Several of the party have told me since that on looking at Zicci they felt their blood rise and their hands wander to their sword-hilts.

There seemed in the icy smile a very charm to wound vanity and provoke rage.

It was at this moment that the Prince came up to me, and, passing his arm into mine, led me a little apart from the rest he had certainly indulged in the same excess as ourselves, but it did not produce the same effect of noisy excitement.

There was, on the contrary a certain cold arrogance and supercilious scorn in his bearing and language, which, even while affecting so much caressing courtesy towards me, roused my self-love against him.

He seemed as if Zicci had infected him, and that in imitating the manner of his guest he surpassed the original, he rallied me on some court gossip which had honored my name by associating it with a certain beautiful and distinguished Sicilian lady, and affected to treat with contempt that which, had it been true, I should have regarded as a boast.
He spoke, indeed, as if he himself had gathered all the flowers of Naples, and left us foreigners only the gleanings he had scorned; at this my natural and national gallantry was piqued, and I retorted by some sarcasms that I should certainly have spared had my blood been cooler.