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To Odo's spontaneous yet reflective temper there was something peculiarly impressive in the kind of detachment which implies, not obtuseness or indifference, but a higher sensitiveness disciplined by choice.
The wine was rising in waves of colour over her throat and brow, and setting her glass down she suddenly laid her ungloved hand on Odo's. "Cousin," she said in a low voice, "I could help you if you would let me." "Help me?" he said, only half-aware of her words in the warm surprise of her touch. She drew back, but with a look that seemed to leave her hand in his.
Here, Vanna, Tonina, to bed with him; he may sleep with you in my dressing-closet, Tonina. Go with her, child, go; but for God's sake wake him if he snores. I'm too ill to have my rest disturbed." And she lifted a pomander to her nostrils. The next few days dwelt in Odo's memory as a blur of strange sights and sounds.
He had withered like Trescorre, but under the harsher blight of physical privations; and his tongue had an added bitterness. He replied evasively to all enquiries as to what had become of him during his absence from Pianura; but on Odo's asking for news of Momola and the child he said coldly: "They are both dead." "Dead?" Odo exclaimed. "Together?"
At which, with a stare and a straightening of his long awkward body, the other haughtily returned: "A poet, sir? I am the Count Vittorio Alfieri of Asti." The singular being with whom chance had thus brought him acquainted was to have a lasting influence on the formation of Odo's character.
Indefatigable in the contriving of such diversions, he soon virtually passed out of Odo's service into that of her Highness: a circumstance which the young man the less regretted as it left him freer to cultivate the acquaintance of Gamba and his friends without exposing them to Cantapresto's espionage.
Odo's grandmother, the old Marchioness, a heavy woman who would doubtless have enjoyed her ease in a cushioned seat, was afoot all day attending to her household; for besides the dairy and the bakehouse and the stillroom where fruits were stewed and pastes prepared, there was the great spinning-room full of distaffs and looms, where the women spun and wove all the linen used in the castle and the coarse stuffs worn by its inmates; with workshops for the cobbler and tailor who clothed and shod the Marquess and his household.
This increased Odo's fears for Gamba, Andreoni and the other reformers; yet he dared neither seek them out in person nor entrust a message to Cantapresto. As the day passed, however, he began to throw off his apprehensions.
The weeks elapsed, however, without Odo's hearing further of the matter, and it had nearly passed from his mind when one August day he received word that the Marquess hoped for his company that evening. He was in that mood of careless acquiescence when any novelty invites, and the heavy warmth of the summer night seemed the accomplice of his humour.
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:
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