Zoe obeyed submissively, and Armitage went with them, trying to imbue Wylie with his own belief that Kalliopé had really told the truth at last, and they had missed a great opportunity by not recognising the fact and encouraging her to go further. When their voices had died away, Maurice turned to his wife, who was gazing straight before her.
“Eirene, I cannot imagine why you said nothing last night of seeing Kalliopé on the stairs. You can’t really mean that you thought at the time she had a child in her arms.”
“Why not? I thought, as the man Logofet did, that she was going to relieve us of her presence and that child’s, and I was not sorry.”
“But when you heard Harold was lost, it must have struck you——”
“Oh, my dear Maurice, don’t cross-examine me as you did that wretched girl! It did strike me, of course.”
“Then why didn’t you tell us? I can’t understand why you should have kept back a fact like that.”
“No, I suppose you could not understand. The reason is not one that would enter a man’s mind, very likely. Oh, Maurice, does it really want explaining? Zoe has her child, and I have lost mine; isn’t that enough?”
“But she has not got hers—that’s just the trouble.”
“No, but she has had him, and I—I thought, ‘Why should she not know for a little what I have to bear always?’”
“But, Eirene—Zoe has never done you any harm, has always been the kindest of sisters to you.”
“I told you you would not understand. You can go and play with Harold, and talk of adopting Janni. I can’t forget my own child.”
“Forget him—do you imagine I ever forget him? Eirene, why will you always behave as if the loss was yours alone? God knows it was bad enough for you, and I have tried never to make it worse by any word of mine. But you can’t think anything will ever make up to me for Con.”
“It is different with you. You only think of him as the child you played with, but to me he was the hope of the future, the heir of the Empire, before whom that upstart Romanos would fall headlong. I should have been content for your life and mine to be uneventful, even unsuccessful, if it had meant that he would one day wear the diadem in Hagion Pneuma. But now—what do you think it means to me to go through this farce of empire-building in a country town, visiting hospitals and schools and being gracious to a set of schismatics, with the knowledge that even when Romanos is expelled, no child of yours and mine will take his place? But you don’t see it. I tell you, that girl Kalliopé would understand what I feel better than you do!”
“Ah, poor wretched girl!” said Maurice thoughtfully. “We must see that the letter we were discussing last night is sent to Romanos, to say that his son is probably here.”
Eirene sprang up from her chair, her eyes blazing. “That is you all over, Maurice! You can think of the usurper even when you are blaming your wife for not showing sufficient consideration for your sister. You may be a saint, as Zoe thinks, but you are not the man for Emathia. Do you imagine that if Romanos had been in your place, Kalliopé would have left his presence without being made to tell what she knows?”
“If I am not the man for Emathia, at least it was not my own choice that took me there,” said Maurice. “But if you are right, Kalliopé at any rate has reason to be thankful I am here.”
It was without any realisation of her good fortune in this respect that Danaë repaired to the nursery on her dismissal from the inquiry. She entered the room with a certain hesitation, which was immediately justified, for Linton rose in defence of Janni like a ruffled hen.
“You dare to come back here, you wicked girl?” she cried. “Not a step do you set in my nursery, or my name isn’t Sophia Linton. And as for letting you lay a finger on the blessed lamb that’s left—why, I would sooner trust one of the girls out of the kitchen! You be off, and don’t show your face again this side of the door, or I’ll teach you something!”
Danaë might have pleaded Wylie’s order as a reason for remaining, but her fiery spirit was roused. She went straight to her own room, and took up the bundle she had prepared the night before. She would go and search for Harold herself, and when she brought him back, they would be forced to acknowledge how unjustly they had judged her. She went down the stairs, crossed the great courtyard, and would have passed out at the gate, but the man on guard there barred her way with his rifle.
“Not this way just yet, my dear,” he said with a grin. “The back-door is more your style, isn’t it?”
“Let me pass!” said Danaë. He laughed in her face.
“Got another baby in that bundle, Lady Stealer-of-Children?”
“Will you let me pass?” she cried, furious.
He became serious. “No, my girl, I won’t. You’re not to be allowed to leave the Konak. We are too fond of you to let you slip away like this,” with a return to jocularity. “When we can exchange you for our little lord, then you may go, and welcome. Back with you!”
She looked at him for a moment as though gauging the possibilities of a struggle, and he bore the scrutiny with a display of white teeth and a pleasing consciousness of the armoury of weapons in his belt. Then she turned without a word, and marched in her stateliest manner across the courtyard. Once back in her own room, she took off the good clothes which she had bought out of her wages during her sojourn at Klaustra and her coin-decorated cap, and put on the worn and dirty garments in which she had come from Therma. Unfastening her hair, she deliberately rearranged it in one long thick plait and one ridiculously short one, and twisted a handkerchief round her head. Then she walked down the stairs again and into the kitchen, and presented herself before the astonished eyes of Artemisia and her underlings.
“I am come to work here,” she said.
Amazement checked Artemisia’s utterance for a moment, but she made a gallant attempt to rise to the occasion. “Well, this is an honour, and an unexpected one!” she remarked slowly. “The gracious Lady Zoe did not tell me she was going to give me more help, or I should have asked her to send anyone rather than a child-stealer from the islands. Oh, don’t eat me, please, Lady Kalliopé! I am not a baby, you know.” A snigger from the underlings. “I suppose the Lady Zoe thought there were no children to steal down here. And you have come to work, have you? How sweetly kind of you, lady mine! But they don’t do any work in the islands, do they—except robbing guests and murdering them?”
“Let the islands alone,” said Danaë gruffly. “If you were a guest there, you would be safe even after saying that.”
“Until I had crossed the threshold, I suppose? Once I was outside I might expect a knife in my back. What are you girls laughing at?” with a change of subject disconcerting to the group of gigglers. “Don’t you see that the Lady Kalliopé has come to show us all how to work? Give her that bowl of onions, Sonya, and let us see how they peel them in the islands.”
After that, Danaë would have suffered tortures rather than resign the bowl of onions to anyone else. The tears ran down her cheeks, but she persisted in the task, and when it was over received an ironical compliment from Artemisia, and was set to clean saucepans. While this was being done, Linton appeared at the kitchen door, with rather a scared face.
“So that’s where you’ve got to, you naughty girl, giving me such a turn, thinking you’d made away with yourself, as you well might!” she cried, catching sight of Danaë. “What’s taken you down here I don’t know, but you come straight away upstairs again. My Lady says you can sit in your own room and have your meals there, and I’m to find you some needlework.”
Danaë raised her black eyes, sombre enough now, and looked straight at her. “I stay here,” she said.
“Oh, very well!” cried Linton, with suspicious readiness, “I’m sure I’ve got no objection. If Kalliopé prefers your company to mine, Artemisia, I hope you’re more flattered than I should be. You keep an eye on her, that’s all. Don’t let her give you the slip.”
“Not I, my most beloved Sofia,” responded Artemisia. “She’ll get a crack on the head with a rolling-pin if she tries it.”
“Ah, if only we had sent her straight down here when she first came, what a lot of trouble it would have saved!” lamented Linton. “You know how to manage her, you do.”
