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.