“But I can’t stay with you always,” said Cecil, vexed, and yet half-laughing at the tone of pride in which he spoke, “so we must hope you will improve before I leave you. If I never married at all, I should go home when my five years here were over. When you are married, Safieh Khanum will know very well how to manage things without my advice. Don’t you see that it wouldn’t do at all for me to be interfering in her household affairs? Besides, Bey, think how selfish you are. You would like me to lose the very thing that is making me so happy just now, because you would have to do without me.”
“If any one comes, and wishes to be engaged to you, mademoiselle, I shall have him killed,” repeated Azim Bey, doggedly. Cecil lost her temper.
“Very well, Bey; if you are going to behave so foolishly, and talk so childishly of what you know nothing about, I am not going to tell you anything more. You may find things out for yourself, if you like.”
And Cecil walked away to her own room, and returned with Charlie’s ring shining on her finger, a perpetual defiance and reminder to Azim Bey.
CHAPTER XVII.
AN IDYLL, AND ITS ENDING.
After all, the tender care Cecil had shown for her pupil’s feelings, almost disregarding Charlie’s in comparison with them, was not only without result, but quite unnecessary. Azim Bey had read in her face as she said good-night what had happened, and neither silence nor denials on her part would have had the slightest effect in shaking his belief in his discovery. Consequently her vain attempts to mollify him were regarded with contempt as signs of conscious guilt, and the rupture which concluded them only increased his wrath against Charlie, over whom he had now been forced to quarrel with mademoiselle. He was obliged to do his lessons as usual, but at other times he sat apart and meditated vengeance.
His mind was full of schemes—indeed the only drawback was their number and variety. He intended fully to get rid of Charlie, and to punish Cecil for engaging herself to him; but as soon as he had settled upon a means of doing this, a new and splendid idea was sure to come into his head, and he would devote himself to working it out until it in its turn was supplanted by a better. There was another difficulty common to all these plans. It seemed absolutely impossible to carry them out, situated as he was, under Cecil’s charge and Masûd’s guardianship. Even when he had patched up a hollow peace with Cecil, cemented by a mutual understanding that the subject of her engagement was not to be mentioned between them, this difficulty confronted him still, and it was therefore with a joy born of hope and confidence that he found M. Karalampi one day in the Pasha’s anteroom. Here was the man who could do what he wanted, and M. Karalampi was astonished to find himself seized upon and dragged into a corner, and adjured in excited whispers to get rid of that wretch, that criminal of an English doctor who had dared to engage himself to Mdlle. Antaza.
M. Karalampi’s first feeling, which he was careful to conceal, was one of helpless bewilderment, but of this Azim Bey had no idea. To him, the Greek, backed up by all the help he could easily command, was a deus ex machinâ who could accomplish his purpose in the twinkling of an eye. M. Karalampi knew better the difficulties of the situation. Murder was out of the question, and so was kidnapping. Either, or an attempt at either, would set the Balio Bey and all the English on the alert, and lead to the discovery of the instigator of the deed, and M. Karalampi was not at all inclined to compromise his position, either with the Pasha or with the foreign consuls, for the sake of Azim Bey. No; whatever was to be done must be done by careful diplomacy and working underground, and for this time would be necessary. But to say so to Azim Bey would mean that the boy would fly off at a tangent to some other person who might be inclined to help him, and this M. Karalampi could not allow. Almost simultaneously two plans formed themselves in his brain, one for getting rid of Charlie, the other for gaining time from Azim Bey, and he put the second into execution at once. Lowering his voice mysteriously, and entreating pardon for casting a doubt on the correctness of the Bey Effendi’s information, he ventured to inquire whether he were absolutely certain that it was Dr Egerton to whom mademoiselle was engaged? The doctor and she had not seen one another for a long time before Christmas, whereas Captain Rossiter was at the Residency all the time. It was known that the Balio Bey thought very highly of him, and it was whispered that he himself thought very highly of mademoiselle: indeed M. Karalampi had heard it said that he was going to marry her. Was Azim Bey sure that it was not Captain Rossiter to whom she was engaged? Of course M. Karalampi could not guarantee the authenticity of his own information, but it would certainly be very annoying to get rid of the wrong man and find the evil untouched.
M. Karalampi knew very well the falsity of the suggestion he offered, but it served his present purpose admirably. Azim Bey was struck dumb. He beat his brains to try and find out why he had fixed upon Charlie as the happy man, for he had certainly never been told that he was; but he could find nothing but that early incursion into the harem, and the little scene he had witnessed at the Residency on the day of the riot, to justify his suspicions. Meanwhile, as M. Karalampi pointed out respectfully, these were only proofs that Dr Egerton was in love with mademoiselle, which no one had ever doubted, while it was undeniable that Captain Rossiter had rushed to her rescue with the utmost eagerness when he heard she was in danger. Azim Bey felt nonplussed. He could only promise that he would do his best to discover the truth—he must be able to do so without much difficulty—and adjure his fellow-conspirator to be in readiness to act the moment he let him know who was to be assailed.
They parted, and Azim Bey set himself to his task; but it was more difficult than he had imagined it would be. Cecil’s lips were sealed, at any rate to him, on the subject of her engagement. If he attempted to approach it, she froze instantly, and he could not obtain from her the slightest clue to the mystery, while all his efforts to pump Um Yusuf found her as impenetrable as the grave. It so happened that for a considerable time he met no one who had sufficient interest in or knowledge of the matter to enlighten him. He felt convinced that he could have got the truth out of either Charlie or Captain Rossiter by means of a few questions, but neither of them came in his way, and though he saw Sir Dugald once or twice, the Balio Bey was not the kind of person to approach on such a quest. Much time was consumed in these delays, and winter had passed, and spring was over all the plains, before the boy’s curiosity could be gratified.