“It is a magnificent thing!” she said. “Why have you never shown it to me before?”
“Because I have never had it in my possession, or even set eyes upon it, till now. In fact, I did not know that it was still in existence. For your possession of it, my most beautiful, you may thank Prince Theophanis, or rather Lady Eirene, his wife.”
“You will hardly ask me to believe that Princess Theophanis has acknowledged the justice of your claims so far as to send you this by her husband?”
“Very far from it, my dearest. She has no knowledge of its present whereabouts, and if you are to keep it, she had better not know.”
“But to whom does it really belong?”
“To the head of the descendants of John Theophanis. That, my Olimpia, is your husband, as the inhabitants of Emathia testified by their free vote. But the girdle has been preserved since the fall of Czarigrad in the family of the Princess Eirene, and I have reason to believe that she regards it as her own property.”
“And you have contrived to rob her jewel-case during her husband’s absence here?” asked the Lady lightly.
“Your poet does not go to work quite so crudely, Olimpia. No, it seems that it is ten years or more since anyone saw the girdle. Before her marriage the Princess was detained in a sort of honourable captivity at the old Scythian Consulate here, from which she escaped to join Theophanis. Unfortunately for her, knowing that the Scythian Imperial family were most anxious to possess the jewel, in order to support their claims to the heritage of the Cæsars, she contrived a hiding-place for it, from which she had not time to rescue it when the opportunity of escape came. There it must have remained ever since, for even when the Consulate was burnt by the Roumi mob before the bombardment, the walls in great part remained standing. But just lately she saw in the papers that we were clearing away the ruins to make the new boulevard, and immediately hurried her husband off to make inquiries. Knowing Maurice Theophanis, you won’t be surprised to hear that he chose me, in strictest secrecy, as the recipient of his inquiries—for which I should imagine his wife will have a word or two to say to him when he gets home. It seems that Princess Eirene managed to pick a large stone out of the wall with her scissors, and hide the girdle in the rubble behind it. As she had fitted the stone in again neatly enough to escape the observation of the spies who surrounded her, I thought it was very likely the treasure was there still, but I said a good deal to Theophanis about fire and plunderers. We visited the ruins, and Glafko—who has a plaguy exact mind—located as nearly as he could the spot where the Princess’s room had been. In their presence I promised the workmen a large reward if they found anything, and fearful penalties unless they gave it up, and then I carried our friends off to a review. The walls were duly knocked down, and nothing was found. But Daniloff, the chief of police, used himself to be employed at the Scythian Consulate in the old days, and he had visited the spot the night before. He found the girdle and brought it to me, wrapped up in odds and ends of paper, and he and I cleaned it and polished it ourselves. No one else on earth dreams where it is.”
“That girl outside will know,” said the Lady, without looking towards Danaë.
“Nonsense! she doesn’t understand French. All she knows is that I have brought you a present of jewellery to-day—surely a very natural thing to do. It is not as if she had ever heard of the girdle and its history.”