And she retired from the kitchen in a frame of mind that was almost cheerful, to assure her mistress that that bad girl Kalliopé was now where she belonged, and that it would do her a lot of good to be put back in her place after having so much notice taken of her. Zoe, discovering that the change was a voluntary one on Danaë’s part, was puzzled. Was it a kind of penance the girl was imposing on herself for her share in Harold’s disappearance, or was it more in the nature of an act of moral suicide? Danaë herself afforded her no help in deciding, for when they came across one another she met Zoe’s eager, entreating look with one of blank stolidity. From whatever motive she had chosen her present position, she was making full acquaintance with its disadvantages, for all the heaviest and most unpleasant tasks were by unanimous consent awarded to her. They were many, for the kitchen arrangements at the Konak were patriarchal, dinner being provided every day for the guards as well as for their superiors, and Artemisia had a sarcastic tongue and a heavy hand if everything was not done to her satisfaction. Danaë made no complaint, spoke to no one unless she was asked a question, and went through her work with a silent contempt for her surroundings which her associates found extremely galling. But in her own room at night she was preparing a suit of boy’s clothes, clad in which she might elude the vigilance of the guards and fulfil her purpose of escape. For the shirt, loose jacket, and heavy outer coat, her own clothes would do well enough, and the cap and long leggings were easy of manufacture. To make the linen kilt she had recourse to one of the sheets from her bed, cutting the other in two so that Linton’s eagle eye might not see that anything was wrong, and for a night or two she practised wearing the new garments, so as to accustom herself to walking in them.
Danaëhad been three or four days at her new work, conscientiously returning scorn with scorn, when one afternoon the sound of music drew the servants out into the courtyard. A band of gipsies with a dancing bear had obtained admittance, affording a welcome distraction to the suitors waiting their turn to be heard by Prince Theophanis, and Artemisia and her subordinates hastened to take part in the fun. Danaë alone remained in the kitchen, morosely determined to accept no lightening of the penalty she had imposed on herself, though the many-stringed fiddles of the gipsies sounded very pleasant in her ears, and she had a great curiosity to see what a bear was like. She stood with her back to the door, pounding corn, and trying to keep the great pestle from beating time to the music, which made her feet long to dance, and the soft tread of moccasined footsteps failed to reach her ears until, looking up suddenly, she found one of the gipsies close beside her. Before she could scream, he threw back his hooded cloak and revealed the features of Petros. She stared at him aghast.
“So you have come down in the world, my lady!” he observed genially. “But so much the better for me, for I might have found it difficult to speak to you upstairs.”
“What are you doing here? You should have been at Therma before this,” cried Danaë, finding her tongue.
“Without what I came for, my lady? Besides, the roads were not safe. I had to wait here for a day or two, and it has given me this second chance.”
“But what do you want?” she asked, bewildered.
“Why, the little lord, of course. Yourself too, lady, if you insist upon it, but the Lord Janni at any rate.”
“But you took the Lord Harold. You can’t want both!”
“Oh, can’t I?” Petros grinned. “The Lord Harold has a value of his own, my lady. I own that I meant at first to make him serve both purposes, but now you might sooner carry a pet dog through the streets of Czarigrad than a blue-eyed child through the ranks of Glafko’s police. He must stay where he is for the present, but you and I and the other can get through all right with the help of the gipsies. They know something about disguises.”
“So I see,” said Danaë absently, glancing at the skilful alterations made in his appearance by the dark dye on his face and the ferocious horns of his moustache. “Bring the Lord Harold back, and I will come at once.”
“Not so, lady. I have said I want both.”
“And I have said I will do nothing to help you until he is here.”
“Will you ruin your brother, my lady?”
“No, it is you who are ruining him, wasting your time here, and raising the country against you for no good.”
“That is for the Lord Romanos to say,” muttered Petros mysteriously. “But if I have to go to him at Therma without either child, who will bear the blame then, lady mine?”
“You!” cried Danaë. “As you will when the Lord Glafko has you up before him in a minute or two.”
She had been edging gradually sideways, so as to bring the large kitchen table between herself and him, and now she made a dash for the door. But before she reached it, his voice arrested her.
“Betray me if you like, my lady, but that will not restore the Lord Harold. He is where no one can find him, though the police have been closer to him than I am to you, and the gipsies will no more give him up than I would. If necessary they will kill him rather than that he should be discovered in their hands.”
“But you have confessed to me that the gipsies are hiding him!” cried Danaë triumphantly.
“True, lady, and you may tell it to the Lord Glafko. But when the gipsies swear that they have no knowledge of him, and the strictest search fails to discover him, is your word of such power that it will be believed in opposition to theirs?”
The hit was a shrewd one, and it told. All the misery of the loss of confidence of the last few days returned upon Danaë. No, her word would not be taken.
“Kalliopé!” Artemisia’s voice broke into her indecision from the courtyard. “Where are you, girl? Bring out that plate of honey cakes. The Tzigany says the bear likes them.”
She caught up the cakes from the table, but paused at the door. “Go to Therma, then, without the Lord Janni, for you shall not have him. And if any harm comes to the Lord Romanos by this delay, be sure he shall know who is to blame for it.”
She was out in the courtyard in a moment, and making for the stalwart form of Artemisia, whose presence would be an effectual protection against any further argument on the part of Petros. The performance having come to an end, and the gipsies reaped their reward of small coins, somebody had suggested that the bear also deserved something.
“Are you sure he likes them?” asked Artemisia doubtfully, with the plate in her hand. “I thought bears ate people and sheep.”
“Try him, lady; he would do anything for a honey cake,” said the leading gipsy. “If you knew how to hold it, he would dance for it.”
“It’s all very well to say ‘try him,’ but what if he prefers me to the cake?” The question was received with a chorus of dutiful laughter by Artemisia’s satellites.
“Ladies,” said the gipsy, “you seem to think this is an ordinary wild savage bear. I assure you that he is most civilised and polite. Far from eating human beings, he prefers honey cakes to any meat you could offer him. Now if the chief lady will throw one when I say the word——”
The bear opened his mouth at the word of command, and caught the cake which Artemisia threw. After that, amid screams and giggles, the kitchen-girls took their turn, until the cakes were gone. The gipsy smiled superior.
“Now, ladies, I hope you are satisfied. You should see this old fellow playing with the children—never a scratch nor a bite! And his kindness to a little cub we have got——”
“Why, where did you get a bear-cub at this time of the year?” asked a forester standing by.
“Found him in the woods, of course—eight or nine months old now, I suppose. Anyhow he’s there, and anyone who likes can come and see him. Does any lady or gentleman want a nice handsome young bear for a pet? We are open to an offer, for he scratches and bites like a little fiend—has to have a muzzle on whenever he sees company. Would the gracious Prince like to buy him, do you think? He would make a fine ornament to this courtyard, chained to a good strong pole in the middle.” Fresh screams, and vehement exclamations of dissent from the feminine part of the audience. “Well, you are not very encouraging, I must say, but if anyone can get me into the Prince’s presence, and he buys him, I can promise a handsome commission.”
The women-servants called down loud maledictions on anyone who might venture to influence the Prince in the desired direction, but Danaë was silent. When the gipsies and the bear moved towards the gateway, to give another performance for the benefit of the guards in their quarters, she followed in the crowd, and observed minutely the various words of command. Princess Theophanis, standing on the verandah of the Prince’s house, pointed her out to Armitage.
