The Sheik

"Well?" His voice was hard and uncompromising, and the flash of his

eyes was like the tiger's in the Indian jungle.

She set her teeth to keep down the old paralysing fear.

"I will do what you want. I will do anything you want, only be kind to

me, Ahmed," she whispered unsteadily. She had never called him by his

name before; she did not even know that she had done so now, but at the

sound of it a curious look crossed his face, and he drew her into his

arms with hands that were as gentle as they had been cruel before. She

let him lift her face to his, and met his searching gaze bravely.

Holding her look with the mesmerism that he could exert when he chose,

he read in her face her final surrender, and knew that while it pleased

him to keep her he had broken her utterly to his hand. A strange

expression grew in his eyes as they travelled slowly over her. She was

like a fragile reed in his strong grasp that he could crush without an

effort, and yet for four months she had fought him, matching his

determination with a courage that had won his admiration even while it

had exasperated him.

He knew she feared him, he had seen terror leap

into her flickering eyes when she had defied him most. Her defiance and

her hatred, which had piqued him by contrast with the fawning adulation

to which he had been accustomed and which had wearied him infinitely,

had provoked in him a fixed resolve to master her. Before he tired of

her she must yield her will to him absolutely. And to-night he knew

that the last struggle had been made, that she would never oppose him

again, that she was clay in his hands to do with as he would. And the

knowledge that he had won gave him no feeling of exultation, instead a

vague, indefinite sense of irritation swept over him and made him swear

softly under his breath. The satisfaction he had expected in his

triumph was lacking and the unaccountable dissatisfaction that filled

him seemed inexplicable. He did not understand himself, and he looked

down at her again with a touch of impatience. She was very lovely, he

thought, with a strange new appreciation of the beauty he had

appropriated, and very womanly in the soft, clinging green dress. The

slim, boyish figure that rode with him had a charm all its own, but it

was the woman in her that sent the hot blood racing through his veins

and made his heart beat as it was beating now. His eyes lingered a

moment on her bright curls, on her dark-fringed, pleading eyes and on

her bare neck, startlingly white against the jade green of her gown,

then he put her from him.