d by that ineffable brightness.

She listened patiently while he enlarged on the difficulties of the
case. The constitution was framed in all its details, but with its
completion he felt more than ever doubtful of the wisdom of granting it.
He would have welcomed any postponement that did not seem an admission
of fear. He dreaded the inevitable break with the clergy, not so much
because of the consequent danger to his own authority, as because he was
increasingly conscious of the newness and clumsiness of the instrument
with which he proposed to replace their tried and complex system. He
mentioned to Fulvia the rumours of popular disaffection; but she swept
them aside with a smile.

"The people mistrust you," she said. "And what does that mean? That you
have given your enemies time to work on their credulity. The longer you
delay the more opposition you will encounter. Father Ignazio would
rather destroy the state than let it be saved by any hand but his."

Odo reflected. "Of all my enemies," he said, "Father Ignazio is the one
I most respect, because he is the most sincere."

"He is the most dangerous, then," she returned. "A fanatic is always
more powerful than a knave."

He was struck with her undiminished faith in the sufficiency of such
generalisations. Did she really think that to solve such a problem it
was only necessary to define it? The contact with her unfaltering
assurance would once have given him a momentary glow; but now it left
him cold.

She was speaking more urgently. "Surely," she said, "the noblest use a
man can make of his own freedom is to set others free. My father said it
was the only justification of kingship."

He glanced at her half-sadly. "Do you still fancy that kings are free? I
am bound hand and foot."

"So was my father," she flashed back at him; "but he had the Promethean
spirit."

She coloured at her own quickness, but Odo took the thrust tranquilly.

"Yes," he said, "your father had the Promethean spirit: I have not. The
flesh that is daily torn from me does not grow again."

"Your courage is as great as his," she exclaimed, her tenderness in
arms.

"No," he answered, "for his was hopeful." There was a pause, and then he
began to speak of the day's work.

All the afternoon he had been in consultation with Crescenti, whose vast
historical knowledge was of service in determining many disputed points
in the tenure of land. The librarian was in sympathy with any measures
t