“That girl is absolutely heartless,” she said. “Look at her enjoying that wretched creature’s antics!”
“I should be inclined to believe that she hoped to slip outside with the gipsies, and so escape,” he said. “But I don’t think any of us really understand her yet.”
“At any rate, there will be no harm in warning the guard at the gate to be on the alert,” said Eirene, “since the Prince seems to think it is important to keep her here.”
A servant was summoned and took the message, and her safe custody assured, Danaë passed out of Armitage’s thoughts for an hour or two. Then, as he was passing the unused ground-floor rooms on the way to his own room in the dusk, a voice spoke to him out of a doorway. “Lord!” it said, and looking round, he saw a figure crouching against the door.
“Lord,” it said again, “were the caves where the gipsies live searched when the Lord Harold was lost?”
“Yes, that was one of the first places where the police went. We all thought of the gipsies, and the caves were searched most thoroughly. I’m afraid there’s not much hope in that direction, Kalliopé.”
“Lord, would you like to find the Lord Harold?”
“Like to find him? What are you thinking about? Of course I should!” cried Armitage indignantly.
“Well, lord, if you would like to discover him yourself, and with your own hands restore him to the Lady Zoe, will you go out shooting to-morrow, taking my cousin Sotīri as guide, and saying that you will be away all night?”
“Your cousin? I didn’t know you had one here. Who is he?”
“He is a very good boy, lord, who can walk far over the mountains. He will carry your gun and food, and show you good sport. Also he will guide you to where the Lord Harold is hidden.”
“Kalliopé!” said Armitage, grievously disappointed, “is it possible that you have known where he is all this time? If so, come with me at once to the Lady Zoe, and restore him to her yourself. You can’t think that I want the credit instead of you—especially at the price of two more days’ unhappiness for her. But no, I can’t believe you lied to me the other day.”
“No, lord, I spoke the truth, though you alone believed me. And I have known nothing till to-day, nor do I indeed know now. But I guess. If a great force of police went to the place, the people might kill the child or carry him farther away, but seeing only a Milordo and a boy, they will feel no fear. I will tell my cousin Sotīri all that I think, so that he may lead you. And if the child is not there, then the blame is mine and I am deceived. But if he is there——”
“If there’s a chance of his being there, it’s worth trying. When are we to start, and what is there to shoot?”
“You must start about mid-day, lord. Holy Vasili! I know not what there is to shoot. Wolves? bears?”
“I hope your cousin will be a better guide than you are,” said Armitage drily. “How am I to know what gun to take?”
“Lord, your wisdom is great, you know what it will be best to say. Only tell me, that Sotīri may say the same. Shall it be wolves?”
“Bears, I think. They haven’t begun their winter sleep yet, and their skins are better. On the whole, I think it will be enough if you say one particular bear.”
“Oh no, lord!” she cried in a panic for which Armitage could not account. “I will tell him bears. Then when you are ready, and waiting at the gate, will you call out loudly and angrily for Sotīri, and he will come?”
“Certainly I shall be very angry if he keeps me waiting,” said Armitage, with great gravity, and bidding her good-day, went on. His evening was a cheerless one, with Zoe and Wylie, both haggard with hope deferred, each trying to keep up for the sake of the other. As he had said, if there was the slightest chance of relieving their anxiety, it was worthwhile following up the slenderest clue. That Kalliopé believed she had hold of one was evident, but to him, remembering the close search that had been made already, the probability of success seemed but faint. And Danaë herself, now that she had taken the desperate step of enlisting Armitage’s support was little more hopeful. Petros was at present among the gipsies, and might be expected, since she had declined to help him in securing Janni, to have left them to-morrow on his way to Therma; Harold was also concealed among them, and in a hiding-place so cunningly contrived that the police had passed quite close to it without suspecting his presence. That was all she had to go upon—that, and the idea which had darted into her mind that afternoon, as she listened to the talk in the courtyard; an idea monstrous, incredible, but just possible.
Armitage was conscious of a disconcerting suspicion that he was a fool when he found himself at the gate the next day, laden with his gun, a thick coat, and a basket of provisions. He was quite certain that the man on guard thought him one.
“I am looking for a Greek boy who was coming with me, Gavril. Sotīri is his name. Have you seen him?”
“There are plenty of the young rascals about, lord, but I don’t know all their silly names. What should a Greek know of our mountains? Better take an honest Slav. I myself, if you would ask leave for me from the Lord Glafko——”
“That must be another day. The boy shall have his chance. He has promised to show me a bear. Sotīri!”
“Take care that he isn’t a brigand spy, lord, hired to lead you into an ambush. The ransom of a Milordo——”
“Well, if I am not back by this time to-morrow, you must come and look for me. Sotīri! I shall not wait any longer.”
“Here, lord, here!” cried a panting voice, and a handsome boy in Greek dress dashed across the courtyard. Hiskapotawas rolled up over one shoulder, but he seized the basket and Armitage’s gun. “My cousin kept me so long talking. Let me carry your coat too, lord. It can go over my other shoulder.”
“I will carry the basket, then. Be careful with the gun,” and Armitage passed out, followed by his henchman. They went through the streets of the town, exchanging greetings with the people they met, but Armitage noticed that Sotīri did not seem to be known personally to the Greeks who saluted him, for though his dress was a passport to their sympathies they looked curiously at his face. On the other side of the town the mountains frowned close above the houses, divided by a gorge down which flowed the torrent which provided the water-supply, and in a series of caves, natural or artificial, in the sides of this gorge the gipsies had sojourned from time immemorial. When they reached the foot of the path which led to the caves, Armitage stopped and called up the boy, who had managed to make himself almost invisible under his load of coats.
“Now, Sotīri, tell me what your cousin’s plan is. We are not to march up to the first cave we come to, and demand the Lord Harold, I suppose?”
“No, lord, we cannot hope to recover him till night. But we can find out where he is. Will you graciously ask to see the bear-cub that the gipsies offered for sale at the Konak yesterday, and offer to buy him? My cousin does not think they will be willing to sell him, but it is important we should see the cave in which the bears live.”
“Very well. Your voice is curiously like your cousin’s, Sotīri. You had better give me the gun while we are going up hill. It is too heavy for you.”
“Nay, lord, rather do you give me the basket. You must not judge my strength by Kalliopé’s,” cried the boy, with a gay laugh. “I have carried far heavier loads up worse hills than these. And it is unkind to compare my voice to a girl’s.”
“So it is, Sotīri. I beg your pardon. Well, in a year or two you will be able to laugh at the idea. Meanwhile I will stick to the basket. And be sure to stand where I can see you when I am talking to the gipsies, in case you want to make any sign to me.”
“As you will, lord.” Sotīri dropped behind again respectfully, and presently Armitage received confirmation of certain suspicions that had occurred to him. Missing the sound of the labouring breath behind him, he turned suddenly, to discover coats and gun on the ground, while with frantic haste Sotīri was twisting up a long plait of hair which had escaped from beneath his cap. Not having been seen, Armitage allowed himself a smile, and went on a step or two.
“Do you find it too heavy, Sotīri?” he called out, without turning round.
“No, lord,” replied a hasty voice. “I dropped my cap, and had to go back for it.”
