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In the second place, the powers and opportunities of a constitutional minister are too restricted to satisfy his appetite for rule; and thirdly " he paused a moment, as though doubtful how his words would be received "I suspect Trescorre of having a private score against your Highness, which he would be glad to pay off publicly." Odo fell silent, yielding himself to a fresh current of thought.
The Holy Office? The Duke's party?" Odo smiled. "I am perhaps not in the best odour with the Church party," said he, "but Count Trescorre has shown himself my friend, and I think my character is safe in his keeping. Nor will it be any news to him that I frequent the company you name." She threw back her head with a laugh. "Boy," she cried, "you are blinder even than I fancied!
The abate, who ascribed her commotion to a sudden seizure, continued to retail the news of Pianura, and Odo, listening with his elders, learned that Count Lelio Trescorre had been appointed Master of the Horse, to the indignation of the Bishop, who desired the place for his nephew, Don Serafino; that the Duke and Duchess were never together; that the Duchess was suspected of being in secret correspondence with the Austrians, and that the young Marquess of Cerveno was gone to the baths of Lucca to recover from an attack of tertian fever contracted the previous autumn at the Duke's hunting-lodge near Pontesordo.
"You are late!" she tenderly reproached him; and before he had time to reply, the double doors were thrown open, and the major-domo announced in an awed voice: "His excellency Count Lelio Trescorre." Odo turned with a start. To his mind, already crowded with a confusion of thoughts, the name summoned a throng of memories.
Her Highness," he continued, in reply to a question of Odo's, "was much taken by him when she first came to Pianura; and before her feeling had cooled he had contrived to make himself indispensable to her. The Duchess is always in debt; and Trescorre, as Comptroller of Finance, holds her by her besetting weakness. Before his appointment her extravagance was the scandal of the town.
"I know not what score he may have against me," he said at length; "but what injures me must injure the state, and if Trescorre has any such motive for withdrawing his opposition, it must be because he believes the constitution will defeat its own ends."
He owed it to his people to unite the two sovereignties. At length he said: "You are building on an unwarrantable assumption." Trescorre raised an interrogative glance. "You assume her Highness's consent." The minister again paused; and his pause seemed to flash an ironical light on the poverty of the other's defences.
The hesitation was not lost on her and he saw her flush through her rouge. "Ah," said she in a low voice, "the earliest moment is none too early! Do you go tomorrow?" she persisted; but just then Trescorre advanced toward them, and under a burst of assumed merriment she privately signed to Odo to withdraw.
His Highness on this occasion was pleased to inform his kinsman that he had ordered Count Trescorre to place at the young man's disposal an income enabling him to keep a carriage and pair, four saddle-horses and five servants. This becoming behaviour greatly advanced the young man in the esteem of his Highness, who accorded him on the spot the petites entrees of the ducal apartments.
"In the first place, the reforms your Highness has introduced are not of his own choosing, and Trescorre has little sympathy with any policy he has not dictated.
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