10

100.

ing in sunlit curves towards the Alps.

Odo had lost none of his sensitiveness to such impressions; but the
sway of another mood turned his eye from the out-stretched beauty
of the city to the budding solitude about him. It was the season
when old memories of Donnaz worked in his blood; when the banks and
hedges of the fresh hill-country about Turin cheated him with a
breath of budding beech-groves and the fragrance of crushed fern in
the glens of the high Pennine valleys. It was only a passing waft,
perhaps, from some clod of loosened earth, or the touch of cool
elastic moss as he flung himself face downward under the trees; but
the savour, the contact filled his nostrils with mountain air and
his eyes with dimmed views from where a summer hung like incense in the air. At Donnaz the slow motions of the northern spring had endeared to him all those sweet incipiences preceding the full choral burst of leaf and flower: the mauve mist over bare woodlands, the wet black gleams in frost-bound hollows, the thrust of fronds through withered bracken, the primrose-patches spreading like pale sunshine along wintry lanes. He had always felt a sympathy for these delicate unnoted changes; but the feeling which had formerly been like the blind stir of sap in a living plant was now a conscious sensation that groped for speech and understanding.

He had grown up among people to whom such emotions
were incomprehensible. The old Marquess's passion for his fields
and woods was the love of the agriculturist and the hunter, not that
of the naturalist or the poet; and the aristocracy of the cities
regarded the country merely as so much soil from which to draw their
maintenance. The gentlefolk never absented themselves from town

115.

said he carelessly.

Alfieri stepped close and tapped him on the sleeve.
"Meet me at ten o'clock at the turn of the lane that runs behind the sacristy of the Corpus Domini. Wear a cloak and a mask, and leave this gentleman at home with a flask of Asti." He glanced at Can-tapresto.

Odo hesitated a moment. He knew well enough where such midnight turnings led, and across the vision evoked by his friend's words a girl's face flitted suddenly.

"Is that all?" he said with a shrug. "You find me, I fear, in no humour for such exploits."

Alfieri smiled. "And if I say that I have promised to bring you?"

"Promised—?"

"To one as chary of exacting such promises as I of giving them. If I say that you stake your life on the adventure, and that the stake is not too great for the reward—?"

His sallow face had reddened like a granite cliff in the sunset, and Odo's forehead reflected the flush. Was it possible—? but the thought set him tingling with disgust.

"Why, you say little," he cried lightly, "at the rate I hold my life at."

Alfieri turned on him. "If your life is worthless make it worth something!" he exclaimed, "I offer you the opportunity tonight."

"What opportunity?"

"The sight of a face that men have laid down their lives to see."

Odo laughed and buckled on his sword. "If you

126
129.

IV.

Professor Orago Vivaldi, after filling with distinction the chair of Philosophy at the University of Turin, had lately resigned his office that he might have leisure to complete a long-contemplated work on the Origin of Civilization.

His house was the meeting-place of a Society calling itself of the Honey-Bees and ostensibly devoted to the study of the classical poets, from whose pages the members were supposed to cull mellifluous nourishment; but under this guise, the so-called literati had for some time indulged in free discussion of religious and scientific questions. The Academy of the Honey-Bees comprised among its members all the independent thinkers of Turin: doctors of law, of philosophy and medicine, chemists, philologists and naturalists, with one or two members of the nobility, who, like Alfieri, felt, or affected, an interest in the graver problems of life, and could be trusted not to betray the true character of the association.

These details Odo learned the next day from Alfieri; who went on to say that, owing to the increased vigilance of the government, and the banishment of several distinguished men accused heretical or by the church of seditious opinions, the Honey-Bees had of late been obliged to hold their meetings secretly, it being even rumoured that

14

135 138

136

o political, economic and literary, were discussed with a freedom possible only under the lenient Austrian rule.

"Ah," Vivaldi cried, "Milan is indeed the home of the free spirit, and were I not persuaded that a man's first duty is to improve the condition of his own city and state, I should long ago have left this unhappy Kingdom; indeed I sometimes fancy I may yet serve my own people better by proclaiming the truth openly at a distance than by whispering it in their midst."

It was a surprise to Odo to find that the new ideas had already taken such hold in Italy, and that some of the most original thinkers on scientific and economic subjects were among his own countrymen. Like all eighteenth century Italians of his class he had been taught to look to France as the source of all culture, intellectual and social; and he was amazed to find that in jurisprudence, and in some of the natural sciences, Italy led the learning of Europe.

Once or twice Fulvia showed herself retiring and almost constrained, and her father always contrived an excuse for dismissing her. This was the more noticeable as she continued to appear at the meetings of the Honey-Bees, where she joined freely in the conversation, and sometimes diverted the guests by playing on the harpsichord or by recitations from the poets; all with such art and grace, and withal so much simplicity, that it was clear she was accustomed to the part.

Odo was thus driven to the not unflattering conclusion that she had been instructed to avoid his company; and after the first disappointment he was too honest to regret it. He was deeply drawn to the girl; but what part could she play in the life of a man of his rank?

part of a show prepared for their diversion, cheered lustily as the
carriages dashed across the square; and Odo, turning to a man at his
elbow, asked who the distinguished visitors might be.

"Why, sir," said the other laughing, "I understand it
is only an Embassage from some neighbouring state; but when our good
people are in their Easter mood they are ready to take a mail-coach
for Elijah's chariot and their wives' scolding for the Gift of
Tongues."

Odo spent a restless night face to face with his
first humiliation. Though the girl's rebuff had cut him to the
quick, it was the vision of the havoc his folly had wrought that
stood between him and sleep. To have endangered the liberty, the
very life, perhaps, of a man he loved and venerated, and who had
welcomed him without heed of personal risk, this indeed was bitter
to his youthful self-sufficiency. There was no balm in knowing
that it was at Fulvia's request he had been so freely welcomed; for
he was persuaded that, whatever her previous feeling might have
been, the scene just enacted must render him forever odious to her.
Turn whither it would, his tossing vanity found no repose; and dawn
rose for him on a thorny waste of disillusionment.
Cantapresto broke in early upon this hateful vigil, flushed with the
importance of a letter from the Countess Valdù. The lady, in
agitated and affectionate terms, summoned her son to dinner, "to
meet an old friend and distinguished visitor;" and a verbal message
bade Odo come early and wear his new uniform. He was too well
acquainted with his mother's exaggerations to attach much importance
to the summons; but being glad of an excuse to escape his daily

155.

fed streams. The first breath of mountain-air lifted the mist from
his spirit, and he began to feel himself a boy again as he entered
the high gorges in the cold light after sunset. It was about the
full of the moon, and in his impatience to reach Donnaz he resolved
to push on after night-fall. The forest was still thinly-leaved,
and the rustle of wind in the branches and the noise of the torrents,
recalled his first approach to the castle, in the
wild winter twilight. The way lay in deep darkness till the moon
rose, and once or twice he took a wrong turn and found himself en-
gaged in some overgrown woodland track; but he soon regained the
high-road, and his servant, a young fellow of indomitable cheerfulness,
took the edge off their solitude by snatches of the song.
At length the moon rose, and toward midnight Odo, spurring out of a
dark glen, found himself at the opening of the valley of Donnaz.
A cold radiance bathed the familiar pastures, the unwalled houses
of the village along the stream, and the turrets and crenellations
of the castle at the head of the gorge. The air was bitter, and
the horses' hoofs clanged sharply on the road as they trotted past
the slumbering houses, and halted at the unwatched gateway
through which Odo had first been carried as a sleepy child. It was
long before they were answered, but a bewildered porter at
length admitted them, and Odo cried out when he recognized in the
man's face the features of one of the lads who had taught him to
play the pallone in the castle court.