“Better keep close to me here,” said Armitage, as they turned the corner of a rock, and came out on a narrow platform of stone which appeared to form the centre of the social life of the gipsy community. The moment they showed themselves, every hole and cranny in the cliff seemed to disgorge humanity, and they were quickly surrounded by a crowd—old women offering to tell their fortunes, young women rolling bold eyes at them, children pawing their clothes with dirty hands, and all begging shrilly in a dozen different languages. With great wisdom Armitage addressed himself to the oldest, ugliest, most withered and most generally witch-like of the women, and presenting her with a handful of small coin for general distribution, asked if he could speak to the head of the tribe about the bear-cub he had to sell. The old woman looked doubtful. She was not sure whether the tribe would sell the cub after all. It had brought them good luck, and they thought of keeping it and training it to perform with the other bear. Armitage expressed so much disappointment, however, and hinted at such a good price, that the old woman hobbled off at last to the cave where the chief, who turned out to be her son, was sleeping, and woke him. With him a dozen swarthy, cunning-eyed rapscallions were added to the group, and listened greedily while Armitage made his offer. But the chief was adamant, though for a different reason from that given by his mother. The cub had been sold that very morning—a murmur of resentment rose from the women—to a rich Pannonian gentleman who was going to present it to the Zoological Gardens at Vindobona.
“This is most disappointing,” said Armitage. “I wanted to make a sketch of him, and then to present him to Prince Romanos, who is establishing a natural history collection at Therma. Would you mind showing him to me, that I may see whether he is larger than another I have heard of?”
“There’s no objection to that, if the gracious gentleman quite understands that the creature is not to be bought,” said the chief. “The bears are kept here.”
They moved towards another cave, and two men went in. One led out the dancing bear, which shambled blinking into the light, the other, standing just inside the entrance, showed a brown furry body in his arms.
“We dare not bring him out, lord, lest seeing a stranger he should begin to scratch and fight,” explained the chief. “He is muzzled already, as you see.”
Armitage looked critically at the little bear, while Sotīri, at his side, gazed with awestruck eyes into the gloomy recesses of the cave. “A fine little beast! Do you think you could get him quiet if I came here to sketch him another day? I would pay, of course.”
The chief seemed doubtful. The creature had a very uncertain temper, but if the gracious gentleman cared to take the trouble of coming again, and run the risk of disappointment—— Armitage reassured him, and arranged to come again the next morning, in case the purchaser of the cub should wish to take him away soon. Then, guided by a gipsy who was to lead them to the top of the gorge, and show them the way into the woods, he and Sotīri went on. When they had parted with their guide, he turned eagerly to the boy.
“Well, Sotīri, is it all right? Did you find out what you wanted to know?”
“Yes, lord, I found what I expected to find.”
A light broke upon Armitage. “You mean that they have the child hidden in the bear’s den?” he cried.
“Yes, lord, he is hidden in the bear’s den. And now, with your gracious permission, we must go a long way into the woods, in case the gipsies send after us, and then we must come back to this same place.”
Armitage took out his compass and made the necessary observations, and then he and Sotīri plunged into the forest and walked on till they were tired. Dusk was beginning to fall, and retracing their steps was a long and painful process. It was quite dark when at length they arrived again at the edge of the wood, at a point where, by going a few steps further, they could look down the gorge, and see the twinkling lights which showed where the gipsies were cooking their supper in the mouths of their caves. Sotīri helped Armitage into his coat, unfastened the straps of the provision-basket, and retired to a respectful distance. It was a mild night, and the withered beech-leaves made a comfortable couch. Armitage ate and drank, and then reflected that if Sotīri were as hungry as he was, the share of food which he had given him on his horrified refusal to sit down and eat with his employer must be quite insufficient. He called to the boy, in a low voice at first, then louder, but no answer came. Following the direction he had taken, he came upon him, wrapped in hiskapota, fast asleep, with the untasted food by his side. Armitage stole back to his place without waking him.
“They may say what they like, but that is a fine creature!” he said to himself.
Aftersmoking a cigar or two, Armitage fell into a doze, from which he tried at first to rouse himself by spasmodic efforts, but reflecting that in any case it must be hours before they could safely approach the gipsy settlement, he allowed himself after a time to yield to the drowsiness that was overpowering him. From this he was roused at last by an anxious voice.
“Lord, where are you? Lord, lord!” and almost simultaneously some one stumbled and fell over him.
Armitage sat up. “Gently, Sotīri, gently! What’s the matter, lad?”
An embarrassed laugh answered him out of the darkness, where Sotīri was presumably picking himself up. “I don’t know, lord; I think I must have been dreaming. I woke up and was frightened to find myself in the forest in the dark, and then I went the wrong way to look for you and could not find you, and I thought you had gone away and left me——”
“To storm the gipsy caves by myself? Hardly. Stand in front of me, boy, while I see what the time is.”
Sotīri obeyed, and Armitage struck a match and looked at his watch. “A quarter past twelve. Better not start for a hour or so, for no one will be awake in the town, and we don’t want to have to wait about when once we have got the child. We will have something more to eat, Sotīri—lighten the basket a little.”
Sotīri laughed again. “I have not eaten nearly all you gave me, lord. I think I must have gone to sleep in the middle. I will go back and finish it.”
“Get another nap, and I will tell you when it is time to start,” Armitage called after him in a low voice, and then moved nearer the edge of the cleft, whence he could look down the gorge, and see the few remaining fires dying out one by one. Here, away from the shadow of the trees, he could just distinguish the time without striking a light, and he sat and shivered, restraining his impatience manfully, until two o’clock. Then he went back to the wood and called Sotīri, who appeared shamefacedly.
“I did not think I could have gone to sleep again, lord, but if it had not been for your voice I believe I should not have waked till morning. Then we may really start now? I have everything ready here.”
From the recesses of his coat he produced two parcels, at which Armitage glanced in surprise. He unfastened one.
“Honey cakes for the bear, lord. They are what he likes better than anything. Holy Nicholas! how Artemisia must have cursed when she found half her batch gone! That was really what made me late in starting—Kalliopé was getting them, you see. And this—” indicating the other parcel—“is meat for the dogs.”
“To keep them quiet, of course—I never thought of that. But then you and Kalliopé have kept me so entirely in the dark as to what we were going to do that I had not much chance. It is a pity she didn’t tell me about the dogs, for we might have sprinkled something on the meat that would send them to sleep.”
“Oh, is there something that will do that?” asked Sotīri in dismay. “I am sorry, lord; I—we did not know.”
“Well, we must hope the meat alone will be enough. Now, before we start, tell me exactly what we are going to do.”
“This is my plan, lord. I will go on first, if you please, my moccasins making little noise on the path, and give the meat to the dogs. You will follow, and when we reach the ledge of rock you will graciously take from me the gun and the coats, so as to leave me quite free. Then I will go into the bear’s den, and fetch the child out.”
“You go into the den alone? Nonsense, I won’t hear of it!”
“Lord, the bear will not mind me. I have the honey cakes for him, and I know the words the gipsies use to bid him be quiet. Kalliopé has told me them all. He may not even wake when I go in, but the noise of your boots would rouse him at once.”
