The curiosity which Trescorre’s words excited was lost to Odo in the painful impression produced by his mother’s agitation.  To see her, a woman already past her youth, and aged by her very efforts to preserve it, trembling and bridling under the cool eye of masculine indifference, was a spectacle the more humiliating that he was too young to be moved by its human and pathetic side.  He recalled once seeing a memento mori of delicately-tinted ivory, which represented a girl’s head, one side all dewy freshness, the other touched with death; and it seemed to him that his mother’s face resembled this tragic toy, the side her mirror reflected being still rosy with youth, while that which others saw was already a ruin.  His heart burned with disgust as he followed Donna Laura and Trescorre into the dining-room, which had been set out with all the family plate, and decked with rare fruits and flowers.  The Countess had excused her husband on the plea of his official duties, and the three sat down alone to a meal composed of the costliest delicacies.

Their guest, who ate little and drank less, entertained them with the latest news of Pianura, touching discreetly on the growing estrangement between the Duke and Duchess, and speaking with becoming gravity of the heir’s weak health.  It was clear that the speaker, without filling an official position at the court, was already deep in the Duke’s counsels, and perhaps also in the Duchess’s; and Odo guessed under his smiling indiscretions the cool aim of the man who never wastes a shot.

Toward the close of the meal, when the servants had withdrawn, he turned to Odo with a graver manner.  “You have perhaps guessed, cavaliere,” he said, “that in venturing to claim the Countess’s hospitality in so private a manner, I had in mind the wish to open myself to you more freely than would be possible at court.”  He paused a moment, as though to emphasise his words; and Odo fancied he cultivated the trick of deliberate speaking to counteract his natural arrogance of manner.  “The time has come,” he went on, “when it seems desirable that you should be more familiar with the state of affairs at Pianura.  For some years it seemed likely that the Duchess would give his Highness another son; but circumstances now appear to preclude that hope; and it is the general opinion of the court physicians that the young prince has not many years to live.”  He paused again, fixing his eyes on Odo’s flushed face.  “The Duke,” he continued, “has shown a natural reluctance to face a situation so painful both to his heart and his ambitions; but his feelings as a parent have yielded to his duty as a sovereign, and he recognises the fact that you should have an early opportunity of acquainting yourself more nearly with the affairs of the duchy, and also of seeing something of the other courts of Italy.  I am persuaded,” he added, “that, young as you are, I need not point out to you on what slight contingencies all human fortunes hang, and how completely the heir’s recovery or the birth of another prince must change the aspect of your future.  You have, I am sure, the heart to face such chances with becoming equanimity, and to carry the weight of conditional honours without any undue faith in their permanence.”