posed to exist was productive of equal satisfaction to
both sides. The new Duke had thrown himself with extraordinary zeal into
the task of loving and understanding his people. It had been his refuge
from a hundred doubts and uncertainties, the one clearly-defined object
in an obscure and troubled fate. And their response had, almost
immediately, turned his task into a pleasure. It was so easy to rule if
one's subjects loved one! And so easy to be loved if only one loved
enough in return! If he did not, like the Pope, describe himself to his
people as the servant of the servants of God, he at least longed to make
them feel that this new gospel of service was the base on which all
sovereignty must henceforth repose.

It was not that his first year of power had been without moments of
disillusionment. He had had more than one embittering experience of
intrigue and perfidy, more than one glimpse of the pitfalls besetting
his course; but his confidence in his own powers and his faith in his
people remained unshaken, and with two such beliefs to sustain him it
seemed as though no difficulties would prove insurmountable.

Such at least was the mood in which, on the morning of his entry into
Pianura, he prepared to face his subjects. Strangely enough, the state
entry began at Ponte di Po, the very spot where, on a stormy midnight
some seven years earlier, the new Duke had landed, a fugitive from his
future realm. Here, according to an ancient custom, the sovereign
awaited the arrival of his ministers and court; and then, taking seat in
his state barge, proceeded by water to Pianura, followed by an escort of
galleys.

A great tent hung with tapestries had been set up on the river-bank; and
here Odo awaited the approach of the barge. As it touched at the
landing-stage he stepped out, and his prime minister, Count Trescorre,
advanced toward him, accompanied by the dignitaries of the court.
Trescorre had aged in the intervening years. His delicate features had
withered like a woman's, and the fine irony of his smile had taken an
edge of cruelty. His face suggested a worn engraving, the lines of which
have been deepened by a too-incisive instrument.

The functionaries attending him were, with few exceptions, the same who
had figured in a like capacity at the late sovereign's court. With the
passing of the years they had grown heavier or thinner, more ponderous
or stiffer in their movements, and as they advanced, in their splendi