The meal was a long one, for all the usual Christmas fare was _de rigueur_, as were the orthodox Christmas customs, while there were a number of toasts to be drunk at the close; but it was over at last, and the gentlemen were not long in following the ladies into the drawing-room. A number of other people who had only been invited to the reception after the dinner-party now came dropping in, and Cecil found herself seized upon by her friend Mrs Hagopidan, the lady in whose defence she had broken a lance with Charlie not long after her arrival in Baghdad. Myrta Hagopidan was a lively little person, an Armenian by race, a native of British India by birth, and an Englishwoman by aspiration. As schoolgirls she and Cecil had adored the same governess, the lady who had been Cecil’s form-mistress at the South Central having gone to India to take charge of the Poonah High School, as has been already mentioned, and this bond of union drew them very close together, although Mrs Hagopidan was pleased to affect the ultra-smart in dress and conversation, and had a weakness for talking about her “frocks,” for which, by the way, Worth was sometimes responsible. She came rustling up now in a magnificent and utterly indescribable costume of various shimmering hues, and demanded that Cecil should take her up to the roof to see the view. “I’ve never seen the city by moonlight from here,” she said, “and Captain Rossiter has been telling me that it’s quite too awfully sweet. Take me up to the best place, for I daren’t go roaming about Sir Dugald’s house alone without his leave, and I’m much too frightened to ask for it. Put on a shawl or coat or something, for it’s quite chilly.” And linking her arm in Cecil’s, Mrs Hagopidan drew her into the cloakroom, whence she extracted a wonderful little wrap of her own, all iridescent brocade and ostrich feathers, and then waited while Cecil hunted for her white-and-gold cloak. Her little dark face looked so mischievous and arch and winning, framed in the folds of her hood, that Cecil kissed her there and then, at which Mrs Hagopidan laughed until all her ostrich-feathers nodded wildly. “Don’t!” she cried, pushing Cecil away. “I don’t want to make any one jealous; I’m simply an amiable and kind-hearted friend. There! that’s your cloak, isn’t it? Put it on and come along.” They hurried up the steps together, Mrs Hagopidan continuing to talk incessantly, so that Cecil was nearly exhausted before they had reached the top, and was obliged to stop to laugh. “Lazy thing!” cried her companion. “You are stopping too soon. Only two or three steps more, and I’m dying to see what is to be seen. Come on. Why, there’s some one here!” A dark figure confronted them as they reached the top of the stairs, and Cecil almost screamed, but she saw immediately who it was. “Myrta, you wretch!” she cried, “you have brought me here on false pretences.”