To these he
fancied the abate de Crucis might prove an interesting addition; and the
desire to learn something of this problematic person induced him to quit
the villa at the moment when the abate took leave.
They found themselves together on the threshold; and Odo, recalling to
the other the circumstances of their first meeting, proposed that they
should dismiss their carriages and regain the city on foot. De Crucis
readily consented; and they were soon descending the hill of Posilipo.
Here and there a turn in the road brought them to an open space whence
they commanded the bay from Procida to Sorrento, with Capri afloat in
liquid gold and the long blue shadow of Vesuvius stretching like a
menace toward the city. The spectacle was one of which Odo never
wearied; but today it barely diverted him from the charms of his
companion's talk. The abate de Crucis had that quality of repressed
enthusiasm, of an intellectual sensibility tempered by self-possession,
which exercises the strongest attraction over a mind not yet master of
itself. Though all he said had a personal note he seemed to withhold
himself even in the moment of greatest expansion: like some prince who
should enrich his favourites from the public treasury but keep his
private fortune unimpaired. In the course of their conversation Odo
learned that though of Austrian birth his companion was of mingled
English and Florentine parentage: a fact perhaps explaining the mixture
of urbanity and reserve that lent such charm to his manner.
Pages:
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321