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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.
They returned to the inn, where the actors were also lodged, and Odo's host having ordered a handsome supper, proposed, with his guest's permission, to invite the leading members of the company to partake of it. He departed on this errand; and great was Odo's wonder, when the door reopened, to discover, among the party it admitted, his old acquaintance of Vercelli, the Count of Castelrovinato.
Castelrovinato complied with his usual air of resignation, and the door closing on the couple, Odo and Miranda found themselves alone. "And now," said the good-natured girl, placing herself on the sofa and turning to her guest with a smile, "if you will take a seat at my side I will gladly continue the history of my adventures"... Odo woke with a start.
Odo, to preserve the secrecy of his designs, had been obliged to keep up a pretence of his former habits, showing himself abroad with Coeur-Volant and Castelrovinato and frequenting the Procuratessa's routs and card-parties.
This gentleman, whom she introduced to Odo as her cousin and travelling companion, the Count of Castelrovinato, had the same air of tarnished elegance as his richly-laced coat and discoloured ruffles.
"Yes," said Castelrovinato with his melancholy smile, "the test of success is to have had one's money's worth; but experience, which is dried pleasure, is at best a dusty diet, as we know. Yonder, in a fold of those hills," he added, pointing to the cluster of Euganean mountains just faintly pencilled above the plain, "lies the little fief from which I take my name.
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