Within doors, all were abed; but the Cavaliere was
expected, and supper and a fire awaited him in the very chamber where
he had lain as a lad. The sight of so much that was strange and

17

178.

raohs) but whom I have been obliged, for his sake, to include in our
little supper."

merely This, it was clear, was a polite way of palliating the Count's infatuation for herself; but he took the second thrust as good naturedly as the first, remarking that he had been bred to be an archaeologist and had never lost his taste for the antique.

Odo's servants now appearing with a pasty of beccafichi, some bottles of old Malaga, and a tray of ices and fruit, the three seated themselves at the table, which Mirandolina had decorated with a number of wax candles stuck in the cut-glass bottles of the Count's dressing-case. Here they were speedily joined by the actress's monkey and parrot, who had soon spread devastation among the dishes. While Miranda was restoring order by boxing the monkey's ears and feeding the shrieking bird from her lips, the door opened to admit the prima amorosa, a lady whose mature charms and mellifluous manner suggested a fine fruit preserved in syrup. The newcomer was clearly engrossed in captivating the Count, and the latter, justified his nick-name by the cynical complaisance with which he cleared the way for Odo by responding to her tender advances.

The tête-à-tête thus established, Miranda at once began to excuse herself for the means she had taken to attract Odo's attention at the theatre. She had heard from the inn-keeper, that the Duke of Pianura's cousin, the Cavaliere Valsecca, was expected that day in Vercelli; and seeing in the Piazza a young gentleman in travelling-dress and French toupet, had at once guessed him to be the distinguished stranger from Turin. At the theatre, she had been much amused by the air of apprehension with which Odo had appeared

183.

about him. I was told in Pianura that there are but four persons admitted to his familiarity: his confessor, his mistress, Count Trescorre, who will soon be prime-minister, and a strange German doctor or astrologer that is lately come to the court. As to the Duchess, she never sees him; and were it not for Trescorre, who has had the wit to stand well with both sides, I doubt if she would know more of what goes on about her husband than any scullion in the ducal kitchens."

She spoke with the air of one well-acquainted with the subject, and Odo, curious to learn more, asked her how she came to have such an insight into the intrigues of the court.

"Why," said she, "in the oddest way imaginable— by being the guest of his lordship the Bishop of Pianura; and since you asked me just now to tell you something of my adventures, I will, if you please, begin by relating the occurrences that procured me this extraordinary honour. But first," she added, with a smile, "would it not be well to open another bottle of Malaga?"

## MIRANDOLINA'S STORY.

You must know, she continued when Odo had complied with her request, that soon after our parting at Chivas, the company with which I was travelling came to grief through the dishonesty of the Harlequin, who ran away with the Capo Comico' wife, carrying with him, besides the lady, the far more irretrievable treasure of our modest earnings. This brought us to destitution, and the troupe was disbanded. I had nothing but the spangled frock on my back, and thinking to make some use of my sole possession, I set out as a dancer with the flute-player of the company, a good-natured fellow that had

19

186 189.

self implicitly to his guidance, not only to preserve me from the Belverde's machinations, but to ensure my reappearing on the stage within two days at the latest. Knowing him to be a very powerful personage I thought it best to accept these conditions, which in any case it would have been difficult to resist; and the next day he informed me that the Holy Office had consented to the Signorina Miranda Malmocco's appearing on the stage of Pianura during the remainder of the season, in consideration of the financial injury caused to the manager of the company by the edifying conversion of her twin-brother.

"In this way," the abbot was pleased to explain, "you will be quite safe from my sister, who is a woman of the most unexceptionable morals, and at the same time you will not expose our excellent Bishop to the charge of having been party to a grave infraction of ecclesiastical discipline. — My only condition," he added with a truly paternal smile, "is that, after the Signorina Miranda's performance at the theatre her twin-brother the Signor Mirandolino shall return every evening to the monastery; a condition I trust you will not regard as too onerous, in view of the service I have been happy enough to render you."

It would ill have become me to dispute the excellent ecclesiastic's wishes, and Tartaglia and the rest of the company having been sworn to secrecy, I reappeared that very evening in one of my favourite parts, and was afterward carried back to the monastery in the most private manner. The Signorina Malmocco's successes soon repaired the loss occasioned by her brother's withdrawal, and if any suspected their identity all were interested to

IX.

Odo woke with a start. He had been trying to break down a great gold-barred gate, behind which Fulvia, pale and disordered, struggled in the clutch of the blind beggar of the Corpus Christi...

He sat up and looked about him. The gate was still there; but as he gazed, it resolved itself into his shuttered window, barred with wide lines of sunlight. It was day, then! He sprang out of bed and flung open the shutters. Beneath him lay the piazza of Vercelli, bathed in the vertical brightness of a summer noon; and as he stood, slowly looking out on this indescribable scene, the clock over the Hospital struck twelve.

Twelve o'clock! And he had promised to meet Vivaldi at dawn behind the Umiliat. Long ere this they should have been safe across the border. As the truth slowly forced itself on Odo he dropped into a chair and hid his face with a groan. He had failed them again, then, and this time how cruelly and basely! He felt himself the victim of a diabolical conspiracy which in some occult manner was forever forcing him to outrage and betray the two beings

he most tired to serve. The idea of a conspiracy turned his flashed a sudden light on his evening's diversion the sprang up with a cry. Yes! It was a plot, any but a dot fatuous. A dot must have passed the soprano's hand in this bulgar assault upon his senses.

senses. He choked with bovine anger at the thought of having played the callow dupe when two lives he cherished were staked upon his vigilance...

Cantapresto presented to his furious summons a blank wall of deprecating ignorance. Yes, the cavaliere had given orders that the carriage should be ready before daybreak; but who was authorized to wake the cavaliere? After keeping the carriage two hours at the door Cantapresto had ventured to send it back to the stable; but the horses should instantly be put to, and within an hour they would be well forward on their journey. Meanwhile, should the barber be summoned at once? Or would the cavaliere first refresh himself with an excellent cup of chocolate, prepared under Cantapresto's own supervision?

Odo turned on him savagely. "Traitor— spy! In whose pay—?" A But the words roused him to a sense of fresh peril. Cantapresto, though he might have guessed Odo's intentions, was not privy to his plan of rejoining Vivaldi and Fulvia, that morning; and it flashed across the young man that his self-betrayal must confirm the other's suspensions. His one hope of protecting his friends, from the new danger he had brought upon them was to affect in-difference to what had happened; and this was made easier by the reflection that the soprano was after all but a tool in more power-

fearing arrest if they revealed themselves by venturing to engage a
carriage. At every turn of his thoughts Odo was mocked by some
malicious vision of disaster; and an hour of torturing cogitation
yielded no happier expedient that that of repairing at once to the
meeting-place behind the Umiliati. It was a deserted lane, with
few passers even at midday; and after vainly attempting the blank wall
of the convent and the closed gates of a sinister-looking alms-house
that faced it, he retraced his steps to the inn.

