“But why then trouble himself with the Princess?” asked M. Ladoguin helplessly.
“Oh, that’s clear enough,” was the contemptuous reply of his wife. “She is to marry the claimant.”
“Now there I can’t agree with you, Chariclea,” said her brother. “Panagiotis is far too wise for that. The united claims of the two would be absolutely unassailable, and there would be no room for him. He might choose to arrange such a marriage by slow degrees, inventing hindrances and delays so as to make his own services appear indispensable, but it would be madness to begin by throwing the two young people together.”
“But we can hardly charge the worthy Professor with the railway accident and the capture by the brigands, can we?” asked M. Ladoguin, laughing. “We know better than that.”
“No, that was certainly unforeseen on his part. But why plot so clumsily as to let them travel by the same train?”
“He must have had some scheme for separating them as soon as they became interested in one another,” suggested Mme. Ladoguin, without much conviction.
“Now I am going to propound a common-sense view of the matter, since you two clever people are at a loss,” said her husband. “What if Panagiotis has washed his hands of the girl—the Princess, I mean—since he discovered his male heir; and what if she took the journey entirely on her own account, enraged at the neglect of her claims? That would account for his not expecting her. The meeting with the Smiths would then be a pure coincidence.”
“Absurd!” said Mme. Ladoguin sharply, following the sound Higher Critical rule of rejecting the obvious. “Do you suggest that these young people, whose interests are diametrically opposed, fell in love at first sight, like characters of Shakespeare, and agreed to—to pool their respective claims?”
“Possibly. Isn’t it more reasonable than to suppose that Panagiotis brought them together and explained the situation, with a view to a State marriage?”
“Stop!” cried Mitsopoulo suddenly. “Adopting the coincidence theory provisionally, must we suppose that the situation is explained at all? In my view, Panagiotis arranged the disappearance of the Princess, but she was too impatient to await the date he had fixed. He had intended to produce her a month or so hence, when the young man was entirely in his power; but naturally he says nothing to either of them. She escapes sooner than he wished, and falls in with the other claimant and his sister in Paris. There was the coincidence. Now, is it likely that either party would even be aware of the other’s existence, since it is to the interest of Panagiotis to keep them in ignorance for his own purposes? Therefore, why should they confide in each other at all?”