“Dear me, Bey, how closely you watch me!” said Cecil, uncomfortably, feeling that she was not carrying out her determination of the night before at all in the proper way. “I am afraid you have not been working very hard. How far have you got with Peter?”
“I have finished all but his influence upon the Greek Church, mademoiselle. You looked so happy that I felt I must stop to ask you about it. But I will finish Peter, and then we can have some more talk.”
“Don’t you think I ought to be happy to be back here after being away for two whole days?” asked Cecil, lightly, trying to turn aside the subject with a laugh; but Azim Bey bent upon her a severe gaze from under his black brows, and answered solemnly--
“No, mademoiselle; for I watched your face when you went away, and it was not sad. I am convinced that your happiness has nothing to do with me. Now I will finish my essay.”
And having succeeded in making his governess uncomfortable, he applied himself once more to his writing, feeling, no doubt, a certain satisfaction in seeing that she was beginning to look worried and anxious instead of happy. She knew him well in these impracticable moods, when he would exhibit an impish power of detecting the things which he was not meant to see, and delighted in sweeping away conventional disguises, and she feared that he suspected what had taken place, and meant to make her task of telling him about it as difficult as he could. He finished his essay in due time, fastened the pages neatly together, and presented the roll to her with a polite bow, then tidied and closed his desk, all in grim silence, while Cecil waited expectantly for what he would say next. For the moment he seemed to have forgotten the matter, however, for he called to the servants to spread a carpet for him beside the brazier, and to bring some cushions for mademoiselle, and also to replenish the glowing charcoal, for it was a cold day for Baghdad. When his orders had been carried out, he turned to Cecil, and invited her to come down from her desk, and to sit by the brazier a little and warm herself. Pupil and governess generally took a short rest of this kind in the middle of the morning, and Cecil was wont to regard it as a very pleasant time, when bits from the latest magazines and papers which had reached her might be read and discussed, and Azim Bey’s critical faculty guided in the right direction.