her, the carelessly implied continuance of a state that scorched her
with shame. His attitude invariably suggested a duration of their
relations that left her numb with a kind of helpless despair. He was so
sure of himself, so sure of his possession of her.

She felt the warm blood pouring over her face now, up to the roots of
her bright hair and dyeing her slender neck, and she put her hands up
to her head, her fingers thrust through her loose curls, to shield her
face from his eyes.

She gave a sigh of relief when Gaston came in bringing a little tray
with two filigree-cased cups of coffee.

"I have brought coffee; Madame's tea is finished," he murmured in tones
of deepest distress, and with a gesture that conveyed a national
calamity.

There had been just enough tea taken on the tour to last a month. It
was another pin-prick, another reminder. She set her teeth, moving her
head angrily, and found herself looking into a pair of mocking eyes,
and, as always, her own dropped.

Gaston said a few words in Arabic to his master, and the Sheik
swallowed the boiling coffee and went out hastily. The valet moved
about the tent with his usual deft noiselessness, gathering up
cigarette ends and spent matches, and tidying the room with an
assiduous orderliness that was peculiarly his own. Diana watched him
almost peevishly. Was it the influence of the desert that made all
these men cat-like in their movements, or was the servant consciously
or unconsciously copying his master? With a sudden fit of childish