but artifices to dupe him,--the tool, perhaps, of a mountebank and his
mistress! Mistress,--ah, no! If ever maidenhood wrote its modest
characters externally, that pure eye, that noble forehead, that mien and
manner so ingenuous even in their coquetry, their pride, assured him
that Isabel was not the base and guilty thing he had dared for a moment
to suspect her. Lost in a labyrinth of doubts and surmises, Glyndon
turned on the practical sense of the sober Merton to assist and
enlighten him.

As may be well supposed, his friend listened to his account of his
interview with Zicci with a half-suppressed and ironical smile.

"Excellent, my dear friend! This Zicci is another Apollonius of Tyana,
--nothing less will satisfy you. What! is it possible that you are the
Clarence Glyndon of whose career such glowing hopes are entertained,--
you the man whose genius has been extolled by all the graybeards? Not a
boy turned out from a village school but would laugh you to scorn. And
so because Signor Zicci tells you that you will be a marvellously great
man if you revolt all your friends and blight all your prospects by
marrying a Neapolitan actress, you begin already to think of--
By Jupiter! I cannot talk patiently on the subject. Let the girl
alone,--that would be the proper plan; or else--"

"You talk very sensibly," interrupted Glyndon, "but you distract me. I
will go to Isabel's house; I will see her; I will judge for myself."

"That is certainly the best way to forget her," said Merton. Glyndon
seized his hat and sword, and was gone.