“Princess, accept the thanks of a father who thought himself bereaved of wife and son in one day,” said Prince Romanos, kissing Zoe’s hand. “Then the discerning eye of Zeto detected the son of John Theophanis under the mean disguise?”
“Don’t flatter me too much,” said Zoe, laughing with an effort. “Janni was just the age of my own Harold, and made a delightful companion for him. Besides, the girl very soon informed us that he was not her sister’s child, but some one immensely superior. But can you be quite sure that he is your lost child?”
“My heart tells me so, Princess. Janni? his very name! The day of his adoption, that on which I lost him. The anxiety of my faithful Petros to recover him—by the bye, the rascal has been leading me a pretty dance since. All-Holy Mother of God! he must have known where the child was the whole time! The nurse-girl is his niece; they must have made up the plot together.”
“Surely it would be better to have the girl here at once, and let her bring the child for you to see?” said Maurice, and Wylie called to one of the servants outside and gave him the order. Prince Romanos looked slightly disconcerted.
“I could wish to have embraced my recovered treasure first in private,” he said to Zoe, with the faintest hint of reproach in his tone.
“And to have given instructions to the nurse in private also?” inquired the Cavaliere sarcastically.
Meanwhile, the receipt of Wylie’s order caused commotion in the nursery. Danaë declared that she would not go down; she was tired, she was ill, she was terrified; Linton must take Janni. They wrangled over the whole process of getting him into his best frock, and were still fixed in their respective determinations when Parisi himself puffed upstairs to inquire what was the reason of this delay? Was the Lady Kalliopé waiting for the Lord Glafko to come and fetch her, or did she insist upon the escort of the gracious Prince himself? Danaë’s elevation of the previous night had not met with approval among the servants, and she realised in time that they would like nothing better than to drag her by force, struggling and shrieking, into the presence of Princess Theophanis and her guests. Therefore she merely tossed her head in answer to Parisi’s ponderous raillery, and seizing Janni, marched defiantly down the stairs and across the courtyard.
“Why, Eurynomé!” said Prince Romanos stiffly.
“I am she, lord,” she responded. “You wished to see the little lord?”
The Prince’s ill-humour melted as he held out his arms, and the watching grandfather noted jealously that the child went to him at once, and nestled confidingly against his shoulder. Danaë watched them with pride.
“What made you take the little lord away, Eurynomé?” demanded the Prince abruptly.
“You told me to, lord,” was the answer, which produced a sensation. Was the Cavaliere justified in insinuating that Prince Romanos had suborned Petros and the nurse to remove the child and keep him out of sight?
“Nonsense, girl! Tell the truth.”
“I am telling it, lord. Did I not bring you the little lord, to comfort you, when you were mourning over the body of the Lady, and did you not command me many times over to take him away?”
“I told you to take him to the nursery, of course.”
“Yes, lord; and was he to remain there forgotten, until the murderers came back to kill him as they had killed his mother?” There was another sensation.
“Who were these murderers, Kalliopé?” asked Maurice.
She looked round desperately. All her instincts of loyalty bade her lie through thick and thin, if necessary, to support her brother, but she had no means of knowing whether truth or falsehood would profit him better. “If I could tell my lord about it alone first?” she faltered.
“No, no—no teaching the girl what to say!” cried the Cavaliere Pazzi furiously, and Professor Panagiotis turned a warning glance on Prince Romanos. He responded gloomily.
“No. Say what you know at once.”
“It was a very hot day,” began Danaë hesitatingly. “My lord had visited the Lady to bid her farewell, and old Despina had gone out marketing. The Lady was writing a letter in the shade of the wood, and I was playing with the little lord on the ground near her. We were just going to take him indoors for his sleep when we heard noises at the gate. Old Mariora came running to bid the Lady hide, because there were murderers there, and went to try to stop them. But the Lady bade me take the little lord and hide him, and she would speak to the murderers and give me time. Then I carried the little lord very quickly through the house and hid myself with him, and remained there a long while, and when I came out the Lady lay dead on the grass, and Mariora on the pathway, and Despina near the gate.” She paused with something of pride. If she had said nothing that was false, she had at any rate exercised a judicious economy of the truth.
“Where did you hide yourself, Kalliopé?” asked Zoe.
“It was—up a tree, my lady.” Formerly this would have been mentioned with pride, but now Danaë blushed.
“Could you see the murderers?” asked Wylie quickly.
Her eyes sought her brother’s face anxiously, but in vain. “Yes, lord,” she admitted with reluctance.
“What were they like?” asked Professor Panagiotis.
“They wore the clothes of the guard, lord,” after another wild glance at Prince Romanos. Danaë knew by the demeanour of her audience that she must be establishing some very serious charge against her brother, but its nature she could not define.
“Was there anyone among them that you knew?” asked Maurice. Her lips moved, but no answer came.
“Was Petros one of them?” asked Wylie, with a sudden inspiration, and Danaë threw Petros to the wolves without a qualm. He was a good way off, and if he was discredited beforehand his recrimination might be robbed of its power.
“Yes, lord; Petros was there.”
“Was that why you were running away from him afterwards?”
“Surely, lord. I feared that he would take the little lord and slay him.”
“But why did you tell us so many lies about yourself and the child?”
“How could I do otherwise, lord? I did not know then the goodness of your hearts, and I desired to save the little lord until I could restore him to his father.”
“Knowing that his father desired nothing of the kind?” demanded the Cavaliere. Happily he spoke in French, and Danaë did not understand him. Maurice interposed hastily.
“The girl had better go now, I think. We can send for her again if anyone wants to question her. Take the little lord back to the nursery, Kalliopé.”
She vanished, with Janni in her arms, and delivered him duly into Linton’s care. But having exactly fulfilled the order she had received, she returned noiselessly, and sat crouched on the verandah close to the window, with so little parade of secrecy that the guards below thought she had been told to return, and did not molest her. The conversation within was continued in French or English, as before she was sent for, and of course she could not understand it.
“I went through the roll of my guard that evening,” said Prince Romanos wearily, “to satisfy myself; and with the exception of Petros, who was on the sick-list, they were all able to account for themselves.”
“Naturally. They were on duty,” snapped the Cavaliere.
“I suppose there is now no objection on your part, Prince, after what we have heard, to admitting that Donna Olimpia was murdered?” interposed Maurice.
“Yes, she was foully murdered,” he groaned.
“Then why invent the diphtheria lie?” demanded Wylie.
Prince Romanos spread forth his hands helplessly. “I can see as well as you do to what suspicions I exposed myself,” he said; “but I was simply not in a position to take up the matter properly. I could not afford to alienate my people by allowing my marriage to come to light at the moment, and as mother and child were both dead, so far as I knew, it seemed the wisest course to hush things up for a time, and inquire into them fully afterwards.”
“It was undoubtedly the most convenient course for yourself at the time,” said the Cavaliere, with deadly meaning.
“What do you insinuate, monsieur?” the Prince asked him sharply.
