In a business-like way I told her the whole story, starting from the every-day scene at home in the restaurant, ending with the villainous conversation and the wild chase of the night before. When I related how Constantine had called Francesca his wife, Euphrosyne shivered; while I sketched lightly my encounter with him and Vlacho, she eyed me with a sort of grave curiosity; and at the end she said: "I'm glad you weren't killed." It was not an emotional speech, nor delivered with any _empressement_; but I took it for thanks, and made the best of it. Then at last she sat down and rested her head on her hand. Her absent air allowed me to study her closely, and I was struck by a new beauty which the bizarre boy's dress had concealed. Moreover, with the doffing of that, she seemed to have put off her extreme hostility; but perhaps the revelation I had made to her, which showed her the victim of an unscrupulous schemer, had more to do with her softened air. Yet she bore the story firmly, and a quivering lip was her extreme sign of grief or anger. And her first question was not of herself. "Do you mean that they will kill this woman?" she asked. "I'm afraid it's not unlikely that something will happen to her, unless, of course--" I paused, but her quick wit supplied the omission. "Unless," she said, "he lets her live now, because I am out of his hands." "Will you stay out of his hands?" I asked. "I mean, as long as I can keep you out of them." She looked round with a troubled expression. "How can I stay here?" she said in a low tone. "You will be as safe here as you were in your mother's arms," I answered. She acknowledged my promise with a movement of her head; but a moment later she cried: "But I am not with you--I am with the people! The island is theirs and mine. It is not yours. I will have no part in giving it to you." "I wasn't proposing to take pay for my hospitality," said I. "It'll be hardly handsome enough for that, I'm afraid. But mightn't we leave that question for the moment?" And I described briefly to her our present position. "So that," I concluded, "while I maintain my claim to the island, I am at present more interested in keeping a whole skin on myself and my friends." "If you will not give it up, I can do nothing," said she. "Though they knew Constantine to be all you say, yet they would follow him and not me if I yielded the island. Indeed, they would most likely follow him in any case. For the Neopalians like a man to follow, and they like that man to be a Stefanopoulos; so they would shut their eyes to much, in order that Constantine might marry me and become lord."