"Va," he said gently, "depeche-toi."
She looked after him as he went through the curtains with a long,
sobbing sigh. She was paying a heavy price for her happiness, but she
would have paid a heavier one willingly. Nothing mattered now that he
was not angry any more. She knew what her total submission meant: it
was an end to all individualism, a complete self-abnegation, an
absolute surrender to his wishes, his moods and his temper. And she was
content that it should be so, her love was prepared to endure whatever
he might put upon her. Nothing that he could do could alter that, and
nothing should make her own her love. She had hidden it from him, and
she would hide it from him--cost what it might. Though he did not love
her he wanted her still; she had read that in his eyes five minutes
ago, and she was happy even for that.
She turned to the glass suddenly and wrenched the silk folds off her
shoulder. She looked at the marks of his fingers on the delicate skin
with a twist of the lips, then shut her eyes with a little gasp and hid
her bruised arm hastily, her mouth quivering. But she did not blame
him, she had brought it on herself; she knew his mood, and he did not
know his own strength.
"If he killed me he could not kill my love," she murmured, with a
little pitiful smile.
The men were waiting for her, and with a murmured apology for her
lateness she took her place. The Sheik and his guest resumed the
conversation that her entrance had interrupted. Diana's thoughts were
in confusion. She felt as if she were in some wild, improbable dream.
An Arab Sheik, a French explorer, and herself playing the conventional
hostess in the midst of lawless unconventionalism. She looked around
the tent that had become so familiar, so dear. It seemed different
to-night, as if the advent of the stranger had introduced a foreign
atmosphere. She had grown so accustomed to the routine that had been
imposed upon her that even the Vicomte's servant standing behind his
master seemed strange. The man's likeness to his twin brother was
striking, the only difference being that while Gaston's face was
clean-shaven, Henri's upper lip was hidden by a neat, dark moustache.
The service was, as always, perfect, silent and quick.
She glanced at the Sheik covertly. There was a look on his face that
she had never seen and a ring in his voice that was different even from
the tone she had heard when Gaston had come back on the night of her
flight. That had been relief and the affection of a man for a valued
servant, this was the deep affection of a man for the one chosen
friend, the love passing the love of women. And the jealousy she had
felt in the morning welled up uncontrollably. She looked from the Sheik
to the man who was absorbing all his attention, but in his pale, clever
face, half hidden by the close beard, she saw no trace of the
conceited, smirking egotist she had imagined, and his voice, as low as
the Sheik's, but more animated, was not the voice of a man unduly
elated or conscious of himself. And as she looked her eyes met his. A
smile that was extraordinarily sweet and half-sad lit up his face.