The Sheik

The old courageous self had never failed her, this new

shrinking fearful personality filled her with distrust. Her confidence

in herself was gone. Her contempt of herself was unutterable. The

strength that remained was not sufficient to conquer the fear that had

taken so strong a hold upon her. She could only hope to hide it, to

deny him at least that much satisfaction. She had grovelled at his feet

once and it had amused him. He had laughed! She would die rather than

afford him a similar amusement. She could never wipe out the

recollection of her cowardice; he would remember always, and so would

she; but she could atone for it if her strength held. And she prayed

that it might hold, until a sob broke from her and her hands cramped

around her knees. She pushed her hair off her forehead with a heavy

sigh, and she looked back over her shoulder at the empty room. It had

changed since this morning in the indefinable way a strange room does

change after a few hours' association. If she could leave it now and

never see it again in all her life no single detail of it would ever be

forgotten. Its characteristics had been stamped upon her as familiarly

as if the hours passed in it had been years. And yesterday was years

ago, when the poor silly fool that had been Diana Mayo had ridden

blindly into the trap from which her boasted independence had not been

able to save her. She had paid heavily for the determination to ignore

the restrictions of her sex laid upon her and the payment was not yet

over.

Her tired body shrank from the struggle that must recommence so

soon. If he would only spare her until this numbing weariness that made

her so powerless should lessen. She heard his voice at the door and her

icy fingers grasped at the book that had slipped to the ground. The

thick rugs deadened the sound of his movements, but she knew

instinctively that he had come in and gone back to the divan where he

had been sitting before. She knew that he was looking at her. She could

feel his eyes fixed on her and she quivered with the consciousness of

his stare. She waited, shivering, for him to speak or move. His methods

of torture were diverse, she thought with dreary bitterness. Behind the

tent in the men's lines a tom-tom was beating, and the irregular rhythm

seemed hammering inside her own head. She could have shrieked with the

agony of it.

"Come here--Diane."

She started, for a moment hardly recognising the Gallic rendering of

her name, and then flushed angrily without answering or moving. It was

a very little thing to stir her after all that had been done, but the

use of her name flamed the anger that had been almost swamped in fear.

The proprietory tone in his voice roused all her inherent obstinacy.

She was not his to go at his call. What he wanted he must take--she

would never give voluntarily. She sat with her hands gripped tightly in

her lap, breathing rapidly, her eyes dark with apprehension.