“But I don’t in the least think that papa will let me go, Lady Haigh,” said Cecil, waiving the remark about her personal wishes.
“If he won’t, he is a much more foolish man than I think him,” replied Lady Haigh, in her most uncompromising manner; “and I shall consider it my duty to write him an urgent letter of remonstrance.”
“When you go back, Lady Haigh,” asked Cecil, suddenly, “shall you go to Beyrout and Damascus and then across the desert to Baghdad?”
“When _we_ go back, my dear Cecil,” corrected Lady Haigh, impressively, “we shall go by the P. & O. to Karachi, then by another steamer to Basra, and then by another to Baghdad. I am not an adventurous young lady disposed to be sentimental over Bedouin wanderers, and I have no wish to go through unnecessary hardships, nor yet to be captured by insurgent Arabs and held to ransom, and so I fear that you will have to be content to accompany the steady-going old woman by this humdrum route.”
“But I am quite sure that papa will never let me go,” repeated Cecil, confidently, with a sigh that was not all of sadness.
For æsthetic reasons she would be sorry not to see Baghdad, but everything else seemed to combine to make her dread going there. She was so strongly convinced that her father would share her feelings, that she gave herself a great deal of trouble in trying to compose a letter to him which should be scrupulously fair, and place all the advantages of the situation in their proper light. The letter once written and sent off, she felt quite at ease in her mind, and was even disposed to mourn gently over the chance she was losing. It was Miss Arbuthnot, and not Cecil, who betrayed excitement when Mr Anstruther’s answer arrived, and waited with bated breath whilst it was opened.
“I am sure he won’t let me go, Miss Arbuthnot,” Cecil had said, smiling, as she took up the envelope; but on glancing through the letter she uttered a cry, and looked up with a piteous face of dismay.
“Oh! Miss Arbuthnot, he wants me to go--at least, he says that it seems a most excellent offer, and he is coming up to town early to-morrow morning to see about it and to talk to you.”
“Well, my dear, it only confirms the high opinion I have always held of your father’s judgment. I expected he would say just this.”