“I insinuate nothing, I accuse. At that time you were negociating for the hand of the Grand Duchess Feodora. Unfortunately there was an obstacle; you had a wife already. Your wife refused to be pensioned off or to allow herself to be repudiated. Therefore you sent a detachment of your guards to murder her, under the ruffian Petros, your confidential servant. To order the death of the child was too much even for you, but you drove him from you with his nurse, and Petros knew what he was intended to do. But for the meeting with Prince Theophanis and Colonel Wylie, neither nurse nor child would have been seen again. In intention you murdered them as truly as in fact you murdered your unhappy wife and her servants.”
Therewas a moment’s hush of expectation when the Cavaliere had hurled his charges at his son-in-law. Prince Romanos met them characteristically.
“Princess,” he said, turning to Zoe, “do you believe that I murdered my wife?”
“No, I don’t,” said Zoe.
“Then I am content. If one so skilled in the knowledge of the human heart—a woman, too—can acquit me, what more can I ask?”
“This is all very pretty and poetical,” said Wylie impatiently, “but merely as a matter of curiosity, Prince, we should like to know what defence you propose to offer if your father-in-law publishes throughout Europe the accusation he has just made.”
“Ah, there I am helpless. I put myself wholly into the hands of my friends. I did not murder my wife, but malicious circumstances have forced me into such a position that I realise it must appear that I did. The Cavaliere Pazzi has provided me with a motive, with instruments, with a deep-laid plan. How can I prove that I am innocent of this crime, which I abhor from my very soul?”
“You can hardly expect us to prove it for you, Prince,” said Maurice, with unusual sharpness.
“Your Highness will pardon me.” It was Professor Panagiotis who spoke, rising and coming forward impressively into the midst of the group. “I am here, at my own request, to represent the interests of Emathia, which would be gravely jeopardised if the Cavaliere Pazzi made his accusation public. I beg that it may not be supposed I have been in the Prince’s confidence all along. I could wish it had been the case, but his Highness was otherwise advised.”
“In other words,” drawled Prince Romanos, “I was considerate enough to keep my marriage concealed from the Professor as well as from the public, knowing that it would disturb his tranquillity, and might lead him to disturb mine.”
“From the Cavaliere’s words,” the Professor went on, “it would not be guessed that the proposal of an alliance with the Grand Duchess Feodora came, not from the Prince at all, but from the Scythian side. I welcomed it, I own, for it promised to guarantee the continuance of Emathian independence, and the establishment of a hereditary dynasty. Unfortunately, my master and I were working against one another, since he had the validation of the actual marriage in view, and I an entirely new one.”
“But,” cried Zoe, “the Scythian Government must have known all about the marriage. I know Donna Olimpia told me that the Dowager Princess of Dardania was present at it.”
“That is undoubtedly the case, madame. The proposal of a more august alliance was merely a bait to entrap my master and his servants into complete subservience to Scythia. But it is only since the death of the lady concerned that the Scythian negociator has mentioned certain unpleasant rumours that had reached his ears, and asked for a definite contradiction of them.”
“Aha, Mr Professor!” burst from the Cavaliere. “So you would transfer the crime from your master’s shoulders to those of the Scythian Government, would you? Well, they are broad enough; but you forget that the murder was committed by members of the Prince’s own guard.”
“By men in the uniform of members of the Prince’s guard,” corrected the Professor. “No, monsieur, I should not be so foolish as to insinuate that the Scythians, any more than my master, were clearing the way for him to a marriage with the Grand Duchess. You have not the happiness of being Orthodox, but I appeal to those present who know something of our tenets. They will support me in assuring you that second marriages are looked upon with extreme disfavour by our Church, and in no case would one be contemplated for a member of the Imperial family.”
“That’s true. I had not thought of it,” cried Maurice, while the Cavaliere sat stupefied.
“Then now you have merely to show who did commit the murder, Professor,” said Wylie, in his driest tone.
Professor Panagiotis seemed unwontedly embarrassed. He wiped his brow, as though his forensic effort was proving exhausting, and played with a button of his coat. Then he spread forth his hands with a liberal gesture implying that now he was making a clean breast of everything.
“Your Highnesses, I approach this point with hesitation, since it must appear to you that you have been treated with insufficient confidence. But I ask you to consider my master’s eagerness to see his marriage acknowledged and his dynasty established. In view of this, you will not be surprised to hear that the question of the construction of the Emathian railways became involved with the other negociation.”
“Surprised? Not a bit!” said Wylie. “We all knew that there must be aquid pro quo. But I imagine that the Prince was not satisfied with only one bid. There is another Power interested in Emathian railways as well as Scythia.”
“Exactly, Colonel,” said the Professor, in a tone of relief; “and the present complications arise from my master’s anxiety to obtain the best terms he could—the utmost in the way of recognition against the smallest possible concession. In this endeavour I am proud to acknowledge that I supported him—but unfortunately I was ignorant of the fact of his marriage, which was known to the Pannonian agents. He informs me that even before the unhappy event which we all deplore, attempts had been made to bring pressure upon him by threatening the safety of his wife.”
The Cavaliere raised his haggard face with supreme disdain. “Bah! you are trying to lead us astray. Pannonia had no candidate in whose favour my daughter’s removal was desirable.”
“No, the plot was more subtle than that. According to my information, obtained by careful inquiry, the group of discreditable persons who were managing the affair in the interests—though without the ostensible support—of Pannonia plotted deliberately to murder the lady concerned and her child, and to cast the blame upon her husband. If he allowed himself to be intimidated, they would obtain all they could desire in the way of concessions; if he refused, they would denounce him publicly—not so much for the murder as for the heterodox marriage, and stir up the populace to revolt. Pannonian property would be damaged, Pannonian interests endangered, and Pannonia would demand from Europe a mandate to restore peace. Once in Therma, you may guess how soon she would quit it.”
“Then Prince Romanos accepted the first condition, and granted the concessions?” said Maurice coldly. “You are surprised that I should know this?” as the Professor’s eye wandered to his master’s. “Colonel Wylie and I guessed that something of the kind was on foot when we discovered a few days ago that a Pannonian geological expedition, which had been giving us a good deal of trouble, was really surveying for a railway.”
“The Prince temporised—nothing more,” replied the Professor breathlessly. “With your Highness’s assistance, we hope so to arrange matters that Pannonia gains only a very small portion of what she expected. I am about to speak frankly, for you will understand that my concern is for Emathia, and that if you, sir, had been elected High Commissioner instead of Prince Romanos, my endeavours would have been equally engaged on your behalf. It is quite open to you, I acknowledge it freely, to take your stand on the charges brought by the Cavaliere Pazzi, and claim that my master has shown himself unworthy of the confidence of Europe. It is extremely probable that if another election were held you would take his place. But I have received a friendly warning from Czarigrad, from a Greek occupying a very high official position there, that the present Liberal Roumi Government regards the semi-independent status of Emathia with keen dislike. A contested election, either now or at the end of my master’s five years of office, would be the signal for a determined attempt to bring the country again under Roumi rule. There would be representative institutions, of course, such as they are, but Emathia, for which we have fought and laboured, to see her emerge triumphantly as a self-existent state, would once more be merged in the dominions of Roum. All the work of the last twenty years—of my lifetime—would be lost.”
