i. The Duke assumed a listening air, but it was clear that he
could not put off his private thoughts long enough to give an open mind
to other matters; and Odo felt that he was nowhere so secure as in his
cousin's company. He remembered, however, that the Duke had plenty of
eyes to replace his own, and that a secret which was safe in his actual
presence might be in mortal danger on his threshold.

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. It was scant measure for an heir-presumptive, and Odo
wondered if the Belverde had had a hand in the apportionment; but his
indifference to such matters (for though personally fastidious he cared
little for display) enabled him to show such gratitude that the Duke,
fancying he might have been content with less, had nearly withdrawn two
of the saddle-horses. 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. It was a privilege Odo had no
mind to abuse; for if life moved slowly in the Belverde's circle it was
at a standstill in the Duke's. His Highness never went abroad but to
serve mass in some church (his almost daily practice) or to visit one of
the numerous monasteries within the city. From Ash Wednesday to Easter
Monday it was his custom to transact no public or private business.
During this time he received none of his ministers, and saw his son but
for a few moments once a day; while in Holy Week he made a retreat with
the Barnabites, the Belverde withdrawing for the same period to the
convent of the Perpetual Adoration.

Odo, as his new life took shape, found his chief interest in the society
of Crescenti and Gamba. In the Duchess's company he might have lost all
taste for soberer pleasures, but that his political sympathies wore a
girl's reproachful shape. Ever at his side, more vividly than in the
body, Fulvia Vivaldi became the symbol of his best aims and deepest
failure. Sometimes, indeed, her look drove him forth in the Duchess's
train, but more often, drawing him from the crowd of pleasure-seekers,
beckoned the way to solitude and study. Under Crescenti's tuition he
began the reading of Dante, who just then, after generations of neglect,
was once more lifting his voice above the crowd