“I can relieve your mind on one point, at any rate. There’s no question of thrusting yourself upon them, for they are most anxious to see you. I have a letter from Miss Teffany for you here, if you can see to read it, and I was charged in addition to use all the arts of diplomacy to persuade you to visit Kallimeri, if only for a day, and even if you had to be accompanied by Madame Ladoguin.”
“You really mean it?” she asked, looking up at him doubtfully. “You are not saying it merely to make me willing to come? You may not quite understand, but it is a tremendous step for me to take. I mean, if the Ladoguins choose, they may say—things about me, and I may be cast off entirely—if I don’t go back to the Consulate at once, you know.”
Wylie cut short her halting utterances. “Don’t be afraid,” he said kindly. “You shall go back to the Consulate as early as you like to-morrow. To-night you simply can’t get there. Slander itself could say nothing against your accepting a night’s shelter from your father’s old friend and his wife. Now, will you get into the carriage and read your letter, while I go and look for the Professor? You will promise me to wait here until I come back?”
Much to his relief, Eirene uttered no protest, and the idea which had occurred to him that she might slip away when his back was turned, and lose herself in the mazes and dangers of the streets, had evidently not entered her mind. She was too much exhausted by all she had undergone to have energy left to make plans for herself, and it was an untold relief to find her movements settled for her. Gratefully she accepted Wylie’s help, and entered the carriage, receiving Zoe’s letter from him with a word of thanks, and leaning forward eagerly to read it by the light of the sergeant’s lantern. Her piteous little white face, as she looked up at him in utter bewilderment of fatigue, was in Wylie’s thoughts as he passed the cordon to find the Professor, and it made him very determined to obtain success in a task which he foresaw, though without exactly knowing why, would have its difficulties. He met the Professor returning to the carriage, and condoled with him on his losses.
“Oh, it was only to be expected,” was the philosophical reply. “It would have been something of a slight if I had been left unmolested on such an occasion. Of course, the miscreants hoped to benefit themselves,—I hear there were a dozen Jews raking over the ruins almost before the fire had ceased, under pretence of helping to save my possessions,—but I need not tell you they found nothing. We shall save nothing of the furniture or contents of the house, unfortunately; the destruction was too thorough. Two or three bombs must have been used, I should say, and remarkably well placed. The caretaker’s wife, who escaped, tells me she noticed a very tall woman, whom she suspected to be a man in disguise, hanging about just at dusk. Well, we had better get back to Kallimeri. I am sorry it is no use looking for your bag, if that was your reason for coming down here.”
“Never once thought of it,” said Wylie, detaining him. “No, I have picked up a European lady in distress, and I want to take her back with us. There’s nothing else to be done.”
“Who is the lady?” asked the Professor sharply.
“The Princess Eirene Féofan.”
“I suspected as much. No; let her go back to the Scythian Consulate. I have no responsibility for her.”
“She can’t. The streets are impassable. You knew her father; you can’t refuse her shelter.”