“Of course I could read as well as anyone when I was a child, but I have forgotten it,” she observed airily.
But when the lessons had continued some few days, she astonished Zoe by looking up and remarking, “I told you a lie the other day, my lady. I never got beyond theta at school.”
“Then you were at school, Kalliopé? Where?”
“Only for a week, lady—in Tortolana.”
“Tortolana? But that is one of the islands—near Strio?”
“Yes, my lady.” Danaë looked up smiling, and then realised the admission she had made. She grew crimson to the very tips of her ears as she bent over the book again, and Zoe bemoaned herself afterwards to her husband.
“Oh, Graham, I thought she was getting a little more truthful, and now I find she has been deceiving us all this time, and never meant to confess it! But if she does come from the islands, Petros may be her uncle after all, and there may not be a word of truth in any of her stories. What is one to believe?”
“What is one to do, rather?” said Wylie.
“Yes, about Janni. If his poor mother should be looking for him!—and yet there is nothing in any of the papers about a lost child. And if she is away on a journey, it is no good putting a notice in a Therma paper——”
“None whatever. But think, if she gets anxious because of getting no news, she will put the matter into the hands of the Therma police, and a reward will be offered for tidings of the little chap. You must remember that our friend Petros knows where he is, and I think we may be quite sure he won’t be backward in claiming that reward if it is offered. So don’t worry yourself.”