at the last circle, the marked manner in which his Majesty had lately
distinguished the brilliant young cavalry officer, Count Roberto di
Tournanches, the third marriage of the Countess Alfieri of Asti, the
incredibility of the rumour that the court ladies of Versailles had
taken to white muslin and Leghorn hats, the probable significance of the
Vicar-general's visit to Rome, the subject of the next sacred
representation to be given by the nuns of Santa Croce--such were the
questions that engaged the noble frequenters of Casa Valdu.

This was the only society that Donna Laura saw; for she was too poor to
dress to her taste and too proud to show herself in public without the
appointments becoming her station. Her sole distraction consisted in
visits to the various shrines--the Sudario, the Consolata, the Corpus
Domini--at which the feminine aristocracy offered up its devotions and
implored absolution for sins it had often no opportunity to commit: for
though fashion accorded cicisbei to the fine ladies of Turin, the Church
usually restricted their intercourse to the exchange of the most
harmless amenities.

Meanwhile the antechamber was as full of duns as the approach to Donna
Laura's apartment at Pianura; and Odo guessed that the warmth of the
maternal welcome sprang less from natural affection than from the hope
of using his expectations as a sop to her creditors. The pittance which
the ducal treasury allowed for his education was scarce large enough to
be worth diverting to other ends; but a potential prince is a shield to
the most vulnerable fortunes. In this character Odo for the first time
found himself flattered, indulged, and made the centre of the company.
The contrast to his life of subjection at Donnaz; the precocious
initiation into motives that tainted the very fount of filial piety; the
taste of this mingled draught of adulation and disillusionment, might