"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 with Nera Boccarini, and that he would
certainly marry her. Malatesta laughed, as is his way, then he swore
a little. Nobili would do no such thing, he declared, he would
answer for it. He had it on the best authority, he said, that of an
eye-witness." (Ah, cruel old Carlotta, you have made good your threat
of vengeance!) "An eye-witness had said that Nobili was in love
with some one else--some one who wrote to him; that they had been
watched--that he met some one secretly, and that by-and-by all the
city would know it, and that there would be a great scandal."

"And who may the lady be?" asked the cavaliere carelessly, raising