I observed she was much taken by your conversation, and you
would be doing her a service by engaging her not to oppose this
pilgrimage to Boscofolto. We have Heiligenstern's word that it cannot
harm the prince, it will produce a good impression on the people, and it
is of vital importance to her Highness not to side against the Duke in
such matters." And he withdrew with a smile as Odo approached the
card-table.
Odo left the Duchess's circle with an increased desire to penetrate more
deeply into the organisation of the little world about him, to trace the
operation of its various parts, and to put his hand on the mainspring
about which they revolved; and he wondered whether Gamba, whose
connection with the ducal library must give him some insight into the
affairs of the court, might not prove as instructive a guide through
this labyrinth as through the mazes of the ducal garden.
The Duke's library filled a series of rooms designed in the classical
style of the cinque-cento. On the very threshold Odo was conscious of
leaving behind the trivial activities of the palace, with the fantastic
architecture which seemed their natural setting. Here all was based on a
noble permanence of taste, a convergence of accumulated effort toward a
chosen end; and the door was fittingly surmounted by Seneca's definition
of the wise man's state: "Omnia illi secula ut deo serviunt."
Odo would gladly have lingered among the books which filled the rooms
with an incense-like aroma of old leather.
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