“To-morrow,” replied Maurice inexorably, and Zoe went to bed murmuring “Zoe Theophanes, de stirpe imperatorum,” with loving iteration.
“You mustn’t think that Maurice is slack or cold-hearted,” she said to the Professor, meeting him in the garden the next morning. “He won’t be hurried into anything, and he never lets any one make up his mind for him, but when once he sees that a thing is right, he holds on to it like grim death.”
“Precisely my own reading of your brother’s character,” agreed the Professor. “Shall I confess that I was at first a little disappointed at not finding in Mr Teffany that enthusiasm for our persecuted compatriots which is so manifest in his sister? But I perceived quickly the tenacity of his purpose—a quality which it is even more important to enlist on our side.”
“Yes,” said Zoe warmly, “if he once decides to join you, you will never be disappointed in him. He is so thoroughly dependable. Of course, I never let him know what I think of him,” she added inconsequently—“it wouldn’t be good for him—but he is splendid. Very few men would have gone to college, as he did, at a good deal over the usual age, after practically managing the estate for my grandfather for years. But he felt it was the right thing to do, and as soon as he was free he did it.”
“But surely you did the same?”
“Yes, I went up to Girtham at the same time. But a girl is always thankful to get an education, you know, just as a boy is always thankful to escape it. So you won’t hurry Maurice, will you, or try to influence his judgment?”
“My lips are sealed, unless Mr Teffany himself addresses me on the subject. But I am infinitely indebted to Miss Teffany for her warning.”
The Professor’s thanks gave Zoe an uncomfortable feeling of disloyalty to Maurice, and, in flat contradiction of the advice she had just given, she attacked her brother on the momentous subject when she saw him next.
“Oh, Maurice, you will do it, won’t you? It is so splendid to think of your driving the Roumis from Czarigrad, and establishing peace in Emathia.”
“The question at present before the House is that of our summer trip,” was the discouraging reply.