He spent a day of futile research and bitter thoughts,
now straying abroad in the vain hope of meeting Vivaldi, now hasten-
ing back to the Three Crowns on the chance that some message might
await him. He dared not let his mind rest on what might have be-
fallen his friends; yet the alternative of contemplating his own
course was one scarcely more endurable. Nightfall brought the con-
viction that the Professor and Fulvia had passed hopelessly beyond
his reach. It was clear that if they were still in Vercelli they
did not mean to make their presence known to him, while in the event
of their escape he was without means of tracing them farther. He
knew indeed that their destination was Milan, but, should they
reach there safely, what hope was there of finding them in a city
of strangers? By a stroke of incredible folly he had cut himself
off from all communication with them, and his misery was enhanced
by the discovery of his weakness. He who had fed his fancy
on high visions of self-denying effort, secretly cherishing in him-

saw himself as she no doubt beheld him— the light fribble feeding
like some a summer insect on the old予 sprouteth
his ephemeral passions on the peace and happiness of others...

In bitterness of spirit he set out the next morning
for Pianura. It was twelve years since he had travelled the same
road, and he shrank from the eye of the confident past that waylaid
him at every turn. A strange half-melancholy interest drew him
back to the scene of his first lonely years, and he had started
early in order to push on that night to Pontesordo. At Valsecca,
the regular posting-station between Vercelli and Pianura, his road
deflected to the left, and in a stormy yellow twilight he drove
across the waste land studded with dwarf oaks that dipped to the
marsh of Pontesordo. On his right, the woods of the ducal chase
hung black against the sky; and presently he saw ahead of
him the old square keep, with a flight of swallows circling low
about its walls.

29

194

198.

The morning was hot, and Odo presently saw ahead of him, limping along the road under the midday glare, the slight hump-backed man in a decent black dress and three cornered hat. There was something familiar in the man's gait, and in the shape of his large head, which looked oddly on his narrow slooping shoulders, and as the carriage drew abreast of him, Odo, leaning from the window, cried out— "Brutus— this must be Brutus!"

"Your excellency has the advantage of me," said the hump-back, turning on him a thin, charybdis-like face lit by the sun, keen eyes that had once pierced to his childish soul.

Odo met his rebuff with a smile. "Does that," said he, "prevent my suggesting that you might continue your way more comfortably in my carriage? The road is hot and dusty and, as you see, I am in want of company."

The pedestrian, who seemed unprepared for this conciliatory rejoiner, had the sheepish air of a man whose rudeness has missed the mark.

"Why, sir," said he, recovering himself after a moment, "comfort is all a matter of habit, and I daresay the jolting of your carriage might seem to me more unpleasant than the heat and dust of the road, to which necessity has long since accustomed me."

"In that case," returned Odo with increasing amusement, "you will have the additional merit of sacrificing your pleasure to add to mine."

The hump-back stared. "And what have you or yours ever done for me," he retorted, "that I should sacrifice to your

195-199.

pleasure even the wretched privilege of being dusted by the wheels
of your coach?

"Why, that," replied Odo, "is a question I can scarce
answer till you give me the opportunity of naming myself. — If
you are indeed Carlo Gamba," he continued, "I am your old friend and
companion Odo Valsecca."

The hump-back hump-backed, he had hump-backed temples. "The
Cavaliere Valsecca!" he cried. "I had heard that you were expect-
ed." He stood gazing curiously at Odo. "Our next Duke!" he mut-
tered.

Odo smiled. "I had rather," said he, "that my past
commended me than my future. It is more than doubtful if I am ever
able to offer you a seat in the Duke's carriage; but Odo Valsecca's
is very much at your service."

Gamba bowed with a kind of awkward dignity. "I am
grateful for a friend's kindness," he said, "but I do not ride in a
nobleman's carriage."

"There," returned Odo with perfect good-humour, "you
have the advantage of me; for I can no more escape doing so than you
can escape spending your life in the company of an ill-tempered man!"
And courteously lifting his hat he called to the postillion to drive
on.

The hump-back at this, flushing scarlet, laid a hand
on the carriage-door.

"Sir," said he, "I freely own myself in the wrong;
but a smooth temper was not one of the blessings my unknown parents
bequeathed to me; and I confess I had heard of you as one little

34

197
201.

years.

"It must," said Odo, "be one singularly congenial to you, if, as I have heard, you are of a studious habit. Though I suppose," he tentatively added, "the library is not likely to be rich in works of the new scientific and philosophic schools."

His companion received this observation in silence; and after a moment Odo continued: "I have a motive in asking, since I have been somewhat deeply engaged in the study of these writers, and my dearest wish is to continue while in Pianura my examination of their theories, and if possible to become acquainted with any who share their views."

He was not insensible of the risk of thus opening himself to a stranger; but the sense of peril made him the more eager to proclaim himself on the side of the cause he seemed to have deserted.

Gamba turned as he spoke, and their eyes met in one of those revealing glances that lay the foundations of friendship.

"I fear, Cavaliere," said the hump-back with a smile, "that you will find both branches of investigation somewhat difficult to pursue in Pianura; for the Church takes care that neither the philosophers nor their books shall gain a footing in our most Christian state. Indeed," he added, "not only must the library be free from heretical works, but the librarian, clear of heretical leanings; and since you have honoured me with your confidence, I will own that, the court having got wind of my supposed tendency to liberalism, I live in daily expectation of dismissal. For the moment they are content to keep their spies on me; but were it not

38

198
202.

for the protection of the good abate, my superior, I should long
since have been turned out."

"And why," asked Odo, "do you speak of the court and
the Church as one?"

"Because, sir, in our virtuous duchy the terms are
interchangeable. The Duke is in fact so zealous a son of the
Church that if the latter showed any leniency to sinners, the secu-
lar arm would promptly repair her negligence. His Highness, as
you may have heard, is ruled by his confessor, an adroit Dominican,
thought to be in secret correspondence with the Jesuits. The con-
fessor, it is true, has two rivals, the Countess Belverde, a lady
distinguished for her scrupulous piety, and a German astrologer or
alchemist, lately come to Pianura, and calling himself a descendant
of the Egyptian priesthood and a adept of the higher or esoteric
doctrines of Neoplatonism. These three, however, though ostensi-
bly rivals for the Duke's favour, live on such good terms with one
another that they are suspected of having entered into a secret
partnership; while some regard them all as the emissaries of the
Jesuits, who, since the suppression of the Society, are known to
have kept a footing in Pianura, as in most of the other Italian
states. As to the Duke, the death of the Marquess of Cerveno, the
failing health of, the little prince, and his own strange physical
infirmities have so preyed on his mind that he is the victim of any
who are unscrupulous enough to trade on the fears of a diseased im-
agination. His counsellors, however divided in doctrine, have at
least one end in common; and that is, to keep the light of reason
out of the darkened chamber in which they have confined him; and

199

203.

with such a ruler and such principles of government you may fancy
that poor philosophy has not where to lay her head."

"And the people?" Odo pursued. "What of the fiscal administration?
In some states where liberty of thought is not respected the mater-
ial welfare of the subject is nevertheless considered."