“I don’t like it,” said Armitage reluctantly. “However, I shall be there with the gun, if he turns nasty. Look here, give me the things to carry now, boy; I insist upon it. You must have your hands free to cope with the dogs.”
“As you will, lord,” and they started, Armitage keeping his eyes on Sotīri’s white kilt as a guide. When they had nearly reached the ledge, they heard the uneasy bark of a dog in front, which was answered by a chorus of others, dying down gradually as no further suspicious sound was heard. The boy held up his hand, and crept on alone, Armitage following very slowly and with great caution. Looking along the ledge, he could discern Sotīri surrounded by a horde of curs, which he was feeding with discrimination on choice morsels from his pockets. When the dogs were all occupied, Armitage judged it safe to advance, and they merely favoured him with a snarl as he approached them. Sotīri had left them to their feast, and crept into the dark mouth of the nearest cave. Armitage, waiting in intensest anxiety with his gun cocked, heard a menacing growl, which made him step forward, but a peremptory low voice uttered a word of command, and the clatter of a chain followed as the bear retreated. Then Sotīri hurried out, with something in his arms, and without a word led the way along the ledge, past the other caves, Armitage following.
“You have got him all right?” he ventured to ask, when they were on the descending path once more, and he had uncocked his gun.
“Yes, lord, all right,” with something like a giggle. “I think he is asleep.”
A feeble cry from the burden contradicted this, and Sotīri clasped it closely to his breast, and crooned over it in tender accents, which drew another smile from Armitage. At the foot of the hill the boy turned to skirt the town, instead of passing through it, and Armitage in his mind applauded the wisdom of the course. If the gipsies should discover what had happened, and pursue them in force, they would certainly expect them to take a straight line for the Konak. They plodded on wearily when the expectation of immediate pursuit had passed, and in the faint lightening of the darkness which preceded dawn, Armitage received a shock.
“Sotīri!” he cried, running forward regardless of his load, and grasping the boy’s shoulder, “you have brought away the bear-cub, not the Lord Harold at all!”
Sotīri laughed—a weary little laugh, but one full of amusement. “And yet it is the Lord Harold, lord. Here is a thick bush; you can strike a match safely.”
Standing in the shelter of the thicket, Armitage obeyed. There before his horrified gaze was the furry form of the little bear. But as he looked, Sotīri tilted the upper jaw back like a cap, and exposed Harold’s dark head and blinking blue eyes.
“You don’t mean to say they had the cheek to keep him dressed up like that?” cried Armitage.
“Yes, lord; that was the secret,” said Sotīri demurely.
“Good heavens—Princess Zoe’s child! It’s too disgusting. Now mind, boy, his mother mustn’t see him like this. It would give her an awful shock. We must get hold of Linton somehow, to dress him properly.”
“Why, lord, will she care what he wears, so long as she has him back?” asked the boy. Armitage frowned.
“Of course not, really, but one has a feeling—— You don’t understand, but it’s a horrible idea.”
“Very well, lord, I do not understand. I will see whether I can find Sofia.” The boy spoke so meekly, but with such an undertone of pain, that Armitage had the unreasonable feeling that in some way he had been a brute. He said no more until they came in sight of the Konak, and then he called Sotīri back.
“See here, lad; I have been thinking it’s not necessary to bring Linton into this. Call your cousin instead. The whole credit of getting the child back is due to her, isn’t it? Very well, then; she ought to have the pleasure of giving him back to his mother, and she shall.”
“Thank you, lord,” said Sotīri joyfully. Then his face fell. “You say the whole credit is hers, lord. Don’t you think I helped at all—even when I went into the bear’s den? I was really frightened.”
“I think you are an impudent young rascal, boy,” was the reply, given with much severity. “Even if you were frightened, you ought to be swaggering about now, and pretending you weren’t. You’ll never make a man at this rate—a Greek man, anyhow. And as for trying to do your cousin out of the credit which belongs to her, I tell you it’s a shabby trick. Why, you know what trouble she is in at present, and if you and I, by sinking our share in the business, can help her to get back to her former position, doesn’t she deserve it?”
“You are right, lord. I am a beast,” was the subdued reply, and as Sotīri walked mournfully on ahead, Armitage suffered agonies from suppressed laughter. “I don’t know whether I’m standing on my head or my heels,” he said to himself.
Arrived at the gateway of the Konak, Armitage knocked authoritatively, and though the guard on duty refused vehemently at first even to entertain the idea of admitting them before sunrise, he yielded when he heard who was outside. Harold in his furry disguise was wrapped in Sotīri’skapota, and completely hidden, which excited wild curiosity on the guard’s part as to the results of the expedition. Armitage imposed silence on him by means of a gift, and they hurried across the courtyard to the colonnade outside the unused rooms, where he had spoken to Kalliopé two nights before. Harold was suddenly thrust into his arms, as Sotīri said hastily, “One moment, lord!” then turned back to say with great emphasis, “Since we started, lord, my cousin has been hiding in one of these rooms. So anxious was she for the child’s recovery that she could not bring herself to remain among the servants, but sought refuge here, that I might bring her the news as soon as we returned.”
“Poor thing! she must indeed have been anxious,” said Armitage gravely, and the boy disappeared. When a step was next heard on the stone pavement, it was Kalliopé who approached. She lifted her eyes silently to Armitage’s face, and he saw that there were black circles of fatigue surrounding them which stood out clearly in comparison with the whiteness of her cheeks, but inconsistently enough, he found her more beautiful than even the first day he had seen her. She took his hand and kissed it, lifted Harold from his arms, and was gone. Armitage felt a sudden sense of flatness, an uncertainty as to what ought to be done next, which was disconcerting after the crowding events of the last eighteen hours. Then he surprised himself in a tremendous yawn, and very wisely found his way to his room and went to bed.
He was awakened after what seemed about a minute’s sleep by a vigorous knocking, followed by the unceremonious entrance of Wylie, who burst in, and seizing his hand, shook it with such energy that Armitage cried for mercy.
“My dear good man,” he nursed the released hand ostentatiously, “what in the world is it?”
“Oh, nonsense, don’t try to shirk! We know it’s all owing to you, old man. Kalliopé has been telling us all about it, though we can’t make head or tail of her story. Who is this cousin who went with you? We never heard of him. But what does it signify, when you’ve brought the boy back? I tell you I thought I was dreaming, when I felt a tug at my moustache—something like a tug, too—and heard a little voice saying ‘Da! da!’ but when I opened my eyes there was Zoe with the child in her arms. Old man, you can’t conceive what it is to get him back. Hurry up and dress. Zoe wants to thank you herself. She and Linton and Kalliopé are all on their knees at this moment baby-worshipping, with a shifting audience of women from other parts of the place. I’m going on now to tell Maurice. We can never thank you enough.”
“Don’t thank me at all,” said Armitage. “The whole idea was Kalliopé’s, and she provided in her cousin a highly efficient instrument for carrying it out. I only obeyed orders. By the bye, I hear she was in hiding all day yesterday. Did you find it out?”
“We thought she had slipped through our fingers, of course, and there was a good deal of mutual recrimination among the servants. Where she hid I can’t imagine, for we thought we had hunted everywhere. Well, poor girl, she has heaped coals of fire upon our heads—in a sort of way, for there are a lot of suspicious things about her still. But be quick and get dressed.”
