again. The years had dealt lightly with
her, and she had crossed the threshold of the thirties with the assured
step of a woman who has no cause to fear what awaits her. But her blood
no longer spoke her thoughts, and the transparence of youth had changed
to a brilliant density. He could not penetrate beneath the surface of
her smile: she seemed to him like a beautiful toy which might conceal a
lacerating weapon.

Meanwhile between himself and any better understanding of her stood the
remembrance of their talk in the hunting-lodge of Pontesordo. What she
had offered then he had refused to take: was she the woman to forget
such a refusal? Was it not rather to keep its memory alive that she had
married him? Or was she but the flighty girl he had once imagined her,
driven hither and thither by spasmodic impulses, and incapable of
consistent action, whether for good or ill? The barrier of their
past--of all that lay unsaid and undone between them--so completely cut
her off from him that he had, in her presence, the strange sensation of
a man who believes himself to be alone yet feels that he is
watched...The first months of their marriage were oppressed by this
sense of constraint; but gradually habit bridged the distance between
them and he found himself at once nearer to her and less acutely aware
of her. In the second year an heir was born and died; and the hopes and
grief thus shared drew them insensibly into the relation of the ordinary
husband and wife, knitted together at the roots in spite of superficial
divergencies.

In his passionate need of sympathy and counsel Odo longed to make the
most of this enforced community of interests. Already his first zeal was
flagging, his belief in his mission wavering: he needed the
encouragement of a kindred faith. He had no hope of finding in Maria
Clementina that pure passion for justice which seemed to him the noblest
ardour of the soul. He had read it in one woman's eyes, but these had
long been turned from him. Unconsciously perhaps he counted rather on
his wife's less generous qualities: the passion for dominion, the blind
arrogance of temper that, for the mere pleasure of making her power
felt, had so often drawn her into public affairs. Might not this waste
force--which implied, after all, a certain prodigality of courage--be
used for good as well as evil? Might not his influence make of the
undisciplined creature at his side an unconscious instrument in the
great work