e lady would openly yield to her distress, crying out that she knew
well enough what his excuses meant: that she was the most cruelly
outraged of women, and that he treated her no better than a husband.

For two days Odo languished in his corner, whisked by the women's
skirts, smothered under the hoops and falbalas which the dressmakers
unpacked from their cases, fed at irregular hours, and faring on the
whole no better than at Pontesordo. The third morning, Vanna, who seemed
the most good-natured of the women, cried out on his pale looks when she
brought him his cup of chocolate. "I declare," she exclaimed, "the child
has had no air since he came in from the farm. What does your excellency
say? Shall the hunchback take him for a walk in the gardens?"

To this her excellency, who sat at her toilet under the hair-dresser's
hands, irritably replied that she had not slept all night and was in no
state to be tormented about such trifles, but that the child might go
where he pleased.

Odo, who was very weary of his corner, sprang up readily enough when
Vanna, at this, beckoned him to the inner ante-chamber. Here, where
persons of a certain condition waited (the outer being given over to
servants and tradesmen), they found a lean humpbacked boy, shabbily
dressed in darned stockings and a faded coat, but with an extraordinary
keen pale face that at once attracted and frightened the child.

"There, go with him; he won't eat you," said Vanna, giving him a push as
she hurried away; and Odo, trembling a little, laid his hand in the
boy's. "Where do you come from?" he faltered, looking up into his
companion's face.

The boy laughed and the blood rose to his high cheekbones. "I?--From the
Innocenti, if your Excellency knows where that is," said he.

Odo's face lit up. "Of course I do," he cried, reassured. "I know a girl
who comes from there--the Momola at Pontesordo."

"Ah, indeed?" said the boy with a queer look. "Well, she's my sister,
then. Give her my compliments when you see her, cavaliere. Oh, we're a
large family, we are!"

Odo's perplexity was returning. "Are you really Momola's brother?" he
asked.

"Eh, in a way--we're children of the same house."

"But you live in the palace, don't you?" Odo persisted, his curiosity
surmounting his fear. "Are you a servant of my mother's?"

"I'm the servant of your illustrious mother's servants; the abatino of
the waiting-women. I write their love-letters, do you see, cavalier