The Prince greeted him with a meaning smile, to which Zicci answered by a whisper: "He who plays with loaded dice does not always win." The Prince bit his lip; and Zicci, passing on, seemed deep in conversation with the fawning Mascari.
"Who is the Prince's heir ?" asked the Corsican.
"A distant relation on the mother's side; with his Excellency dies the male line." "Is the heir present at our host's banquet ?" "No; they are not friends." "No matter; he will be here to-morrow!" Mascari stared in surprise; but the signal for the banquet was given, and the guests were marshalled to the board.

As was the custom, the feast took place at midday.

It was a long oval hall, the whole of one side opening by a marble colonnade upon a court or garden, in which the eye rested gratefully upon cool fountains and statues of whitest marble, half sheltered by orange-trees.

Every art that luxury could invent to give freshness and coolness to the languid and breezeless heat of the day without (a day on which the breath of the sirocco was abroad) had been called into existence.

Artificial currents of air through invisible tubes, silken blinds waving to and fro as if to cheat the senses into the belief of an April wind, and miniature jets d'eau in each corner of the apartment gave to the Italians the same sense of exhilaration and comfort (if I may use the word) which the well-drawn curtains and the blazing hearth afford to the children of colder climes.
The conversation was somewhat more lively and intellectual than is common among the languid pleasure-hunters of the South; for the Prince, himself accomplished, sought his acquaintance not only amongst the beaux esprits of his own country, but amongst the gay foreigners who adorned and relieved the monotony of the Neapolitan circles.