“But won’t you tell me what it is you want me to do?” urged Eirene, as the Princess turned again to her writing-table. “I am to renounce our rights, of course—my husband’s and mine——”
“I have not said so.” The Princess looked round. “What you will renounce is the right of independent action. You will act as is suggested to you; I can tell you no more at present. Of course you will have the right to refuse the terms when they are submitted for your acceptance, if you prefer it. In that case, naturally, I can do no more, and I shall not be the person responsible for the death of a very worthy, if misguided, young man, who was unfortunate enough to take the advice of his wife rather than of older and wiser heads.”
“Madame, you will break my heart!” panted Eirene.
“Oh no, you mistake. If you should discover that your duty to your ambition compelled you to sacrifice the life of your husband, then your heart might break, but I think not. You would be upheld by a sense of the stern nobility of your attitude, surely? Then farewell, dear madame. I shall see you again soon? My kindest remembrances to your brave husband. Olimpia!”
Ushered out of the Princess’s presence, Eirene stood for a moment as if dazed. The two cavasses from Therma, allotted to her partly as guard, partly as spies upon her movements, gathered themselves up lazily from the most comfortable resting-places they could find in front of the house, and the sight of them recalled her to herself. Hastily she picked her way back to the building where Maurice lay under guard, up one steep street and down another, an incongruous figure with her black attire and burning eyes among the many-coloured and abounding life that thronged them. Sailors from the fleets jostled the sight-seeing tourists of whom Zoe had spoken to Wylie, and the inhabitants of the town were making hay while the sun shone as zealously under the Roumi flag as when the Imperial ensign had floated over their roofs. Nothing was changed in their busy, money-making existence, everything in the life of the lonely woman who passed among them like a reproachful ghost.
* * * * * * * *
“Eirene,” said Zoe, coming in one morning from marketing, “something dreadful must be happening at Therma. I met Captain Bryson rushing down to the quay, and he says all the warships are ordered there at once, leaving only the Dorinda on guard here. Street-fighting, he said, with the Roumi troops siding with the mob.”
“I thought that was just what Graham Wylie prophesied,” said Eirene, without interest.
“Yes, but I don’t believe he thought it would begin so soon. Oh, I wonder whether the Admiral took his advice about asking for reinforcements! I told him that very evening, but he only looked at me in that pitying, smiling way he has, and wouldn’t say anything. Eirene, you look frightfully tired. Do go out and get a breath of air, and let me sit with Maurice a little.”
“I am not tired——” began Eirene, but through the open door behind Zoe she caught sight of a man approaching the house—the Princess Dowager’s Dardanian servant, in all the bravery of the snowy linen and shining embroidery of his native dress, and the sashful of murderous weapons about his manly waist. In his strong brown fingers he carried a note. Zoe must not guess that the veteran intriguer was in communication with her sister-in-law, and Eirene made up her mind in an instant. “I am more tired than I thought I was,” she said languidly. “Maurice was very restless in the night. I am rather faint, I think. I will walk up the hill and back again. Oh!” as the Dardanian reached the door, “was that Maurice calling?”