When the Professor's gate closed on Odo night was already falling andthe oil-lamp at the end of the arched passage-way shed its weak circleof light on the pavement. This light, as Odo emerged, fell on aretreating figure which resembled that of the blind beggar he had seencrouching on the steps of the Corpus Domini. He ran forward, but the manhurried across the little square and disappeared in the darkness. Odohad not seen his face; but though his dress was tattered, and he leanedon a beggar's staff, something about his broad rolling back recalled thewell-filled outline of Cantapresto's cassock.
Sick at heart, Odo rambled on from one street to another, avoiding themore crowded quarters, and losing himself more than once in thedistricts near the river, where young gentlemen of his figure seldomshowed themselves unattended. The populace, however, was all abroad, andhe passed as unregarded as though his sombre thoughts had enveloped himin actual darkness.
It was late when at length he turned again into the Piazza Castello,which was brightly lit and still thronged with pleasure-seekers. As heapproached, the crowd divided to make way for three or four handsometravelling-carriages, preceded by linkmen and liveried out-riders andfollowed by a dozen mounted equerries. The people, evidently in thehumour to greet every incident of the streets as part of a show preparedfor their diversion, cheered lustily as the carriages dashed across thesquare; and Odo, turning to a man at his elbow, asked who thedistinguished visitors might be.
"Why, sir," said the other laughing, "I understand it is only anEmbassage from some neighbouring state; but when our good people are intheir Easter mood they are ready to take a mail-coach for Elijah'schariot 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 ofthe havoc his folly had wrought that stood between him and sleep. Tohave endangered the liberty, the very life, perhaps, of a man he lovedand venerated, and who had welcomed him without heed of personal risk,this indeed was bitter to his youthful self-sufficiency. The thought ofGiannone's fate was like a cold clutch at his heart; nor was there anybalm in knowing that it was at Fulvia's request he had been so freelywelcomed; for he was persuaded that, whatever her previous feeling mighthave been, the scene just enacted must render him forever odious to her.
Turn whither it would, his tossing vanity found no repose; and dawn rosefor him on a thorny waste of disillusionment.
Cantapresto broke in early on this vigil, flushed with the importance ofa letter from the Countess Valdu. The lady summoned her son to dinner,"to meet an old friend and distinguished visitor"; and a verbal messagebade Odo come early and wear his new uniform. He was too well acquaintedwith his mother's exaggerations to attach much importance to thesummons; but being glad of an excuse to escape his daily visit at thePalazzo Tournanches, he sent Donna Laura word that he would wait on herat two.
On the very threshold of Casa Valdu, Odo perceived that unwontedpreparations were afoot. The shabby liveries of the servants had beenrefurbished and the marble floor newly scoured; and he found his motherseated in the drawing-room, an apartment never unshrouded save on themost ceremonious occasions. As to Donna Laura, she had undergone thesame process of renovation, and with more striking results. It seemed toOdo, when she met him sparkling under her rouge and powder, as thoughsome withered flower had been dipped in water, regaining for the momenta languid semblance of its freshness. Her eyes shone, her hand trembledunder his lips, and the diamonds rose and fell on her eager bosom.
"You are late!" she tenderly reproached him; and before he had time toreply, the double doors were thrown open, and the major-domo announcedin an awed voice: "His excellency Count Lelio Trescorre."Odo turned with a start. To his mind, already crowded with a confusionof thoughts, the name summoned a throng of memories. He saw again hismother's apartments at Pianura, and the handsome youth with lace rufflesand a clouded amber cane, who came and went among her other visitorswith an air of such superiority, and who rode beside thetravelling-carriage on the first stage of their journey to Donnaz. Tothat handsome youth the gentleman just announced bore the likeness ofthe finished portrait to the sketch. He was a man of abouttwo-and-thirty, of the middle height, with a delicate dark face and anair of arrogance not unbecomingly allied to an insinuating courtesy ofaddress. His dress of sombre velvet, with a star on the breast, and aprofusion of the finest lace, suggested the desire to add dignity andweight to his appearance without renouncing the softer ambitions of hisage.
He received with a smile Donna Laura's agitated phrases of welcome. "Icome," said he kissing her hand, "in my private character, not as theEnvoy of Pianura, but as the friend and servant of the Countess Valdu;and I trust," he added turning to Odo, "of the Cavaliere Valsecca also."Odo bowed in silence.
"You may have heard," Trescorre continued, addressing him in the sameengaging tone, "that I am come to Turin on a mission from his Highnessto the court of Savoy: a trifling matter of boundary-lines and customs,which I undertook at the Duke's desire, the more readily, it must beowned, since it gave me the opportunity to renew my acquaintance withfriends whom absence has not taught me to forget." He smiled again atDonna Laura, who blushed like a girl.
The curiosity which Trescorre's words excited was lost to Odo in thepainful impression produced by his mother's agitation. To see her, awoman already past her youth, and aged by her very efforts to preserveit, trembling and bridling under the cool eye of masculine indifference,was a spectacle the more humiliating that he was too young to be movedby its human and pathetic side. He recalled once seeing a memento moriof delicately-tinted ivory, which represented a girl's head, one sideall dewy freshness, the other touched with death; and it seemed to himthat his mother's face resembled this tragic toy, the side her mirrorreflected being still rosy with youth, while that which others saw wasalready a ruin. His heart burned with disgust as he followed Donna Lauraand Trescorre into the dining-room, which had been set out with all thefamily plate, and decked with rare fruits and flowers. The Countess hadexcused her husband on the plea of his official duties, and the threesat down alone to a meal composed of the costliest delicacies.
Their guest, who ate little and drank less, entertained them with thelatest news of Pianura, touching discreetly on the growing estrangementbetween the Duke and Duchess, and speaking with becoming gravity of theheir's weak health. It was clear that the speaker, without filling anofficial position at the court, was already deep in the Duke's counsels,and perhaps also in the Duchess's; and Odo guessed under his smilingindiscretions the cool aim of the man who never wastes a shot.
Toward the close of the meal, when the servants had withdrawn, he turnedto Odo with a graver manner. "You have perhaps guessed, cavaliere," hesaid, "that in venturing to claim the Countess's hospitality in soprivate a manner, I had in mind the wish to open myself to you morefreely than would be possible at court." He paused a moment, as thoughto emphasise his words; and Odo fancied he cultivated the trick ofdeliberate speaking to counteract his natural arrogance of manner. "Thetime has come," he went on, "when it seems desirable that you should bemore familiar with the state of affairs at Pianura. For some years itseemed likely that the Duchess would give his Highness another son; butcircumstances now appear to preclude that hope; and it is the generalopinion of the court physicians that the young prince has not many yearsto live." He paused again, fixing his eyes on Odo's flushed face. "TheDuke," he continued, "has shown a natural reluctance to face a situationso painful both to his heart and his ambitions; but his feelings as aparent have yielded to his duty as a sovereign, and he recognises thefact that you should have an early opportunity of acquainting yourselfmore nearly with the affairs of the duchy, and also of seeing............