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The whole assembly rose and bowed as Cecil and Miss Arbuthnot passed out, Lady Haigh following them closely.

“Come to my sitting-room,” she said; “you are going to lunch with me, you know. Denarien Bey will be coming in as soon as he has got rid of his friends, and then we can pick his brains to some purpose.”

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“Come in, come in,” said Lady Haigh, hospitably, leading the way into her sitting-room. “Well, Cecil, my dear (for I really must call you so), were you very much astonished at the sight of that formidable array? Wasn’t it just like Denarien Bey to make such a tremendous business of it? I suppose it’s his nature to like to have a great fuss about everything.”

“But hadn’t the Pasha appointed the council of selection?” asked Miss Arbuthnot.

“Not a bit of it,” laughed Lady Haigh. “Of course, for one thing, Denarien Bey was in a terrible fright. If Cecil turned out unsatisfactory, or if he bungled the business in any way, he might lose his head. So he gets together as many people as he can with whom to share the responsibility, so that he can put the blame on them if anything goes wrong, while some of them are too strong for the Pasha to touch, and the others are out of his reach. But it was simply a desire to make a great business of the matter which made him drag poor old Tussûn Bey here from the Embassy.”