“But what possible good could it do if I did marry Prince Romanos?” demanded Zoe.
Eirene dissembled, for her true reason must at all costs be hidden both from Zoe and from Maurice. To her uneasy conscience, it was extraordinary that they did not divine it, and she lived in constant dread of its suddenly occurring to them. “Of course it would be to Maurice’s advantage,” she said. “Prince Romanos could not go to any lengths in opposing him if you were his wife. You might even prevail upon him to withdraw his claim altogether.”
“And what if I prevailed upon him to push his claim strongly, and helped him to win?”
“Zoe, you couldn’t! No, you are English. You could never turn traitor to your own family, and support the cause of a stranger against Maurice!”
“Turning traitor to my husband would not signify, of course.”
“It is not as if you cared for him,” said Eirene inadvertently.
“No, it is not. But I am to pretend to care for him, simply that I may betray him better! And you suggest it, you who know that there is only one man I would ever marry, and that therefore I shall not marry at all!”
“I thought you were old enough now to be willing to sacrifice your feelings for the sake of your family,” said Eirene, with deliberation. “Noblesse oblige, Zoe. It is part of a princess’s duty to make a political marriage. It is not as if I was asking you to give up any one on whom you had set your heart. As you say, that other episode is over—one need only look at Colonel Wylie to be sure of it. Besides, he told Lord Armitage that you had cured him, and he hadn’t the slightest thought of asking you again. So there is merely a memory to sacrifice,—a romantic idea of faithfulness,—and think what it may mean to Maurice. He and I have made sacrifices, too——”
“Maurice’s being entirely involuntary,” broke in Zoe, the impulse to return blow for blow strong upon her. “You have sacrificed his home and his domestic peace for him, which certainly ought to count in his favour. But you are not going to sacrifice my conscience for me. At any rate I am old enough to have learnt not to do evil that good may come, and I prefer to remain faithful to what you call my romantic ideas. For your own sake I would advise you not to make use of Princess Emilia to put any more false notions into young Christodoridi’s head, for if he speaks to me I shall certainly tell him the truth—and Maurice will support me.”
And with this Parthian shot—the sting of which to Eirene lay in the fact that it was only too literally true—Zoe departed. The next few days were marked, so far as politics went, by aimless rushings to and fro, conferences between groups, abortive negotiations, and other devices of the Professor for postponing that general meeting of the delegates which would lead to the adverse vote he feared. Then a stupendous fact precipitated itself like a landslip to dam up the stream of talk. The annual spring disturbances in Emathia began without showing Europe the courtesy of waiting for the melting of the snows. From the balcony of a house in the Christian quarter of Therma bombs were thrown at a passing body of Roumi troops, killing several men and horses, and producing a momentary panic. But the stout old Mohammedan military governor, Jalal-ud-din Pasha, was not a good subject for panic. He drew a cordon round the neighbourhood, and rumours crept about that the whole street in which the incident had occurred was to be razed to the ground. Before there was time either for this to be done, or for his soldiers to convert into facts, if such was their intention, the tales of murder and outrage which ran concurrently with the rumour, the bells of a church outside the threatened area rang violently, and hell was let loose. Bands of excited revolutionaries, armed with weapons hastily brought forth from concealment, attacked the soldiers, and were themselves attacked by the Mohammedan mob of the rest of the city, who had demanded arms from Jalal-ud-din to protect their lives,—a plea the justice of which that astute politician recognised instantly. Bomb explosions occurred in innumerable places, all the shops closed as if automatically, the churches and the foreign Consulates became a seething mass of refugees, and the Consuls telegraphed wildly in all directions for warships. That night a glow that lit up the sky for many miles proclaimed to seafarers that something larger than the ordinary nightly fires, which might be said to be epidemic in Therma, was in progress. A great part of the city was in flames, and by the light of the burning houses men fought like demons, or broke into buildings as yet untouched in quest of plunder and victims. The ships in the harbour put out to sea hurriedly, lest the conflagration should reach them, and every road and path leading from the city had its stream of fugitives, who had dropped from the walls, or bribed the guard with such valuables as they had saved to let them pass the gates. In the morning an indignant body of foreign representatives, shepherded through the roaring streets by an escort furnished by Jalal-ud-din, presented themselves at the residence of the Vali, who was a Greek by race, and demanded an interview. To their stupefaction they were received, not by Skopiadi Pasha, but by Jalal-ud-din himself, who explained that the Vali had disappeared during the course of the outbreak, whereupon he himself had taken up the duties of acting-Vali, pending instructions from Czarigrad, which could not be expected immediately, since all the telegraph-wires were destroyed. He promised protection and a speedy restoration of order; and the Consuls, knowing that Skopiadi Pasha could not have said more, and would probably have done less, went home convinced that Jalal-ud-din, though almost certainly responsible for his superior’s disappearance, was not without his good points. Poor Skopiadi, always anxious to please, but vacillating between the demands of the Powers and the directions of his own government, nominally free to act, but in reality fettered by a deadly fear of Jalal-ud-din and his troops, had worn out most people’s patience. For the more frivolous officials of the various Consulates it became an agreeable relief to the tedium of the day to exchange bets as to whether his military governor had had him murdered or only imprisoned.