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_ THE servant picked up a lantern and signed to Tony to follow her.
They climbed a squalid stairway of stone, felt their way along a
corridor, and entered a tall vaulted room feebly lit by an oil-lamp
hung from the painted ceiling. Tony discerned traces of former
splendour in his surroundings, but he had no time to examine them,
for a figure started up at his approach and in the dim light he
recognized the girl who was the cause of all his troubles.
She sprang toward him with outstretched hands, but as he advanced
her face changed and she shrank back abashed.
"This is a misunderstanding--a dreadful misunderstanding," she cried
out in her pretty broken English. "Oh, how does it happen that you
are here?"
"Through no choice of my own, madam, I assure you!" retorted Tony,
not over-pleased by his reception.
"But why--how--how did you make this unfortunate mistake?"
"Why, madam, if you'll excuse my candour, I think the mistake was
yours--"
"Mine?"--"in sending me a letter--"
"_ You_--a letter?"--"by a simpleton of a lad, who must needs hand
it to me under your father's very nose--"
The girl broke in on him with a cry. "What! It was _you_ who
received my letter?" She swept round on the little maid-servant and
submerged her under a flood of Venetian. The latter volleyed back in
the same jargon, and as she did so, Tony's astonished eye detected
in her the doubleted page who had handed him the letter in Saint
Mark's.
"What!" he cried, "the lad was this girl in disguise?"
Polixena broke off with an irrepressible smile; but her face clouded
instantly and she returned to the charge.
"This wicked, careless girl--she has ruined me, she will be my
undoing! Oh, sir, how can I make you understand? The letter was not
intended for you--it was meant for the English Ambassador, an old
friend of my mother's, from whom I hoped to obtain assistance--oh,
how can I ever excuse myself to you?"
"No excuses are needed, madam," said Tony, bowing; "though I am
surprised, I own, that any one should mistake me for an ambassador."
Here a wave of mirth again overran Polixena's face. "Oh, sir, you
must pardon my poor girl's mistake. She heard you speaking English,
and--and--I had told her to hand the letter to the handsomest
foreigner in the church." Tony bowed again, more profoundly. "The
English Ambassador," Polixena added simply, "is a very handsome
man."
"I wish, madam, I were a better proxy!"
She echoed his laugh, and then clapped her hands together with a
look of anguish. "Fool that I am! How can I jest at such a moment? I
am in dreadful trouble, and now perhaps I have brought trouble on
you also--Oh, my father! I hear my father coming!" She turned pale
and leaned tremblingly upon the little servant.
Footsteps and loud voices were in fact heard outside, and a moment
later the red-stockinged Senator stalked into the room attended by
half-a-dozen of the magnificoes whom Tony had seen abroad in the
square. At sight of him, all clapped hands to their swords and burst
into furious outcries; and though their jargon was unintelligible to
the young man, their tones and gestures made their meaning
unpleasantly plain. The Senator, with a start of anger, first flung
himself on the intruder; then, snatched back by his companions,
turned wrathfully on his daughter, who, at his feet, with
outstretched arms and streaming face, pleaded her cause with all the
eloquence of young distress. Meanwhile the other nobles gesticulated
vehemently among themselves, and one, a truculent-looking personage
in ruff and Spanish cape, stalked apart, keeping a jealous eye on
Tony. The latter was at his wit's end how to comport himself, for
the lovely Polixena's tears had quite drowned her few words of
English, and beyond guessing that the magnificoes meant him a
mischief he had no notion what they would be at.
At this point, luckily, his friend Count Rialto suddenly broke in on
the scene, and was at once assailed by all the tongues in the room.
He pulled a long face at sight of Tony, but signed to the young man
to be silent, and addressed himself earnestly to the Senator. The
latter, at first, would not draw breath to hear him; but presently,
sobering, he walked apart with the Count, and the two conversed
together out of earshot.
"My dear sir," said the Count, at length turning to Tony with a
perturbed countenance, "it is as I feared, and you are fallen into a
great misfortune."
"A great misfortune! A great trap, I call it!" shouted Tony, whose
blood, by this time, was boiling; but as he uttered the word the
beautiful Polixena cast such a stricken look on him that he blushed
up to the forehead.
"Be careful," said the Count, in a low tone. "Though his
Illustriousness does not speak your language, he understands a few
words of it, and--"
"So much the better!" broke in Tony; "I hope he will understand me
if I ask him in plain English what is his grievance against me."
The Senator, at this, would have burst forth again; but the Count,
stepping between, answered quickly: "His grievance against you is
that you have been detected in secret correspondence with his
daughter, the most noble Polixena Cador, the betrothed bride of this
gentleman, the most illustrious Marquess Zanipolo--" and he waved a
deferential hand at the frowning hidalgo of the cape and ruff.
"Sir," said Tony, "if that is the extent of my offence, it lies with
the young lady to set me free, since by her own avowal--" but here
he stopped short, for, to his surprise, Polixena shot a terrified
glance at him.
