traveller, when the fact that she belonged to an Arab had been brought
home to her effectually by Ahmed Ben Hassan's peremptory commands, and
she had experienced for the first time the sensation of a woman kept in
seclusion.

The emotions of the morning and the disappointment of the intended
ride, together with the dismay produced by the unexpected visitor, all
combined to agitate her powerfully, and she worked herself up into a
fever of self-torture and unhappiness. She ended by falling asleep and
slept heavily for some hours. Zilah waked her with a shy hand on her
arm and a soft announcement of lunch, and Diana sat up, rubbing her
eyes, flushed and drowsy. She stared uncomprehendingly for a moment at
the Arab girl, and then waved her away imperiously and buried her head
in the pillows again. Lunch, when her heart was breaking!

Mindful of her lord's deputy, who was waiting in the next room, and
whom she regarded with awe, Zilah held her ground with a timid
insistence until Diana started up wrathfully and bade her go in tones
that she had never used before to the little waiting-girl. Zilah fled
precipitately, and, thoroughly awakened, Diana swung her heels to the
ground and with her elbows on her knees rested her hot head in her
hands. She felt giddy, her head ached and her mouth was parched and
dry. She got up languidly, and going to the table studied her face in
the mirror intently. She frowned at the reflection. She had never been
proud of her own beauty; she had lived with it always and it had seemed
to her a thing of no consequence, and now that it had failed to arouse
the love she wanted in Ahmed Ben Hassan she almost hated it.

"Are you going to have fever or are you merely bad-tempered?" she asked
out loud, and the sound of her own voice made her laugh in spite of her