The hump-back shook his head. "It may be so," said
he, "though I had thought that the principle of moral tyranny must
infest every branch of public administration. With us, at all
events, the privileges and exemptions of the Church are the chief
source of suffering, and the state of passive ignorance in which the
clergy have kept the people has bred in the latter a dull resigna-
tion that is the surest obstacle to reform. Oh, sir," he cried,
"his face softening, (his eyes darkening with emotion, "If you could
see, as I do, the blind brute misery on which all the magnifi-
cence of rank and all the refinements of luxury are built, you would
feel, as you drive along this road, that with every turn of the
wheels you are passing over the bodies of those who have toiled
without ceasing that you might ride in a gilded coach, and have
gone hungry that you might feast in Kings' palaces!"

The touch of rhetoric in this adjuration did not
discredit it with Odo, to whom the words were as caustic on an open
wound. He turned to make some impulsive answer; but as he did so,
he caught sight of the walls and towers of Pianura, rising above
the orchards and market-gardens of the suburbs. The sight started
a new train of feeling, and Gamba, perceiving it, said quietly:
"But this is no time to speak of such things."

A moment later, the carriage had passed under the great

45

204.

battlemented gates, with their incrustied Etruscan bas-reliefs, and
the motto of the house of Valsecca— Humilitas — surmounted by the
ducal escutcheon.

Though the hour was close on noon, the streets were
as animated as at the angelus, and the carriage could hardly pro-
ceed for the crowd obstructing the way. So unusual at that period,
was such a sight in one of the lesser Italian towns// that Odo turn-
ed to his companion for an explanation. At the same moment, a W\*
roar rose from the crowd; and the coach turning into the chief tho-
roughfare, or Corso, which led to the ducal palace and the centre of
the town, Odo caught sight of a strange procession advancing from
that direction. It was preceded by a clerk or usher with a black
cap and staff, behind whom marched two bare-foot friars escorting
between them a middle-aged man in the dress of an abate, his hands
bound behind him and his head surmounted by a paste-board mitre
inscribed with the title: A Destroyer of Female Chastity. This
dazzled
man, who was of a simple and commonplace aspect, was so disordered
by the buffeting of the crowd, so smeared and spattered by the mud
and filth hurled at him from a hundred taunting hands, that he seem-

*conscience so Disturbed by a Cook of*
*animal fear, that he seemed more*
*like a madman being haled to Bedlam*
*than a penitent making public amends*
*for his offense.*

"Are such offenses always so rigorously punished in Pianura?" he asked, turning ironically to Gamba as the mob and its victim passed out of sight.

The hunch-back smiled. "Not," said he, "if the offender is in a position to benefit by the admirable doctrines of

205.

probabilism, the direction of intention, or any one of the numerous
expedients by which an indulgent Church has smoothed the way of the
sinner; but as God does not give the crop unless man sows the seed,
so His ministers bestow grace only when the penitent has enriched
the treasury.— The fellow," he added, "is a man of some learning,
and a retired and orderly way of living, and the charge was brought
against him by a jeweller and his wife, who owed him a sum of money
and are said to have chosen this way of evading payment. The
priests are always glad to find a scape-goat of the sort, especially
when there are murmurs against the private conduct of those in high
places, and the woman, having denounced him, was immediately assured
by her confessor that any debt incurred to a seducer was null and
void, and that she was entitled to a hundred scudi of damages for
having been led into sin."

210.

small rooms and intricate passages of Laurana's structure inadequate to the pomp of an ally of Leo X, and Vignola added the state apartments, the sculpture gallery and the libraries. The palace now passed for one of the wonders of Italy. The Duke's guest, the witty and learned Aretino, celebrated it in verse, his friend Cardinal Bembo →in prose: Correggio painted the walls of one room, Giulio Romano the ceiling of another. It seemed that magnificence could go no farther, till the seventeenth century brought to the throne a Duke who asked himself how a self-respecting prince could live without a theatre, a riding-school and an additional wing to lodge the ever-growing train of court officials who had by this time replaced the feudal men-at-arms. He answered the question by laying an extra tax on his people and inviting to Pianura the great Roman architect Carlo Borromini, who regretfully admitted that his illustrious patron was on the whole less royally housed than their highnesses of Mantua and Parma. Within five years the "cavallerizza", the theatre and the gardens flung defiance at these aspiring potentates; and again Pianura took precedence of her rivals. The present Duke's father had expressed the most recent tendency of the race by the erection of a spacious chapel in the florid Jesuit style; and the great group of buildings thus chronicled in rich and durable lines the varying passions and ambitions of three hundred years of sovereignty.

As Odo mounted the stairs and followed his guide toward the Duke's apartments, he remarked a change in the aspect of the palace. Where formerly the corridors had been thronged with lacqueys, pages, and gaily-dressed cavaliers and ladies, only a few ecclesi-

206.

X.

At the Duke's express wish, Odo was to lodge in the palace; and when he entered the court-yard he found Cantapresto waiting to lead him to his apartment.

The rooms assigned to him lay at the extreme end of one of the wings overlooking the gardens; and as he mounted the great stairway and walked down the individual corridors, with their frescoed walls and busts of Roman emperors, he recalled the far-off night when he had passed through the same scenes a wondering awe-struck child. Where he had then beheld a supernatural fabric, peopled with divinities of bronze and marble, and glowing with celestial light and colour, he now saw a many-corridored palace, stately indeed, and full of a faded splendour, but dull and antiquated in comparison with the new-fangled elegance of the Sardinian court. Yet at every turn some object thrilled the fibres of old association or pride of race. Here he passed through a long gallery hung with the portraits of his line; there he caught a glimpse of the antechamber full of lolling pages through which he and his mother

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had been led when they waited on the Duke; and from the windows of
his private cabinet he overlooked the alleys and terraces where he
had wandered with the hunch-back.

One of the Duke's pages presently came to say that his Highness
would receive the Cavaliere when the court rose from dinner; and
finding himself with two hours on his hands, Odo determined to await
his kinsman's summons in the gardens. Thither, after a careful
toilet, he repaired; and was soon, with a mournful pleasure, retracing
the paths he had first explored in such an ecstacy of wonder.
The pleached walks and parterres were in all the freshness of June,
Espaliered roses and jasmine mingled on the terrace-walls, citron-
trees ingeniously grafted with red and white carnations stood in
Faenza jars before the lemon-house, and marble nymphs and fauns
peeped from thickets of flowering camellias. A noise of childish
voices presently attracted Odo, and following a tunnel of clipped
limes he came out on a theatre cut in the turf and set about with
statues of Apollo and the Muses. A handful of boys in fantastic
military dress were performing a series of evolutions in the centre
of this space; and facing them stood a child of about ten years, in
a Colonel's uniform covered with orders, his hair elaborately curl-
ed and powdered, a paste-board sword in his hand, and his frail
body supported on one side by a turbaned dwarf boy, on the other by
an ecclesiastic who was evidently his governor. The child, as Odo
approached, was calling out his orders to his regiment in a weak
shrill voice, moving now here, now there, on his booted tottering
legs, as his two supporters guided him, and painfully trying to
flourish the paper weapon that was too heavy for his nerveless

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wrist. Behind this strange group, stood another figure, that of a tall heavy man, richly dressed, with a curious Oriental-looking order on his breast and a veiled somnolent eye which he kept fixed on the little prince.

