"I wish n.o.bili were here all the same," replied Orsetti. "If he does not come soon, we must select his partner for him. Whom is he to have?"

"Oh! Nera Boccarini, of course," responded two or three voices, amid a general t.i.tter.

"I don't think n.o.bili cares a straw about Nera," put in the languid Franchi, drawling out his words. "I have heard quite another story about n.o.bili. 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 n.o.bili, my word upon _that_--there are too many stories about her."

But these remarks at the moment pa.s.sed 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 n.o.bili 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 b.u.t.tons--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 Balda.s.sare is to lead--no one else could do it. He himself would marshal the dances.

The double orchestra now play as if they were trying to drown each other. Half a dozen rooms are full of dancers. The matrons, and older men, have subsided into whist up-stairs. All the ladies have found partners; there is not a single wall-flower.

Nothing could exceed the stately propriety of the ball. It was a grand and stately gathering. n.o.body but Nera Boccarini was natural. "To save appearances" is the social law. "Do what you like, but save appearances." A dignified hypocrisy none disobey. These men and women, with the historic names, dare not show each other what they are. There was no flirting, no romping, no loud laughter; not a loud word--no telltale glances, no sitting in corners. It was a pose throughout. Men bowed ceremoniously, and addressed as strangers ladies with whom they spent every evening. Husbands devoted themselves to wives whom they never saw but in public. Innocence _may_ betray itself, _seems_ to betray itself--guilt never. Guilt is cautious.

At this moment Count n.o.bili entered. He was received with lofty courtesy by the countess. Her manner implied a gentle protest. Count n.o.bili was a banker's son; his mother was not--_nee_--any thing. Still he was welcome. She graciously bent her head, on which a tiara of diamonds glittered--in acknowledgment of his compliments on the brilliancy of her ball.

n.o.bili's address was frank and manly. There was an ease and freedom about him that contrasted favorably with the effeminate appearance and affected manners of the _jeunesse doree_. His voice, too, was a pleasant voice, and gave a value to all he said. A sunny smile lighted up his fair-complexioned face, the face old Carlotta had called "lucky."

"You are very late," the countess had said, with the slightest tone of annoyance in her voice--fanning herself languidly as she spoke. "My son has been looking for you."

"It has been my loss, Signora Contessa," replied n.o.bili, bowing.

"Pardon me. I was delayed. With your permission, I will find your son." He bowed again, then walked on into the dancing-rooms beyond.

n.o.bili had come late. "Why should he go at all?" he had asked himself, sighing, as he sat at home, smoking a solitary cigar. "What was the Orsetti ball, or any other ball, to him, when Enrica was not there?"

Nevertheless, he did dress, and he did go, telling himself, however, that he was simply fulfilling a social duty by so doing. Now that he is here, standing in the ballroom, the incense of the flowers in his nostrils, the music thrilling in his ear--now that flashing eyes, flushed cheeks, graceful forms palpitating with the fury of the dance--and hands with clasping fingers, are turned toward him--does he still feel regretful--sad? Not in the least.

No sooner had he arrived than he found himself the object of a species of ovation. This put him into the highest possible spirits. It was most gratifying. He could not possibly do less than return these salutations with the same warmth with which they were offered.

Not that Count n.o.bili acknowledged any inferiority to those among whom he moved as an equal. Count n.o.bili held that, in New Italy, every man is a gentleman who is well educated and well mannered. As to the language the Marchesa Guinigi used about him, he shook with laughter whenever it was mentioned.

So it fell out that, before he had arrived many minutes, the remembrance of Enrica died out, and n.o.bili flung himself into the spirit of the ball with all the ardor of his nature.

"Why did you come so late, n.o.bili?" asked Orsetti, turning his head, and speaking in the pause of a waltz with Luisa Bernardini. "You must go at once and talk to Trenta about the cotillon."

"Well, n.o.bili, you gave us a splendid entertainment for the festival,"

said Franchi. "Per Dio! there were no women to trouble us."

"No women!" exclaimed Civilla--"that was the only fault. Divine woman!--Otherwise it was superb. Who has been ill-treating you, Franchi, to make you so savage?"

Franchi put up his eye-gla.s.s and stared at him.

"When there is good wine, I prefer to drink it without women. They distract me."

