“But what is it?” urged Danaë, in despair.
“Oh, it is your fault too, Angeliké,” said Princess Christodoridi, almost with energy. “What I have done to have two such daughters I don’t know. And when everything was so nicely settled, and even the rings ordered—I am sure your finger is thinner than your sister’s, Danaë. Oh yes, of course, that is what your father has done. He says it is you who are to marry Kyrios Narkissos, not Angeliké.”
“I won’t!” cried Danaë furiously.
“You shan’t!” muttered Angeliké, with determination.
“Now, what is the good of talking like that?” inquired their mother plaintively. “It is what the Despot says that is done, not what you or I say.”
“But Narkissos himself—and his father—” gasped Danaë.
“Kyrios Smaragdopoulos will be very pleased, for your father will give you the extra five hundred drachmæ they quarrelled about, because you are his elder daughter. And the young man will do as his father tells him, of course. And you will do as you are told, though really it is very awkward, with Angeliké’s dress nearly finished embroidering for the betrothal——”
“I will never marry him!” cried Danaë.
“Oh, don’t be foolish,” said her mother wearily. “If you had not come back just now, we should not have had all this trouble. Once they were betrothed, nothing could have been altered. And you too, Angeliké; if you had not been so jealous about your sister’s things, making your father destroy all that beautiful cloth and those pretty pictures, you would not have lost your bridegroom——”
And so on, and so on. Princess Christodoridi’s Christian name was a rank libel on her, for she could not scold. But she could complain, in a feeble but persistent stream of lamentation, calculated to wear down the hardest rock if uninterrupted, and at present both her daughters were too much crushed to attempt a diversion.