d and buckled on his sword. "If you answer for the risk, I
agree to take it," said he. "At ten o'clock then, behind the Corpus
Domini."

If the ladies whom gallant gentlemen delight to serve could guess what
secret touchstones of worth these same gentlemen sometimes carry into
the adored presence, many a handsome head would be carried with less
assurance, and many a fond exaction less confidently imposed. If, for
instance, the Countess Clarice di Tournanches, whose high-coloured image
reflected itself so complacently in her Venetian toilet-glass, could
have known that the Cavaliere Odo Valsecca's devoted glance saw her
through the medium of a countenance compared to which her own revealed
the most unexpected shortcomings, she might have received him with less
airy petulance of manner. But how could so accomplished a mistress doubt
the permanence of her rule? The Countess Clarice, in singling out young
Odo Valsecca (to the despair of a score of more experienced cavaliers)
had done him an honour that she could no more imagine his resigning than
an adventurer a throne to which he is unexpectedly raised. She was a
finished example of the pretty woman who views the universe as planned
for her convenience. What could go wrong in a world where noble ladies
lived in palaces hung with tapestry and damask, with powdered lacqueys
to wait on them, a turbaned blackamoor to tend their parrots and
monkeys, a coronet-coach at the door to carry them to mass or the
ridotto, and a handsome cicisbeo to display on the promenade? Everything
had combined to strengthen the Countess Clarice's faith in the existing
order of things. Her husband, Count Roberto di Tournanches, was one of
the King's equerries and distinguished for his brilliant career as an
officer of the Piedmontese army--a man marked for the highest favours in
a society where military influences were paramount. Passing at sixteen
from an aristocratic convent to the dreary magnificence of the Palazzo
Tournanches, Clarice had found herself a lady-in-waiting at the dullest
court in Europe and the wife of an army officer engrossed in his
profession, and pledged by etiquette to the service of another lady. Odo
Valsecca represented her escape from this bondage--the dash of romance
and folly in a life of elegant formalities; and the Countess, who would
not have sacrificed to him one of her rights as a court-lady or a nobil
donna of the Golden Book, regarded him as the reward which Provide