Cecil flushed hotly, and would have risen and taken her departure, but her pupil answered without the slightest trace of confusion.
“But you always hated her coming, madame, and when my father refused to listen to you, you would not eat anything for a whole day. It is my father who has brought mademoiselle here, and he will not send her away.”
“Bey, don’t be rude to your grandmother,” said Cecil, reprovingly, and the entrance of coffee and cakes here relieved the tension of the situation. The Um-ul-Pasha became markedly gracious once more, and insisted upon taking a sip from Cecil’s cup, and breaking a piece from her cake, to show her good faith, but the only effect which this exaggerated affability produced upon those chiefly concerned was expressed by Azim Bey’s remark to his governess as they departed--
“Mademoiselle, the Um-ul-Pasha is intending something. It is not poison this time; I wonder when we shall know what it is! Did you hear my grandmother say to Mdlle. Katrina as we came away, ‘When the wife of the Balio Bey comes, see that she is admitted when no other visitors are present’? So you will hear all about it from the Mother of Teeth.”
“You know that I have told you not to speak of Lady Haigh by that name, Bey,” said Cecil, severely. “The wife of the Balio Bey should always be mentioned with respect.”
Sir Dugald Haigh was the Balio Bey, the word being a corruption of _bailo_, the title of the Venetian Ambassador to the Porte in the middle ages, and the name spoke volumes to every inhabitant of Baghdad, so that Azim Bey submitted to the correction meekly. As he had prophesied, Cecil heard from Lady Haigh a full account of her interview with the Um-ul-Pasha when they next met, on the occasion of Queen Victoria’s birthday, which fell close after Bairam that year, and on which all the English in the region kept holiday. Cecil spent the day at the Residency, as it had been carefully specified in her agreement with the Pasha that she should do, and she did not feel at all averse from a short return to civilised dress and English society. Lady Haigh told her the story in the evening, when they had a few minutes to spare before the arrival of the guests for the dinner-party which was _de rigueur_ on the occasion.