“And you won’t then mind having married me?”
“Mind, lord!” The words and their tone stirred Armitage with a most unwonted thrill. He caught Danaë’s hand again.
“Danaë, why should we trouble the Lady Zoe? Come on a long cruise with me, and let me teach you.”
But Danaë knew her own practical mind far too well to encourage such foolishness. “How could you teach me, lord? I want to become a European lady for your sake.”
“It’s quite true that I can’t offer to set you the example of that,” he said, discomfited. “What is it exactly you want to do, then?”
Danaë bent forward, and rested her clasped hands on his knee. “Ah, lord, as soon as ever we land let me go to Klaustra! The sooner I begin, the sooner the year will be over,” she added, with an evident effort at sympathy which would have sounded coquettish in anyone more sophisticated.
But Armitage replied seriously. “I’m afraid we can’t quite manage that. We must pay our respects to your brother in passing through Therma. He would have reason to be very much displeased if we did not, and he will probably wish us to spend a few days with him.” There was another reason for delay which he did not care to mention to Danaë. Experience of the complications which had beset the wedding of Prince and Princess Theophanis long before warned him that the Greek ceremony in Strio was almost certainly insufficient to make their own marriage legal, and he was anxious to consult Prince Romanos and the British Consul-General on the subject. Prince Christodoridi, to whom he had endeavoured to broach the question, persisted in regarding his efforts as an attempt either to back out of his engagement, or to cast a slur on the ministry of the Orthodox Church, so that he had abandoned them in despair.
Danaë hung her head. “But, lord—you will pardon me if I speak of it—there are European ladies at Therma, and I have only Striote clothes.”
“And I like you best in them, as you know. But don’t be afraid. You shall get just what you like in the way of clothes. We shall find some one who will advise you.”
“Ah, lord, you are too good! Do I not know that it is shameful I should have to ask you for clothes on the very day of our wedding? But I could not bear that the European ladies should laugh at your wife, or I would have held my tongue, knowing—knowing——” her voice failed.