--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