The Sheik

He held out the necklace silently, and silently she stared not at it

but at him. Her heart began to beat faster, and the colour slowly left

her face. "Take it. I wish it," he said quietly.

"No." It was little more than a gasp.

"You will wear it to please me," he went on in the same soft voice, and

the old hateful mockery crept into his eyes, "to please my artistic

soul. I have an artistic soul even though I am only an Arab."

"I will not!"

The mockery was wiped out of his eyes in a flash, giving place to the

usual ferocity, and his forehead knit in the dreaded heavy scowl.

"Diane, obey me!"

She clenched her teeth on her lower lip until a rim of blood stained

their whiteness. If he would only shout or bluster like the average

angry man she felt that she could brave him longer, but the cold quiet

rage that characterised him always was infinitely more sinister, and

paralysed her with its silent force. She had never heard him raise his

voice in anger or quicken his usual slow, soft tone, but there was an

inflection that came into his voice and a look that came into his eyes

that was more terrible than any outburst. She had seen his men shrink

when, standing near him, she had barely been able to hear what he had

said. She had seen a look from him silence a clamorous quarrel that had

broken out among his followers too close to his own tent for his

pleasure. And that inflection was in his voice and that look was in his

eyes now. It was no longer use to resist. The fear of him was an agony.

She would have to obey, as in the end he always forced her to obey. She

wrenched her eyes away from his compelling stare, her bosom heaving

under the soft silk, her chin quivering, and reached out blindly and

took it from him. But the sudden chill of it against her bare breast

seemed to revive the courage that was not yet dead in her. She flung up

her head, the transient colour flaming into her cheeks, and her lips

sprang open, but he drew her to him swiftly, and laid his hand over her

mouth. "I know, I know," he said coldly. "I am a brute and a beast and

a devil. You need not tell me again. It commences to grow tedious." His

hand slipped to her shoulder, his fingers gripping the delicate,

rounded arm. "How much longer are you going to fight? Would it not be

wiser after what you have seen to-day to recognise that I am master?"