“I tell you there was no choice. She made me promise. And the election was over. It is not as if this had come out first.”
“What does that signify? They would have swept Romanos from the throne, sent him back to his beggarly Strio. It would have been the turning-point. Zoe, I can never, never forgive you. Maurice’s future—the future of your house—was in your hands, and you deliberately cast it away.”
“Pardon me, Princess,” said Wylie. “It seems to me that my wife was not free to act.”
“Most certainly she was not,” said Maurice decisively. “When Prince Romanos and I submitted our claims to the choice of the Emathians, we pledged ourselves to abide by the result. When that had once been announced, we could not have taken advantage of Christodoridi’s marriage to oust him, even if it had come to our knowledge.”
“Oh, you are mad, all mad!” cried Eirene bitterly. “I, who sacrificed my child in the cause of the house of Theophanis, I cry shame upon you.”
Maurice’s face hardened. “We fought in Hagiamavra for the freedom of Emathia, Eirene, not for our own aggrandisement. And we are interrupting the Cavaliere Pazzi in his recital. Pray, monsieur, proceed.”
The Cavaliere bowed. “At your Highness’s gracious command. The news that the marriage had actually taken place threw me into a great difficulty, Highnesses. My first impulse was to cross at once to Dardania, and snatch my daughter from a position likely to prove so compromising. But cooler reflection assured me that such an action could only give rise to suspicions in the highest degree injurious to her. I wrote therefore—with all a father’s authority, but I trust also with the natural sympathy of one who himself has loved—to desire her to obtain leave of absence from the Princess. A visit to her solitary parent would surely be the most natural thing in the world, and could be prolonged indefinitely until her husband found himself able to visit Magnagrecia and claim his bride from her paternal home. But alas! the love and obedience to which I had never appealed in vain in my child had turned traitor, and were now enlisted against me. My precaution precipitated the very evil it was designed to prevent. Olimpia’s letters expressed the strongest reluctance to comply with my request. The fear of offending the Princess her mistress, of becoming a burden upon me—ah, well I perceived that these were only excuses; her true object was to remain as near her husband as possible. At last I resolved on the strong measures from which I had shrunk at first, and bade her be ready, for I was coming to fetch her. What evil fate caused the arrival of that letter of mine to coincide with a visit of Prince Romanos to the Dardanian court? When I received an answer, it was to tell me that Olimpia had accompanied her husband on his return to Emathia, though the time was not yet propitious for him to acknowledge her. Then, when it was too late, I hesitated no longer, and went in search of my daughter. I found her in the island of Thamnos, just outside Emathian waters. Her husband had been obliged to visit Czarigrad, and durst not leave her behind at Therma. There was no prospect of his acknowledging her at present, so that she could not go with him. Highnesses, our interview was a sad one—it tears the heart to recall it. I besought my daughter on my knees to return with me—to force the hand of the man who was risking her reputation for his convenience. She refused, she had cast in her lot with him. Then I begged her to permit me to remain and confront him, to urge upon him the absolute necessity of postponing no longer the step which he constantly assured her it was his firm intention to take in the near future. If he would call in the servants and the crew of his vessel, and declare before them that she was his wife—I would be content for the present with that. The state entry into Therma, the public recognition, might come later. But she refused to let me stay. Evidently she feared what might happen if we met. She assured me solemnly that if I declared my conditions she would take sides with her husband, and agree with him that the time was not yet ripe. She and he and her personal attendants knew that she was his lawful wife, and with that she was content. Highnesses, she was not content. I saw it in her convulsed face, heard it in her agitated accents, but the husband now took the first place, and the father must yield. Sorrowfully I left my child, and since that day I never seen her.”
“You heard from her, surely?” cried Zoe.
“Did she remain in Thamnos, or accompany the Prince to Therma?” asked Wylie.
“I did receive letters from her, madame. The letters were posted in Therma, Colonel, and she gave me to understand that she was occupying a villa on the Prince’s property, not far from the city. To its actual position she gave me no clue—doubtless fearing that I might again attempt to see her. The first letter I received after our unhappy parting begged me very earnestly to make no further allusion to the question of her recognition, but to think of her as an ordinary wife, married to a private person whose business obliged him to be a good deal away from her. She had perfect confidence in her husband, feeling sure that he would acknowledge her at the earliest possible moment, and in the meantime she lived a rather lonely but by no means unhappy life. She amused herself with gardening and the study of the Emathian languages and her husband spent with her every moment that he could snatch from the cares of state. At length she referred of her own accord to the subject she had begged me not to mention. If her child should be a boy, she was sure the Prince would take that opportunity of acknowledging her. The child was born. It was a boy, and it was baptised John, after the last of the Emperors, by the Greek rite. Olimpia assured me continually of her husband’s delight in his heir, but there was no word of recognition. At last I lost patience, Highnesses, for what could happen that could provide a more favourable moment for the announcement? I wrote to my child then that the Prince’s perpetual postponement of his promise absolved me from my engagement of silence, and that I was intending to take steps to announce the marriage on my own account.”