A Canopy of Rose Leaves by Isobel Chace

position of great responsibility to have to make all the decisions for all these people. But this is the way we have always managed things in Iran. Your position makes great difficulties! Nobody will understand that this man has no say in your future!’
    Deborah could not understand. ‘Does it matter?’ she asked. ‘In England now almost everyone has to earn their own living, women included. Plenty of women do here too, I’m sure. If isn’t as strange as all that!’
    His dark eyes looked uncertain. ‘It’s a complication,’ he said. ‘I must have time to think about it!’
    ‘Well, if you want to,’ Deborah said with a flippancy she was far from feeling. ‘But I can’t see that it has anything to do with you. Your mother won’t be fussed by such a thing if she’s an American. She may live according to Persian customs because she married your father, but in America women are even more liberated than we are in Europe. She’ll hardly be shocked by my being the co-owner of a shop with Ian!’
    Reza gave her a diffident smile. ‘But my mother is not the only one to be considered.’ He appeared to turn the matter over in his mind for a while. ‘Tell me,’ he said at last, ‘does Miss Maxine know this fact about you?’
    Deborah turned surprised eyes on him. ‘Why?’
    ‘I think she may have mentioned it to me if she had.’
    Deborah shrugged, half-laughing. ‘Don’t be daft! She probably didn’t think it worth the mentioning. Why should she? She works for herself too!’
    ‘No, but that is not quite so,’ Reza contradicted her. ‘Miss Maxine lives here with her brother and she paints only with his consent. Is this not so?’
    Deborah did laugh then. ‘My dear Reza, you’re talking out of the back of your hat! Nonsense,’ she added, taking pity on his puzzled expression. ‘Maxine doesn’t pay any attention to anything Howard says! She has her own money! She doesn’t have to sit around and wait for his consent to anything!’
    ‘No?’ The dark eyes burned with a fire that she mistrusted. ‘I had not understood that Miss Maxine was so independent. She is very beautiful.’
    Deborah was glad to agree. ‘I have often wished I was really fair, as she is, or really dark. Little Miss In-Between, that’s me!’
    ‘I find you most beautiful!’ the Persian exclaimed. ‘More beautiful than she! I have told my mother all about you and she can hardly wait for me to arrange your visit to her.’
    ‘Yes, but we’re taking Maxine too, aren’t we?’ Deborah said hastily. ‘I wonder where she’s got to? She said she’d only be gone a few minutes. I feel I’m wasting your time just sitting here and talking English with you. Perhaps we’d better begin our Farsi lesson without her?’
    ‘If it pleases you,’ he murmured, and this time there was no mistaking the fire in his eyes. ‘We can walk through the bazaar and I shall tell you what all the different things are called. I shall show you the Regent’s Mosque also, yes? You would like that?’
    Deborah was not keen on visiting any more mosques, but her interest was caught when Reza went on to say that the mosque was only in use on special occasions and that, between whiles, anybody could visit it with the goodwill of the whole town.
    ‘Well, all right,’ she temporised. ‘Toobi can tell Maxine where we’ve gone when she gets back and she can catch us up.’
    ‘I will tell her,’ he agreed.
    He said a great deal to the maid, some of which Deborah thought Toobi didn’t like at all. Once, the old woman made a quick motion of protest, but at a word from the doctor, she lowered her eyes and said nothing further.
    ‘Why doesn’t she want me to go with you?’ Deborah asked him as they crossed the courtyard towards the street door.
    ‘She doesn’t like the thought of you being alone with me, but I have told her that that means nothing to Western girls. It isn’t as though anyone has the right to be angry with you, and Miss Maxine will soon