“These English people are mad,” was Danaë’s inconsequent rejoinder. “Or else you must think I am, to expect me to believe such things. I am not a child, to be deceived with fairy tales.”
She left Linton rather abruptly, and went to play with the children. It was disquieting to remember that she had brought the Girdle of Isidora under the roof of the person who considered herself its rightful owner. On the night of her arrival, she had hidden it cunningly, with the Lady’s unfinished letter, inside her mattress, and now as soon as she could steal away, she went to make sure that it was safe. She would have liked to make Zoe an accomplice by entrusting it to her, but something told her that in that case the Princess Eirene would very quickly receive it again, and she pushed it sadly back into its hiding-place.
“I could bear to see my own lady wearing it,” she said to herself, “but not the evil-eyed one.”
For ever since her first sight of Eirene, Danaë had been convinced that she regarded little Harold with an evil eye. It was quite natural, since he stood in her own son’s place, but it was also strongly to be resisted. For several days Linton and her mistress were perplexed by the overpowering smell of garlic which hung about Harold. Garlic was a forbidden delicacy in the nursery, and when Danaë felt an irresistible craving for it, she was obliged to seek the hospitality of the kitchen. But Harold’s hair and pinafores were strongly scented, and the smell was obvious in the room itself. It was Wylie who at last discovered a clove of garlic placed on the lintel of the door, and Zoe, watching while Linton was out of the way, caught Danaë rubbing the child’s head and shoulders with it. The offender was impenitent.
“It is to avert the evil eye,” she said. “Everyone knows it is the best thing—almost infallible.”
“You are never to do it in future,” said Zoe.
“Then the Lord Harold will pine away and die, my lady.”
“Nonsense! I won’t have it, do you hear?”
“As you will, lady,” reluctantly. “But at least I will say Skordon! skordon! [garlic] whenever the Lady Eirene comes in. I will do what I can, though that is not nearly so much good.”
It was in the faint hope of breaking Danaë of some of her superstitions that Zoe began to teach her to read. She would not have suspected in the girl any desire for such an accomplishment, if she had not caught her poring diligently over a torn newspaper held upside down. Linton could read, and therefore Danaë owed it to herself to pretend to be able to do so. She received her mistress’s offer without enthusiasm.