When he was gone, Armitage obeyed, and in due course found his way to the verandah, where Harold, fresh from a most necessary bath, and dressed by the rejoicing Linton in his Sunday frock, was the centre of attraction on his mother’s knee. Zoe looked up with eyes full of tears.
“Oh, we can never, never thank you enough!” she cried. “Harold, give Uncle a kiss and say ‘Ta’ to him for bringing you back.” Harold obeyed solemnly. “I don’t think he looks any worse, except perhaps a little thinner—do you?” she went on anxiously. “Isn’t it horrid that he can never tell us how they treated him, because he will have forgotten all about it when he is able to talk? But I really believe he hasn’t had his face washed all the time he has been gone. Still, if there’s nothing worse than that, we may be most thankful. What is it, Parisi? Breakfast? How can one think of breakfast now? If you really had the fine feelings you expect me to credit you with, you would have put some food unobtrusively on the table over there, and left us to discover it when we remembered we were hungry.”
Parisi smiled respectfully. He was a highly cultured person, having once edited an Athenian newspaper, but he could never see a joke when it was against himself. Having duly acknowledged Zoe’s attempt at wit, he repeated in a soft murmur, “The gracious lady is served,” and stood aside to allow her to pass downstairs.
“Oh dear, I suppose we must go!” groaned Zoe. “But Harold must come, and sit in his high chair beside me. And Janni had better come too, poor little fellow! for he feels himself quite eclipsed. Do you know, he is really most frightfully jealous—after having Linton all to himself, of course. We must all take particular notice of him to-day——”
“If we can, in the presence of this conquering hero,” said Armitage, holding out his arms for Harold. “Let me carry my god-son downstairs, Princess. I see Prince Theophanis is coming across with Wylie to pay his respects, so this youngster is highly honoured.”
“Now do tell me,” began Zoe, when they were seated at breakfast, and Maurice had presented his own and Eirene’s most hearty congratulations, “how you managed it. Oh, and where is this wonderful boy Sotīri? He seems to have turned up just when he was wanted, and disappeared without waiting to be thanked. But I must thank him. I can’t be happy until I have done it. Surely you must know where he is?”
“I’m afraid I am partly to blame for his disappearance,” said Armitage. “It struck me that he was a little inclined to insist on his share in the exploit and belittle his cousin’s, and I let him know that I didn’t think it quite fair. I’m sorry if I hurt his feelings, though, for he did well. What do you think about your cousin, Kalliopé?” he turned to Danaë, whose face was a study as she stood behind Janni’s chair, and spoke in Greek. “Has he run off because I scolded him?”
She responded with eager haste. “Oh no, lord, it is nothing of that kind. He has done what he came for, and is gone. You will never see him again. He would wish you to forget him. To be thanked and praised is a thing he would detest.”
“Then Kalliopé must act as his representative, and take his thanks and praise as well as her own,” said Wylie.
“Yes,” said Zoe. “Kalliopé, what is there that you would really like? You understand that nothing the Lord Glafko and I could do for you would be in the slightest degree the measure of our gratitude, but we should like to give you something tangible at once, which would show the servants what we thought of you.”
The girl’s eyes glowed, then gloomed. “Something that I should really like, lady mine?” she asked breathlessly.
“Yes, whatever you like best,” Zoe assured her. “Don’t be afraid, Kalliopé. Tell me what it is, and if we have not got it here we will send for it at once.” She expected to be asked for a watch and chain, of the showy kind that Artemisia and her like loved to display upon the velvets and satins of their feast-day attire, but Danaë fell upon her knees, and breathed out the desire of her heart in scarcely audible accents.
“Lady—oh, lady mine, if I may indeed have what I should prize most in all the world, let me for this one evening wear European clothes, and eat at your table as if I were a European like yourselves!”
The grotesque nature of the request, and the passion with which it was urged, took Zoe aback. “But, Kalliopé, that is rather a foolish wish, isn’t it?” she asked kindly. “Wouldn’t you rather have something real, that you could keep and show, and take away with you, when you go?”
The girl rose to her feet, her eyes heavy with tears. “I knew it was too much. I have no other wish, lady. Give me what you will.”
“Oh, let her do it, Zoe!” cried Wylie sharply.
“I will bring Eirene to dinner to meet her,” said Maurice.
“Let her do it, Princess,” said Armitage. “She deserves it.”
“Of course you shall do it, Kalliopé, if you really wish it,” said Zoe, her momentary hesitation overborne. “I will lend you one of my gowns—you shall choose whichever you like—and I will do your hair for you myself. I won’t trust even Linton. There! will that please you?”
“Oh, lady mine, you give as a king gives—with both hands full,” cried Danaë, with a half-sob, as she knelt again and laid Zoe’s hand on her head. “Never, never will I forget your goodness to me!” and she burst into tears.
“She is tired out,” said Armitage—rather to Zoe’s surprise when she thought about it afterwards. “Better let her have a good rest, Princess. Must have been pretty wearing—hiding away all yesterday and not knowing whether we should come back successful or not,” he observed to the others, when Zoe had led the sobbing girl out of the room.
No one saw anything more of Kalliopé until the evening, when Linton, divided between gratitude for her achievement and acute disapproval of the method of its reward, woke her that she might choose her gown. To the maid’s indignation and Zoe’s amusement, she picked out unhesitatingly the most magnificent thing in the wardrobe, a Parisian creation of glittering golden tissue which Zoe had worn at the court ball that formed the culminating point of the series of splendid festivities before the departure of the allied fleets from Therma, by which Prince Romanos had signalised his own election and the wedding of his rival’s sister. Linton almost wept when she was bidden to alter the hooks a little to allow for the Greek girl’s classic development of figure, and Zoe was glad she should be spared the further pang of seeing her mistress acting hairdresser to this upstart. But when the thick blue-black locks, still disconcertingly short on one side, were ready for manipulation, Danaë turned suddenly, and took the comb out of Zoe’s hand.
“Lady, I must tell you—perhaps you will not think me worthy of all this honour when you have heard—I have no cousin. It was I who put on boy’s clothes and went with Milordo yesterday to find the Lord Harold.”
“Kalliopé!” Zoe exclaimed in dismay, but the anxiety in the girl’s eyes moved her. “It was very brave of you, and I can only thank you all the more,” she added hastily.
“Then you don’t mind, lady?” with incredulous joy.
“No-o, not for this once. Not that you are to think that I want you to go about in boy’s clothes at other times,” firmly. “You are never to do it again.”
“Not unless it is necessary. I have done it once before—in Strio,” she added quickly. “Lady, did Milordo guess?”
“I really don’t know,” said Zoe. Then, reviewing what had been said at breakfast, she decided in her own mind that he very certainly had guessed. “But if he did, you may be quite sure that no human being will ever hear a word of it from him,” she added.
“Thank you, my lady,” said Danaë soberly, and they turned again to the hairdressing. Presently Linton brought back the gown, and Zoe and she refused to let the girl see herself until the transformation was complete. Then, as Linton wheeled forward the large cheval-glass, there was a simultaneous gasp from the three women. Kalliopé in this guise was superb—there was no other word for it. The masses of dark hair, the alabaster complexion thrown up by the gold of the gown, the splendidly moulded arms and shoulders, made her a matchless picture. Danaë herself was the first to speak.
