“How,” interrupted Fulvia, “has the Sultan shown 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 Pagodas 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?”