“No, he has sighed as a lover—perhaps not even that—sighed as an admirer and submitted as a peer of the realm,” said Zoe flippantly. “I am just going to peep at the babies before I go to bed.”
In the nursery Linton, with spectacles on nose, was busily engaged upon a cloth gown of Zoe’s, which she had evidently been renovating and altering.
“I couldn’t bear to let that poor girl go without some little thing to show there was no ill-feeling, ma’am,” she whispered hoarsely. “She has been crying in bed fit to break your heart, and I thought it might comfort her a bit if we let her go off in European clothes. There’s this dress of yours that the Master can’t bear the colour of, as good as new, and she’ll look a real lady in it, now that I’ve altered it to fit her.”
“Thank you, Linton; it’s very good of you to think of it,” said Zoe, in a depressed voice. “How we shall miss her and Janni, shan’t we? Poor things! how I wish the Prince would leave them with us.”
“I’m sure I never thought to be sorry when they went—” Linton took off her spectacles and wiped them resentfully—“but there! you never know, as they say.”
Zoe looked in at the two children in their cribs, bade Linton good-night, and went out. At the door a white figure with long black hair was waiting for her.
“Lady—oh, lady mine, will he let me stay?”
“I am so sorry, Kalliopé. I tried all I could, but he would not listen.”
The girl wrung her hands wildly. “And last night—only last night, lady—I was so happy!”