f I die for it. Who laughed?
Mascari, didst thou laugh?"

"I, your Excellency,--I laugh?"

"It sounded behind me," said the Prince, gazing round.

CHAPTER IX.

It was the day on which Zicci had told Glyndon that he should ask for
his decision in respect to Isabel,--the third day since their last
meeting. The Englishman could not come to a resolution. Ambition,
hitherto the leading passion of his soul, could not yet be silenced by
love, and that love, such as it was, unreturned, beset by suspicions and
doubts which vanished in the presence of Isabel, and returned when her
bright face shone on his eyes no more, for les absents ont toujours
tort. Perhaps had he been quite alone, his feelings of honor, of
compassion, of virtue, might have triumphed, and he would have resolved
either to fly from Isabel or to offer the love that has no shame. But
Merton, cold, cautious, experienced, wary (such a nature has ever power
over the imaginative and the impassioned), was at hand to ridicule
the impression produced by Zicci, and the notion of delicacy and
honor towards an Italian actress. It is true that Merton, who was no
profligate, advised him to quit all pursuit of Isabel; but then the
advice was precisely of that character which, if it deadens love,
stimulates passion. By representing Isabel as one who sought to play a
part with him, he excused to Glyndon his own selfishness,--he enlisted
the Englishman's vanity and pride on the side of his pursuit. Why should
not he beat an adventuress at her own weapons?

Glyndon not only felt indisposed on that day to meet Zicci, but he felt
also a strong desire to defeat the mysterious prophecy that the meeting
should take place. Into this wish Merton readily entered. The young
men agreed to be absent from Naples that day. Early in the morning they
mounted their horses and took the road to Baiae. Glyndon left word at
his hotel that if Signor Zicci sought him, it was in the neighborhood
of the once celebrated watering-place of the ancients that he should be
found.

They passed by Isabel's house; but Glyndon resisted the temptation of
pausing there, and threading the grotto of Pausilippo, they wound by
a circuitous route back into the suburbs of the city, and took the
opposite road, which conducts to Portici and Pompeii. It was late at
noon when they arrived at the former of these places. Here they halted
to dine; for Merton had heard much of the excellence of the macaroni at
Port