“Poet!” said the lady, half fondly, half in scorn.
“But if the idea displeases you, by all means send the girl back at once, my beloved. What are my fancies compared with your wishes?”
“We will see what she is like. Come here, child.”
Danaë approached, continuing to scan the pair with sharp suspicious glances. Even her prejudiced mind could not deny that the Lady was very beautiful, and she fastened greedily on a slight droop at the corners of the finely formed mouth, a lift of the delicate eyebrows, as signs of ill-temper counterbalancing good looks. But the discontented expression was far more evident in her companion. He was a handsome man, a good deal older than his wife, and his sallow face bore abundant marks of anxiety and worry. These Danaë set down promptly to the Lady’s account. She was worse than a witch, she was a vampire, drawing forth the Prince’s vitality and feeding upon it for the enhancement of her own youth and beauty.
“Such a terribly rough-looking girl! so uncouth!” said the Lady in dismay. The tone was intelligible, if not the words.
“Not so bad for Strio, where we think more of strength than refinement. I suppose my sisters must be somewhere about her age now.”
“I hope they are differently dressed, then. With those looped-up trousers and bare legs she might be a boy.”
“This is a fisher-girl,” said Prince Romanos, with some coldness. “They always have their clothes short for scrambling over the rocks. My sisters wear the proper national dress, of course.”
“Well, there is no fishing for her to do here,” said the Lady sharply. “Tell Despina to see that you are properly dressed before you come into my presence again, child,” she added in Greek, spoken with a foreign accent.
“At your pleasure, my Lady,” muttered Danaë, with a wrathful glance which the Prince took for one of reproach.