The Sheik

She moved leisurely towards the hotel, and he paced beside her

wondering if he had forfeited her friendship by his outburst, but on

the verandah she halted and spoke in the frank tone of camaraderie in

which she had always addressed him. "Shall I see you in the morning?"

He understood. There was to be no more reference to what had passed

between them. The offer of friendship held, but only on her own terms.

He pulled himself together.

"Yes. We have arranged an escort of about a dozen of us to ride the

first few miles with you, to give you a proper send-off."

She made a laughing gesture of protest. "It will certainly need four

weeks of solitude to counteract the conceit I shall acquire," she said

lightly, as she passed into the ballroom.

A few hours later Diana came into her bedroom, and, switching on the

electric lights, tossed her gloves and programme into a chair. The room

was empty, for her maid had had a vertige at the suggestion that

she should accompany her mistress into the desert, and had been sent

back to Paris to await Diana's return. She had left during the day, to

take most of the heavy luggage with her.

Diana stood in the middle of the room and looked at the preparations

for the early start next morning with a little smile of satisfaction.

Everything was en train; the final arrangements had all been

concluded some days before. The camel caravan with the camp equipment

was due to leave Biskra a few hours before the time fixed for the Mayos

to start with Mustafa Ali, the reputable guide whom the French

authorities had reluctantly recommended. The two big suit-cases that

Diana was taking with her stood open, ready packed, waiting only for

the last few necessaries, and by them the steamer trunk that Sir Aubrey

would take charge of and leave in Paris as he passed through. On a

chaise-longue was laid out her riding kit ready for the morning. Her

smile broadened as she looked at the smart-cut breeches and high brown

boots. They were the clothes in which most of her life had been spent,

and in which she was far more at home than in the pretty dresses over

which she had laughed with Arbuthnot.

She was glad the dance was over; it was not a form of exercise that

appealed to her particularly. She was thinking only of the coming tour.

She stretched her arms out with a little happy laugh.

"It's the life of lives, and it's going to begin all over again

to-morrow morning." She crossed over to the dressing-table, and,

propping her elbows on it, looked at herself in the glass, with a

little friendly smile at the reflection. In default of any other

confidant she had always talked to herself, with no thought for the

beauty of the face staring back at her from the glass. The only comment

she ever made to herself on her own appearance was sometimes to wish

that her hair was not such a tiresome shade. She looked at herself now

with a tinge of curiosity. "I wonder why I'm so especially happy

to-night. It must be because we have been so long in Biskra. It's been

very jolly, but I was beginning to get very bored." She laughed again

and picked up her watch to wind. It was one of her peculiarities that

she would wear no jewellery of any kind. Even the gold repeater in her

hand was on a plain leather strap. She undressed slowly and each moment

felt more wide-awake. Slipping a thin wrap over her pyjamas and

lighting a cigarette she went out on to the broad balcony on to which

her bedroom gave. The room was on the first floor, and opposite her

window rose one of the ornately carved and bracketed pillars that

supported the balcony, stretching up to the second story above her

head. She looked down into the gardens below. It was an easy climb, she

thought, with a boyish grin--far easier than many she had achieved

successfully when the need of a solitary ramble became imperative. But

the East was inconvenient for solitary ramble; native servants had a

disconcerting habit of lying down to sleep wherever drowsiness overcame

them, and it was not very long since she had slid down from her balcony

and landed plumb on a slumbering bundle of humanity who had roused half

the hotel with his howls. She leant far over the rail, trying to see

into the verandah below, and she thought she caught a glimpse of white

drapery. She looked again, and this time there was nothing, but she

shook her head with a little grimace, and swung herself up on to the

broad ledge of the railing. Settling herself comfortably with her back

against the column she looked out over the hotel gardens into the

night, humming softly the Kashmiri song she had heard earlier in the

evening.