“You don’t mean to say they had the cheek to keep him dressed up like that?” cried Armitage.
“Yes, lord; that was the secret,” said Sotīri demurely.
“Good heavens—Princess Zoe’s child! It’s too disgusting. Now mind, boy, his mother mustn’t see him like this. It would give her an awful shock. We must get hold of Linton somehow, to dress him properly.”
“Why, lord, will she care what he wears, so long as she has him back?” asked the boy. Armitage frowned.
“Of course not, really, but one has a feeling—— You don’t understand, but it’s a horrible idea.”
“Very well, lord, I do not understand. I will see whether I can find Sofia.” The boy spoke so meekly, but with such an undertone of pain, that Armitage had the unreasonable feeling that in some way he had been a brute. He said no more until they came in sight of the Konak, and then he called Sotīri back.
“See here, lad; I have been thinking it’s not necessary to bring Linton into this. Call your cousin instead. The whole credit of getting the child back is due to her, isn’t it? Very well, then; she ought to have the pleasure of giving him back to his mother, and she shall.”
“Thank you, lord,” said Sotīri joyfully. Then his face fell. “You say the whole credit is hers, lord. Don’t you think I helped at all—even when I went into the bear’s den? I was really frightened.”
“I think you are an impudent young rascal, boy,” was the reply, given with much severity. “Even if you were frightened, you ought to be swaggering about now, and pretending you weren’t. You’ll never make a man at this rate—a Greek man, anyhow. And as for trying to do your cousin out of the credit which belongs to her, I tell you it’s a shabby trick. Why, you know what trouble she is in at present, and if you and I, by sinking our share in the business, can help her to get back to her former position, doesn’t she deserve it?”
“You are right, lord. I am a beast,” was the subdued reply, and as Sotīri walked mournfully on ahead, Armitage suffered agonies from suppressed laughter. “I don’t know whether I’m standing on my head or my heels,” he said to himself.