“This is very serious,” said Maurice. “Do you think that if the election is not contested at the end of the five years things will be allowed to go on?”
“There would at least be no excuse for interrupting them, sir. If we could point to five years of peace and advance, and a contented people—but it demands sacrifices. And first of all, the Prince will make every amends in his power to the memory of the lady whom he so truly loved and so deeply mourns.” The Cavaliere, who had been sitting sunk in his chair, looked up sharply. “The marriage, so unfortunately concealed, will be made public, and insisted upon in every possible way. The child whose life has been so wonderfully preserved will be brought forward as heir of the Christodoridi and his father’s natural successor on the throne, and the body of his mother, whom I may now without offence style the Princess of Emathia, taken from its present resting-place and deposited with all honour in the vaults of the metropolitan church. Do you ask how we propose to face the public opposition? There will be none. Once it is known that Prince Romanos married the heiress of Maxim Psicha, and that their son unites in his own person the princely crowns of Emathia and Illyria, the match will be received with enthusiasm.”
“And the murderers of my daughter?” asked the Cavaliere in a hollow voice.
Embarrassment returned upon Professor Panagiotis. “For the sake of Emathia, it is suggested that we all consent to certain sacrifices, monsieur,” he said, after some hesitation. “It will be impossible, I fear, to extricate ourselves from the late negociations without conceding to Scythia and Pannonia an influence in our domestic affairs which we shall find very irksome. We look confidently to Prince Theophanis and his family for pecuniary help in making that influence as small as possible. My master resigns his natural desire for vengeance, since you will see that to accuse Pannonia of plotting the murder of his wife would precipitate instantly the crisis we hope to avert. Is it too much to ask you to exercise a like self-restraint?”
“In order that Romanos Christodoridi may be left in peaceable possession of the throne he has disgraced? I tell you, Mr Professor, I will tear him from it!”
“Will you ruin your grandson’s future, monsieur?”
“Shall I buy a throne for my grandson at the price of his mother’s blood? I would rather bring him up in a garret! No, I refuse your bribe!” he turned upon Prince Romanos. “Your plan is clear to me now. I will do you justice; you did not want to have to kill your wife. Her acknowledgment that your marriage was invalid would have been sufficient to clear the way to your Grand Duchess. But she refused to become a party to the dishonour you wished to bring upon her——”
“Pardon me, monsieur. The lady’s honour is vindicated in the fullest possible way by my proposal,” said the Professor.
“Yes, because she is the heiress of Maxim Psicha. But she was also my daughter, and she was foully murdered by her own husband’s order. I can see it all—that last interview, the demand for her acquiescence in her own disgrace, her staunch refusal, the angry departure of the dastardly husband, the arrival of his bloodthirsty instruments! I see it, and as I see it Europe shall see it also.”
“Europe will ask for proof,” said Prince Romanos. “I may tell you that my wife and I parted the best of friends.”
“Europe will ask for proof of that. Where is the letter that the nurse says she was writing when the murderers came?”
“I do not know. I saw no letter.”
“No, and no letter will ever be seen. Shall I tell you what that letter contained? It was an appeal to me, her father, to come to her help, as I had offered to do, and take her away from Therma, where her life was not safe unless she consented to your repudiation of her. If that was not the letter, what was it?”
“Lady, what is the secretary man saying to the Lord Romanos?” Danaë had sat inert and uninterested while the Professor talked, but her instincts told her who was the man to be feared, and since the Cavaliere burst again into the fray she had been kneeling with her face pressed to the window watching his fiery gestures. Now, as his eager hands approached the Prince’s throat, as though he would have torn a confession from him, she opened the window and stepped in. Her entrance broke the tension which held the listeners, and Prince Romanos smiled, not very naturally.
“Here is an unbiassed witness, at any rate,” he said. “Why not ask her about the terms my wife and I were on?”
Professor Panagiotis responded eagerly. “Girl, what can you tell us about the Prince and his wife? Did he appear to be fond of her?”
“By no means, lord,” was the prompt reply.
The Cavaliere laughed harshly. The rest gasped, and Prince Romanos sprang up and gripped Danaë roughly by the shoulder.
“Speak the truth, girl! Was I unkind to her?”
“Not unkind, lord, but you kept her in awe of you, as a wife should be kept. She trembled at the sound of your step.”
He laughed as his father-in-law had done, and dropped back into his chair. “Go on. Perhaps I beat her?”
An affirmative was trembling upon Danaë’s lips, but Zoe, out of pure sympathy and nervousness, threw herself into the breach, remembering the girl’s earlier exploits.
“Think, Kalliopé, and tell us exactly how it was. Not just when they had a quarrel now and then, perhaps, but as it was generally. To us,” with a gallant attempt to bring the matter home to her handmaid’s mind, “what you have said is horrible, and makes us think the Lord Romanos one of the worst of men.”
“Does it, lady?” in intense astonishment. “I said it for his glory. I could not bear any one to know how he was in thrall to her. But she bewitched him, one knows that.”
“This seems a new view of affairs,” observed Wylie. “He was not cruel to her, then?”
“Cruel, lord? If you had seen them as I so often saw them, he so mild and anxious to please her, and she frowning and ill-tempered! But that is always the way with witches. Only the unfortunate who is bewitched can see any beauty in them, but he pines away for love.”
Danaë had carried the inquiry into such new regions that Maurice returned with difficulty to a previous question. “The Princess was writing a letter on the morning she was murdered, you say, Kalliopé; but it can’t be found. Have you any idea what became of it?”
“I have it in my room, lord—hidden in my mattress.” Again she had the pleasing consciousness of having caused a sensation.
“Go and fetch it at once,” said Maurice, in a tone which sent her flying. Once in her own room, the letter was easily found, but as she pulled it out of its hiding-place, her fingers came in contact with one of the golden plaques of the Girdle of Isidora. A moment’s pause, and she took it out also, fastening it round her waist under her apron, as she had done before. Things seemed so strange to-day that it might possibly be needed. Then, parrying Linton’s questions, she went sedately back to the Prince’s house, and handed the letter to Maurice.
“I kept it, lord, because I thought my little lord might grow up and none know who he was, nor believe me when I told them. But if I said, ‘Here is writing in the hand of his mother,’ they could doubt no more.”
The proof seemed less obvious to her hearers than to herself, but Maurice took the paper gravely. “This is addressed to you, Cavaliere,” he said, handing it to him. Seizing it eagerly, the Cavaliere read it through, arriving at the abrupt ending with obvious disappointment.
“I was wrong in one point, I confess it. It is clear that there was no open quarrel. My daughter was not offered the choice between death and disgrace. She writes to me that she is convinced her husband will soon acknowledge her openly. He had pledged himself afresh that very morning, accompanying the pledge with a gift of so much significance that she durst not describe it on paper, but hoped to show it me before long at the Palace.”
“It was a piece of jewellery,” said Prince Romanos hastily. “You will be at no loss to imagine what it was—since she received it as an earnest of her hopes? The crown which she was never to wear—alas! I had pleased myself with having it made for her to my own design.”