Odo had been about to advance and do homage to his cousin; but a sign from the man in the background arrested him. The manoeuvres were soon over, the heir was lifted into a little gilded chariot drawn by two white goats, his regiment formed in line and saluted him, and he disappeared down one of the alleys with his attendants.

This ceremony over, the tall man advanced to Odo with a bow and asked pardon for the liberty he had taken.

"You are doubtless," said he, "his Highness's cousin, the Cavaliere Valsecca; and my excuse for intruding between yourself and the prince is that I am the Duke's physician, Count Heiligenstern, and that the heir is at present undergoing a course of treatment under my care. His health, as you probably know, has long been a cause of anxiety to his illustrious parents, and when I was summoned to Pianura the college of physicians had given up all hope of saving him. Since my coming, however, I flatter myself that a marked change is perceptible. My method is that of invigorating the blood by exciting the passions most likely to produce a generous vital ardour. Thus, by organizing these juvenile manoeuvres, I arouse the prince's martial zeal; by encouraging him to study the history of his ancestors, I evoke his political ambition; by causing him to be led about the gardens on a small pony, accompanied by a minature pack of Maltese dogs, I stimulate the passion of the chase; in pursuit of a fine dog,

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waited to reconduct Odo. Their way lay through the long portrait
gallery of which he had previously caught a glimpse, and here he
begged his guide to leave him. He felt a sudden desire to meet his
unknown ancestors face to face, and to trace the tendencies which,
from the grim Bracciaforte and the stately sceptical humanist of
Leo's age, had mysteriously forced the race into its ever-narrowing
mould. The dusky canvasses, hung high in tarnished escutcheoned
frames, presented a continuous chronicle of the line, from Braccia-
forte himself, with his predatory profile and jewelled cap outlined
by some early Tuscan hand against the red turrets of his impregnable
fortress. Odo lingered long on the vulture-like image, but it was
not till he stood beneath Piero della Francesca's portrait of the
first Duke that he felt the thrill of kindred instincts. In this
grave face, with its sensuous mouth and melancholy speculative eyes,
he recognized the mingled strain of impressionability and unrest
that had reached such diverse issues in his cousin and himself.
The great Duke of the "Golden Age," in his Titianesque brocade, with
the statuette of a naked faun at his elbow, and a faun-like smile on
his own ruddy lips, represented another aspect of the ancestral
spirit: the rounded temperament of an age of Cyrenaicism, in which
every moment was like a ripe fruit sunned on all sides. A little
farther on, the shadow of the Council of Trent began to fall on the
ducal faces, as the uniform blackness of the Spanish habit replaced

after a life of hard warfare and stern piety, had resigned his
office to his son and died in the "angelica vestis" of the tertiary
order; there the "beatified" Duchess, who had sold her jewels to buy

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corn for the poor during the famine of 1670, and had worn a hair-
shirt under a corset that seemed stiff enough to serve all the pur-
poses of the bodily mortification. So the file descended, the
colours fading, the shadows deepening, till it reached a baby por-
porato of the last century, who had donned the cardinal's habit at
four, and stood rigid and a little pale in his red robes and lace,
with a crucifix and a skull on the table to which the top of his
berretta hardly reached. It seemed to Odo as he gazed on the long
line of faces as though their owners had entered one by one into a
narrowing defile, where the sun rose later and set earlier on each
successive traveller; and in every face, from that of the first Duke
to that of his own peruked and cuirassed grandfather, he discerned
the same symptoms of decadency: that duality of will which, in a
delicately-tempered race, is the fatal fruit of an undisturbed pre-
eminence. They had ruled too long and enjoyed too much; and the
poor creature he had just left to his dismal scruples and forebod-
ings seemed the mere empty husk of long-exhausted passions.

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X.

The Duchess was lodged in the Borromini wing of the palace, and thither Odo was conducted that evening. To eyes accustomed to such ceremonial there was no great novelty in the troop of powdered servants, the major-domo in his short cloak and chain, and the florid splendour of the long suite of rooms, decorated in a style that appeared over-charged to the more fastidious taste of the day, but was yet not unsuited to the pompous frivolity of court life. Odo's curiosity centred chiefly on the persons peopling this scene, whose conflicting interests and passions formed, as it were, the framework of the social structure of Pianura, so that there was not a bent labourer in the rice-fields or a weaver in the silk-looms but depended for his crust of black bread and the leaking roof over his head on the private whim of some member of that brilliant company.

The Duchess, who soon entered, received Odo with the flighty good-nature of a mind incapable of sustained attention; but as her deep-blue gaze met his her colour rose, her eyes lingered on his face, and she invited him to a seat at her side. Maria Clem-

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entina was of Austrian descent, and something in her free and noble port and the smiling arrogance of her manner recalled the aspect of her distant kinswoman, the young Queen of France. She plied Odo with a hundred questions, interrupting his answers with a playful abruptness, and to all appearances more engaged by his person than his discourse. "Have you seen my son?" she asked. "I remember you a little boy scarce bigger than Ferrante, whom your mother brought to kiss my hand in the very year of my marriage. Yes— and you pinched my toy spaniel, sir, and I was so angry with you that I got up and turned my back on the company— do you remember? But how should you, being such a child at the time? Ah, cousin, how old you make me feel! I would to God my son looked as you did then; but the Duke is killing him with his nostrums. The child was healthy enough when he was born; but what with novenas and touching of relics and animal magnetism and electrical treatment, there's not a bone in his little body but the Saints and the surgeons are fighting over its possession. Have you read 'Emile', cousin, by the new French author— I forget his name? Well, I would have the child brought up like 'Emile', allowed to run wild in the country and grow up sturdy and hard as a little peasant. But what heresies am I talking! The book is on the Index, I believe, and if my director knew I had it in my library I should be set up in the stocks on the market-place and all my court-gowns burnt at the Church door as a warning against the danger of importing the new fashions from France!

"I hope him hurt, cousin!" she cried suddenly. "It is my first adventure now I would have my friends accomplice with me. His Highness has lately been fit to cut down my stables, so that I have to scarce foly saddle-horses to carry name, & the greater number but sorry for it. But I can always find a moment for any friend that will ride with me. I hope to see you among the number if the Duke can spare him from

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quiet and elegant as ever, and moving among the courtiers with an
air of ease that seemed to establish without proclaiming the tie be-
tween himself and the Duchess. When Maria Clementina sat down at
play Trescorre joined Odo and with his usual friendliness pointed
out the most conspicuous figures in the circle. Among them was the
Duke's director, the suave and handsome Dominican whom Odo had seen
leaving his Highness's closet that afternoon. This ecclesiastic
was engaged in talk with a small feeble mannikin covered with gold-
lace and orders, whom Trescorre designated as the Prime Minister,
the Marquess of Pievepelago. The deference with which this totter-
ing dignitary followed the Dominican's discourse excited Odo's atten-
tion; but it was soon diverted by the approach of a lady who joined
herself to the group with an air of discreet familiarity. This
lady, though no longer young, was still slender and graceful, and
her languid eye and vapourish manner seemed to Odo to veil an un-

uncommon alertness of perception. The rich, solemnly sobriety of her dress, the jewelled rosary about her wrist, a most of all, perhaps the murderous sweetness of the smile with which the Duchess addressed her, told him that here was the Countess Belverde; an inference which Trescorre confirmed.

