thinking, as he followed his host through the perfumed shade of the gardens, and down the long saloon at the end of which the Venus stood, of those who for the love of man had denied themselves such delicate emotions and gone forth cheerfully to exile or imprisonment.  These were the true lovers of the Lady Poverty, the band in which he longed to be enrolled; yet how restrain a thrill of delight as the slender dusky goddess detached herself against the cool marble of her niche, looking, in the sun-rippled green penumbra of the saloon, with a sound of water falling somewhere out of sight, as though she had just stepped dripping from the wave?

In the Duchess’s company life struck another gait.  Here was no waiting on subtle pleasures, but a headlong gallop after the cruder sort.  Hunting, gaming and masquerading filled her Highness’s days; and Odo had felt small inclination to keep pace with the cavalcade, but for the flying huntress at its head.  To the Duchess’s “view halloo” every drop of blood in him responded; but a vigilant image kept his bosom barred.  So they rode, danced, diced together, but like strangers who cross hands at a veglione.  Once or twice he fancied the Duchess was for unmasking; but her impulses came and went like fireflies in the dusk, and it suited his humour to remain a looker-on.

So life piped to him during his first days at Pianura:  a merry tune in the Bishop’s company, a mad one in the Duchess’s; but always with the same sad undertone, like the cry of the wind on a warm threshold.

2.14.

Trescorre too kept open house, and here Odo found a warmer welcome than he had expected.  Though Trescorre was still the Duchess’s accredited lover, it was clear that the tie between them was no longer such as to make him resent her kindness to her young kinsman.  He seemed indeed anxious to draw Odo into her Highness’s circle, and surprised him by a frankness and affability of which his demeanour at Turin had given no promise.  As leader of the anti-clericals he stood for such liberalism as dared show its head in Pianura; and he seemed disposed to invite Odo’s confidence in political matters.  The latter was, however, too much the child of his race not to hang back from such an invitation.  He did not distrust Trescorre more than the other courtiers; but it was a time when every ear was alert for the foot-fall of treachery, and the rashest man did not care to taste first of any cup that was offered him.

These scruples Trescorre made it his business to dispel.  He was the only person at court who was willing to discuss politics, and his clear view of affairs excited Odo’s admiration if not his concurrence.  Odo’s was in fact one of those dual visions which instinctively see both sides of a case and take the defence of the less popular.  Gamba’s principles were dear to him; but he did not therefore believe in the personal baseness of every opponent of the cause.  He had refrained from mentioning