“Did Petros know of it?” asked Zoe. “Because if he did, it might supply a motive for the murder.”
“I have no reason to think he did. But stay—the drawer in which she placed it was broken open and the jewel stolen by the murderers. It certainly looks——”
“Kalliopé,” interrupted Zoe, “do you think Petros can have murdered your mistress for the sake of the jewellery the Prince had just given her?”
“Oh no, my lady; he had no part in her death. And as for the jewel——” she hesitated, and looked at Prince Romanos for guidance. “Am I to tell all, lord?”
“Most certainly. Always tell the truth,” he said bluffly. To his utter stupefaction, Danaë unclasped the Girdle of Isidora from her waist, and laid it on the table.
“I would fain have spared you this shame, lord,” she said sadly. “Lady,” she turned to Zoe, “my lord gave this holy thing to the schismatic woman, and hailed her as Orthodox Empress. When she was dead, I took it from where I had seen her put it, and hid it, that it might be safe for my little lord’s wife when he grows up.”
“My girdle!” Danaë’s voice was drowned by Eirene’s shriek of joy as she sprang forward and seized the jewel. “At last, at last! Now we may hope for success!” she murmured, fondling the girdle and kissing it as if it were a living thing. Danaë’s eyes blazed, and she threw herself forward to tear it from her. Prince Romanos pushed her back, not too gently.
“Be still, girl! That belongs to Princess Theophanis.” Then to the rest, “There is some mistake. This girdle came to light in the course of the destruction of the old Scythian Consulate, after the visit which Prince Theophanis and Colonel Wylie and I paid to the operations. You will remember,” he turned to Maurice, “that I was about to join you when this terrible event occurred. The girdle was handed to me just before I started, and I promised myself the pleasure of restoring it to Princess Theophanis with my own hands. My wife teased me to show it to her, and I allowed her to put it on, and left it in her charge till the afternoon. I thought it had disappeared with the crown, but now I see it was not so.”
There was a moment’s awkward silence, which Wylie broke abruptly. “Kalliopé,” he said to the girl, who had stood looking with angry eyes from one to another while Prince Romanos spoke hastily in French, “why do you say now that Petros took no part in the murder? You told us before that you were afraid he would kill the child as he had killed the mother.”
These were not Danaë’s exact words, but she was too eager to answer to resent them. “I misjudged him, lord,” she replied quickly, glad to put herself right as far as possible with regard to Petros. “He laid no hand upon the Lady. He has told me so himself since, and I ought to have known that he would not overstep his orders.”
“His orders!” Everyone in the room seemed to echo the words, and Danaë stood aghast at what she had done.
“The orders of Prince Romanos?” asked Maurice.
“No, lord,” very low.
“Whose orders, then?” There was silence.
“Kalliopé, you must tell us,” cried Zoe impulsively. “Who gave these orders, and what were they? You can’t mean that you knew of a plot against your mistress, and never warned her?”
“A plot, lady mine? There was no plot. My lord and——” she broke off hurriedly. “My lord’s father heard of the schismatic woman who had bewitched my lord and was holding him in her snares, and he commanded Petros to bring her to Strio, where she would be kept safe, and do no more harm.”
“And you knew of this?” cried Zoe.
“I came to Therma from Strio on purpose to help in the doing of it, lady.”
“Kalliopé, you had a hand in this horrible murder!”
“No murder was intended, lady. The Despot desired only to put the woman where the Lord Romanos would not find her. But there was some mistake. Petros told me that among his helpers there were those who would willingly see her slain, and I warned him to do no more than he was commanded. He assured me all was well, and I helped to open the gate, not knowing that the evil men of whom he had spoken would be with him after all.”
“Kalliopé!” There was such disappointment and misery in Zoe’s cry that Prince Romanos sprang forward.
“Don’t waste your pity on this wretched girl, Princess. She is trying to take us all in. Can you conceive a person of my father’s standing initiating such a plot? It is preposterous, and she shall confess her falsehood on her knees.”
In his excitement he had spoken in Greek, and now he tried to seize Danaë. She shook herself free from him with flashing eyes. “You know little of your father, lord, if you refuse to believe me.”
“I know more of him than Eurynomé the nurse-maid. On your knees, girl! and confess that you have lied.”
“But not more of him than his daughter. Yes, lord, I am your sister. Not Eurynomé the nurse-girl, but Danaë, daughter of the Despot Agesilaos Christodoridi and of the Lady Xantippe his wife.”
Therewas a moment’s astonished silence as the listeners gazed at the two handsome faces confronting one another, so much alike in their rage. Then Prince Romanos sprang at his sister like a tiger.
“You killed her? You and my father killed my wife?”
Wylie stepped between them just in time. “In Europe we do not strike women, Prince,” he said.
Held back by the strong hand, Prince Romanos stood panting, his hands twitching and his face working convulsively. With an effort, he regained the mask of civilisation, which had fallen from him for a moment and revealed the fierce islander under the cosmopolitan exterior. With a gesture of the deepest contrition he turned to his father-in-law.
“Cavaliere, I can say no more. Do what you will; say what you will. Denounce me throughout Europe as the murderer of the woman I would have given my life to save. I will offer no defence; none is possible. I am her murderer—by the hands of my merciless father and of this fury who calls herself my sister.”
“But is she your sister really?” gasped Zoe.
“I suppose so,” he replied indifferently. “I know nothing of my father’s present family, except that he has two daughters. Second marriages are held in low esteem among us, as you know. But from what I know of my father I imagine the story must be true.”
Professor Panagiotis, unmoved by the storm raging around him, had been making notes on his papers. Now he looked up and spoke calmly.
“Your Highnesses, it seems to me that this revelation has come at a most opportune moment. I can hardly believe that either the Cavaliere Pazzi or Prince Theophanis will wish to take advantage of this surrender on the part of my master. His natural horror on finding himself betrayed by his nearest relations has made him forgetful of the interests alike of his son and of Emathia. Monsieur,” he turned to the Cavaliere, “I imagine you are now convinced of the Prince’s innocence?”
“I see a possibility of it,” was the reluctant reply, “but his defence is very nearly incredible.”
“Not if you were better acquainted with our people, monsieur. If the Lady Danaë will be so good as to tell us her story in detail, I think you will be forced to believe it.”
He turned deferentially to Danaë, who looked at Zoe.
“My lady, shall I speak?” she asked.
“Certainly. The best thing you can possibly do now is to tell the whole truth,” said Zoe bitterly. The girl ignored the bitterness, and addressed herself exclusively to her.