"The Countess," said he, "or I should rather say, the Marchioness of Boscofolto, since the Duke has just bestowed on her the rich fief of that name, is impatient to make your acquaintance; and since you probably remember the saying, *I will seize the occasion to give you both opportunities in one.*"

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his infatuation that Trescorre, ever on the alert, saw in it an un-
expected means to his end. He instantly married Momola to Gian-
nozzo, whom she feared and hated; he schooled Giannozzo in the part
of the jealous and vindictive husband, and by the liberal expendi-
ture of money and promises contrived that Momola, while being suffer-
ed to encourage the Marquess's addresses, should be held in such
close durance that Cerveno could not see her save by coming to Ponte-
sordo. This was the first step in the plan; the next was to ar-
range that Momola should meet her lover after nightfall
the hunting-lodge on the edge of the chase. This lodge, as your
excellency may remember, lies level with the marsh, and at sunset is
so enveloped in noxious exhalations that a night's sojourn there may
be fatal. This infernal scheme was carried out with the connivance
of the scoundrels at the farm, who had no scruples about selling the
girl's life for a few ducats; and as to Momola, can you wonder that
her loathing of Giannozzo and of her wretched life at the farm threw
her defenseless into Trescorre's toils? All was cunningly designed
to exasperate Cerveno's passion and Momola's longing to escape; and
at length, pressed by his entreaties and innocently carrying out the
designs of his foe, the poor girl promised to meet him after night-
fall at the hunting-lodge. The secrecy of the adventure, and the
peril to which it exposed him (for Trescorre had taken care to paint
Giannozzo and his father in the darkest colours) were fuel to Cer-
veno's passion, and he went night after night to Pontesordo. The
time was August, when the marsh gives forth its deadliest vapours,
and the Duke, apprised of his favourite's imprudence, forbade his
returning to the chase. Nothing could better have served Tres-

358.

IV.

Hardly had he stepped into the Procuratessa's gondola when he asked himself what madness had suffered him to leave the convent without news of Fulvia. But he knew the truth well enough: he was afraid to face her. Another day he meant to return... but he must first try to learn with what countenance she would receive him. He was still perplexed to know what chance could have introduced a girl of her class into one of the most aristocratic convents of Venice; and the unlikelihood of such a hazard kept up the hope that he was mistaken. His first need was to escape the thoughts which the encounter hadroused. The drifting life of the last months had left him in no mood for self-criticism. He had deliberately turned his back on all that was painful and perplexing, and now the past he had denied had sent this poïant spectre to waylay him...

He took refuge from himself in the Procuratessa's lively company, attending her on the fresca and returning to sup with her. After supper the company sat down to tresette; and he had just taken a seat at one of the tables when his servant brought him word that the Marquess's gondola waited. Odo, who had forgotten his midnight engagement, and was in no mood to keep it, resolved to send his

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Odo drew back with a start; then, as if in spite of himself, he broke into a laugh. "By the saints," said he, almost joyously, "I am sorry to be where I am not wanted; but since no better company offers, will you not suffer me, cruel being, to hand you in to sup- per?" And with a low bow he offered her his arm.

The effect was instantaneous. She grew deadly pale and he saw her catch the balustrade for support.

"Sancta simplicitas!" he exulted, "and did you think to play the part at such short notice?" He fell at her feet and covered her hands with kisses. "My Fulvia! My poor child! Come with me, come away from here," he entreated. "I know not what mad hazard has brought us thus together, but I thank God on my knees for the encounter. You shall tell me all or nothing, as you please — you shall presently dismiss me at your convent-gate and never look upon my face again, but till then, I swear, you are in my charge, and no human power shall come between us!"

As he ended, At this instant the Marquess's voice called gaily through the open window: "Friends, the burgundy is uncorked! Will you not join us in a glass of good French wine?"

Instantly Fulvia flung herself upon Odo. "Yes — yes; away — take me away from here!" she cried clinging to him. She had gathered her cloak about her shoulders and drawn the hood over her disordered hair. "Away! Away!" she repeated feverishly.

"I cannot see them again. Good God, is there no way out?"

With a gesture he warned her to be silent and drew her along the terrace in the shadow of the house. The gravel creaked beneath their feet and she shook like a leaf at the least sound; but her

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hand lay in his like a child's. At the farther end of the terrace
a flight of steps led down to a narrow strip of shore. He helped
her down and after listening a moment gave a whistle.
Presently
they heard the low plash of cars and saw the prow of a gondola push-
ing cautiously around the angle of the terrace. The water was
shallow and the boatmen proceeded slowly and at length came to a
pause a few yards from the land.

"We can come no nearer," one of them called; "what is
it?"

"Your lady is unwell and wishes to return home," Odo answered; and catching Fulvia in his arms he waded out with her to the gondola and lifted her over the side. "Now, then! Double quick for Santa Chiara," he ordered, as he laid her on the cushions beneath the felze; and the boatmen, recognizing her as one of their fares, without more ado began to row rapidly toward the city.

P

She listened curiously while he set forth his plan. At first she seemed hardly to understand, but when he talked on the necessary retrenchments — "Is not this money ours?" she claimed.

"I hold it as a trust for our people."

"A trust? A trust? I am not sure that I know what that means. Is the money yours or theirs?"

He hesitated. "In strict honour, it is mine only as long as I spend it for their benefit."

She turned aside to examine an enamelled patch-box by Van Blarenbergh, which the court jeweller had newly received from Paris. When she raised her eyes she said: "And if you do not spend it for their benefit — ?"

Odo glanced about the room. He looked at the delicate adornment of the walls, the curtains of Lyons damask, the Venice mirrors, the crystal girandoles, the toys in porcelain of Saxony and Sévres, in bronze and ivory and Chinese lacquer, crowding the tables and cabinets of inlaid wood. Overhead floated a rosy allegory by Luca Giordano; underfoot lay a carpet of the royal manufactory of France; and through the open windows he heard the flash of the garden fountains and saw the alignment of the long green alleys set with statues of Roman patriots, tique marbles.

"Then" said he — and the words sounded strangely in his own ears — "then they may take it from me some day — and all this with it, to the very toy you are playing with."

She rose, and from her fullest height dropped a brilliant smile upon him; then her eyes turned to the portrait of the great fighting Duke set in the monumental stucchi of the chimney-piece.

"If you take after your ancestors you will know how to defend it," she said.

451.

sion of self-dedication in which he had taken up the charge she laid
upon him.