"Sir," interposed the Count, "we are not accustomed in Venice to
take shelter behind a lady's reputation."
"No more are we in Salem," retorted Tony in a white heat. "I was
merely about to remark that, by the young lady's avowal, she has
never seen me before."
Polixena's eyes signalled her gratitude, and he felt he would have
died to defend her.
The Count translated his statement, and presently pursued: "His
Illustriousness observes that, in that case, his daughter's
misconduct has been all the more reprehensible."
"Her misconduct? Of what does he accuse her?"
"Of sending you, just now, in the church of Saint Mark's, a letter
which you were seen to read openly and thrust in your bosom. The
incident was witnessed by his Illustriousness the Marquess Zanipolo,
who, in consequence, has already repudiated his unhappy bride."
Tony stared contemptuously at the black Marquess. "If his
Illustriousness is so lacking in gallantry as to repudiate a lady on
so trivial a pretext, it is he and not I who should be the object of
her father's resentment."
"That, my dear young gentleman, is hardly for you to decide. Your
only excuse being your ignorance of our customs, it is scarcely for
you to advise us how to behave in matters of punctilio."
It seemed to Tony as though the Count were going over to his
enemies, and the thought sharpened his retort.
"I had supposed," said he, "that men of sense had much the same
behaviour in all countries, and that, here as elsewhere, a gentleman
would be taken at his word. I solemnly affirm that the letter I was
seen to read reflects in no way on the honour of this young lady,
and has in fact nothing to do with what you suppose."
As he had himself no notion what the letter was about, this was as
far as he dared commit himself.
There was another brief consultation in the opposing camp, and the
Count then said:--"We all know, sir, that a gentleman is obliged to
meet certain enquiries by a denial; but you have at your command the
means of immediately clearing the lady. Will you show the letter to
her father?"
There was a perceptible pause, during which Tony, while appearing to
look straight before him, managed to deflect an interrogatory glance
toward Polixena. Her reply was a faint negative motion, accompanied
by unmistakable signs of apprehension.
"Poor girl!" he thought, "she is in a worse case than I imagined,
and whatever happens I must keep her secret."
He turned to the Senator with a deep bow. "I am not," said he, "in
the habit of showing my private correspondence to strangers."
The Count interpreted these words, and Donna Polixena's father,
dashing his hand on his hilt, broke into furious invective, while
the Marquess continued to nurse his outraged feelings aloof.
The Count shook his head funereally. "Alas, sir, it is as I feared.
This is not the first time that youth and propinquity have led to
fatal imprudence. But I need hardly, I suppose, point out the
obligation incumbent upon you as a man of honour."
Tony stared at him haughtily, with a look which was meant for the
Marquess. "And what obligation is that?"
"To repair the wrong you have done--in other words, to marry the
lady."
Polixena at this burst into tears, and Tony said to himself: "Why in
heaven does she not bid me show the letter?" Then he remembered that
it had no superscription, and that the words it contained, supposing
them to have been addressed to himself, were hardly of a nature to
disarm suspicion. The sense of the girl's grave plight effaced all
thought of his own risk, but the Count's last words struck him as so
preposterous that he could not repress a smile.
"I cannot flatter myself," said he, "that the lady would welcome
this solution."
The Count's manner became increasingly ceremonious. "Such modesty,"
he said, "becomes your youth and inexperience; but even if it were
justified it would scarcely alter the case, as it is always assumed
in this country that a young lady wishes to marry the man whom her
father has selected."
"But I understood just now," Tony interposed, "that the gentleman
yonder was in that enviable position."
"So he was, till circumstances obliged him to waive the privilege in
your favour."
"He does me too much honour; but if a deep sense of my unworthiness
obliges me to decline--"
"You are still," interrupted the Count, "labouring under a
misapprehension. Your choice in the matter is no more to be
consulted than the lady's. Not to put too fine a point on it, it is
necessary that you should marry her within the hour."
Tony, at this, for all his spirit, felt the blood run thin in his
veins. He looked in silence at the threatening visages between
himself and the door, stole a side-glance at the high barred windows
of the apartment, and then turned to Polixena, who had fallen
sobbing at her father's feet.
"And if I refuse?" said he.
The Count made a significant gesture. "I am not so foolish as to
threaten a man of your mettle. But perhaps you are unaware what the
consequences would be to the lady."
Polixena, at this, struggling to her feet, addressed a few
impassioned words to the Count and her father; but the latter put
her aside with an obdurate gesture.
The Count turned to Tony. "The lady herself pleads for you--at what
cost you do not guess--but as you see it is vain. In an hour his
Illustriousness's chaplain will be here. Meanwhile his
Illustriousness consents to leave you in the custody of your
betrothed."
He stepped back, and the other gentlemen, bowing with deep ceremony
to Tony, stalked out one by one from the room. Tony heard the key
turn in the lock, and found himself alone with Polixena. _
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