“I shouldn’t dream of it. There will be nothing startling in the Cavaliere’s returning to his duties, of course, and as Prince Romanos is travelling incog., there is no reason to mention his name at all.”
As it happened, the Cavaliere Pazzi was the first of the travellers to arrive. Armitage was out sketching, and Maurice and Wylie were busy administering justice when he reached the Konak, so that he was ushered at once to the verandah where Zoe was sitting with the children and Danaë. The old man’s face looked pinched and worn, but his eyes gleamed with youthful fire.
“You have news for me, madame?” he said eagerly. “It cannot be, as I have once or twice in my hurried journey been tempted to fear, that you have held out a false hope to allure me back from Therma?”
Zoe spoke in Greek to Danaë. “Bring me the Lord Janni, Kalliopé.” The girl obeyed, and Zoe took the child and set him on the old man’s knee. “So far as we can tell, that is your grandchild, Cavaliere.”
“This, madame? Ah, I think I can trace in him something of my lost Olimpia, though more of her treacherous husband. Is it not a misfortune, that I cannot behold even this relic of my child without recalling her murderer?”
“Can you not be satisfied to rejoice that he is alive, without blaming him for what he can’t help?”
“His nurse snatched him from destruction, I suppose?”
“So we believe, but she told so many contradictory stories at first—owing to terror, perhaps—that we have really left off questioning her about it. Now look at him, Cavaliere; isn’t he a dear little fellow? Kiss your grandfather, Janni; he loves you very much.”
Janni had maintained his position only by dint of being forcibly held there, for the Cavaliere’s piercing eyes and beaklike nose made him a formidable person, but now he looked up into his face, and apparently reading there some encouragement, put his arms shyly round his neck. The old man was much moved.
“Blessings on thee, my Giannino!” he cried. “And it was this little angel, madame, that his unnatural father tried to murder!”