The Capsina laughed.
"Surely there has never been a lad yet so single of purpose," she said. "To him there is nothing in all the world but a little wooden king."
"Even so, if only the news from Nauplia is good!" said Mitsos, smiling half to himself, "and if the little Turks will be kind and sail northward to us."
"Yet still you do not tell me," said the girl, "and I will throw my manners away and ask. Have you a mother, Mitsos?"
"No, nor father either," and he stopped, remembering what he and Suleima had said to each other as they walked beneath the stars down to the boat.
"Then who is it who is so dear?" she asked, and with a sudden uprising of anxiety waited for the answer.
"It is Suleima!" said Mitsos, "the little wife, and he the adorable, so she calls him, the littlest one."
The Capsina stared a moment in silence.
"So," she said, at length, "and you never told me that! Little Mitsos, why have you so greatly made a stranger of me?"
She rose from where she sat, and with that the flame in her eyes was quenched, and they were appealing only as of a chidden dog.