“Lady mine, I have deceived you in calling myself Kalliopé, as I deceived the Lady in calling myself Eurynomé. That I deceived you, I am sorry, but as for deceiving her, it was a good deed, and I do not regret it. I am the elder daughter of my father, who is called the Despot of Strio, and I dwelt there in his house until the early part of this year. Then there came to the island the man Petros, who had been summoned by my father on account of certain things he had heard, on which he desired Petros to assure him. But Petros could only confirm to him the truth of the rumours that had reached him concerning my brother, namely, that he was held in the toils of an evil woman, a schismatic by race, who had bewitched him so deeply that he scorned the daughters of all the kings of Europe for her sake. In the old days, my father would have commanded his son to repair to Strio, and would have taken from him this woman who called herself his wife, and put her to death before his eyes, after forcing her to release him from her spells, not permitting him to depart until an Orthodox marriage had been made for him—but those days are no longer with us. So my father gave Petros orders to bring the woman to Strio, where she should be safely kept, and made to set my brother free. Once she herself had released him, there would be no more danger. But it was necessary, since my brother guarded her so carefully, for one to be inside her house who should help Petros to enter, and I offered to be that one. Lady, why do you look at me as though I had done ill? I sought only to deliver my brother from the toils of a witch.”
“How can I help it?” cried Zoe. “That you—you, who have been with us all these months, who seemed really fond of the children, should have helped to commit a cold-blooded murder, to kill your own sister-in-law—oh, it is too horrible!”
“She was not my sister-in-law, lady,” with extreme horror. “She was a witch—even, perhaps,” Danaë dropped her voice, “a vampire.”
“She was the best and loveliest of women!” cried Prince Romanos; “and you, with your vile superstitions, are not fit to carry her shoes!”
“I thought she was a vampire!” said Danaë, with a certain gloomy satisfaction. “It is not enough to kill them; they retain their power when they seem to be dead, as you would know well, lord, if her spell was not over you.”
“Kalliopé, be quiet; you make my heart sick,” cried Zoe. “Don’t—don’t say you helped to do this awful thing!”
“You will not understand, my lady,” said Danaë patiently; “I did not want her killed, for then the effect of her spells would remain, as it does now. She must be made to remove them of her own free will. You are too kind, lady. If you lived among us, you would know that it is wrong and foolish to be gentle with witches and vampires. You must make your heart hard, thinking of the victims who have to be delivered from them. That is what my father would have done, but his plans went wrong through the men whom Petros engaged to help him carry off the Lady.”
“We shall get no sense out of this girl,” said the Cavaliere gloomily. “Can’t she speak the plain truth?”
“Look here, Kalliopé,” said Maurice abruptly. “Were these men, whom Petros got to help him, intended to be members of the Prince’s guard, or not?”
Danaë reflected a little. “Nothing was said about it, lord,” she replied; “and I think Petros would have feared to broach the matter to them. He is servant first of the Despot, and then of my brother, but they are servants altogether to the Lord Romanos, and might have betrayed the plan to him. Surely they were dressed like the guard that they might be admitted to the villa without the sentry’s suspecting anything?”
“That is possible. And you admitted them?”
“I put a little piece of iron, which Petros gave me, into the lock, lord, so that the key would not quite turn.”
“And why did you hide yourself and the child, if you were sure no harm would be done to him?”
“The Lady bade me hide, lord, and I was frightened—old Mariora cried out. There was a panic upon me.”
“Oh, Kalliopé, were you not sorry—not the least sorry—when you saw what you had done?” cried Zoe.
“I was a little sorry for Janni’s mother, my lady—but not for the woman who had bewitched my brother.”
Prince Romanos rose decisively from his chair. “Cavaliere, if you are not convinced, I am. Henceforth I live for vengeance. As for this wretched girl, I suppose she must enjoy the consideration she has denied to others. After all, perhaps her fittest punishment will be to send her back to Strio. I left it so young that I did not fully realise what an undesirable place it was to live in. I think—” he spoke in Greek, with intense meaning—“that we will send you back to Strio as a suspected witch, girl.”
Danaë turned so deadly white that Zoe stepped forward to catch her. “Why—why should you say that, lord?” she murmured.
“You made your way into two households—mine first and then the Lady Zoe’s—with false tales. Why should we have believed them if you had not cast a spell upon us? Through you my two servants lost their lives, I my wife, and Janni his mother. What harm you have wrought here I have not heard yet—but no doubt you have begun your evil work. You are discovered now, Lady Danaë, and you shall carry your fame home with you.”
“Oh, lady, lady mine! You won’t let them—” the words came brokenly as Danaë swayed and caught at Zoe. “You don’t believe—— Am I really a witch?”
“Prince, how can you?” began Zoe, but Armitage took the shaking form from her arms, and turned upon Prince Romanos with honest indignation.
“You miserable hound! let the unfortunate girl alone.”
“What! she has bewitched you too?” asked Prince Romanos, and with a shriek which rang in the ears of those present, Danaë swooned away.
“Oh, go out, go out and leave her with us!” cried Zoe distractedly to the men. “It has been too much—all this long strain—and this last thing, she thinks we believe it. Poor girl! she had no idea what she was doing.”
“If I may trespass on your kindness to shelter her for one night more, Princess?” said Prince Romanos smoothly, as he went out. “To-morrow I will relieve you of such an unpleasant charge.”
“Go, go!” said Zoe impatiently. Eirene had laid aside her recovered girdle for a moment, but there was a far-away look in her eyes as she brought water and restoratives and helped Zoe to lay Danaë on the floor. The moment the girl opened her eyes she left her and took up the girdle again, as though she feared being deprived of it.
“Better, Kalliopé?” asked Zoe kindly.
“Oh, lady, lady!” Danaë hid her face upon her mistress’s breast, and clung to her trembling and shivering. “Is it true? Am I a witch?”
“No, nonsense! There are no such things. Lie down, or you will faint again.” To Zoe’s intense astonishment, the girl had pushed her away, and was trying to raise herself by a chair.
“Lady, it is true. I have bewitched you, and you don’t know it. Let me go away, before I do you more harm. If I give myself freely to death, that will remove the spell.”
“Lie still, and don’t be silly. There are no witches now.”
“There was one in Strio, lady—a girl only as old as I am—I knew her. She had no wish to do harm, but evil befell all those on whom she looked, and her lover fell ill and wasted away. Even the priest could do nothing, and when they took her to the festival of a very holy relic in another island, the roof of the church fell in, and killed several people. The day after she came back to Strio she was found dead at the foot of the cliff, and all said that she had thrown herself over so as to break the effect of her spells. And it was through me that the Lord Harold was lost.”
“It was through you he was recovered. Now, Kalliopé, let us go back quietly, and you shall lie down in my room. I am not excusing you at all. You have done very wrong—worse than I could ever have believed—but instead of being sorry for that, you accuse yourself of being a witch, which is absurd.”
“But you can be a witch without knowing it, my lady,” the girl objected feebly, as they passed along the verandah. Zoe shrugged her shoulders deliberately, and made no answer until she had her patient established on the sofa.
“Now I am going to talk to you, Kalliopé—I can’t call you Danaë yet. Why do you say your sister-in-law was a witch?”
“The schismatic woman? Because she was a witch, lady.”
“I never saw anything like your obstinacy, Kalliopé. She was your sister-in-law, and she was not a witch.”
“But, lady mine, she bewitched my brother!”
“There was no witchcraft about it. I knew her well. She was very beautiful and very loving, and I should have been surprised if your brother, being what he is, had not fallen in love with her.”
“But to marry her, lady—forgetting all he owed to his house and to his faith!”
