Zoe was silent a moment, making mental maps of the proposed changes. “Perhaps they’ll refuse,” she said.
“I only wish they might, but they are too keen. They’ll both trust to getting control of our part of the line in time. And it will be one unceasing fight on our part to keep them out. Romanos doesn’t care, having secured his heir and avoided a European scandal, and found a way of slipping out of the partial promises he made to both Scythia and Pannonia.”
“And he does nothing in return?”
“Oh yes; he makes us guardians to little Janni.”
“I should have thought that was only another obligation. Do you mean regents in case anything happens to him?”
“No, he has sense enough to perceive that the child would never be accepted as High Commissioner either by the Powers or the people. It would be a case of Maurice or a return into the Young Roumi fold. But it is a handsome acknowledgment beforehand that if he comes to a violent end he believes we had nothing to do with it.”
“Well, if that’s all, I think he ought to be in a superlatively good temper this evening. I begin to have hopes.”
But when Zoe seized an opportunity after dinner of pressing her wishes upon Prince Romanos, she was disappointed. He was firm in his resolution to send his sister back to Strio.
“But not with that accusation hanging over her?” said Zoe. “If it was so, I should refuse to let her go.”
“No,” he said reluctantly; “she well deserves it, but the result would probably be to disgrace the family still further. The best thing for her will be to retire into her original obscurity, and be forgotten here.”