“Ah! canaglia!” muttered the cavaliere, “there is no teaching you.  You will never be a gentleman.”

Baldassare was dumbfounded.  He had not a word to reply.

“Count”—­and the old chamberlain, utterly disregarding the dismay of poor Adonis, who never clearly understood what he had done to deserve such severity, now addressed himself to Marescotti—­“will you be visible to-morrow after breakfast?  If so, I shall have the honor of calling on you.”

“With pleasure,” was the count’s reply.

Enrica stood apart.  She had not spoken one word since the disappearance of the sonnet—­that sonnet which would have told her of her future; for had not Marescotti, by some occult power, read her secret?  Alas! too, was she not about to reenter her gloomy home without catching so much as a glimpse of Nobili?  Count Marescotti had no opportunity of saying a word to Enrica that was not audible to all.  He did venture to ask her if she would be present next evening, if he joined the marchesa’s rubber?  Before she could reply, Trenta had hastily answered for her, that “he would settle all that with the count when they met in the morning.”  So, standing in the street, they parted.  Count Marescotti sought in vain for one last glance from Enrica.  When he turned round to look for Baldassare, Baldassare had disappeared.

CHAPTER IV.

COUNT NOBILI.

When Nobili rushed home through the dark streets from the Countess Orsetti’s ball, he shut himself up in his own particular room, threw himself on a divan, and tried to collect his thoughts.  At first he was only conscious of one overwhelming feeling—­a feeling of intense joy that Nera Boccarina was alive.  The unspeakable horror he had felt, as she lay stretched out on the floor before him, had stupefied him.  If she had died?—­As the horrible question rose up within him, his blood froze in his veins.  But she was not dead—­nay, if the report of Madame Orsetti was to be trusted, she was in no danger of dying.

“Thank God!—­thank God!” Then, as the quiet of the night and the solitude of his own room gradually restored his scattered senses, Nobili recalled her, not only in the moment of danger, as she lay death-like, motionless, but as she stood before him lit up by the rosy shadow of the silken curtains.  Was it an enchantment?  Had he been under a spell?  Was Nera fiend or angel?  As he asked himself these questions, again her wondrous eyes shone upon him like stars; again the rhythm of that fatal waltz struck upon his ears soft and liquid as the fall of oars upon the smooth bosom of an inland lake, bathed in the mellow light of sunset.

What had he done?  He had kissed her—­her lips had clung to his; her fingers had linked themselves in his grasp; her eyes—­ah!—­those eyes had told him that she loved him.  Loved him!—­why not?