ng
like that! A love-scene in public! Once, indeed, I remember, on one
occasion, when her highness Paulina threw herself into the arms of his
serene highness--"

"Have you heard the news?" asked Baldassare, interrupting him.

He dreaded a long tirade from the old chamberlain on the subject
of his court reminiscences; besides, Baldassare was bursting with a
startling piece of intelligence as yet evidently unknown to Trenta.

"News!--no," answered the cavaliere, contemptuously. "I dare say it is
some lie. You have, I am sorry to say, Baldassare, all the faults of a
person new to society; you believe every thing."

Baldassare eyed the cavaliere defiantly; but he pulled at his curled
mustache in silence.

The cavaliere stopped short, raised his head, and scanned him
attentively.

"Out with it, my boy, out with it, or it will choke you! I see you are
dying to tell me!"

"Not at all, cavaliere," replied Baldassare, with assumed
indifference; "only I must say that I believe you are the only person
in Lucca who has not heard it."

"Heard what?" demanded Trenta, angrily.

Baldassare knew the cavaliere's weak point; he delighted to tease him.
Trenta considered himself, and was generally considered by others, as
a universal news-monger; it was a habit that had remained to him
from his former life at court. From the time of Polonius downward a
court-chamberlain has always been a news-monger.

"Heard? Why, the news--the great news," Baldassare spoke in the
same jeering tone. He drew himself up, affecting to look over the
cavaliere's head as he bent on his stick before him.

"Go on," retorted the cavaliere, doggedly.

"How strange you have not heard any thing!" Trenta now looked so
enraged, Baldassare thought it was time to leave off bantering him.
"Well, then, cavaliere, since you really appear to be ignorant, I will
tell you. After you left the Orsetti ball, Malatesta asked me and the
other young men of their set to supper at the Universo Hotel."

"Mercy on us!" ejaculated the cavaliere, who was now thoroughly
irritated, "you consider yourself one of _their set_, do you? I
congratulate you, young man. This is news to me."

"Certainly, cavaliere, if you ask me, I do consider myself one of
their set."

The cavaliere shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

"We talked of the accident," continued Baldassare, affecting not to
notice his sneers, "and we talked of Nobili. Many said, as you
do, that Nobili is in love w