“Since he knows the Princess by this time about as well as we do, I should think it is highly probable that he has,” said Wylie, in his driest tone.
“Then we may expect them here to-morrow—he is sure to have wired—if Eirene is able to travel. She will send Maurice if she cannot come herself, but perhaps this will be just what the doctor said she needed to rouse her.”
“I hope the Princess is better?” said Armitage.
“Oh, poor thing!” said Zoe. “It is her mind that is suffering more than her body. You remember how delighted she was when you gave her back the Girdle of Isidora, Kalliopé?—Danaë, I mean—and how she seemed quite different? Well, I think she must have felt, somehow, that this baby was sure to be a boy. When she found it was a girl, it seemed to take from her all desire to live. She just said, ‘Call it Isidora,’ and turned her face to the wall.”
“But she is not dead?” asked Danaë, awestruck.
“No, poor Eirene can’t even die dramatically. Her schemes never come off,” said Zoe, with a touch of her old flippancy. “Don’t look at me so reproachfully, Graham. You know that poor baby would have died if I hadn’t gone and fetched it and given it into Linton’s charge. And poor Maurice so fond of it, and creeping in by stealth to see it for fear of hurting Eirene’s feelings! I have no patience with her. She might be fond of it for his sake, if not for its own.”
“And how does the Lord Harold like the baby?” asked Danaë.
“Not at all. He objects most strongly to Linton’s attentions being diverted from himself.”
“Ah, you will want me in the nursery again,” murmured Danaë ecstatically; but Zoe caught a look from Armitage which implied that he would have a word to say as to the way in which his wife disposed of her time.
With Wylie’s arrival, quiet seemed to settle upon Therma. Troops and police and populace all welcomed him, or found it politic to seem to do so, and the European Consuls abandoned concerted action for the moment in favour of drawing up separate claims for compensation for damage done in the riot. Whether Professor Panagiotis had planned it or not, the publicity which attended Wylie’s assumption of the command of affairs served to distract attention from the movements of his brother-in-law, and on the next evening the Consuls were astonished by the intelligence that Prince and Princess Theophanis had arrived in the city, and were staying at the Palace. They had been received at the station by Colonel Wylie and the troops, the Ministers and the municipality, and the guard of honour appointed to attend them during their stay was composed exclusively of veterans who had fought in Hagiamavra. Addresses of welcome had been presented to them, and on the morrow they would visit the Legislative Chamber, and receive the welcome of the Assembly. It was all very proper, and the explanation that this was the state visit planned some time before, but postponed on account of the lack of health of the Princess, appeared quite satisfactory; but the Consuls were not satisfied. Why had they not been invited to the station to take part in the arrival ceremony? they asked, only to receive the obvious reply that Prince Theophanis was not welcomed as a sovereign prince, but as one of the liberators of Emathia, allied by close ties with the throne.