“Oh, can’t I?” Petros grinned. “The Lord Harold has a value of his own, my lady. I own that I meant at first to make him serve both purposes, but now you might sooner carry a pet dog through the streets of Czarigrad than a blue-eyed child through the ranks of Glafko’s police. He must stay where he is for the present, but you and I and the other can get through all right with the help of the gipsies. They know something about disguises.”
“So I see,” said Danaë absently, glancing at the skilful alterations made in his appearance by the dark dye on his face and the ferocious horns of his moustache. “Bring the Lord Harold back, and I will come at once.”
“Not so, lady. I have said I want both.”
“And I have said I will do nothing to help you until he is here.”
“Will you ruin your brother, my lady?”
“No, it is you who are ruining him, wasting your time here, and raising the country against you for no good.”
“That is for the Lord Romanos to say,” muttered Petros mysteriously. “But if I have to go to him at Therma without either child, who will bear the blame then, lady mine?”
“You!” cried Danaë. “As you will when the Lord Glafko has you up before him in a minute or two.”
She had been edging gradually sideways, so as to bring the large kitchen table between herself and him, and now she made a dash for the door. But before she reached it, his voice arrested her.
“Betray me if you like, my lady, but that will not restore the Lord Harold. He is where no one can find him, though the police have been closer to him than I am to you, and the gipsies will no more give him up than I would. If necessary they will kill him rather than that he should be discovered in their hands.”