"you have betrayed me!"

"I assure your Excellency that the dice were properly arranged,--he
should have thrown twelve; but he is the Devil, and that's the end of
it."

"There is no time to be lost," said the Prince, quitting hold of his
parasite, who quietly resettled his cravat.

"My blood is up! I will win this girl, if 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