two or three voices, amid a
general titter.

"I don't think Nobili cares a straw about Nera," put in the languid
Franchi, drawling out his words. "I have heard quite another story
about Nobili. Give Nera to Ruspoli. He seems about to take her for
life. I wish him joy!" with a sneer. "Ruspoli likes English manners.
Nera won't get Nobili, my word upon _that_--there are too many stories
about her."

But these remarks at the moment passed unnoticed. No one asked what
Franchi had heard, all being intent about the cotillon and the choice
of partners.

"Well," burst out Orsetti, no longer able to resist the music (the
waltz had been turned into a galop), "I am sure I don't care if Nobili
or Ruspoli likes Nera. I shall not try to cut them out."

"No, no, not you, Orsetti! We know your taste does not lie in that
quarter. Yours is the domestic style, chaste and frigid!" cried
Malatesta, with a sardonic smile. There was a laugh. Malatesta was
so bad, even according to the code of the "golden youths," that he
compromised any lady by his attentions. Orsetti blushed crimson.

"Pardon me," he replied, much confused, "I must go; my partner is
looking daggers at me. Call up old Trenta and tell him what he has
to do." Orsetti rushes off to the next room, where Teresa Ottolini is
waiting for him, with a look of gentle reproach in her sleepy eyes,
where lies the hidden fire.

Meanwhile Cavaliere Trenta's white head, immaculate blue coat and gold
buttons--to which coat were attached several orders--had been seen
hovering about from chair to chair through the rooms. He attached
himself specially to elderly ladies, his contemporaries. To these he
repeated the identical high-flown compliments he had addressed to
them thirty years before, in the court circle of the Duke of
Lucca--compliments such as elderly ladies love, though conscious all
the time of their absurd inappropriateness.

Like the dried-up rose-bud of one's youth, religiously preserved as a
relic, there is a faint flavor of youth and pleasure about them,
sweet still, as a remembrance of the past. "Always beautiful, always
amiable!" murmured the cavaliere, like a rhyme, a placid smile upon
his rosy face.

Summoned to the cabinet council held near the door, Trenta becomes
intensely interested. He weighs each detail, he decides every point
with the gravity of a judge: how the new figures are to be danced, and
with whom Baldassare is to lead--no one else could do it. He him