Passing at sixteen
from an aristocratic convent to the dreary magnificence of the Palazzo
Tournanches, Clarice had found herself a lady-in-waiting at the dullest
court in Europe and the wife of an army officer engrossed in his
profession, and pledged by etiquette to the service of another lady. Odo
Valsecca represented her escape from this bondage--the dash of romance
and folly in a life of elegant formalities; and the Countess, who would
not have sacrificed to him one of her rights as a court-lady or a nobil
donna of the Golden Book, regarded him as the reward which Providence
accords to a well-regulated conduct.
Her room, when Odo entered it on taking leave of Alfieri, was crowded,
as usual at that hour, with the hangers-on of the noble lady's lever:
the abatino in lace ruffles, handing about his latest rhymed acrostic,
the jeweller displaying a set of enamelled buckles newly imported from
Paris, and the black-breeched doctor with white bands who concocted
remedies for the Countess's vapours and megrims. These personages,
grouped about the toilet-table where the Countess sat under the hands of
a Parisian hairdresser, were picturesquely relieved against the stucco
panelling and narrow mirrors of the apartment, with its windows looking
on a garden set with mossy statues. To Odo, however, the scene suggested
the most tedious part of his day's routine. The compliments to be
exchanged, the silly verses to be praised, the gewgaws from Paris to be
admired, were all contrasted in his mind with the vision of that other
life which had come to him on the hillside of the Superga.
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