He had known moments of happiness since; moments when he
believed in himself and in his calling, and felt himself indeed the
man she thought him. That was in the exaltation of the first
months, when his opportunities had seemed as boundless as his dreams,
and he had not yet learned that the sovereign's power may be a kind
of spiritual prison to the man. Since then, indeed, he had known
another kind of happiness, had been aware of a secret voice whisper-
ing within him that she was right and had chosen wisely for him; but
this was when he had realized that he lived in a prison, and had
begun to admire the sumptuous adornment of its walls. For a while
the mere external show of power amused him, and his imagination was
charmed by the beauty and dignity of his surroundings. In such a
setting, against the background of such a past, it seemed easy to
play the benefactor and friend of the people. His sensibility was
trouched by the contrast, and he saw himself as a picturesque figure
linking the new dreams of liberty and equality to the feudal tradi-
tions of a thousand years. But this masquerading soon ceased to
divert him. The trivial round of court ceremony wearied him, and
books and art lost their fascination. The
more he varied his amusements, the more monotonous they became, the
more he crowded his life with petty duties the more empty of achieve-
ment it seemed.

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the philosopher at whose feet we sat in our youth."

Fulvia Vivaldi! It was the first time that Odo had heard with a start the name since he had uttered it himself in the midnight interview which had sealed his fate. She had left Geneva then, had returned to Italy. The Alps no longer divided them — a scant day's journey would bring him to her side! It was strange how the mere thought seemed to fill the room with her presence. He felt her in the quickened beat of his pluses, in the sudden lightness of the air, in a lifting and widening of the very bounds of thought.

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"I know more of you than if we stood closer. But you mistake my purpose. I have not sent for you to force my counsels on you. I have no desire to appear ridiculous. I do not ask you to hear what I think of your course, but what others think of it."

"What others?"

The question did not disconcert her. "Your subjects," she said quickly.

"My subjects are of many classes," he replied.

"All are of one class in resenting this charter. Oh, believe me when I say you are in danger! It is not only that you have attacked the very privileges on which your authority rests. I will not speak of the clergy, since you despise them — nor of the nobles, since you ignore their claims. I will speak only of the people — the people, for whose sake you profess to act. Believe me, in striking at the Church you wound the poor. It is not their bodily welfare I mean — though Heaven knows how many sources of bounty must now run dry! It is their faith you insult. First you turn them against their masters, then against their God. They may acclaim you for it now — but I tell you they will hate you for it in the end!"

She paused, flushed with the vehemence of her argument, and eager to press it farther. But her last words had stirred an unexpected fibre in Odo. He looked at her with his unseeing visionary gaze.

"The end?" he murmured. "Who knows what the end will be?"

"Do you still need to be told?" she exclaimed. "Must you always come to me to learn that you are in danger?"

35-4

496.

"If the state is in danger the danger must be faced. The state exists for the people; if they do not need it, it has ceased to serve its purpose."

She clasped her hands in an ecstacy of wonder. "Oh, fool, madman — but it is not of the state I speak! It is you who are in danger — you — you — you —"

He raised his head with an impatient gesture.

"I?" he said. "I had thought you meant a graver peril." She looked at him in silence. Her pride met his and thrilled with it; and for a moment the two were one.

"Odo!" she cried. She sank into a chair, and he went to her and took her hand.

"Such fears are worthy of neither of us," he said gravely.

"I am not ashamed of them," she said. Her hand clung to him and she lifted her eyes to his face. "You will listen to me?" she whispered in a glow.

He drew back chilled. If only she had kept the woman in abeyance! But sex was her only weapon.

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The Bishops of Mantua, Modena, Vercelli and Cremona had travelled to Pianura in state, the people flocking out beyond the gates to welcome them. Four mitred abbots, several Monsignori, and Priors, Rectors, Vicars-general and canons innumerable rode in the great procession, followed on foot by the humble army of parish priests and by interminable confraternities of all orders.

The approach of the great dignitaries was hailed with unusual enthusiasm by the crowds lining the roads. Even the Bishop of Pianura, never popular with the people, received an unwonted measure of applause, and the Prior of the Dominicans, riding by under his white cowl, stern and close-lipped as a monk of Zurbaran's, was greeted with frenzied acclamations. The report that the Bishop and the heads of the religious houses in Pianura were to set free suppers for the pilgrims that evening had doubtless quickened this outburst of religious enthusiasm; yet it was perhaps chiefly due to the obscure sense of coming peril that had gradually permeated the dim consciousness of the crowd.

In the church, the glow of lights, the thrilling beauty of the music and the glitter of the priestly vestments were blent in a studied appeal to the senses. New

canopy of cloth-of-gold embroidered with pearls, the gift of the Duke of Modena; the Bishops of Vercelli and Cremona had offered a robe of silver brocade studded with coral and turquoises, the devout Princess Clotilda of Savoy an emerald bracelet, the Bishop of Pianura a marvellous veil of rose-point made in a Flemish convent; while on the Virgin's brow rested the Duke's jewelled diadem.

518.

rence, but the glassy reach just above the fall of a river. The current was as swift as it was smooth, and he felt himself hurried forward to an end he could no longer escape. He took the pen which Trescorre handed him, and signed the constitution.

The meeting over, he had summoned Gamba. He felt the need of such encouragement as the hunch-back alone could give. Fulvia's enthusiasms were too unreal, too abstract. She lived in a region of ideals, whence ugly facts were swept out by some process of mental housewifery that kept her world unnaturally smiling and immaculate. Gamba at least fed his convictions on facts. If his out-look was narrow it was direct: no roseate medium of fancy was interposed between his vision and the truth.

He stood listening thoughtfully while Odo poured forth his doubts.

"Your Highness may well hesitate," he said at last.

"There are always more good reasons against a new state of things than for it. I am not surprised that Count Trescorre appears to have withdrawn his opposition. I believe he now honestly wishes your Highness to proclaim the constitution."

Odo looked up in surprise. "You do not mean that he has come to believe in it?"

Gamba smiled. "Probably not in your Highness's sense; but he may have found a use of his own for it."

"What do you mean?" Odo asked.

"If he does not believe it will benefit the state he may think it will injure your Highness."

"Ah —" said the Duke slowly.

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519.

There was a pause, during which he was possessed by the same shuddering reluctance to fix his mind on the facts before him. as when he had questioned the hunchback about Momola's death. He longed to cast the whole business behind him, to be up and away from it, drawing breath in a new world where very air was not tainted, like old pollution. He raised his head with an effort.

"You think, then, that the liberals are secretly acting against me in this matter?"

"I am persuaded of it, your Highness."

Odo hesitated. "You have always told me," he began again, "that the love of dominion was your brother's ruling passion. If he really believed that this movement will be popular with the people, why should he secretly oppose it, instead of making the most of his own share in it as the minister of a popular sovereign?"

"For several reasons," Gamba answered promptly. "In the first place, the reforms your Highness has introduced are not of his

own choosing, & Trescorre takes his little interest in any policy he does not dictate. In the same place, the powers & opportunities of a constitutional minister are too restricted to satisfy his appetite for rule; or, mind you, he paused a moment, as though doubtful how his words would be received — mind you, Trescorre, titleATIONAL PRINCE; and thirdly, I suspect Trescorre of having a private score against your Highness, which he would be glad to pay off publicly."

Odo fell silent, yielding himself to the current of thoughts; these words had started—

"I know not what score he may have against me," he said at length; "but what injures me must injure the state," he said. "If Trescorre has any such motive for withdrawing his opposition, it must be because he believes that the constitution will defeat its own ends."

proclaimed; but I do not believe that any state of mind produced by
influences external pressure can long withstand the natural drift of opinion;
and your Highness may be sure that, though the talkers and writers
are mostly against you in this matter, the mass of the people are
with you."

