“I don’t believe it. You want to kill him, as you did his mother. I won’t give him up.”
“Oh yes, you will, my lady, and without making any fuss about it, because if you don’t, I shall simply go to Prince Theophanis and tell him the truth about both of you. Then the Lord Janni will go back to his father, and you to yours. Of course, if you are longing to get back to Strio, I have no objection, but it’s for you to say.”
Danaë shivered. Strio was bad enough to look forward to, but what she shrank from more was the prospect of her story becoming known. That the nature of all the lies and evasions and subterfuges she had employed should be publicly exposed, that she should stand forth as an impostor, the accomplice in a murder, the deceiver of her own brother and her kindest friends! She pressed her hands together in agony, and Petros spoke again, insinuatingly this time.
“It’s not my business, lady, I know, and the Despot would kill me if he guessed what I am saying, but there’s no need to go back to Strio if you don’t wish it. The Lady Zoe will surely find you a husband if she has taken such a fancy to you, and you won’t catch me letting out anything. I’m only asking you to do what will benefit us all. The Lord Romanos is mad to get his son back, I see my way to something handsome for myself if I take him back, and you will be able to stay on here. Isn’t that fair?”
“My brother wants Janni back?” Danaë spoke in a dazed tone. “But then how is it you have not come for him before?”
Petros laughed with some little confusion. “Must I keep you here in the cold while I explain everything, my lady? Isn’t it enough for you to know that the little lord is badly wanted, and to hand him over?”
“I will do nothing unless I know why you want him, and why you have waited so long.”
“Holy Nicholas, lady! you are your father over again. Well, then, the first thing the Lord Romanos thought of on the Lady’s death was to keep everything quite secret. If he had lost his love, he need not lose his people’s good opinion as well; you see?”
“You are insolent!” flashed out Danaë. “The Lord Romanos acts as a wise man acts.”
“Then surely, my lady, there can be no harm in his servant following in his footsteps? At any rate, that is what he has tried to do. For when the Lord Romanos remembered the little lord, and found that he had disappeared, he was torn between his paternal affection and his fear of discovery. He longed to trace his son, but he durst not bring the police into the matter, lest they should find out too much, and therefore he entrusted the matter to me. Now, lady, knowing that you and the little lord were safe where I could put my finger upon you at any moment, could I really be expected to bring the search to an end before it had begun? That is not a wise man’s way.”