“It is the family that disgraces me!” cried Danaë furiously. “Since Milordo heard that I was of the Christodoridi, he has spoken no word to me.”
“Then there was something in it?” asked Angeliké greedily. “Tell me about Milordo, and I will tell you what Petros said about him.” For Petros had learnt from the comrade who had attended Prince Romanos to Klaustra some things that had happened, and a good many that had not, and had superimposed his own interpretation upon both. But Danaë knew the worth of Angeliké’s sympathy of old, and was not to be drawn.
“Milordo is rich and great, and will marry some beautiful European lady of wealth and high birth,” she said drearily. “He made a picture of me, that was all.”
“In European dress?” asked Angeliké eagerly.
“No, just these old things. He did not know who I was.”
Angeliké was puzzled. Danaë did not seem even to care to know how Petros had calumniated her to her father—a recital from which she had promised herself a pleasant excitement. Already her shrewd mind had discovered various discrepancies in the published accounts of her sister’s sojourn on the mainland. Contrary to his declared intention, Prince Christodoridi had sent his elder daughter to school, but coaxing and questioning alike had failed to draw from him the name of the school or its teacher. She had continued to wear her native costume, when everyone knew that all schools that were worth anything insisted upon European dress, and she had in some way come into contact with the English impostors who called themselves Theophanis. Moreover, she had incurred the wrath of Prince Romanos, and had been sent home by him with a message that was positively insulting to his father, and she was spiritless and miserable, and seemed to shrink from all her old associations. Angeliké felt herself challenged to discover the truth, the means of learning which, so she decided, must be contained in the large trunk Danaë had brought back with her. She did not offer to unpack it, never went to it when anyone else was by, never left it unlocked, and produced nothing from it but such clothes as she had worn before she went away. For days Angeliké watched and pried, until she discovered that the key was concealed in her sister’s hair, a tress of which secured the handle. That night the tress was dexterously snipped off, and the key removed.
When Danaë woke in the morning, and discovered her loss, her anxious misery would have moved any heart less hard than her sister’s. She said little, after Angeliké had, with a brazen face, disclaimed all knowledge of the key, for she durst not show the importance she attached to her box and its contents, but she went about searching unavailingly. Angeliké’s favourite hiding-places, known of old, were all visited, for Danaë had not the slightest faith in her denial, but it was clear that the key could only be wrested from her by a personal struggle, such as Danaë had learnt to detest. It was indeed the irony of fate that had transformed the unruly barbarian of Klaustra into the unappreciated reformer of Strio, but the surroundings of her present life had taken on quite a new appearance to her. She experienced now something of the same despair that her own untruthfulness had caused in Zoe; she could trust no one, there was not a creature whose word could be accepted.
Wearily Danaë mounted the stairs to the room she shared with her sister, and stood transfixed as she opened the door. There was Angeliké peacocking about in Zoe’s myrtle-green gown. The skirt was put on back in front, and the coat cruelly strained to make it meet over her plump chest, but she was trailing hither and thither and admiring herself just as Danaë had done in Linton’s clothes. The recollection did not occur at the moment, however, nor would the effect have been a softening one if it had. Training and recent sorrowful musings were alike forgotten, and Danaë rushed at her sister and fairly tore the green gown from her. Her face was so white with rage, and she seemed endued with such irresistible strength, that Angeliké, not usually a coward, made no attempt to protest, and only whimpered feebly when a final push sent her violently against the wall. Half-awed, half-angry, she watched while Danaë gathered up tenderly the desecrated garment, and laying it on the bed, began to smooth it out and fold it as Linton had taught her. A hot tear dropped on the cloth, and she wiped it carefully away, then fetched a needle and cotton, and in the same furious silence sewed on a button or two which had been loosened by Angeliké’s rough handling.
Angeliké’s versatile mind did not retain impressions very long, and her anger was soon succeeded by an overpowering curiosity. Approaching her sister meekly, with a wary eye open for possibilities of danger, she addressed her in a conciliatory voice.
“When do you mean to wear the Frank dress, Danaë?”