CHAPTER XX.
GREEK AND GREEK.
It was Angeliké who at last broke desperately into the flood of complaint. “Lady, are you on my father’s side, or ours?”
“How can you be so foolish, daughter mine?” was the querulous reply. “Have I ever been on any side but your father’s? How could I be anything else?”
“But you don’t agree with him, my mother? You don’t think it fair that Danaë, who has missed all her own chances, should come back and steal my bridegroom?”
“I’m not stealing him! I don’t want him!” cried Danaë.
“It is no use asking me to oppose your father,” said Princess Christodoridi, and this was obviously true.
“No, but if we can manage to get things right, you won’t prevent us? It’s all very well for Danaë to stand there and say she won’t marry Narkissos, but our father will force the ring on her finger and the crown on her head. But I have a plan. My mother, I will not tell you what it is, lest my father should suspect, but you will do what I ask?”
“If you are sure your father will not find out,” said her mother nervously.
“You will have done nothing for him to find out. His anger will be terrible, of course, but we are used to that, and it is worth it this time. Once the blessed rings are exchanged, no one can break the betrothal. My mother, Danaë and I must be dressed exactly alike. Leave the embroidered robe for the Sunday after the wedding, and let Danaë have a long coat like mine. And you were going to lend me your own veil.”
“Yes, but your father said it was too large—like a Roumi woman’s. I told him it was what everyone wore in my island, and he said we were ignorant heathen. I dare not let you wear it, child. He would pull it off you and tear it to pieces.”