On the other side of the brazier sat the dowager Duchess, the Duke's
grandmother, an old lady so high and forbidding of aspect that Odo cast
but one look at her face, which was yellow and wrinkled as a medlar, and
surmounted, in the Spanish style, with black veils and a high coif. What
these alarming personages said and did, the child could never recall;
nor were his own actions clear to him, except for a furtive caress that
he remembered giving the spaniel as he kissed the Duchess's hand;
whereupon her Highness snatched up the pampered animal and walked away
with a pout of anger. Odo noticed that her angry look followed him as he
and Donna Laura withdrew; but the next moment he heard the Duke's voice
and saw his Highness limping after them.
"You must have a furred cloak for your journey, cousin," said he
awkwardly, pressing something in the hand of Odo's mother, who broke
into fresh compliments and curtsies, while the Duke, with a finger on
his thick lip, withdrew hastily into the closet.
The next morning early they set out on their journey. There had been
frost in the night and a cold sun sparkled on the palace windows and on
the marble church-fronts as their carriage lumbered through the streets,
now full of noise and animation. It was Odo's first glimpse of the town
by daylight, and he clapped his hands with delight at sight of the
people picking their way across the reeking gutters, the asses laden
with milk and vegetables, the servant-girls bargaining at the
provision-stalls, the shop-keepers' wives going to mass in pattens and
hoods, with scaldini in their muffs, the dark recessed openings in the
palace basements, where fruit sellers, wine-merchants and coppersmiths
displayed their wares, the pedlars hawking books and toys, and here and
there a gentleman in a sedan chair returning flushed and disordered from
a night at bassett or faro.
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