The Sheik

He watched her ride away, with Gaston a few paces behind and followed by the escort of six men that the Sheik had lately insisted upon. The continual presence of these six men riding at her heels irked her considerably. The wild, free gallops that she had loved became quite different with the thought of the armed guard behind her. They seemed to hamper her and put a period to her enjoyment. The loneliness of her rides had been to her half their charm; she had grown accustomed to and oblivious of Gaston, but she was acutely conscious of the six pairs of eyes watching her every movement. She did not see the necessity for them. She had never been aware of anything any time when she was riding that seemed to justify the Sheik's order. The oasis was not on a caravan route, and if she ever saw Arabs at any distance from the camp they always proved to be Ahmed Ben Hassan's own men. She had thought of remonstrating with him, but her courage had failed her. His mood, since the coming of Saint Hubert, had been of the coldest—almost repellant. The weeks of happiness that had gone before had developed the intimacy between them almost into a feeling of camaraderie. He had been more humane, more Western, more considerate than he had ever been, and the fear that she had of him had lain quiescent. She could have asked him then. But since the morning of Raoul's arrival, when the unexpected fervour of his embrace had given new birth to the hope that had almost died within her, he had changed completely into a cold reserve that chilled her. His caresses had been careless and infrequent, and his indifference so great that she had wondered miserably if the flame of his passion for her was burning out and if this was the end. And yet throughout his indifference she had been conscious, like Saint Hubert, of the surveillance of constant jealous eyes that watched them both with a fierce scrutiny that was felt rather than actually seen. But the spark of hope that the knowledge of this jealousy still fanned was not great enough to overcome the barrier that his new mood had raised between them. She dared ask no favour of him now. Her heart tightened at the thought of his indifference. It hurt so. This morning he had left her without a word when he had gone out into the early dawn, and she was hungry for the kisses he withheld. She was used to his taciturn fits, but her starved heart ached perpetually for tangible recognition. Love, the capacity for which she had so long denied, had become a force that, predominating everything, held her irresistibly. The accumulated affection that, for want of an outlet, had been stemmed within her, had burst all restraint, and the love that she gave to the man to whom she had surrendered her proud heart was immeasurable—a love of infinite tenderness and complete unselfishness, a love that had made her strangely humble. She had yielded up everything to him, he dominated her wholly. Her imperious will had bent before his greater determination, and his mastery over her had provoked a love that craved for recompense. She only lived for him and for the hope of his love, engulfed in the passion that enthralled her. Her surrender had been no common one. The feminine weakness that she had despised and fought against had triumphed over her unexpectedly without humiliating thoroughness. Sex had supervened to overthrow all her preconceived notions. The womanly instincts that under Aubrey's training had been suppressed and undeveloped had, in contact with the Sheik's vivid masculinity and compelling personality, risen to the surface with startling completeness.

To-day she was almost desperate. His callousness of the morning had wounded her deeply, and a wave of rebellion welled up in her. She would not be thrown aside without making any effort to fight for his love. She would use every art that her beauty and her woman's instinct gave her. Her cheek burned as she thought of the role she was setting herself. She would be no better than "those others" whose remembrance still made her shiver. But she crushed down the repugnant feeling resolutely, flinging up her head with the old haughty gesture and drawing herself straighter in the saddle with compressed lips. She had endured so much already that she could even bear this further outrage to her feelings. At no matter what cost she must make him care for her. Though she loathed the means she would make him love her. But even as she planned the doubt of her ability to succeed crept into her mind, torturing her with insidious recollections.