Twelve o’clock!  And he had promised to meet Vivaldi at dawn behind the Umiliati!  As the truth forced itself on Odo he dropped into a chair and hid his face with a groan.  He had failed them again, then—­and this time how cruelly and basely!  He felt himself the victim of a conspiracy which in some occult manner was forever forcing him to outrage and betray the two beings he most longed to serve.  The idea of a conspiracy flashed a sudden light on his evening’s diversion, and he sprang up with a cry.  Yes!  It was a plot, and any but a dolt must have traced the soprano’s hand in this vulgar assault upon his senses.  He choked with anger at the thought of having played the dupe when two lives he cherished were staked upon his vigilance...

To his furious summons Cantapresto presented a blank wall of ignorance.  Yes, the Cavaliere had given orders that the carriage should be ready before daybreak; but who was authorised to wake the cavaliere?  After keeping the carriage two hours at the door Cantapresto had ventured to send it back to the stable; but the horses should instantly be put to, and within an hour they would be well forward on their journey.  Meanwhile, should the barber be summoned at once?  Or would the cavaliere first refresh himself with an excellent cup of chocolate, prepared under Cantapresto’s own supervision?

Odo turned on him savagely.  “Traitor—­spy!  In whose pay—?”

But the words roused him to a fresh sense of peril.  Cantapresto, though he might have guessed Odo’s intention, was not privy to his plan of rejoining Vivaldi and Fulvia; and it flashed across the young man that his self-betrayal must confirm the others’ suspicions.  His one hope of protecting his friends was to affect indifference to what had happened; and this was made easier, by the reflection that Cantapresto was after all but a tool in more powerful hands.  To be spied on was so natural to an Italian of that day that the victim’s instinct was rather to circumvent the spy than to denounce him.

Odo dismissed Cantapresto with the reply that he would give orders about the carriage later; desiring that meanwhile the soprano should purchase the handsomest set of filigree ornaments to be found in Vercelli, and carry them with the Cavaliere Valsecca’s compliments to the Signorina Malmocco.

Having thus rid himself of observation he dressed as rapidly as possible, trying the while to devise some means of tracing Vivaldi.  But the longer he pondered the attempt the more plainly he saw its futility.  Vivaldi, doubtless from motives of prudence, had not named the friend with whom he and Fulvia were to take shelter; nor did Odo even know in what quarter of the city to seek them.  To question the police was to risk their last chance of safety; and for the same reason he dared not enquire of the posting-master whether any travellers had set out that morning for Lombardy.  His natural activity of mind was hampered by a leaden sense of remissness.