Prince Romanos shuddered pitifully. “It is hard for the man who has loved and been deceived to hear without a pang the name of the forsworn one,” he said. “It was that miserable woman, whom I would have trusted with my life, and who tried to rob me of my honour.”
“But what did she do?”
“I received a message entreating me to bid her farewell. We met—at our usual rendezvous. I was surprised to find the time so much earlier than I thought. We sat hand in hand, plunged in the ‘sweet sorrow’ of which your Shakespeare speaks. It was indeed an hour of blissful woe. Suddenly my eye falls upon a small travelling-clock on a bracket. It indicates a time at least three-quarters of an hour later than the large clock on the side-table, and I had already thought that I was prolonging my stay to its utmost limits. I spring to my feet, I proclaim my immediate departure. But she—that faithless one—endeavours to hinder me. She throws herself before me, she holds me with her white hands. Finding me resolute, she locks the door, and before my face hides the key in her dress, daring me to take it. I wrench it from her, in spite of her entreaties, her struggles——”
“I suppose you think that was a heroic thing to do?” cried Zoe in disgust.
“Princess, she had set herself to ruin my career. I paused before unlocking the door, and loaded her with reproaches, as she knelt, sobbing, where I had left her. I refused to hear her. ‘You have endeavoured to betray me,’ I told her. ‘Were I only a Christodoridi, I should repay your treachery with death. But I am also Apolis, and therefore I grant you the boon of life, in which to realise the value of the love which I now tear from my heart. Live, and hate yourself!’”
“Truly dramatic!” said Zoe. “Well, if that is the way in which you treat a poor girl whose only fault is that she loved you better than your career——”
“Ah, if I could only believe that!” he interrupted, his face visibly brightening. “But no, she set herself to betray me. She played the game of my enemies. From whom could she have learnt of my departure but from them?”
“What enemies?” demanded Zoe again. “Do you still insinuate that we had anything to do with it?”
“You had excellent reasons, I admit it. My opposition to your brother, my—equivocal conduct to yourself——”
“Oh!” she cried in despair, “will you never believe that when you turned your attention to Donna Olimpia, it simply relieved me of a standing worry?”