“Oh, are you back already?” she cried. “Well, did you see him off?”
“Yes, the steamer was actually punctual; we had barely time, in fact. He begged me to give his farewells and good wishes all over again. I only stayed to watch him out of the harbour, and hurried back here, because I thought Mrs Teffany might let me make a sketch of her in that Greek dress. It’s awfully fetching, and I shan’t have another chance.”
Armitage was to wait until the next steamer, so as to cover the retreat of the rest, or rather, to find out if any measures were likely to be taken against them. What his paper thought of his long delay at Therma he did not inquire, trusting to be able to placate it with a terrific double-page drawing of the city on the night of the dynamite outrages, as seen from Kallimeri, as well as by a whole supplement illustrating the adventures of his friends, whose capture by the brigands had first brought him south.
“If you would stand just as you are now, leaning against that pillar, Mrs Teffany,” he continued persuasively. “You see, I have your husband in Greek dress already, and I could work up the two sketches into a tremendously telling portrait.”
“I bag it, then,” said Maurice. “All right, Eirene, let him do it if he’s taken that way. It’s only like being photographed at an ordinary wedding.”
“It ought to have been a group,” objected Zoe, whose anger had evaporated before the duty of arranging Eirene so that her costume showed to the best advantage. With skilful fingers she pulled out here and patted down there, until Armitage begged her not to make the effect too studied.
“Talking about groups, we really ought to have had one taken before Wylie left,” said Maurice. “Just the four of us who were captured together. He always seems rather left out, and yet he worked so tremendously for us.”
“Oh, that reminds me,” said Armitage. “I can’t help thinking”—he went on, with some embarrassment—“at least, I know I should like to be reminded if it was my case. It doesn’t seem quite fair to Wylie—— You know he paid your ransom?”
“No!” cried Maurice. “I thought my bankers did it. Why, this explains the apologetic, self-congratulatory letter they wrote to me this week. I was too busy to bother about it, but I was going to ask for an explanation when I got home. Wylie paid, you say?”
“I believe the Professor raised some of it. But I know Wylie scraped together fifteen thousand, by selling out every shilling of his investments, and mortgaging the little place he has in the north. You see, your bankers had refused to advance the money, and the brigands had sworn to kill you if it wasn’t forthcoming.”