeed, there was a sort of family likeness between the lawyer, the
chiseller, and the wolves.

Other thoughts, however, occupied Marzio's attention; and as soon as he
was sure that his friend was out of the way, he descended the steps. He
did not care whither he went, but he had no especial reason for climbing
the steep ascent to the Capitol. The crucifix his brother had ordered
from him on the previous evening engaged his attention, and it was as
much for the sake of being alone and of thinking about the work that he
had taken his solitary morning walk, as with the hope of finding in some
church a suggestion or inspiration which might serve him. He knew what
was to be found in Roman churches well enough; the Crucifixion in the
Trinità dei Pellegrini and the one in San Lorenzo in Lucina--both by
Guido Reni, and both eminently unsympathetic to his conception of the
subject--he had often looked at them, and did not care to see them