She had ridden with Gaston, and hurried over her solitary dinner, and
since then she had been waiting for the Sheik to come back. In what
mood would he come? Since Raoul's announcement of his departure he had
been more than usually taciturn and reserved. The book she held slipped
at length on to the floor, and she let it he unheeded. The usual
stillness of the desert seemed to-night unusually still-sinister
even--and the silence was so intense that the sudden squeal of a
stallion a little distance away made her start with madly racing heart
Earlier in the evening a tom-tom had been going persistently in the
men's lines, and later a native pipe had shrilled thinly in monotonous
cadence; but she had grown accustomed to these sounds; they were of
nightly occurrence and they soothed rather than irritated her, and when
they stopped the quiet had become intensified to such a degree that she
would have welcomed any sound. To-night her nerves were on edge. She was
restless and excited, and her thoughts were chaos.
She was alone again at his mercy. What would his attitude be? Her hands
clenched on her knees. At times she lay almost without breathing,
straining to hear the faintest sound that would mean his return, and
then again lest she should hear what she listened for. She longed for
him passionately, and at the same time she was afraid, He had changed
so much that there were moments when she had the curious feeling that
it was a stranger who was coming back to her, and she both dreaded his
coming and yearned for it with a singular combination of emotions. She
looked round the room where she had at once suffered so much and been
so happy with troubled eyes. She had never been nervous before, but
to-night her imagination ran riot. There was electricity in the air
which acted on her overstrung nerves. The little shaded lamp threw a
circle of light round the bed, but left the rest of the room dim, and
the dusky corners seemed full of odd new shadows that came and went
illusively.
Hangings and objects that were commonly familiar to her
took on fantastic shapes that she watched nervously, till at last she
brushed her hand across her eyes with a laugh of angry impatience. Was
the love that had changed her so completely also making her a coward?
Had even her common-sense been lost in the one great emotion that held
her? She understood perfectly the change that had taken place in her.
She had never had any illusions about herself, and had never attempted
to curb the obstinate self-will and haughty pride that had
characterized her. She thought of it curiously, her mind going back
over the last few months that had changed her whole life. The last mad
freak for which she had paid so dearly had been the outcome of an
arrogant determination to have her own way in the face of all protests
and advice. And with a greater arrogance and a determination stronger
than her own Ahmed Ben Hassan had tamed her as he tamed the magnificent
horses that he rode. He had been brutal and merciless, using no half
measures, forcing her to obedience by sheer strength of will and
compelling a complete submission. She thought of how she had feared and
hated him with passionate intensity, until the hatred had been swamped
by love as passionate and as intense. She did not know why she loved
him, she had never been able to analyse the passion that held her so
strongly, but she knew deep down in her heart that it went now far past
his mere physical beauty and superb animal strength. She loved him
blindly with a love that had killed her pride and brought her to his
feet humbly obedient. All the love that had lain dormant in her heart
for years was given to him. Body and soul she belonged to him. And the
change within her was patent in her face, the haughty expression in her
eyes had turned to a tender wistfulness, with a curious gleam of
expectancy that flickered in them perpetually; the little mutinous
mouth had lost the scornful curve. And with the complete change in her
expression she was far more beautiful now than she had ever been.