“My favourite governess went from the South Central to be principal of the Poonah High School, where Myrta was educated,” said Cecil, “and she lives so close to the Palace that I am often able to go in and see her. You have no idea how delightful it is to have some one with whom one can talk shop again. One’s school-days are really the happiest time in one’s life, you know, at least to look back upon. And then she is so pretty and bright.”
“Yes,” said Charlie, “she is smart, which emancipated women are not, as a rule. But she is out of her element here. She comes to Baghdad fresh from her school, brimful of modern notions, and thinks she can lead society here. It won’t work. The English look askance at her as being ‘a kind of native, don’t you know?’ and the rest do not understand her. And really a woman whose happiness depends upon society and society papers can’t find Baghdad congenial.”
“But her happiness doesn’t depend on them,” said Cecil. “She has a great many interests, and she helps Mr Hagopidan with all his English correspondence.”
“Then I have misjudged her,” said Charlie. “See how much more clearly the feminine mind penetrates into character! I generalised hastily from the fact that Mrs Hagopidan plied me with second-hand Simla gossip and last season’s Belgravian personalities, which I detest.”
“Poor thing!” said Cecil; “she was only trying to suit your tastes. She never talks to me like that.”
“And now,” went on Charlie, meditatively, “she proves to be an excellent wife and a clever and businesslike woman.”
“I never like judging people from casual impressions,” said Cecil, “but sometimes it is very hard not to do it. That tall dark man, for instance, who is talking to Madame Petroffsky--I don’t like him. I have seen him once or twice at the Palace, crossing the outer court with the Pasha, and he always seems to me to be--what shall I say?--slippery.”
“I should say that you had described him exactly,” said Charlie. “He is a peculiar product of centuries of contact between European and Eastern diplomacy, and he is particularly slippery. He is a Levantine Greek, and his name is Karalampi.”
“Oh, I have heard Azim Bey talk of him,” said Cecil. “He told me he taught him French.”