Odo answered with a despairing gesture. "How can I be
certain, when the people have no means of expressing their needs? It
is like trying to guess the wants of a deaf and dumb man!"

The hunchback flushed suddenly. "The people will not
always be deaf and dumb," he said. "Some day they will speak."

"Not in my day," said Odo wearily. "And meanwhile one
must blunder on, without ever really knowing what blind prejudices
insist upon and prejudice are fitted against one
and incalculable impulses one is fighting against. You and your
party tell me that the people are sick of the burdens the Church lay
lays on them — yet their blind devotion to the Church is manifest
at every turn, and it did not need that business of the Virgin's
crown to show me how little chance reason and justice can have
against such intangible influences."

Gamba replied by an impatient gesture. "As to the Vir-
gin's crown," he said, "Your Highness must have guessed it was one
of the friars' tricks: a last expedient to turn the people against
you. I was not bred up by a priest for nothing; and I know what
past masters those gentry are in raising ghosts and reading portents.

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Vercelli." He ultered an explanation, hil she lifted a hand to his lips.

"Ah, how angry I was when — but why be angry now? It was all happened so limp afo; & if it had

not happened — who knew? — perhaps, I’m never have pitied me enough to love me as I did." She laughed softly, reminiscently, leaning back as if to let the tide of memories ripple over her. Then she raised her head suddenly, as if in a changed voice: "Are fun plans fixed for tomorrow?"

Odo flared at her in surprise.

Her mind seemed to move as capriciously as Maria Clementina.

"The constitution is signed," he answered, "and my ministers proclaim it tomorrow morning." He looked at her a moment, and lifted her hand to his lips: "Everything has been done according to your wishes," he said.

with a start, he saw

She started and drew away, fixing him with apprehensive

What he had turned pale.

eyes. "No, no — not as I wish," she murmured. "It must not be because I wish —" She broke off and her hand slipped from his.

"You have taught me to wish as you wish," he answered gently. "Surely you would not disown your pupil now,"

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532.

the throng was thick about the palace gates and in the streets be-
twixt it and the Signoria. Here the square was black with people,
and every window packed with gazers, as the Duke's coach came in
sight, escorted meagrely by his equerries and the half-dozen light-
horse that preceded him. The smallness of the escort, and the
marked absence of military display, perhaps disappointed the splen-
dour-loving crowd; and from this cause or another, scarce a cheer
was heard as his Highness <u>steppe</u>ed from his coach, and walked up the
steps to the porch of ancient carved stone where the faculty awaited
him.

The hall was already thronged with students and graduates, and with the guests of the University. Through this grave assemblage the Duke and his gentlemen passed up to the row of armchairs placed directly beneath the dais at the farther end of the room. Trescorre, who was to have attended his Highness, had excused himself on the plea of indisposition, and only a few equerries accompanied the Duke. In the brown half-light of the old Gothic hall, the glittering uniforms of the ducal party contrasted brilliantly with the black gowns of the students, and the sober broadcloth of the learned professions.

The meetings of the faculty were held in the great council-chamber where the Reclut of the old free city had assembled; and such a setting was regarded as peculiarly

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were raised to eloquence by the sweetness of her voice, and by the
grave beauty which made the academic gown seem her natural wear,
rather than a travesty of learning. Odo at first had some diffi-
culty in fixing his attention on what she said; and when he con-
trolled his thoughts she was in the height of her panegyric of con-
stitutional liberty. She had begun slowly, almost coldly; but now
she was warming to her theme. One by one she poured out the famil-
iar formulas with which his mind had once reverberated. They woke
no echo in him now; but he saw that she could still set them ringing
through the sensibilities of her hearers. As she stood there, a
slight impassioned figure, warming to her high argument, his sense
of irony was touched by the incongruity of her background. The
wall behind her was covered by an ancient fresco, fast fading away
its touches of renewed gilding, and representing the patron scholars
of the mediaeval world: the theologians, jurists, and logicians
under whose protection the old free city had placed its budding
liberties. There they sat, rigid and sumptuous on their Gothic
thrones: Origen, Zeno, David, St. Augustine, Aristotle; lis-
tening in a kind of cataleptic helplessness to a confession of faith
that scattered their doctrine to the winds. And as he looked and
listened, a weary sense of the reiterance of things came over him.
For what were these ancient manipulators of ideas, presdigitators of
a vanished world of thought, but the forbears of the long line of
theorists of whom Fulvia was the last inconscient mouthpiece? The
new game was still played with the old pieces, the new jugglers re-
peated the old tricks; and the very words now poured out in defense
of the new cause were but mercenaries scarred in the service of its

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535.

enemies.

For generations, for centuries man had fought on; crying for liberty, dreaming it was won, waking to find himself the slave of the new forces he had generated, burning and being burnt for the same beliefs under different guises, calling his instincts ideas and his ideas revelations; destroying, rebuilding, falling, rising, mending broken weapons, fighting for unmasked illusions, mistaking his failures for achievements and planting his flag on the ramparts as they fell. And as the vision of this inveterate conflict rose before him, Odo saw that the beauty, the power, the immortality, dwelt not in the idea, but in the creature that fought for it.

His resistance yielded as this sense stole over him, and with an almost physical relief he felt himself drawn once more into the familiar current of emotion. Yes, it was better after all to be one of that great unconquerable army, though, like the Trojans fighting for a phantom Helen, they might be doing battle for the shadow of a shade; it was better to march in their ranks, endure with them, fight with them, fall with them, than to miss the great enveloping sense of brotherhood that turned defeat to victory.

As the conviction grew in him, Fulvia's words acquired an individual meaning. Through the dual company of heretic and the living thoughts looked forth, old indeed as the world, but renewed with the new life of every heart that bore them. She had left the environment of the abstract and dropped to concrete issues: to the gift of the new constitution, the benefits and obligations it implied, the new relations it established between ruler and subject, and between man and man. Odo saw that she approached the question with-

536.

out flinching. No trace remained of the trembling woman who had clung to him the previous evening. She seemed a Miriam dancing before the ark of the new covenant to the music of her own high hopes.

So engrossed was he that he had been unaware of a growing murmur of sound which seemed to be forcing its way from without the walls of the ancient building. But as Fulvia's oration neared its end the murmur rose to a roar, like the first burst of a storm which has slowly gathered its scattered energies. Startled faces were turned toward the doors of the council chamber, and one of the Duke's gentlemen rose and made his way through the audience. Odo sat motionless, his eyes on Fulvia. He noticed that her face paled as the noise reached her, but there was no break in the voice with which she uttered the closing words of her peroration. As she ended, the noise was momentarily drowned in a loud burst of clapping; but the applause soon died out in a hush of apprehension, through which the outer tumult became more audible. The equerry reentered the hall with a disordered countenance. He hastened up to the Duke and addressed him in urgent tones.

"Your Highness," he said, "the crowd has thickened and wears an ugly look. There are many friars abroad, and images of the Black Virgin are being carried about in procession. Will your Highness be pleased to remain here till I summon an escort from the barracks?"

Odo had been watching Fulvia. She had received the applause of the audience with a deep reverence, and was now in the act of withdrawing to the inner room at the back of the dais. Her eyes