The Sheik

"And the woman pays," cried Diana vehemently. "Pays for the beauty God curses her with—the beauty she may hate herself; pays until the beauty fades. How much–" She pulled herself up short, biting her lips. Moved by the sense of the sympathy that had unconsciously been influencing her during the past week and which had shaken the self-suppression that she had imposed upon herself, her tongue had run away with her. She was afraid of the confidence that his manner was almost demanding of her. Her pride restrained her from the compassion that her loneliness had nearly yielded to.

"Excuse me," she said coldly, "my ideas cannot possibly interest you."

"On the contrary, you interest me profoundly," he corrected quickly.

She noticed the slight difference in his words and laughed more bitterly than before. "As what?—a subject for vivisection? Get on your operating coat and bring your instruments without delay. The victim is all ready for you. It will be 'copy' for your next book!"

"Madame!"

He had sprung to his feet, and she looked up at him miserably, her hand held out in swift contrition. "Oh, forgive me! I shouldn't have said that. You haven't deserved it. You have been—kind. I am grateful. Forgive me and my rudeness. It must be the heat, it makes one very irritable, don't you think?"

He ignored her pitiful little subterfuge and raised her outstretched, quivering fingers to his lips. "If you will honour me with your friendship," he said, with a touch of the old-world chivalry that was often noticeable in him, "my life is at your service."

But as he spoke his voice changed. The touch of her cold fingers sent a rush of feeling through him that for an instant overpowered him.

She let her hand lie in his, and for a few moments she avoided his eyes and looked down at the rough head in her lap. Then she met his gaze frankly. "Your offer is too rare a thing to put on one side. If you will be my friend, as you are Monseigneur's friend–" she faltered, turning her head away, and her fingers lying in his trembled slightly.

He started and crushed the hand he was holding unknowingly, as the thought was forced on him. Monseigneur's friend! He realized that in the last few moments he had forgotten the Sheik, had forgotten everything, swept off his feet by an intense emotion that staggered him with its unexpectedness, except the loveliness and helplessness of the girl beside him. His head was reeling; his calmness, his loyalty, his earlier feelings of dispassionate pity had given way to an extreme agitation that was rushing him headlong and threatening to overwhelm him. His heart beat furiously and he clenched his teeth, fighting to regain his usual sang-froid. The emotional temperament that Diana had divined from his novel had sprung uppermost with a bound, overthrowing the rigid repression of years. The blood beat in his ears as he strove to master himself, to crush the madness that had come upon him.

He had closed his eyes with the shock of self-revelation, he opened them now and looked down at her hesitatingly, almost fearfully, clasping her hand closer in his and leaning nearer to her, drawn irresistibly by the intoxication of her nearness. He saw her through a mist that cleared gradually, saw that she was ignorant of the emotion she had awakened in him, and, conscious only of his sympathy, had left her hand in his as she would have left it in her brother's. She was bent low over the hound, her face almost touching his big head, and as Saint Hubert looked a glistening tear dropped on Kopec's rough, grey neck. She had forgotten him, forgotten even that he was standing beside her, in the one predominant thought that filled her mind. With an immense effort he got command of himself. Somehow he must conquer this sudden insanity. The loyalty that had hung trembling in the balance reasserted itself and a self-disgust seized him. He had been within an ace of betraying the man who had been for twenty years nearer to him than a brother. She belonged to his friend, and now he had not even the right to question the ethics of the Sheik's possession of her. The calm that he had lost came back to him. The wound would heal though it might always throb, but he was strong enough to hide its existence even from the jealous eyes that had watched him ceaselessly since his outburst on the night of his arrival. He had been conscious of them daily. Even this morning the Sheik had made every effort short of a direct command to induce him to go with him on the expedition that had taken him away so early. Sure of himself now, he lifted her fingers to his lips again reverently with a kind of renunciation in his kiss, and laid her hand down gently. He turned away with a smothered sigh and a little pang at her complete absorption, and, as he did so, Henri came in quickly.

"Monsieur le Vicomte! Will you come? There has been an accident."