waited. Half an hour later he rode up to the house where he lodged in
the Piazza San Carlo.

In the archway Cantapresto, heavy with a nine years' accretion of fat,
laid an admonishing hand on his bridle.

"Cavaliere, the Countess's black boy--"

"Well?"

"Three several times has battered the door down with a missive."

"Well?"

"The last time, I shook him off with the message that you would be there
before him."

"Be where?"

"At the Valentino; but that was an hour ago!"

Odo slipped from the saddle.

"I must dress first. Call a chair; or no--write a letter for me first.
Let Antonio carry it."

The ex-soprano, wheezing under the double burden of flesh and
consequence, had painfully laboured after Odo up the high stone flights
to that young gentleman's modest lodgings, and they stood together in a
study lined with books and hung with prints and casts from the antique.