The hour of the feast arrived,—­the guests assembled.  There were the flower of the Neapolitan seignorie, the descendants of the Norman, the Teuton, the Goth; for Naples had then a nobility, but derived it from the North, which has indeed been the Nutrix Leonum,—­the nurse of the lion-hearted chivalry of the world.

Last of the guests came Zanoni; and the crowd gave way as the dazzling foreigner moved along to the lord of the palace.  The prince greeted him with a meaning smile, to which Zanoni answered by a whisper, “He who plays with loaded dice does not always win.”

The prince bit his lip, and Zanoni, passing on, seemed deep in conversation with the fawning Mascari.

“Who is the prince’s heir?” asked the guest.

“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 then, the feast took place not long after mid-day.  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 amongst 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.  There were present two or three of the brilliant Frenchmen of the old regime, who had already emigrated from the advancing Revolution; and their peculiar turn of thought and wit was well calculated for the meridian of a society that made the dolce far niente at once its philosophy and its faith.  The prince, however, was more silent than usual; and when he sought to rouse himself, his spirits were forced and exaggerated.  To the manners of his host, those of Zanoni afforded a striking contrast.  The bearing of this singular person was at all times characterised by a calm and polished ease, which was attributed by the courtiers to the long habit of society.