“That also was inevitable, unless he had deliberately cut himself off from her at once. But I should say rather that it was he who bewitched her to her undoing. It was madness in her to consent to a secret marriage, and so I told her.”
Danaë’s eyes were still obstinate, and Zoe spoke impressively.
“Well, I can’t hope to convince you against your will. But your brother has far more reason to believe you a witch, and a malevolent one, than you had to think his wife one.”
Again the trembling came upon the girl. “Oh, lady, why?”
“Because his wife brought him nothing but good—except what was due to his own concealment of the marriage—and you have done him the most dreadful harm.”
Zoe turned away, and taking up a book, pretended to read, leaving Danaë to sob and shiver among the cushions. At last an inarticulate murmur called her back, and the girl seized her hand convulsively. “Lady mine, I am sorry; I wish I had not done it. But she was a schismatic, and they said she was a witch, and I believed it.”
“Then don’t believe anything so silly in future.”
“But my brother, lady. He believes that I——”
“No, he doesn’t. He only said it to frighten you.”
“Oh, lady, then he will not send me back to Strio with that terrible message? You will make him have pity on me, so that I can stay here with you?”
“I should not let him send that message, certainly, but I am afraid he won’t leave you here, Kalliopé. He means to take you away with him to-morrow.”
“To be Janni’s nurse at Therma?” hopefully.
“No, I don’t think so. It wouldn’t do. I am sure he means to send you home. But you love your island; you will be glad to get back.”
For answer, Danaë flung herself off the sofa, and clasped her mistress’s knees tightly. “Oh, lady mine, let me stay here! If you will not have me in the nursery, let me go to the kitchen again. Anything rather than go back to Strio!”
“But, Kalliopé, you must see that your brother could not leave you here as a servant. I should be very glad if he would let you stay, but you will be wanted at home. You are a great lady there.”
“Oh, lady, if you knew what it was like! But you can’t dream of it. Why, if you had been my father’s wife when the Lord Harold was lost, do you think he would have taken you by the hand and spoken compassionately to you, as the Lord Glafko did? No, he would have beaten you till the blood came, for your carelessness in allowing the child to be lost.”
Zoe sat aghast. “Well, it would certainly have been a warning against carelessness in future,” she said, trying to laugh.
“There, my lady! you see what it is like. And I have seen now what it is like in Europe, where ‘men do not strike women,’ as the Lord Glafko said. How can I go back to it? Before I left Strio I knew of nothing better, but now that I have seen the Prince, and the Lord Glafko, and—and Milordo, and know how they treat women——”
“My poor girl, I see how hard it is for you, and I will do what I can. But I am afraid your brother is determined. Now go, and—and Linton had better help you to pack, in case——”
Zoe felt herself perfectly inhuman as Danaë turned great eyes of reproach upon her, but she durst make no promises. When her husband came in, she turned to him eagerly.
“Graham, you won’t mind if I try to persuade Prince Romanos to leave that poor girl with us? It is a miserable prospect for her to be sent back to Strio.”
“I shan’t object, but I doubt if you’ll get him to do it. And what have you in view for her exactly? Armitage doesn’t seem to come up to the scratch.”
“No, how could he? It must be a dreadful shock to find that a girl you have admired so much is practically a murderess. But I wish he would! It would be all right then. He could go away for a year’s cruise, and I would take her thoroughly in hand. He wouldn’t know her when he came back, and it would be so splendid introducing them!”
“But you don’t think he might prefer to do the training and watch the transformation for himself?”
“Of course he might, but it’s the dramatic effect I am thinking of. But I am afraid he has received too great a shock to want to have anything to do with her. And the Christodoridi are not a family that one would exactly choose to be connected with.”
“That depends on your moral character. If you prefer a family that’s bound to come up on top every time, you couldn’t do better. Witness Romanos retiring triumphant from here with his attendant Professor!”
“Oh, you went on with your business, then. What has he got?”
“Freedom from pressure for the moment, and the prospect of establishing his dynasty permanently, which is what he cares about. His railway muddle he conveniently shoves off on our shoulders. Maurice consents to finance the proposed line between here and Therma, as the only way of keeping the port free, and retains the right of constructing a future extension from here through Illyria to the Adriatic, which may become very important. But Pannonia must be given the chance of continuing her line through the Debatable Land as far as this place, and we must square Scythia by letting her build one from Przlepka to Karajevo in Thracia.”
Zoe was silent a moment, making mental maps of the proposed changes. “Perhaps they’ll refuse,” she said.
“I only wish they might, but they are too keen. They’ll both trust to getting control of our part of the line in time. And it will be one unceasing fight on our part to keep them out. Romanos doesn’t care, having secured his heir and avoided a European scandal, and found a way of slipping out of the partial promises he made to both Scythia and Pannonia.”
“And he does nothing in return?”
“Oh yes; he makes us guardians to little Janni.”
“I should have thought that was only another obligation. Do you mean regents in case anything happens to him?”
“No, he has sense enough to perceive that the child would never be accepted as High Commissioner either by the Powers or the people. It would be a case of Maurice or a return into the Young Roumi fold. But it is a handsome acknowledgment beforehand that if he comes to a violent end he believes we had nothing to do with it.”
“Well, if that’s all, I think he ought to be in a superlatively good temper this evening. I begin to have hopes.”
But when Zoe seized an opportunity after dinner of pressing her wishes upon Prince Romanos, she was disappointed. He was firm in his resolution to send his sister back to Strio.
“But not with that accusation hanging over her?” said Zoe. “If it was so, I should refuse to let her go.”
“No,” he said reluctantly; “she well deserves it, but the result would probably be to disgrace the family still further. The best thing for her will be to retire into her original obscurity, and be forgotten here.”
“But if you would only let me have her to train! She has such fine qualities, and she is so beautiful——”
“She is a beautiful savage, Princess, like all our women in Strio. They are no more fitted for freedom than an Arabian or Persian woman suddenly taken from the harem. Am I to let loose on Europe a being with the morals of the Dark Ages and the face and form of a goddess? Who could cope with her? In Strio we know what to do.”
“She dreads it so much,” urged Zoe; but as his face showed pleasure rather than sympathy, she tried another argument, which it ashamed her to have to use. “I really think she would be sure to marry well if she stayed here. Lord Armitage was very much struck——”
“I have too much kindness for my old comrade Lord Armitage, or any other civilised man, to inflict her upon him,” he said, after a pause of consideration. “One of her own people, with old-fashioned views and a heavy hand, is the appropriate husband for her, and I shall make it my business to see that she is married quickly.”
“It sounded to me as though he would have liked Lord Armitage, with his money and his beautiful new yacht, very much as a brother-in-law,” said Zoe, when she was reporting her failure to her husband afterwards, “but he liked revenge better. I couldn’t help wondering whether part of his anger came from the way she gave him away about the Girdle of Isidora.”
“Princess Eirene is certainly not going the way to help him to forget his loss. Was it really necessary to wear it so conspicuously the very first night?”
