“Quite dried up, lord!” showing a saucy and absolutely tearless face. “Are there not plenty of bridegrooms to be had besides Narkissos Smaragdopoulos?”
“Oh, that’s what makes you so cheerful, is it? And you don’t even mind your sister’s getting him?”
She laughed, with gleeful appreciation of an absurdity. “Why, lord, it is Danaë who minds! She declares she won’t marry him, and my mother is keeping her under her own eye lest she should try to run away. There is that ship, you know——”
“And what of that ship, girl?” His tone was thunderous, but Angeliké smiled innocently into his face.
“Why, lord, they say it belongs to a great and rich English lord, who is a friend of my brother. Now what I think is that this lord has been drawn to Strio by the report of the beauty of your second daughter. So there will be a marriage for me after all!”
“You are an impudent little minx!” said Prince Christodoridi, but without any show of anger. “But suppose it is Danaë he comes after?”
“Lord, you would not let her rob me of two bridegrooms?” The pretty face was so innocently grieved, the eyes so near tears, that Prince Christodoridi laughed and pinched Angeliké’s ear encouragingly.
“One bridegroom will be quite enough for her, I warrant, and once betrothed she is out of your way. But suppose the English lord doesn’t think you come up to the report he has heard?”
“Oh, do you think he will be disappointed, lord?” breathed Angeliké, with such anxious misery that her father’s heart was melted.
“Suppose we let him see you, girl? Shall I ask him to the betrothal? It is well to be courteous to strangers.”