“Lady, you will let me wear that?” pointing to a great boa of fluffy white ostrich feathers. “I—I am not accustomed——” Zoe threw it round her shoulders, and sighed.
“I shall never dare to wear that gown again, now I have seen how splendid she looks in it,” she said in English, and Linton replied—
“Well, ma’am, I don’t deny I was against it, but this I will say: it would have been a sin and a shame for the girl not to be dressed properly once in her life.”
“It suits you magnificently, Kalliopé,” said Zoe in Greek, as she caught the anxious glance the girl was directing from one to the other. “Now walk about a little, while Linton dresses me, and learn to manage your train.”
“Lady—” Danaë paused to enjoy the effect of her dark head rising out of the creamy feathers—“don’t you think Milordo will want to make a picture of me now?”
“I don’t know,” said Zoe, rather taken aback. “We will ask him, if you like.”
Danaë assented joyfully, and Zoe found her eyes on her continually during the evening, which really went off very well. The difficulty Maurice had found in fulfilling his promise to bring his wife was known only to himself, but since he had argued her from her first flat refusal, through the assertion that the mere request was an insult, to the position that the whole thing was a mad joke, and never to be presumed upon afterwards, he felt he had reason to be satisfied. Having submitted, Eirene made up her mind to do so with a good grace, and if she had known Danaë to be a young princess she could not have treated her more graciously. The girl showed by her behaviour that she had used her eyes to good purpose since her arrival at Klaustra. Her mistakes were wonderfully few, and she repaired or ignored them, as seemed most advisable at the moment, with a natural dignity that left nothing to be desired. Small-talk she was not an adept in, but Armitage found her a promising pupil, and after all, it was not necessary for her to talk—merely to sit and allow herself to be looked at. Nevertheless, he was curiously disconcerted when Zoe came up to him in the drawing-room afterwards, with the stately beauty following her like a shadow.
“Lady Kalliopé wants to know whether you will paint her portrait in this dress?” she said lightly, but the girl’s eyes were tragic with entreaty. Armitage frowned.
“Certainly not. Think of the incongruity!”
“It would please her very much,” Zoe urged.
“You do not like me this evening, lord?” asked Danaë mournfully.
“I like you better in your own dress,” was the stout reply.
“Oh no, lord—not in those common clothes!”
“Just to please her—she has deserved it,” said Zoe.
“Well, look here,” said Armitage in desperation. “May I take this sheet of paper, Princess?” He went to the writing-table, and using the blotter as a sketching-block, drew rapidly for two or three minutes, with swift glances at Danaë. When he handed the paper to Zoe, there were two figures on it, each expressed with the utmost economy of strokes—Danaë in her present dress, all train and long gloves, with a coronet of hair emerging above a fluffy mass of ostrich feathers, and Danaë in her native costume, standing on a cliff looking out to sea, one hand shading her eager eyes, vitality in every line of her form. “Now which of those do you like best?” he asked triumphantly.
“Oh, this one, lord!” was the fervent reply, as Danaë laid her hand affectionately on the one representing her at the moment. Armitage laughed, but not very heartily.
“I am beaten,” he said. “Well, as the Lady Kalliopé pleases.”
“It is really a caricature,” said Zoe, in a vexed tone. “You can hardly see anything of her.”
“No. After all, it is a picture of the gown that is wanted, isn’t it? Why, think; I shall be able to paint the whole thing without the sitter’s being in the room—or even in the neighbourhood.” Armitage did not guess how prophetic the words would seem to him later.
Danaë was satisfied. When she came to Zoe’s room that night to restore her borrowed plumes, she smiled happily as she pulled off her gloves.
“Oh, if only every day were like this evening, lady mine, how good I could be!” she sighed.
Theglow of that wonderful evening had faded into the light of common day, and the conquering beauty in gold tissue was Cinderella again in her despised national dress. But for the present the memory was enough, and Linton’s caustic comments were forgotten in the glorious fact that Kalliopé, the underling, had for once associated on equal terms with Linton’s employers. These employers were too much occupied this morning with their own affairs to have much thought to spare for their guest of the night before. The post, which was not by any means a daily, or even a regular occurrence, came in before breakfast was over, and Armitage tore open one of his letters with considerable excitement.
“Old Pazzi!” he said. “He’s on his way here—ought to get in to-day. Says he had just had my letter telling him we thought we might be able to give him news of his grandson, and was starting at once.”
“Poor old man! How nice it will be if Janni really is his grandson,” said Zoe.
“Will it?” asked her husband. “In that case Janni would also be the son of Prince Romanos, you must remember, and we should find ourselves in a dilemma between them.”
“Why, Maurice!” cried Zoe, rising to greet her brother. “Have you come to breakfast? Do sit here.”
“No, thanks; I have breakfasted. Is there any news from Pazzi? Here is Romanos writing to declare himself the most unfortunate and worst treated man in the world, and casting himself upon us for advice and help. He is coming here privately, and is due to arrive to-day. The queer thing is that he is bringing Panagiotis with him.”
“Had he got your letter about Janni?” asked Wylie quickly.
“Evidently not. I didn’t mention Janni, you know—put it very carefully, that circumstances had come to our knowledge intimately connected with his private affairs, and it was possible we might be able to throw some light on them—but he makes no allusion to it. Besides, he must have started before it could have arrived.”
“Well, Pazzi is on his way here, and is also due to-day.”
“You don’t think they are travelling together? No, one of them would surely have mentioned it. And where does the Professor come in?”
“I should say he is at his favourite game—acting as friend of both parties. He and Romanos have discovered that Pazzi is on his way here, and they are afraid of revelations. So they are coming too.”
“Which party will get here first?—or will they arrive together? Well, I suppose we shall get some light now on many things. Zoe, I think it would be well not to tell Kalliopé who is coming.”
“I shouldn’t dream of it. There will be nothing startling in the Cavaliere’s returning to his duties, of course, and as Prince Romanos is travelling incog., there is no reason to mention his name at all.”
As it happened, the Cavaliere Pazzi was the first of the travellers to arrive. Armitage was out sketching, and Maurice and Wylie were busy administering justice when he reached the Konak, so that he was ushered at once to the verandah where Zoe was sitting with the children and Danaë. The old man’s face looked pinched and worn, but his eyes gleamed with youthful fire.
“You have news for me, madame?” he said eagerly. “It cannot be, as I have once or twice in my hurried journey been tempted to fear, that you have held out a false hope to allure me back from Therma?”
Zoe spoke in Greek to Danaë. “Bring me the Lord Janni, Kalliopé.” The girl obeyed, and Zoe took the child and set him on the old man’s knee. “So far as we can tell, that is your grandchild, Cavaliere.”
“This, madame? Ah, I think I can trace in him something of my lost Olimpia, though more of her treacherous husband. Is it not a misfortune, that I cannot behold even this relic of my child without recalling her murderer?”
“Can you not be satisfied to rejoice that he is alive, without blaming him for what he can’t help?”
“His nurse snatched him from destruction, I suppose?”
