“He would never forgive me,” said Eirene, trembling.
“He need never know, unless you tell him. Listen—the intimation that his retirement is desired shall be conveyed to you first. I will not do you the injustice to imagine that you cannot induce him—by urging ill-health on your own part, if necessary—to take a step on which you have set your heart. Once he has complied, the paper shall be handed back to you, to be dealt with as you please.”
Eirene caught at a straw. “But even if he did resign, the people would at once elect Prince Romanos Christodoridi. He is the Pannonian candidate, and the Greeks adore him.”
“My dear friend, it is quite unnecessary for you to trouble yourself about that young man. I know something about him that would make him, if I even whispered it abroad, an impossible candidate. I assure you that everything has been provided for. But I will make your task as easy as I can. The preliminary to proposing your husband as candidate must of course be the decision on the part of the Powers that he is not to be handed over to Roum—that he is, in short, a free man. This I will undertake to obtain at once, confiding in your honour. If I am able to announce to you—and events confirm it—that his life is safe, may I depend upon you to perform your part of the compact?”
“But his life is all that I want. I don’t care now about his becoming Prince.”
“But I do. As I have already pointed out, his life depends upon his being useful in the future.”
“But if I drew back then—you don’t mean——”
“I mean that if you were so foolish as to deny that you had entered into this engagement—well, it is not beyond the resources of diplomacy to discover that the illegal acts of which your husband was guilty during his occupation of Hagiamavra were such as to place him, after all, outside the pale of pardon. We are not to be played with, madame.”
“The—the pardon would cover Colonel Wylie and Lord Armitage, and all who were concerned?”
“Certainly. The Powers—except perhaps Hercynia—are not really thirsting for the blood of these obscure individuals, you know! You have decided to take action, madame—you have conceived a plan? Good! In return, then, for the assurance I trust to be able to convey to you, in two days at most, of the safety of your husband and his associates, you will deliver to me a paper signed by him, containing a solemn promise on his part to resign the Governor-Generalship of Emathia, without assigning other than private reasons, whenever he shall be required to do so by the Emperor of Scythia or his representatives, in consideration of their good offices in bringing about his release?”