"By Jove!" exclaimed the cavaliere. "Never was I present at any thing like that! A love-scene in public! Once, indeed, I remember, on one occasion, when her highness Paulina threw herself into the arms of his serene highness—"
"Have you heard the news?" asked Baldassare, interrupting him.
He dreaded a long tirade from the old chamberlain on the subject of his court reminiscences; besides, Baldassare was bursting with a startling piece of intelligence as yet evidently unknown to Trenta.
"News!—no," answered the cavaliere, contemptuously. "I dare say it is some lie. You have, I am sorry to say, Baldassare, all the faults of a person new to society; you believe every thing."
Baldassare eyed the cavaliere defiantly; but he pulled at his curled mustache in silence.
The cavaliere stopped short, raised his head, and scanned him attentively.
"Out with it, my boy, out with it, or it will choke you! I see you are dying to tell me!"
"Not at all, cavaliere," replied Baldassare, with assumed indifference; "only I must say that I believe you are the only person in Lucca who has not heard it."
"Heard what?" demanded Trenta, angrily.
Baldassare knew the cavaliere's weak point; he delighted to tease him. Trenta considered himself, and was generally considered by others, as a universal news-monger; it was a habit that had remained to him from his former life at court. From the time of Polonius downward a court-chamberlain has always been a news-monger.