“No, I am the worst failure, I think. Prince Theophanis does at any rate rule, and with a strong hand when necessary. I potter about the world in a yacht, ready enough to help my friends, but without sufficient grit to annex a principality for myself. Oh, I have seen it in her eyes, I assure you, and it sets me wondering what exactly she would expect me to do on the lines of the villainous Despots she admires so much.”
“Oh, murder us all, and Romanos too, and seize Emathia, I suppose—regardless of the effect on the Powers,” said Zoe. “And yet you still think the soul is there?”
“I tell you I have seen it. But I can’t say the look is characteristic. Still, I know exactly how it would change the whole face. I could paint it now.”
“Then do it,” said Zoe, with a sudden inspiration. “Paint two pictures of her, one as she is and one as she ought to be—as you and I would like to see her. That one I will put away, and when we are old and gray-headed we will look at it and see whether she has developed in accordance with it or not.”
“But you would not let her see it?”
“Certainly not. One doesn’t want to add hypocrisy to the poor child’s obvious faults, and that would be a kind of temptation to it. No, she knows she must not look at the picture until it is finished, and you can keep the second one out of sight. When she sees herself in all her glory, she will be quite satisfied, and in no danger of finding fault with the expression.”
Armitage took the advice thus tendered him, and to Zoe there was something very pathetic about the smaller picture which grew under his hand in the neighbourhood of the large one. The splendidly handsome face, with its firm lips and scornful eyes, seemed to look down with contempt on its neighbour, into which, Zoe thought pitifully, the artist had painted the reflection of his own kindly soul rather than that of his sitter. If Kalliopé had a soul, it seemed to be buried deep beyond all means of reaching it; there was no way of getting at the girl herself. These thoughts were in Zoe’s mind when she came to the sitting one morning, to be met on the way by Armitage, who was carrying his large picture with some difficulty owing to a letter in one hand.
“Wait one moment, Princess,” he said. “Kalliopé is not there yet, and I have just had a letter from the Cavaliere. You will like to hear what he says?”
“Oh yes!” cried Zoe. “Has he discovered anything?”
“He thinks so. He says he had little difficulty in finding the villa where his daughter used to live. The people all knew that Prince Romanos had prepared it for a lady, who lived there in great retirement, and never went out. He used to visit her frequently, but of late his visits had entirely ceased, and the old woman who once did the marketing had also disappeared suddenly. Also the sentries who used to guard the house on the outside had been removed—and all these things happened at the same time, five or six months ago. Of course it might mean merely that Donna Olimpia had gone to live somewhere else, but the Cavaliere made up his mind that she had been murdered—and really you can’t wonder, after what he told us about her letters. He managed to get into the grounds one night with the help of a rope-ladder, and explored the whole place thoroughly. The house was clean and tidy, and there were no stains of blood, which was what he had feared to find, nor was there any grave in the garden. But everything indoors looked as though the inhabitants had gone away suddenly, without having time to pack properly. The furniture was all awry, and Donna Olimpia’s gowns were hanging up in her wardrobe. In the nursery the little boy’s toys and things were all left, and as far as he could tell the servants’ clothes were all in their rooms too. What should you think it pointed to?”