“Cousin Helena’s house would be a desert to me without you, Cousin Elma; surely you know that? I felt it so acutely when I came, that I determined not to show myself there until you were safely arrived. I strolled round each day and had a talk with the _bowab_ (doorkeeper), and so learned the news. I knew you were expected last night, and I meant to present myself in decent time for dinner this evening. I’ll do so still unless you have any objection.”
“I only hope,” said Lady Haigh, rather absently, “that you won’t talk nonsense of this kind to Helena. She won’t understand it, you know.”
“If you wish it, Cousin Elma, I will confine my conversation exclusively to Miss Anstruther. I couldn’t venture to talk nonsense to her, so that ought to keep me safe.”
“My dear Charlie, nothing but a gag would keep _you_ safe,” said Lady Haigh, with deep conviction. “And now we are going in here to do some shopping, and we don’t want any gentlemen to interrupt us, so good-bye until this evening.”
He turned away with a rueful look which made both ladies laugh, and disappeared obediently among the brilliant crowd, Lady Haigh only waiting until he was out of earshot to inquire anxiously what Cecil thought of him.
“He seems rather talkative,” said Cecil, expressing her thought mildly. “An empty-headed rattle,” was what she said in her own mind, and Lady Haigh, as if guessing this, took up the cudgels at once on her cousin’s behalf.
“Oh, that’s nothing but nervousness, my dear. You would really never guess that Charlie is simply afraid of ladies, especially young ones. He talks like that just to keep his courage up. But he is not like some men, all on the surface. There’s plenty of good stuff behind. Why, you mightn’t think it, but he can talk eight or nine Eastern dialects well enough to make the natives think him an oriental, and there are not many of whom that can be said. I’m afraid all his cleverness has gone in that direction, instead of helping him on in the world. Natives always take to him wonderfully, but when you’ve said that you’ve said all, or nearly all.”
Even after this, Cecil still thought that Lady Haigh’s fondness for her cousin made her very kind to his virtues and decidedly blind to his faults; but she was a little ashamed of this hasty generalisation after a discussion she had with him that evening, and felt obliged to confess that there was more in Dr Egerton than she had thought. Dinner was over, and they were sitting out in the open court of the Boleyns’ house. Mr Boleyn had been obliged to go out to attend some official function, and the voices of Lady Haigh and Mrs Boleyn, as they discussed, more or less amicably, reminiscences of their youth, mingled pleasantly with the soothing plash of the fountain. A severe snubbing from Mrs Boleyn during dinner had failed to reduce Charlie to silence or contrition, but now he seemed to enter into Cecil’s mood, and waited meekly until she chose to speak. To Cecil, lying back in her chair in a bower of strange creepers and flowering-shrubs, watching the moonlight as it crept over the walls of the house and the more distant minarets of a mosque a little way off, it seemed almost sacrilege to talk. But she awoke at last to the fact that she was not doing her duty by her companion, and reluctantly broke the delightful silence by the only remark which would come into her mind.