Dusk was already falling, and Odo, who had brought no letters to the gentry of Vercelli, where he intended to stay but a night, began to wonder how he should employ his evening.  He had hoped to spend it in Vivaldi’s company, but the Professor not having invited him, he saw no prospect but to return to the inn and sup alone with Cantapresto.  In the doorway of the Three Crowns he found the soprano awaiting him.  Cantapresto, who had been as mute as a fish during the afternoon’s drive, now bustled forward with a great show of eagerness.

“What poet was it,” he cried, “that paragoned youth to the Easter sunshine, which, wherever it touches, causes a flower to spring up?  Here we are scarce alit in a strange city, and already a messenger finds the way to our inn with a most particular word from his lady to the Cavaliere Odo Valsecca.”  And he held out a perfumed billet sealed with a flaming dart.

Odo’s heart gave a leap at the thought that the letter might be from Fulvia; but on breaking the seal he read these words, scrawled in an unformed hand:—­

“Will the Cavaliere Valsecca accept from an old friend, who desires to renew her acquaintance with him, the trifling gift of a side-box at Don Tartaglia’s entertainment this evening?”

Vexed at his credulity, Odo tossed the invitation to Cantapresto; but a moment later, recalling the glance of the pretty girl in the market-place, he began to wonder if the billet might not be the prelude to a sufficiently diverting adventure.  It at least offered a way of passing the evening; and after a hurried supper he set out with Cantapresto for the Philodramatic Academy.  It was late when they entered their box, and several masks were already capering before the footlights, exchanging lazzi with the townsfolk in the pit, and addressing burlesque compliments to the quality in the boxes.  The theatre seemed small and shabby after those of Turin, and there was little in the old-fashioned fopperies of a provincial audience to interest a young gentleman fresh from the capital.  Odo looked about for any one resembling the masked beauty of the market-place; but he beheld only ill-dressed dowagers and matrons, or ladies of the town more conspicuous for their effrontery than for their charms.

The main diversion of the evening was by this begun.  It was a comedy in the style of Goldoni’s early pieces, representing the actual life of the day, but interspersed with the antics of the masks, to whose improvised drolleries the people still clung.  A terrific Don Spavento in cloak and sword played the jealous English nobleman, Milord Zambo, and the part of Tartaglia was taken by the manager, one of the best-known interpreters of the character in Italy.  Tartaglia was the guardian of the prima amorosa, whom the enamoured Briton pursued; and in the Columbine, when she sprang upon the stage with a pirouette that showed her slender ankles and embroidered clocks, Odo instantly recognised the graceful figure and killing