The Valley of Decision eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 553 pages of information about The Valley of Decision.

The Valley of Decision eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 553 pages of information about The Valley of Decision.

“Well?”

“The last time, I shook him off with the message that you would be there before him.”

“Be where?”

“At the Valentino; but that was an hour ago!”

Odo slipped from the saddle.

“I must dress first.  Call a chair; or no—­write a letter for me first.  Let Antonio carry it.”

The ex-soprano, wheezing under the double burden of flesh and consequence, had painfully laboured after Odo up the high stone flights to that young gentleman’s modest lodgings, and they stood together in a study lined with books and hung with prints and casts from the antique.  Odo threw off his dusty coat and called the servant to remove his boots.

“Will you read the lady’s letters, cavaliere?” Cantapresto asked, obsequiously offering them on a lacquered tray.

“No—­no:  write first.  Begin ’My angelic lady’—­”

“You began the last letter in those terms, cavaliere,” his scribe reminded him with suspended pen.

“The devil!  Well, then—­wait.  ’Throned goddess’—­”

“You ended the last letter with ‘throned goddess.’”

“Curse the last letter!  Why did you send it?” Odo sprang up and slipped his arms into the dress-tunic his servant had brought him.  “Write anything.  Say that I am suddenly summoned by—­”

“By the Count Alfieri?” Cantapresto suggested.

“Count Alfieri?  Is he here?  He has returned?”

“He arrived an hour ago, cavaliere.  He sent you this Moorish scimitar with his compliments.  I understand he comes recently from Spain.”

“Imbecile, not to have told me before!  Quick, Antonio—­my gloves, my sword.”  Odo, flushed and animated, buckled his sword-belt with impatient hands.  “Write anything—­anything to free my evening.  Tomorrow morning—­tomorrow morning I shall wait on the lady.  Let Antonio carry her a nosegay with my compliments.  Did you see him Cantapresto?  Was he in good health?  Does he sup at home?  He left no message?  Quick, Antonio, a chair!” he cried with his hand on the door.

Odo had acquired, at twenty-two, a nobility of carriage not incompatible with the boyish candour of his gaze, and becomingly set off by the brilliant dress-uniform of a lieutenant in one of the provincial regiments.  He was tall and fair, and a certain languor of complexion, inherited from his father’s house, was corrected in him by the vivacity of the Donnaz blood.  This now sparkled in his grey eye, and gave a glow to his cheek, as he stepped across the threshold, treading on a sprig of cherry-blossom that had dropped unnoticed to the floor.

Cantapresto, looking after him, caught sight of the flowers and kicked them aside with a contemptuous toe.  “I sometimes think he botanises,” he murmured with a shrug.  “The Lord knows what queer notions he gets out of all these books!”

2.2.

Copyrights
Project Gutenberg
The Valley of Decision from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.