Odo remembered that he had once thought her nearness would dispel his
hesitations. At first it had been so; but gradually the contact with her
fixed enthusiasms had set up within him an opposing sense of the claims
ignored. The element of dogmatism in her faith showed the discouraging
sameness of the human mind. He perceived that to a spirit like Fulvia's
it might become possible to shed blood in the cause of tolerance.
The rapid march of events in France had necessarily produced an opposite
effect on minds so differently constituted. To Fulvia the year had been
a year of victory, a glorious affirmation of her political creed. Step
by step she had seen, as in some old allegorical painting, error fly
before the shafts of truth. Where Odo beheld a conflagration she saw a
sunrise; and all that was bare and cold in her own life was warmed and
transfigured by that ineffable brightness.
She listened patiently while he enlarged on the difficulties of the
case. The constitution was framed in all its details, but with its
completion he felt more than ever doubtful of the wisdom of granting it.
He would have welcomed any postponement that did not seem an admission
of fear. He dreaded the inevitable break with the clergy, not so much
because of the consequent danger to his own authority, as because he was
increasingly conscious of the newness and clumsiness of the instrument
with which he proposed to replace their tried and complex system. He
mentioned to Fulvia the rumours of popular disaffection; but she swept
them aside with a smile.
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