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“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.