"Never saw such a reception in Lucca," said Count Malatesta; "never drank such wine. Go on, caro mio, go on, and prosper. We will all support you, but we cannot imitate you."

n.o.bili, pa.s.sing on quickly, nearly ran over Cavaliere Trenta. He was in the act of making a profound obeisance, as he handed an ice to one of his contemporaries.

"Ah, youth! youth!" exclaimed poor Trenta, softly, with difficulty recovering his equilibrium by the help of his stick.--"Never mind, Count n.o.bili, don't apologize; I can bear any thing from a young man who celebrates the festival of the Holy Countenance with such magnificence. Per Bacco! you are the best Lucchese in Lucca. I have seen nothing like it since the duke left. My son, it was worthy of the palace you inhabit."

Ah! could the marchesa have heard this, she would never have spoken to Trenta again!

"You gratify me exceedingly, cavaliere," replied n.o.bili, really pleased at the old man's praise. "I desire, as far as I can, to become Lucchese at heart. Why should not the festivals of New Italy exceed those of the old days? At least, I shall do my best that it be so."

"Eh? eh?" replied Trenta, rubbing his nose with a doubtful expression; "difficult--very difficult. In the old days, my young friend, society was a system. Each sovereign was the centre of a permanent court circle. There were many sovereigns and many circles--many purses, too, to pay the expenses of each circle. Now it is all hap-hazard; no money, no court, no king."

"No king?" exclaimed n.o.bili, with surprise.

"I beg pardon, count," answered the urbane Trenta, remembering n.o.bili's liberal politics--"I mean no society. Society, as a system, has ceased to exist in Italy. But we must think of the cotillon. It is now twelve o'clock. There will be supper. Then we must soon begin.

You, count, are to dance with Nera Boccarini. You came so late we were obliged to arrange it for you."

n.o.bili colored crimson.

"Does the lady--does Nera Boccarini know this?" he asked, and as he asked his color heightened.

"Well, I cannot tell you, but I presume she does. Count Orsetti will have told her. The cotillon was settled early. You have no objection to dance with her, I presume?"

"None--none in the world. Why should I?" replied n.o.bili, hastily (now the color of his cheeks had grown crimson). "Only--only I might not have selected her." The cavaliere looked up at him with evident surprise. "Am I obliged to dance the cotillon at all, cavaliere?"

added n.o.bili, more and more confused. "Can't I sit out?"

"Oh, impossible--simply impossible!" cried Trenta, authoritatively.

"Every couple is arranged. Not a man could fill your place; the whole thing would be a failure."

"I am sorry," answered n.o.bili, in a low voice--"sorry all the same."

"Now go, and find your partner," said Trenta, not heeding this little speech. "I am about to have the chairs arranged. Go and find your partner."

"Now what could make n.o.bili object to dance with Nera Boccarini?"

Trenta asked himself, when n.o.bili was gone, striking his stick loudly on the floor, as a sign for the music to cease.

There was an instant silence. The gentlemen handed the ladies to a long gallery, the last of the suite of the rooms on the ground-floor.

Here a buffet was arranged. The musicians also were refreshed with good wine and liquors, before the arduous labors of the cotillon commenced. No brilliant cotillon ends before 8 A.M.; then there is breakfast and driving home by daylight at ten o'clock.

n.o.bili, his cheeks still tingling, felt that the moment had come when he must seek his partner. It would be difficult to define the contending feelings that made him reluctant to do so. Nera Boccarini had taken no pains to conceal how much she liked him. This was flattering; perhaps he felt it was too flattering. There was a determination about Nera, a power of eye and tongue, an exuberance of sensuous youth, that repelled while it allured him. It was like new wine, luscious to the taste, but strong and heavy. New wine is very intoxicating. n.o.bili loved Enrica. At that moment every woman that did not in some subtile way remind him of her, was distasteful to him.

Now, it was not possible to find two women more utterly different, more perfect contrasts, than the dreamy, reserved, tender Enrica--so seldom seen, so little known--and the joyous, outspoken Nera--to be met with at every ma.s.s, every _fete_, in the shops, on the Corso, on the ramparts.

Now, Nera, who had been dancing much with Prince Ruspoli, had heard from him that n.o.bili was selected as her partner in the cotillon.