“I want mademoiselle,” he answered, becoming animated at once. “Where is she? I came to fetch her. What have you done with her?” and he looked at Charlie again, in a puzzled and suspicious way.
Happily it was just at this moment that Cecil and Mrs Hagopidan returned to the room, the latter with her arm linked in Cecil’s, and at the sight, Azim Bey’s face beamed. He rose from his seat and walked, for his innate dignity forbade his running, to meet them.
“Oh, mademoiselle,” he cried, “I am so lonely! There have never been two such long days since Baghdad was built. I am desolate without you. I have teased Ayesha, I have had two of the servants beaten, I have been very bad. Now come back.”
“Not yet, Bey,” said Cecil, somewhat vexed, and yet touched by the eagerness of the little fellow’s tone; “I can’t break up Lady Haigh’s party in the middle of the evening. But you would like to stay, wouldn’t you, and see how we keep Christmas in England? You have often asked me about it, you know.”
“And if Lady Haigh doesn’t mind, we will play some of the old Christmas games,” put in Charlie, who was very much vexed, and not at all touched, but wanted to make the best of the matter.
“You may play at Christmas games, M. le docteur, if you like,” responded Azim Bey, fixing a stony gaze on Charlie, “but mademoiselle shall sit by me and explain them all. She shall not play your forfeits, your kissing under the mistletoe, with you.”
“I never suggested that she should—in public, at any rate,” returned Charlie, almost overcome by the idea of his kissing Cecil under the mistletoe for Azim Bey’s edification. “I suppose you think that such a proceeding would need a good deal of explanation, Bey?”
“Madame,” said Azim Bey to Lady Haigh, turning in disgust from Charlie’s flippancy, “may I ask that you will have the kindness to let a chair be brought for mademoiselle, that she may sit beside me?”
“Bey! Lady Haigh is standing. I cannot sit down until she does,” said Cecil, and her pupil groaned, and requested that a chair might be placed for Lady Haigh on the other side of him. Then, with Charlie as master of the revels, the games began. Urged by an agonised whisper from their leader, “For goodness’ sake, you fellows, let us send this child home in a good temper,” the other young men threw themselves nobly into the fray, and did their best to induct the bewildered Greek and Armenian guests into the mysteries of blindman’s-buff and general post. Meanwhile, Azim Bey sat very upright on his chair, demanding from Cecil copious explanations of all that he witnessed, and criticising the players liberally. Mrs Hagopidan he was at first inclined to admire, but when he found that she was Cecil’s friend he became jealous, and refused to have anything to say to her, at which the lively little lady laughed as an excellent joke. Except for this, however, Azim Bey seemed to enjoy the evening, if no one else did, for it accorded exactly with his tastes and his ideas of pleasure to sit still and look on while others supplied amusement for him. At length the games came to a close, and Lady Haigh carried off Cecil to don her Palace dress once more. When she came out of her room, with the great white sheet over her arm, ready to put on, Charlie was on the verandah waiting for her, and Lady Haigh discreetly returned into the room for something she had forgotten.
“I couldn’t let you go without one more word,” he said. “You must let me give you this, dear.”