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.