ristocratic convents went in gala habits and with uncovered heads.
No wonder that to the bewildered stranger the Venetians seemed to keep
perpetual carnival and Venice herself to be as it were the mere stage of
some huge comic interlude.

To Odo the setting was even more astonishing than the performance. Never
had he seen pleasure and grace so happily allied, all the arts of life
so combined in the single effort after enjoyment. Here was not a mere
tendency to linger on the surface, but the essence of superficiality
itself; not an ignoring of what lies beneath, but an elimination of it;
as though all human experience should be beaten thin and spread out
before the eye like some brilliant tenuous plaque of Etruscan gold. And
in this science of pleasure--mere jeweller's work though it were--the
greatest artists had collaborated, each contributing his page to the
philosophy of enjoyment in the form of some radiant allegory flowering
from palace wall or ceiling like the enlarged reflection of the life
beneath it. Nowhere was the mind arrested by a question or an idea.
Thought slunk away like an unmasked guest at the ridotto. Sensation
ruled supreme, and each moment was an iridescent bubble fresh-blown from
the lips of fancy.

Odo brought to the spectacle the humour best fitted for its enjoyment.
His weariness and discouragement sought refuge in the emotional
satisfaction of the hour. Here at least the old problem of living had
been solved, and from the patrician taking the air in his gondola to the
gondolier himself, gambling and singing on the water-steps of his
master's palace, all seemed equally satisfied with the solution. Now if
ever was the time to cry "halt!" to the present, to forget the travelled
road and take no thought for the morrow...

The months passed rapidly and agreeably. The Procuratessa was the most
amiable of guides, and in her company Odo enjoyed the best that Venice
had to offer, from the matchless music of the churches and hospitals to
the petits soupers in the private casini of the nobility; while
Coeur-Volant and Castelrovinato introduced him to scenes where even a
lady of the Procuratessa's intrepidity might not venture.

Such a life left little time for thoughtful pleasures; nor did Odo find
in the society about him any sympathy with his more personal tastes. At
first he yielded willingly enough to the pressure of his surroundings,
glad to escape from thoughts of the past and speculations about