That, however, has been satisfactorily explained, though I regret it.

Pray inform me why you designate him as a villain." Nino felt a thrill of sympathy for this man whom he had so long deceived.
"This man, sir," said she, in measured tones, "this low-born singer, who has palmed himself off on us as a respectable instructor in language, has the audacity to love your daughter.

For the sake of pressing his odious suit he has wormed himself into your house as into mine; he has sung beneath your daughter's window, and she has dropped letters to him,--love-letters, do you understand?
And now,"-- her voice rose more shrill and uncontrollable at every word, as she saw Lira's face turn white, and her anger gave desperate utterance to the lie,--"and now he has the effrontery to come to me--to me--to me of all women--and to confess his abominable passion for that pure angel, imploring me to assist him in bringing destruction upon her and you.
Oh, it is execrable, it is vile, it is hellish!" She pressed her hands to her temples as she stood, and glared at the two men.

The count was a strong man, easily petulant, but hard to move to real anger.

Though his face was white and his right hand clutched his crutch-stick, he still kept the mastery of himself.
"Is what you tell me true, madam ?" he asked in a strange voice.
"Before God, it is true!" she cried, desperately.
The old man looked at her for one moment, and then, as though he had been twenty years younger, he made at Nino, brandishing his stick to strike.