“C’est enfin Mdlle. Antaza!” he cried, in an ecstasy of delight, and he ran forward and salaamed, raising her hand to her lips. The Pasha interposed, and reminded him to salute Lady Haigh, which he did, and then retired behind his father’s chair, watching Cecil all the while with grave, unchildlike eyes.
“You will come soon, mademoiselle?” he said entreatingly as they took their leave. “When my father is busy I have no one now.”
“Mademoiselle is coming on Monday, Bey,” said Lady Haigh kindly, and the boy looked somewhat comforted. With his father and Denarien Bey he escorted the two ladies to the gate, and they rode home quietly, Cecil pondering over what she had seen of the Pasha and his little son. But it was strange how completely the Residency was like home to her already. It seemed to be a bit of England, and when once she had crossed its threshold again, the Palace and its occupants were like the fabric of a dream, while Sir Dugald, Charlie Egerton, and one or two Englishmen who happened to be passing through Baghdad, and were staying at the Residency, took their places.
“Well, what do you think of our friend Sir Hector Stubble?” Charlie asked her that evening, when they were sitting out on the verandah after dinner.
“I suppose you mean Sir Dugald,” said Cecil, “and I don’t like the name. I think Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was a splendid man, and I never can forgive Grenville Murray for drawing him so unfairly. I suppose the fact is that he saw him in the light of his own grievances, just as you look at Sir Dugald through the medium of your prejudice.”
“Not a prejudice, Miss Anstruther, honestly not,” said Charlie. “We are antagonistic by nature, and we rub each other the wrong way already. You would scarcely think we had had time to have words together yet, would you?”
“Already?” said Cecil. “It’s absurd!”
“Well,” said Charlie, “I told him that the hospital was quite behind the times, and horribly short of stores, and he as good as refused to do anything to it.”
“Possibly,” said Cecil, “he did not relish the stores being demanded in a your-money-or-your-life sort of tone.” Charlie laughed uncomfortably.
“You always contrive to put me in the wrong, Miss Anstruther. The fact is, he said one ought to be very careful with public money, and that he was not prepared to sanction the expenditure of any more at present. Then the prison, it is not in a particularly sanitary condition——”