“That I would not do. You are determined not to listen to reason?”
“I will listen to any argument in favour of starting to-night, to none for putting things off.”
“Very well, then. As you have guessed, I shall not allow my wife to start on this preposterous expedition by herself, to assert a claim which stands or falls with mine. We will go together, but the claim which will be put forward is not yours, but mine. Such rights as the boy has are derived from me—reinforced, if you like, by yours. You understand this?”
“I don’t mind what conditions you make, provided that you go,” she answered, with a laugh that was nervous in spite of her effort to make it merely light.
“Pardon me, sir. May I remind her Royal Highness of one or two things she seems to have forgotten?” asked Wylie. A nod gave him permission, and he went on, “Are you wise, ma’am, in risking the health, perhaps even the life, of your son in the way you propose? The journey to Pentikosti is a difficult one, even for men, and at Hagiamavra the hardships will be considerable. You can take no other woman with you, and no heavy luggage.”
“You have done your duty to your master by trying to frighten me,” she returned defiantly; “but I am not frightened.”
“And it does not occur to you that this expedition will irritate the Powers against his Highness to such an extent as to make him an impossible candidate in future?”
“Then Prince Romanos will be equally impossible. No, the Prince may go or not, as he likes, but I go. The horses will be ready at eleven o’clock, which will give us time to change our clothes after the reception, if we leave fairly early. I am sorry to keep you waiting now, Maurice. I shall be ready in ten minutes.”
“I suppose you are compassionating me as a henpecked wretch?” said Maurice bitterly, as Wylie closed the door after Eirene.
“If I advised you to take your wife by the shoulders and give her a good shaking, you would set me down as a brute, and I don’t know that it would do much good,” said Wylie.