“And you know, Charlie,” she said, “this appointment will bring you before the public, and may do you a great deal of good. It is a thing after your own heart, and you ought to be grateful for it.”
“What I am thinking of, Cousin Elma,” he replied, solemnly, “is that if I am away at Christmas, I may lose everything that would make all this any good to me.”
“My dear boy, what can you mean?” asked Lady Haigh, revolving various possibilities in her mind. “Oh, I know!” she cried at last. “You mean that Cecil’s first two years at Baghdad will be over a day or two before Christmas, and that she can’t go on without signing a new agreement?”
“And that before she signs it I am to have my chance,” added Charlie.
“Yes, of course,” said Lady Haigh, hastily. “You have been a very good boy, Charlie, and obeyed me splendidly, but lately I have noticed a sort of I-bide-my-time air about you, which didn’t look well. You shall have your chance, certainly, but I wouldn’t advise you to be too sure about it.”
“I am not,” said Charlie, “but I mean to have it.”
“Well, my dear boy,” went on his cousin, soothingly, “travelling as lightly as you do, you will be well able to be back before Christmas, you see. The new agreement need not be signed until Christmas Eve, and if you are not back then it will be your own fault.”
“But something might prevent me,” he said, dolefully; “and only think if I came back and found that she had bound herself for another three years of slavery to that child!”
“You think that you could prevent it if you were here?” asked Lady Haigh, in the tone that she had used once before when casting a doubt on the likelihood of Charlie’s success.
“I don’t know,” he said, humbly enough, “but I almost think, if I had her alone, and could make her listen to me, that I could.”
“Well, that you must settle for yourself, of course. I will do my best for you, Charlie. Supposing (but I don’t in the least anticipate it) that you are not back by Christmas Eve, I will tell Cecil the state of things before she signs the agreement. It may be that she is more homesick and tired of her work than she seems, and that she will be willing to listen to the proposal, but I can’t promise you success. I only say I will do what I can, for you have been very obedient, and behaved very well. That’s all I can promise.”