“No, he doesn’t. He only said it to frighten you.”
“Oh, lady, then he will not send me back to Strio with that terrible message? You will make him have pity on me, so that I can stay here with you?”
“I should not let him send that message, certainly, but I am afraid he won’t leave you here, Kalliopé. He means to take you away with him to-morrow.”
“To be Janni’s nurse at Therma?” hopefully.
“No, I don’t think so. It wouldn’t do. I am sure he means to send you home. But you love your island; you will be glad to get back.”
For answer, Danaë flung herself off the sofa, and clasped her mistress’s knees tightly. “Oh, lady mine, let me stay here! If you will not have me in the nursery, let me go to the kitchen again. Anything rather than go back to Strio!”
“But, Kalliopé, you must see that your brother could not leave you here as a servant. I should be very glad if he would let you stay, but you will be wanted at home. You are a great lady there.”
“Oh, lady, if you knew what it was like! But you can’t dream of it. Why, if you had been my father’s wife when the Lord Harold was lost, do you think he would have taken you by the hand and spoken compassionately to you, as the Lord Glafko did? No, he would have beaten you till the blood came, for your carelessness in allowing the child to be lost.”
Zoe sat aghast. “Well, it would certainly have been a warning against carelessness in future,” she said, trying to laugh.
“There, my lady! you see what it is like. And I have seen now what it is like in Europe, where ‘men do not strike women,’ as the Lord Glafko said. How can I go back to it? Before I left Strio I knew of nothing better, but now that I have seen the Prince, and the Lord Glafko, and—and Milordo, and know how they treat women——”