“I believe she can’t bear to lay it down. And didn’t she look happy—quite young and blooming? I saw poor Maurice stealing puzzled glances at her every now and then. You know, she really thinks to-day is going to be the turning-point, that Prince Romanos will decrease and we shall increase. She is almost as superstitious in her way as Kalliopé in hers.”
“Ah, that unfortunate girl! So Armitage didn’t rise to the occasion?”
“No,” very dolefully. “Oh, I quite see how much wiser and more prudent he is to remain silent, what a mistake it would be for him to fetter himself with a totally unsuitable wife, but I wish—oh, I wish that he had come forward! It would have been so chivalrous.”
“So utterly foolish. Well, we can hardly——”
“No, he has sighed as a lover—perhaps not even that—sighed as an admirer and submitted as a peer of the realm,” said Zoe flippantly. “I am just going to peep at the babies before I go to bed.”
In the nursery Linton, with spectacles on nose, was busily engaged upon a cloth gown of Zoe’s, which she had evidently been renovating and altering.
“I couldn’t bear to let that poor girl go without some little thing to show there was no ill-feeling, ma’am,” she whispered hoarsely. “She has been crying in bed fit to break your heart, and I thought it might comfort her a bit if we let her go off in European clothes. There’s this dress of yours that the Master can’t bear the colour of, as good as new, and she’ll look a real lady in it, now that I’ve altered it to fit her.”
“Thank you, Linton; it’s very good of you to think of it,” said Zoe, in a depressed voice. “How we shall miss her and Janni, shan’t we? Poor things! how I wish the Prince would leave them with us.”
“I’m sure I never thought to be sorry when they went—” Linton took off her spectacles and wiped them resentfully—“but there! you never know, as they say.”
Zoe looked in at the two children in their cribs, bade Linton good-night, and went out. At the door a white figure with long black hair was waiting for her.
“Lady—oh, lady mine, will he let me stay?”
“I am so sorry, Kalliopé. I tried all I could, but he would not listen.”
The girl wrung her hands wildly. “And last night—only last night, lady—I was so happy!”
Danaëwas not to be allowed any mitigation of her hard fate; even the alleviations devised for her by her friends were forbidden. When her brother saw her in the European dress, he sent her promptly back to change it, and she travelled in his train not as his sister, but as Janni’s nurse. For her own purposes she had chosen to leave Strio as a nurse-girl, and as a nurse-girl she should return thither. Her brother refused to own her. Petros, who was discovered at Therma, hanging about the Palace in a state of considerable embarrassment not unmixed with apprehension, since he did not know what his master had heard or what he would do, found himself treated as the person responsible for her misdoings. The very morning after her arrival, as soon as a respectable elderly woman had been installed to look after Janni, Danaë was summoned to the Prince’s private room, and confronted with her alleged uncle, who was evidently extremely uncomfortable, and rather inclined to bluster. Some coins lay on the table.
“I won’t take them!” Petros was asseverating. “You will accuse me of stealing next. I know you, my Prince.”
“Take your wages, girl,” said Prince Romanos coldly to his sister. “You will be expected to bring back something to add to yourproïka[dowry] when you return from your situation. You had better take your niece back to Strio at once,” he added to Petros. “Your passages are taken, and her luggage will be sent on board.”
“But am I to go at once, lord?” Danaë ventured to ask.
“You will go straight from this room to the quay. And tell the girl’s father from me,” again he addressed Petros, “that he will do well to find her a husband at once, before she brings further disgrace on his house. And you may warn the husband to look well after her.”
Flame flashed from Danaë’s eyes at the words and the obvious glee with which Petros received them—for was not his master ranging him with himself against the Despot and the Lady Danaë?—but it was quenched by a sudden rush of tears. “O my Prince, you will let me bid farewell to the little lord?” she faltered.
“No,” said Prince Romanos curtly. “I wish you had never come near him. I wish I had never set eyes on you!” he cried passionately. “I wish Strio and all upon it had been sunk in the depths of the sea a year ago, before you were inspired by the devil—” Danaë shivered at this plain speaking instead of the usual periphrasis—“to come and turn my life into a wilderness! To see you touch the child whose mother you murdered is an abomination; I will not hear of it. Go back to your accursed island, and may the fates repay to you and your accomplices the measure you meted out to the innocent! As for you, dog—” he turned suddenly on Petros, whose discomfiture on finding himself the object of his master’s attention was very marked—“you cozened me out of a pardon, I believe?”
“I had your promise, my Prince,” responded the delinquent, with an involuntary grin, partly due to nervousness.
“And you tried to place me under an obligation to you by stealing the Lord Glafko’s son?”
“Why, lord, you were always lamenting that you had no way of bending the Lord Theophanis to your will, and when the chance offered I thought I would give you one.”
“Unless your Pannonian friends held out the hope of better terms, I suppose. Well, you are returning to Strio, and my advice to you is—stay there. Many years to you!”
“My Prince would soon want me back again. I make my bow to you, lord,” said Petros smilingly, but when he found himself outside the room with Danaë, his assurance wavered. “I have the promise, but I wonder whether the Lord Romanos is to be trusted to keep it? What do you think, lady?”
“You are pardoned for killing Despina, not the Lady,” said Danaë impatiently. “If I were you I would take the advice given me. If you return to Therma, the Lord Romanos may hold himself quit of his promise.”
“Why, then, it will be a case of who strikes first,” said Petros, his swagger returning. “On the whole, I think I have got off pretty lightly, considering you were foolish enough to let everything out, Eurynomé my girl. I don’t quite know what I thought would be the end of it all, but I certainly never expected to be taking you back to Strio in this way, like damaged goods. And the message to the Despot! Well, you will bear me out that I was charged to deliver it.”
Danaë made no answer as she followed him gloomily through the Palace gate. It seemed as though all the odium due to the other conspirators, who were so placed that they could not be touched, had heaped itself on her. In the softened state of mind which had been the result of her last conversation with Zoe, she had hoped her brother would allow her to attend, as a sort of expiation, the imposing religious ceremony of the translation of Donna Olimpia’s remains from their temporary resting-place to the principal church in Therma. But no, whatever favour might perforce be shown to Petros, she was to receive none. Nothing proved this more clearly than the prohibition to say good-bye to Janni, who would now be wailing his little heart out for his Nono. And the cruel message to her father! What could be the outcome but such a marriage as would justify ten times the dread with which she had looked forward to her return home?
The sea was no kinder to Danaë than the land, and the unpleasant experiences of her voyage to Therma were even intensified on her return—the sole comfort being the greater deference which infused itself gradually into the manner of Petros. From Tortolana onwards he took his proper place as the confidential servant who had been entrusted with the duty of bringing his young mistress home from school, and Danaë’s European luggage aroused much interest, though she disappointed all observers by not wearing Frank clothes. Reluctantly she set foot on the soil of Strio, and climbed the steep street between the white houses. To the islanders she seemed a stranger, and they seemed strangers to her. It was less than a year since she had left home, and yet most of the pretty girls who had roamed over the roofs with her seemed to be already transformed into blowzy matrons. The people looked after her curiously as she passed, noting the atmosphere of detachment which appeared to surround her, and wondering how the Despot would like the result of his experiment. It was the same when she reached the fortress, to find her mother, hastily awakened, regarding her with apprehensive, faintly hostile eyes, and Angeliké frankly of opinion that if she must come back at all, she need not have timed her arrival precisely at this juncture.
