“I do not know. I saw no letter.”
“No, and no letter will ever be seen. Shall I tell you what that letter contained? It was an appeal to me, her father, to come to her help, as I had offered to do, and take her away from Therma, where her life was not safe unless she consented to your repudiation of her. If that was not the letter, what was it?”
“Lady, what is the secretary man saying to the Lord Romanos?” Danaë had sat inert and uninterested while the Professor talked, but her instincts told her who was the man to be feared, and since the Cavaliere burst again into the fray she had been kneeling with her face pressed to the window watching his fiery gestures. Now, as his eager hands approached the Prince’s throat, as though he would have torn a confession from him, she opened the window and stepped in. Her entrance broke the tension which held the listeners, and Prince Romanos smiled, not very naturally.
“Here is an unbiassed witness, at any rate,” he said. “Why not ask her about the terms my wife and I were on?”
Professor Panagiotis responded eagerly. “Girl, what can you tell us about the Prince and his wife? Did he appear to be fond of her?”
“By no means, lord,” was the prompt reply.
The Cavaliere laughed harshly. The rest gasped, and Prince Romanos sprang up and gripped Danaë roughly by the shoulder.
“Speak the truth, girl! Was I unkind to her?”
“Not unkind, lord, but you kept her in awe of you, as a wife should be kept. She trembled at the sound of your step.”
He laughed as his father-in-law had done, and dropped back into his chair. “Go on. Perhaps I beat her?”