“And if she does, we may as well give it up, for she will be out of our reach,” said Zoe. “Clearly we must precipitate matters. Oh, but how did you know what I was hoping for?” she cried suddenly. “I never told you.”
“I guessed, from what you told me about your brother, and then it came to me in a flash that we might get things settled at once, thanks to all this affair in the city. Nobody knows where the Princess is, you see, and it’ll take some time to track her.”
“You mean they could get married before she is found? Oh, how splendid! We must manage it. I will think about it to-night, and you must play up to me to-morrow.”
“Trust me!” said Wylie, as they arrived at the door, where Madame Panagiotis, a very correct German lady of commanding proportions, was looking with evident suspicion at Eirene, with her bare shoulders and tattered evening gown. With a cry of delight the two girls rushed into each other’s arms, and on Zoe’s guarantee, Madame Panagiotis consented to receive the dishevelled-looking stranger. There was a room next to Zoe’s she could have, she said, and she herself would lend her decent clothes, unless Miss Teffany cared to do so. Zoe declared joyfully that no one else should look after her friend, and carried her off upstairs at once, pausing only to say aside to Wylie—
“Just tell Maurice, as you pass, that she is here. Then perhaps he will be able to sleep.”
Returning to Eirene, she found the Professor saying pointedly how glad he was to receive under his roof a younger branch of the illustrious house to which his honoured guests belonged, and she swept her off at once, afraid that he might go on to say something that would spoil her plans.
“Isn’t Madame Panagiotis funny?” she asked of Eirene, when they were by themselves. “Maurice and I used to wonder whether she would sit on the floor and eat with her fingers, and you can imagine our feelings when we found her such a monument of propriety. Do you know, the Professor called her at first ‘the Mrs Professor’ when he talked English—die Frau Professorin, you know—but he must have seen it sounded queer, and he gave it up.”
Eirene sat listening passively while Zoe took down her hair and brushed it. “Oh, Zoe,” she broke out suddenly, “it is such a rest to be here. I don’t mind any one else—Professor or Professorin—if I can be near you and Maurice. You can’t guess how I have longed for you!”
“It’s awfully sweet of you to say it,” said Zoe, penitently. “I know I was perfectly horrid to you often.”
“You weren’t!” was the indignant reply. “You and Maurice were always just the same to me, whether you thought I was Miss Smith or a Princess. You were quite right to scold me when I said silly things. And, Zoe, you were right about Vlasto, and I was too silly. He was Nicetas Mitsopoulo, Chariclea Ladoguin’s brother, in disguise. I recognised him as soon as he was presented to me, and I thought how you would triumph. I deserved it.”