“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 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.  Nobody 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 Nobili entered.  He was received with lofty courtesy by the countess.  Her manner implied a gentle protest.  Count Nobili 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.

Nobili’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.”