The Sheik

The Arab's exaggeratedly short stirrup would have given her

agonies of cramp. She pointed the difference with a laugh of amusement

and drew the man on to speak of his horses. The one Diana was riding

was an unusually fine beast, and had been one of the greatest points in

the guide's favour when he had brought it for her inspection. He was

enthusiastic in its praise, but volubly vague as to its antecedents,

which left Diana with the conviction that the animal had either been

stolen or acquired in some irregular manner and that it would be

tactless to pursue further inquiries. After all it was no business of

hers. It was enough that her trip was to be conducted on the back of a

horse that it was a pleasure to ride and whose vagaries promised to

give interest to what otherwise might have been monotonous. Some of the

horses that she had seen in Biskra had been the veriest jades.

She asked Mustafa Ali about the country through which they were

passing, but he did not seem to have much information that was really

of interest, or what seemed important to him appeared trivial to her,

and he constantly brought the conversation back to Biskra, of which she

was tired, or to Oran, of which she knew nothing. The arrival at a

little oasis where the guide suggested that the midday halt might be

made was opportune. Diana swung to the ground, and, tossing down her

gloves, gave herself a shake. It was hot work riding in the burning sun

and the rest would be delightful. She had a thoroughly healthy

appetite, and superintended the laying out of her lunch with interest.

It was the last time that it would be as daintily packed. Stephens was

an artist with a picnic basket. She was going to miss Stephens. She

finished her lunch quickly, and then, with her back propped against a

palm tree, a cigarette in her mouth, her arms clasped round her knees,

she settled down happily, overlooking the desert. The noontime hush

seemed over everything. Not a breath of wind stirred the tops of the

palms; a lizard on a rock near her was the only living thing she could

see.

She glanced over her shoulder. The men, with their big cloaks

drawn over their heads, were lying asleep, or at any rate appeared to

be so; only Mustafa Ali was on foot, standing at the edge of the oasis,

staring fixedly in the direction in which they would ride later.

Diana threw the end of her cigarette at the lizard and laughed at its

precipitant flight. She had no desire to follow the example of her

escort and sleep. She was much too happy to lose a minute of her

enjoyment by wasting it in rest that she did not require. She was

perfectly content and satisfied with herself and her outlook. She had

not a care or a thought in the world. There was not a thing that she

would have changed or altered. Her life had always been happy; she had

extracted the last ounce of pleasure out of every moment of it. That

her happiness was due to the wealth that had enabled her to indulge in

the sports and constant travel that made up the sum total of her

desires never occurred to her. That what composed her pleasure in life

was possible only because she was rich enough to buy the means of

gratifying it did not enter her head. She thought of her wealth no more

than of her beauty. The business connected with her coming of age, when

the big fortune left to her by her father passed unreservedly into her

own hands, was a wearisome necessity that had been got through as

expeditiously as possible, with as little attention to detail as the

old family lawyer had allowed, and an absence of interest that was

evidenced in the careless scrawl she attached to each document that was

given her to sign.