“But if you would only let me have her to train! She has such fine qualities, and she is so beautiful——”
“She is a beautiful savage, Princess, like all our women in Strio. They are no more fitted for freedom than an Arabian or Persian woman suddenly taken from the harem. Am I to let loose on Europe a being with the morals of the Dark Ages and the face and form of a goddess? Who could cope with her? In Strio we know what to do.”
“She dreads it so much,” urged Zoe; but as his face showed pleasure rather than sympathy, she tried another argument, which it ashamed her to have to use. “I really think she would be sure to marry well if she stayed here. Lord Armitage was very much struck——”
“I have too much kindness for my old comrade Lord Armitage, or any other civilised man, to inflict her upon him,” he said, after a pause of consideration. “One of her own people, with old-fashioned views and a heavy hand, is the appropriate husband for her, and I shall make it my business to see that she is married quickly.”
“It sounded to me as though he would have liked Lord Armitage, with his money and his beautiful new yacht, very much as a brother-in-law,” said Zoe, when she was reporting her failure to her husband afterwards, “but he liked revenge better. I couldn’t help wondering whether part of his anger came from the way she gave him away about the Girdle of Isidora.”
“Princess Eirene is certainly not going the way to help him to forget his loss. Was it really necessary to wear it so conspicuously the very first night?”
“I believe she can’t bear to lay it down. And didn’t she look happy—quite young and blooming? I saw poor Maurice stealing puzzled glances at her every now and then. You know, she really thinks to-day is going to be the turning-point, that Prince Romanos will decrease and we shall increase. She is almost as superstitious in her way as Kalliopé in hers.”
“Ah, that unfortunate girl! So Armitage didn’t rise to the occasion?”
“No,” very dolefully. “Oh, I quite see how much wiser and more prudent he is to remain silent, what a mistake it would be for him to fetter himself with a totally unsuitable wife, but I wish—oh, I wish that he had come forward! It would have been so chivalrous.”
“So utterly foolish. Well, we can hardly——”