undreamed of in other cities; while the nobles, though more magnificently housed than in any other capital of Europe, generally sought amusement at the public casini or assembly-rooms instead of receiving company in their own palaces.  Such were but a few of the contradictions in a city where the theatres were named after the neighbouring churches, where there were innumerable religious foundations but scarce an ecclesiastic to be met in company, and where the ladies of the laity dressed like nuns, while the nuns in the aristocratic convents went in gala habits and with uncovered heads.  No wonder that to the bewildered stranger the Venetians seemed to keep perpetual carnival and Venice herself to be as it were the mere stage of some huge comic interlude.

To Odo the setting was even more astonishing than the performance.  Never had he seen pleasure and grace so happily allied, all the arts of life so combined in the single effort after enjoyment.  Here was not a mere tendency to linger on the surface, but the essence of superficiality itself; not an ignoring of what lies beneath, but an elimination of it; as though all human experience should be beaten thin and spread out before the eye like some brilliant tenuous plaque of Etruscan gold.  And in this science of pleasure—­mere jeweller’s work though it were—­the greatest artists had collaborated, each contributing his page to the philosophy of enjoyment in the form of some radiant allegory flowering from palace wall or ceiling like the enlarged reflection of the life beneath it.  Nowhere was the mind arrested by a question or an idea.  Thought slunk away like an unmasked guest at the ridotto.  Sensation ruled supreme, and each moment was an iridescent bubble fresh-blown from the lips of fancy.

Odo brought to the spectacle the humour best fitted for its enjoyment.  His weariness and discouragement sought refuge in the emotional satisfaction of the hour.  Here at least the old problem of living had been solved, and from the patrician taking the air in his gondola to the gondolier himself, gambling and singing on the water-steps of his master’s palace, all seemed equally satisfied with the solution.  Now if ever was the time to cry “halt!” to the present, to forget the travelled road and take no thought for the morrow...

The months passed rapidly and agreeably.  The Procuratessa was the most amiable of guides, and in her company Odo enjoyed the best that Venice had to offer, from the matchless music of the churches and hospitals to the petits soupers in the private casini of the nobility; while Coeur-Volant and Castelrovinato introduced him to scenes where even a lady of the Procuratessa’s intrepidity might not venture.