“You honour me, madame. Provided, then, that the Theophanis claim becomes a mockery——”
“Trust me for that. I have a little experience, you will allow? Indeed, I believe I know too much for my son’s gardeners. I always declared that this orange walk ought to run in the opposite direction, and you can see how much better the growth of the trees would have been.”
The words might have suggested that the Princess had suddenly taken leave of her senses, as she rose and emphasised her meaning vigorously with gestures; but they were accounted for to Skopiadi Pasha by the appearance of a lady-in-waiting, who was hovering in the middle distance, anxious to know where her Royal Highness would have tea served. The colloquy was at an end, but all that was necessary had been said, and it remained only for both parties to carry out their agreement. The Princess was the first to make a move, having the advantage over Skopiadi Pasha in that the material on which she had to work was close at hand. She began upon it the same evening, when the princely party returned from the port, tired and sunburnt, and decidedly inclined to think that aquatic sports were generally over-praised, at any rate from the spectators’ point of view. In Princess Emilia’s hearing she asked Donna Olimpia to come to her rooms when she was dismissed for the night, and write a letter for her that she wished to send to a Magnagrecian acquaintance. The maid-of-honour, who had been looking weary and dispirited, brightened up at once, and presented herself in the Princess’s sitting-room with shining eyes, which lost their light, however, after a hasty glance round.
“No, he is not here this evening,” said the Princess, with a sympathetic smile. “We must be prudent, you know. It would not take much to make my daughter-in-law send you back to Magnagrecia, and then you might never see him again.”
The girl acquiesced silently, though the tears had started to her eyes. The Princess laid her hand kindly on hers. “It has been a hard day, I am afraid?” she asked.
“Oh, so hard!” breathed Donna Olimpia, with difficulty. “My Princess was so exacting. She kept me close to her the whole time—always wanting me to hand her things, or tell her which the boats were. And he—he was at Princess Zoe’s side all day, talking and laughing—and looking at her as he does at me.”
The Princess restrained a smile at the simplicity of the passionate girl who expected Prince Romanos to keep the expressive glances of his fine eyes for her alone, but she made no comment. “This is what I feared,” she said. “Political necessities, you know——”
“He promised he would make her refuse him.”
“She has not refused him. I happen to know that.”
Donna Olimpia turned so white that even the hard-hearted plotter before her was frightened, and added hastily, “I don’t mean that she has accepted him. He has not proposed. His father arrived and interrupted their conversation.”