“For several reasons,” Gamba answered promptly. “In the first place, the reforms your Highness has introduced are not of his own choosing, and Trescorre has little sympathy with any policy he has not dictated. In the second place, the powers and opportunities of a constitutional minister are too restricted to satisfy his appetite for rule; and thirdly—” he paused a moment, as though doubtful how his words would be received— “I suspect Trescorre of having a private score against your Highness, which he would be glad to pay off publicly.”
Odo fell silent, yielding himself to a fresh current of thought.
“I know not what score he may have against me,” he said at length; “but what injures me must injure the state, and if Trescorre has any such motive for withdrawing his opposition, it must be because he believes the constitution will defeat its own ends.”
“He does believe that, assuredly; but he is not the only one of your Highness’s ministers that would ruin the state on the chance of finding an opportunity among the ruins.”
“That is as it may be,” said Odo with a touch of weariness. “I have seen enough of human ambition to learn how limited and unimaginative a passion it is. If it saw farther I should fear it more. But if it is short-sighted it sees clearly at close range; and the motive you ascribe to Trescorre would imply that he believes the constitution will be a failure.”
“Without doubt, your Highness. I am convinced that your ministers have done all they could to prevent the proclamation of the charter, and failing that, to thwart its workings if it be proclaimed. In this they have gone hand in hand with the clergy, and their measures have been well taken. But I do not believe that any state of mind produced by external influences can long withstand the natural drift of opinion; and your Highness may be sure that, though the talkers and writers are mostly against you in this matter, the mass of the people are with you.”
Odo answered with a despairing gesture. “How can I be sure, when the people have no means of expressing their needs? It is like trying to guess the wants of a deaf and dumb man!”
The hunchback flushed suddenly. “The people will not always be deaf and dumb,” he said. “Some day they will speak.”
“Not in my day,” said Odo wearily. “And meanwhile we blunder on, without ever really knowing what incalculable instincts and prejudices are pitted against us. You and your party tell me the people are sick of the burdens the clergy lay on them—yet their blind devotion to the Church is manifest at every turn, and it did not need the business of the Virgin’s crown to show me how little reason and justice can avail against such influences.”
Gamba replied by an impatient gesture. “As to the Virgin’s crown,” he said, “your Highness must have guessed it was one of the friars’ tricks: a last expedient to turn the people against you. I was not bred up by a priest for nothing; I know what past masters those gentry are in raising ghosts and reading portents. They know the minds of the poor folk as the herdsman knows the habits of his cattle; and for generations they have used that knowledge to bring the people more completely under their control.”
“And what have we to oppose to such a power?” Odo exclaimed. “We are fighting the battle of ideas against passions, of reflection against instinct; and you have but to look in the human heart to guess which side will win in such a struggle. We have science and truth and common-sense with us, you say—yes, but the Church has love and fear and tradition, and the solidarity of nigh two thousand years of dominion.”
Gamba listened in respectful silence; then he replied with a faint smile: “All that your Highness says is true; but I beg leave to relate to your Highness a tale which I read lately in an old book of your library. According to this story it appears that when the early Christians of Alexandria set out to destroy the pagan idols in the temples they were seized with great dread at sight of the god Serapis; for even those that did not believe in the old gods feared them, and none dared raise a hand against the sacred image. But suddenly a soldier who was bolder than the rest flung his battle-axe at the figure—and when it broke in pieces, there rushed out nothing worse than a great company of rats.”…
***
The Duke had promised to visit Fulvia that evening. For several days his state of indecision had made him find pretexts for avoiding her; but now that the charter was signed and he had ordered its proclamation, he craved the contact of her unwavering faith.
He found her alone in the dusk of the convent parlour; but he had hardly crossed the threshold before he was aware of an indefinable change in his surroundings. She advanced with an impulsiveness out of harmony with the usual tranquillity of their meetings, and he felt her hand tremble and burn in his. In the twilight it seemed to him that her very dress had a warmer rustle and glimmer, that there emanated from her glance and movements some heady fragrance of a long-past summer. He smiled to think that this phantom coquetry should have risen at the summons of an academic degree; but some deeper sense in him was stirred as by a vision of waste riches adrift on the dim seas of chance.
For a moment she sat silent, as in the days when they had been too near each other for many words; and there was something indescribably soothing in this dreamlike return to the past. It was he who roused himself first.
“How young you look!” he said, giving involuntary utterance to his thought.
“Do I?” she answered gaily. “I am glad of that, for I feel extraordinarily young tonight. Perhaps it is because I have been thinking a great deal of the old days—of Venice and Turin—and of the high-road to Vercelli, for instance.” She glanced at him with a smile.
“Do you know,” she went on, moving to a seat at his side, and laying a hand on the arm of his chair, “that there is one secret of mine you have never guessed in all these years?”
Odo returned her smile. “What is it, I wonder?” he said.
She fixed him with bright bantering eyes. “I knew why you deserted us at Vercelli.” He uttered an exclamation, but she lifted a hand to his lips.
“Ah, how angry I was then—but why be angry now? It all happened so long ago; and if it had not happened—who knows?—perhaps you would never have pitied me enough to love me as you did.” She laughed softly, reminiscently, leaning back as if to let the tide of memories ripple over her. Then she raised her head suddenly, and said in a changed voice: “Are your plans fixed for tomorrow?”
Odo glanced at her in surprise. Her mind seemed to move as capriciously as Maria Clementina’s.
“The constitution is signed,” he answered, “and my ministers proclaim it tomorrow morning.” He looked at her a moment, and lifted her hand to his lips. “Everything has been done according to your wishes,” he said.
She drew away with a start, and he saw that she had turned pale. “No, no—not as I wish,” she murmured. “It must not be because I wish—”
she broke off and her hand slipped from his.
“You have taught me to wish as you wish,” he answered gently. “Surely you would not disown your pupil now?”
Her agitation increased. “Do not call yourself that!” she exclaimed.
“Not even in jest. What you have done has been done of your own choice—because you thought it best for your people. My nearness or absence could have made no difference.”
He looked at her with growing wonder. “Why this sudden modesty?” he said with a smile. “I thought you prided yourself on your share in the great work.”
She tried to force an answering smile, but the curve broke into a quiver of distress, and she came close to him, with a gesture that seemed to take flight from herself.