partner."

"Now what could make Nobili object to dance with Nera Boccarini?"
Trenta asked himself, when Nobili 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.

Nobili, 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. Nobili 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 mass, every _fête_, in the shops, on the Corso, on
the ramparts.

Now, Nera, who had been dancing much with Prince Ruspoli, had heard