“I believe,” said Danaë slowly, “that you are afraid of my stealing your dear Narkissos. You needn’t be.”
“I’m not,” said Angeliké sharply. “I know what he thinks of you. Oh, not that time long ago, when you spilt the coffee over him. He saw you in Tortolana yesterday, and he thinks you look quite old.”
“How do you know what he thinks? Does he write to you?”
“Do you imagine I’m going to tell you? Of course he doesn’t write. What good would a letter be to me? But we have ways of knowing about each other, and a good thing too. So don’t flatter yourself——”
“I tell you I don’t want him. I wouldn’t marry him if he would take me without a drachma. I don’t want to marry anybody. I should like to die.”
“That’s because you have nobody to marry you,” said Angeliké smartly. “I have felt like that myself towards the end of the Great Fast. But not now—any more than at Easter. Danaë, what did you do?”
“Do—at Easter?” Danaë was puzzled.
“No, at Therma. Petros told our father that there was an English lord who would have married you, but when he heard all about you he drew back.”
“It is not true! There was never anything of the sort!” cried Danaë hotly. “How did you hear?”
“Oh, I listened,” said Angeliké, as calmly as Danaë herself would have made the same confession a year ago. “You were to have a husband found for you soon, lest you should disgrace the family.”