For the desire of Angeliké’s heart was in sight, and her betrothal to Narkissos Smaragdopoulos, the son of the chief man of Tortolana, within measurable distance. The old woman who was the recognised intermediary in such affairs among the aristocratic families of the group had voyaged from Strio to Tortolana, and informed Kyrios Smaragdopoulos that Prince Christodoridi might be brought to look favourably upon his son as his daughter’s bridegroom. The prudent father, after polite disparagement of the honour done him, made the regulation inquiry as to the amount of the bride’s dowry, and since then old Aristomaché had travelled backwards and forwards, on haggling intent. Over the last thousand drachmæ in dispute the projected match nearly came to shipwreck, but the contending parties had consented to split the difference, and the stalwart Narkissos was now a recognised suitor. Under his father’s wing, he had paid two or three state calls on Prince Christodoridi, in which the subject of the marriage was never mentioned, and Angeliké, demurely handing round the coffee, never addressed, but it was understood that everything was going on most propitiously.
“It really is very unfortunate that you should have come back just now,” lamented Angeliké as she and her sister knelt at their window that evening, with their arms upon the broad stone sill.
“I shouldn’t have come if I could have helped it,” snapped Danaë.
“Well, I wish you had managed better. I have had such trouble with our father about settling the betrothal, and all because of you. First he said that he would be disgraced if his younger daughter was married first, and then when I said that our brother was sure to find a husband for you, or if he didn’t, at any rate we could say he had, he said he had promised you not to let me be married before you. Of course I pointed out to him that we might be betrothed for ages before being married, and I do wish you could have kept away until the rings had been blessed. When we had exchanged them, I should have felt safe.”
“I believe,” said Danaë slowly, “that you are afraid of my stealing your dear Narkissos. You needn’t be.”
“I’m not,” said Angeliké sharply. “I know what he thinks of you. Oh, not that time long ago, when you spilt the coffee over him. He saw you in Tortolana yesterday, and he thinks you look quite old.”
“How do you know what he thinks? Does he write to you?”
“Do you imagine I’m going to tell you? Of course he doesn’t write. What good would a letter be to me? But we have ways of knowing about each other, and a good thing too. So don’t flatter yourself——”
“I tell you I don’t want him. I wouldn’t marry him if he would take me without a drachma. I don’t want to marry anybody. I should like to die.”
“That’s because you have nobody to marry you,” said Angeliké smartly. “I have felt like that myself towards the end of the Great Fast. But not now—any more than at Easter. Danaë,what did you do?”
“Do—at Easter?” Danaë was puzzled.
“No, at Therma. Petros told our father that there was an English lord who would have married you, but when he heard all about you he drew back.”
“It is not true! There was never anything of the sort!” cried Danaë hotly. “How did you hear?”
“Oh, I listened,” said Angeliké, as calmly as Danaë herself would have made the same confession a year ago. “You were to have a husband found for you soon, lest you should disgrace the family.”
“It is the family that disgraces me!” cried Danaë furiously. “Since Milordo heard that I was of the Christodoridi, he has spoken no word to me.”
“Then there was something in it?” asked Angeliké greedily. “Tell me about Milordo, and I will tell you what Petros said about him.” For Petros had learnt from the comrade who had attended Prince Romanos to Klaustra some things that had happened, and a good many that had not, and had superimposed his own interpretation upon both. But Danaë knew the worth of Angeliké’s sympathy of old, and was not to be drawn.
“Milordo is rich and great, and will marry some beautiful European lady of wealth and high birth,” she said drearily. “He made a picture of me, that was all.”
“In European dress?” asked Angeliké eagerly.
“No, just these old things. He did not know who I was.”
Angeliké was puzzled. Danaë did not seem even to care to know how Petros had calumniated her to her father—a recital from which she had promised herself a pleasant excitement. Already her shrewd mind had discovered various discrepancies in the published accounts of her sister’s sojourn on the mainland. Contrary to his declared intention, Prince Christodoridi had sent his elder daughter to school, but coaxing and questioning alike had failed to draw from him the name of the school or its teacher. She had continued to wear her native costume, when everyone knew that all schools that were worth anything insisted upon European dress, and she had in some way come into contact with the English impostors who called themselves Theophanis. Moreover, she had incurred the wrath of Prince Romanos, and had been sent home by him with a message that was positively insulting to his father, and she was spiritless and miserable, and seemed to shrink from all her old associations. Angeliké felt herself challenged to discover the truth, the means of learning which, so she decided, must be contained in the large trunk Danaë had brought back with her. She did not offer to unpack it, never went to it when anyone else was by, never left it unlocked, and produced nothing from it but such clothes as she had worn before she went away. For days Angeliké watched and pried, until she discovered that the key was concealed in her sister’s hair, a tress of which secured the handle. That night the tress was dexterously snipped off, and the key removed.
When Danaë woke in the morning, and discovered her loss, her anxious misery would have moved any heart less hard than her sister’s. She said little, after Angeliké had, with a brazen face, disclaimed all knowledge of the key, for she durst not show the importance she attached to her box and its contents, but she went about searching unavailingly. Angeliké’s favourite hiding-places, known of old, were all visited, for Danaë had not the slightest faith in her denial, but it was clear that the key could only be wrested from her by a personal struggle, such as Danaë had learnt to detest. It was indeed the irony of fate that had transformed the unruly barbarian of Klaustra into the unappreciated reformer of Strio, but the surroundings of her present life had taken on quite a new appearance to her. She experienced now something of the same despair that her own untruthfulness had caused in Zoe; she could trust no one, there was not a creature whose word could be accepted.
Wearily Danaë mounted the stairs to the room she shared with her sister, and stood transfixed as she opened the door. There was Angeliké peacocking about in Zoe’s myrtle-green gown. The skirt was put on back in front, and the coat cruelly strained to make it meet over her plump chest, but she was trailing hither and thither and admiring herself just as Danaë had done in Linton’s clothes. The recollection did not occur at the moment, however, nor would the effect have been a softening one if it had. Training and recent sorrowful musings were alike forgotten, and Danaë rushed at her sister and fairly tore the green gown from her. Her face was so white with rage, and she seemed endued with such irresistible strength, that Angeliké, not usually a coward, made no attempt to protest, and only whimpered feebly when a final push sent her violently against the wall. Half-awed, half-angry, she watched while Danaë gathered up tenderly the desecrated garment, and laying it on the bed, began to smooth it out and fold it as Linton had taught her. A hot tear dropped on the cloth, and she wiped it carefully away, then fetched a needle and cotton, and in the same furious silence sewed on a button or two which had been loosened by Angeliké’s rough handling.
Angeliké’s versatile mind did not retain impressions very long, and her anger was soon succeeded by an overpowering curiosity. Approaching her sister meekly, with a wary eye open for possibilities of danger, she addressed her in a conciliatory voice.