“Without fail, madame,” said Donna Olimpia, with a certain excitement in her tone. Neither she nor Zoe could help noticing the change in Eirene’s appearance. It was as if years had fallen from her in a few hours, and for the first time since Constantine’s death she actually smiled as she went back into the house.
“I can’t understand it,” said Zoe breathlessly; “but I think there can’t be a doubt that you would be better away from the Princess. I must write and thank Princess Emilia for her book; shall I mention that you are longing to return to her?”
“Am I to leave my husband at the Princess Dowager’s mercy?”
“If you stay here, she has a weapon continually at hand with which to attack him. Once you are at Bashi Konak, he cannot approach you without acknowledging his marriage.”
“Princess, I am torn asunder. I will try to go—and yet I cannot resolve to leave him to himself. While I am in the same city, even though I don’t see him, I can watch over him a little, but if I go away, who knows into what toils he may fall?” wringing her hands with a hopeless gesture.
“Think about it,” said Zoe soothingly. “Would you like my brother or Colonel Wylie to speak to him?” The unhappy girl shrank away. “They would never take advantage of what you have told me, you know; but I see that it would put them in a very awkward position. Well, if you think of anything I could do—— Don’t forget my sister’s note.”
Donna Olimpia caught up the note, and hurried away, almost without a farewell. She found that her mistress had returned from witnessing the public proclamation of Prince Romanos, to which she had not been permitted to attend her, and she received a sharp rebuke for staying out so long. But the sight of Eirene’s note turned the Princess’s thoughts into another channel.
“Insolent!” she muttered, for though impatience might be one of her own failings, this did not make her any more tender towards it in others. “Well, if she will have it, she shall!”
Going to her desk, she took out Eirene’s paper in its envelope, and enclosed both in another envelope, which she addressed to Prince and Princess Theophanis, as if it contained an invitation. Then she called her Dardanian servant.
“You are to give this into the hands of Prince Theophanis and no one else,” she said. “Ask him to open it at once, and to send a message by you that he has received it safely. Go first to the Place de l’Europe Unie—you know where his seat was on the platform—and if he is no longer there, follow him to his house. Lose no time.”