THE glow 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.”
“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.”