eyes glowed as they followed him. She went back into the tent and
slipped the revolver into the holster he had left lying on a stool,
and, tucking it and Saint Hubert's novel, which she took from the
bookcase, under her arm, went into the bed-room and, calling to Zilah
to pull off her riding-boots, threw herself on the bed to laze away the
morning, and to try and picture the author from the book he had
written.

She hated him in advance; she was jealous of him and of his coming. The
Sheik's sudden new tenderness had given rise to a hope she hardly dared
allow herself to dwell upon. Might not the power that she had exercised
over other men be still extended to him in spite of the months that he
had been indifferent to anything except the mere physical attraction
she had for him? Was it not possible that out of that attraction might
develop something finer and better than the primitive desire she had
aroused? Oriental though he was, might he not be capable of a deep and
lasting affection? He might have loved her if no outside influence had
come to interrupt the routine that had become so intimately a part of
his life. Those other episodes to which he had referred so lightly had
been a matter of days or weeks, not months, as in her case. He might
have cared but for the coming of this Frenchman. She hurled Saint
Hubert's book across the room in a fit of girlish rage and buried her
head in her arms. He would be odious--a smirking, conceited egotist!
She had met several French writers and she visualised him
contemptuously. His books were undoubtedly clever. So much the worse;
he would be correspondingly inflated. His novel revealed a passionate,
emotional temperament that promised to complicate the situation if he
should be pleased to cast an eye of favour on her. She writhed at the
very thought. And that he was to see her was evident; the Sheik had
left no orders to the contrary. It was not to be the case of the Dutch