“You are English, are you not?” she asked through Mdlle. Katrina.
“Is it true that it is the custom in your country for young people to settle about their marriage for themselves, without their parents arranging the matter?” was the next question, to which also Cecil returned an unsuspecting reply, all unprepared for what was to follow.
“Then why are you not married?” asked the Um-ul-Pasha, bending her black brows on her visitor, much as Um Yusuf had done in asking the same question. The query was certainly an embarrassing one, and Cecil answered blushingly that in England it was customary for the gentleman to take the initiative in matters of the kind, and, well----. But it was unnecessary for her to say any more, the inference was obvious, and the expression on the Um-ul-Pasha’s face, faithfully copied on the countenances of the other ladies, and respectfully reflected on that of Mdlle. Katrina, said, “And no wonder!” It was an uncomfortable moment, and to make the situation still more awkward, some mischievous sprite prompted Azim Bey to put in a remark on his own account.
“When I am grown up, _I_ shall marry mademoiselle,” he said, in his shrill little voice, and then sat and hugged himself in happy consciousness of the bombshell he had thrown into the group. Cecil would have felt a keen pleasure at the moment in shaking him, and his grandmother’s fingers twitched as though she longed to have him by the throat. Mdlle. Katrina seemed actually to grow pale and shrunken with horror, and the other two ladies subsided into limp heaps on their cushions, murmuring breathless exclamations of terror and dismay. It was the Um-ul-Pasha who recovered herself first, and she hailed the opportunity of administering a snub to her grandson and his governess at the same time.
“You speak foolishly, Bey,” she said, in her haughtiest tones, “and I am surprised that Mdlle. Antaza has not taught you better. She knows very well that if I had not full confidence in her integrity, I should advise my son, your father, to send her back to her own country at once on account of that foolish speech of yours. As it is, such nonsense as this makes me doubtful of the wisdom of keeping her here.”