“So we believe, but she told so many contradictory stories at first—owing to terror, perhaps—that we have really left off questioning her about it. Now look at him, Cavaliere; isn’t he a dear little fellow? Kiss your grandfather, Janni; he loves you very much.”
Janni had maintained his position only by dint of being forcibly held there, for the Cavaliere’s piercing eyes and beaklike nose made him a formidable person, but now he looked up into his face, and apparently reading there some encouragement, put his arms shyly round his neck. The old man was much moved.
“Blessings on thee, my Giannino!” he cried. “And it was this little angel, madame, that his unnatural father tried to murder!”
“Ah, that we cannot be sure of,” said Zoe earnestly. “The Prince is coming here, and must tell his own story.”
“Coming here—that villain? Madame, I entreat you, let me take this child, and the faithful woman to whose devotion I owe it that he is spared to me, and seek safety before he is exposed to fresh dangers.”
He stood up, with Janni in his arms, and seemed ready to start at once. Zoe was at her wits’ end.
“But after all, Cavaliere, he is the Prince’s son as well as your grandson,” she pleaded. “We cannot let him go away till his father has seen him.”
“And succeeded in killing him?” with a grim smile.
“But we don’t know that he did try to kill him. And it’s quite certain that he won’t try to do it here. Besides, don’t you see what a good thing it will be for you and the Prince to thresh matters out together on neutral ground, so to speak? You don’t want to go on believing such a dreadful thing as that poor Donna Olimpia was murdered by her own husband if it isn’t true?”
“I think, madame, that it will take a cleverer tongue than even my son-in-law’s to persuade me of his innocence.”
“Well, then,” urged Zoe desperately, “if he did do it, perhaps he will let you keep Janni rather than have the scandal made public. And if he did try to kill him, surely he won’t want him now?”
“Will you pledge yourself that your brother and husband will not give up the child to him, madame?”
“How can I? If he can clear himself, I suppose it is natural he should have him back. But if not, then I think I can promise that at any rate we shall keep Janni in our own charge for the present.”
She saw with much relief that this suggestion was acceptable, for the old man’s mien had been so determined as to make her fear it would be necessary to send for Wylie to prevent his carrying off Janni bodily forthwith. Now he replaced him gently on her knee.
“You have given me fresh life, madame, in restoring to me this little child. I see myself returning to my modest dwelling with a new interest in place of that of which I have been so cruelly deprived, concealing from the lad the sad story of his parentage, and bringing him up as a worthy descendant of Maxim Psicha. Even in the materialistic and impoverished Magnagrecia of to-day, there will be a place in the army for the grandson of a veteran of the War of Independence, and in the meantime my pension will suffice for us. The girl there is the deserving young woman to whom I owe the preservation of this precious life?”
“Yes; but, Cavaliere, you have asked her no questions—merely taken for granted that Janni is your grandson. Would you like me to interpret for you?”
“No, madame, I will ask her no questions now, lest it should be charged against me that I have put words into her mouth. I will question her in the presence of her late master—and I entreat you to bring it about that I may do so as soon as possible. I am an old man, and I have travelled fast, but I cannot rest until I have unmasked the villain.”
“I hear sounds as if some one was arriving,” said Zoe, rising. “If it is the Prince, and he is willing, we might talk about things after lunch. But will you not put it off till to-night, and rest a little first?”
“I cannot, madame. I am my daughter’s avenger.”
They went down the stairs together, leaving Danaë a prey to intense curiosity and apprehension. The Cavaliere’s treatment of Janni had at once recalled to her mind the words of Petros respecting the arrival of the Lady’s father at Therma. But if this was the man, how much did he know, and how much did her employers know? She was racked with anxiety, for the lies which had once come so glibly to her lips were now harder to frame, and moreover, they had landed her in such a tangle that she did not know how to extricate herself. Even if she gave the lie to everything she had said already, she and Janni and their relations with Petros must still be accounted for—and she had no means of discovering how much or how little of the truth it would be expedient to make known. She walked restlessly about, trying to decide what to do, and as her gaze fell casually into the courtyard, she was electrified to see her brother crossing it in company with Prince Theophanis. Next to Petros, Prince Romanos was the last person she desired to see at the moment, and she dropped down behind the parapet, but not before he had caught a glimpse of her. The moment before, he had been walking wearily, like one tired and depressed, his shoulders bowed, his very moustache drooping. But the merest sight of a handsome girl acted as a challenge, and he drew himself up, squared his shoulders and twisted his moustache. Then, to the intense amusement of his sister, watching him from between the railings, he pretended to have dropped something and induced his host to go back with him a dozen yards or so to look for it, that he might swagger past again, casting furtive glances up at the verandah in search of the face he had seen.
“You should wear a kilt, lord—not European riding-clothes—if you want to show off properly,” Danaë addressed him mentally, veering unconsciously towards Armitage’s views on costume. “But what are you doing here? and what is Friend Secretary going to do? What has been discovered? How much does anyone know?”
Questions very similar to these were in the minds of all those who met at the luncheon-table of Prince and Princess Theophanis. Wylie and his wife and Armitage were there to meet Prince Romanos and Professor Panagiotis, and in the presence of the servants nothing important could be discussed. It struck most of the English party as quaint that Prince Romanos, whose whole future, so far as could be judged, hung upon the result of the forthcoming conference, was very much at his ease—almost as if he had transferred his burden to the shoulders of his friends, and it was no further concern of his. He even remarked to Zoe that she had a remarkably pretty girl in her household, but unfortunately very shy, and she reflected that years did not seem to have wrought much change in him. When they moved into the drawing-room, however, there was a general feeling that something was going to happen, and the almost instant appearance of the Cavaliere Pazzi showed that it was not to be long delayed. He and his son-in-law bowed to one another coldly.
“I heard that you were ahead of me, monsieur,” said the Prince.
“I thought it probable that you might follow me,” was the reply, given with studious lack of formality. The Prince’s sallow face flushed darkly, and Maurice interfered in haste.
“You may be surprised by our claiming acquaintance with your private affairs, Prince, but as a matter of fact, your wife confided the news of your marriage to my sister very soon after it occurred.”
“She could not have found a better confidant,” said Prince Romanos politely, but Zoe found his eyes fixed gloomily upon her. He was clearly asking himself whether it was possible that she could have kept this damaging secret—known, no doubt, to her husband also—so long without making use of it to injure him?
“It did not occur to her to connect the two events,” Maurice went on, “when, five or six months ago, a girl from the islands, in charge of a little child, sought refuge with us. But perhaps you see a connection?”
“How long ago?” asked Prince Romanos excitedly. “A girl from the islands, you say? Was the child a boy?”
“The exact day was that on which Wylie and I left Therma—when you were to have joined us, but were prevented by—by severe personal bereavement.”
“Exactly. But what should have taken the girl to you?”
“We found her running away in terror from your servant Petros and she implored our help. Her first story was that her sister had been murdered by her husband——” Maurice paused involuntarily, struck by the ominous coincidence of the words, then hurried on—“and she was escaping with the child. Petros was anxious to claim control over her, but she denied frantically that he had any right to it, and we did not think he was quite the person to take charge of a young girl. We agreed to produce her if she was wanted in any legal proceedings, and meanwhile promised to find a place for her here. My sister has employed her in the nursery, and brought up the little boy with her own child.”