Selim passed the rest of the day, as he had done the preceding night, fluctuating between hope and fear. Nothing is truer, than that lovers have an instinct: if their mistress be unfaithful, they are seized with an horror much like to that, which animals feel at the approach of bad weather. The suspicious lover is a cat, whose ear itches in cloudy weather. Animals and lovers have this property also in common, that domestic animals lose this instinct, and that it grows dull in lovers, when they are converted into husbands. The hours seemed very tedious to Selim, he look'd a hundred times on his watch: infine the fatal moment came, and the courtier went to visit his mistress. It was late, but as he had admission at all hours, Fulvia's appartment was opened for him----"I had given you over," said she, "and I went to bed with a swimming in my head, which I owe to the impatience you have thrown me into"----"Madam," answered Selim, "business and respect have detained me with the Sultan; and since I parted from you, I have not been master of myself one moment." "And for my part," replied Fulvia, "I have been in a dreadful humour. How! two whole days without seeing you."--"You know," answered Selim, "what my rank obliges me to: and let the favour of the great appear ever so fixed"----"How," interrupted Fulvia, "has the Sultan shewn you any coldness? Has he forgot your services? Selim, you are pensive, you do not answer me.----Alas! if you love me, of what avail is the prince's good or bad reception to your happiness. It is not in his eyes, it is in mine, 'tis in my arms that you are to seek it." Selim listened attentively to this discourse, examined the countenance of his mistress, and in its motions sought that character of truth, in which a person is not deceived, and which is impossible to counterfeit well: when I say impossible, I mean to us men: for Fulvia was so perfectly composed, that Selim began to blame himself for having suspected her, when Mangogul entered the room. Fulvia was silent in an instant, Selim trembled; and the Toy said: "In vain does my lady make pilgrimages to all the Pagoda's of Congo, she will have no children; for reasons well known to me, who am her Toy.----" At this declaration a deadly paleness seized Selim: he attempted to rise, but his trembling knees failed him, and he fell back into his seat. The invisible Sultan step'd up to him, and whispered in his ear: "Have you enough?" "Alas! Prince," replied the melancholic Selim, "why did I not follow the advice of Mirzoza; and the misgivings of my own heart? My happiness is eclipsed, I am a lost man: I die, if her Toy does not speak; if it does, I am a dead man: let it speak out however. I expect frightful intelligences; but I fear them less than I hate the state of perplexity, in which I am.----"