The Sheik
The SheikCHAPTER ICHAPTER IICHAPTER IIICHAPTER IVCHAPTER VCHAPTER VICHAPTER VIICHAPTER VIIICHAPTER IXCHAPTER XCopyright
The Sheik
E. M. Hull
CHAPTER I
"Are you coming in to watch the dancing, Lady
Conway?""I most decidedly am not. I thoroughly disapprove of the
expedition of which this dance is the inauguration. I consider that
even by contemplating such a tour alone into the desert with no
chaperon or attendant of her own sex, with only native camel
drivers and servants, Diana Mayo is behaving with a recklessness
and impropriety that is calculated to cast a slur not only on her
own reputation, but also on the prestige of her country. I blush to
think of it. We English cannot be too careful of our behavior
abroad. No opportunity is slight enough for our continental
neighbours to cast stones, and this opportunity is very far from
being slight. It is the maddest piece of unprincipled folly I have
ever heard of.""Oh, come, Lady Conway! It's not quite so bad as all that. It
is certainly unconventional and—er—probably not quite wise, but
remember Miss Mayo's unusual upbringing——""I am not forgetting her unusual upbringing," interrupted
Lady Conway. "It has been deplorable. But nothing can excuse this
scandalous escapade. I knew her mother years ago, and I took it
upon myself to expostulate both with Diana and her brother, but Sir
Aubrey is hedged around with an egotistical complacency that would
defy a pickaxe to penetrate. According to him a Mayo is beyond
criticism, and his sister's reputation her own to deal with. The
girl herself seemed, frankly, not to understand the seriousness of
her position, and was very flippant and not a little rude. I wash
my hands of the whole affair, and will certainly not countenance
to-night's entertainment by appearing at it. I have already warned
the manager that if the noise is kept up beyond a reasonable hour I
shall leave the hotel to-morrow." And, drawing her wrap around her
with a little shudder, Lady Conway stalked majestically across the
wide verandah of the Biskra Hotel.The two men left standing by the open French window that led
into the hotel ballroom looked at each other and
smiled."Some peroration," said one with a marked American accent.
"That's the way scandal's made, I guess.""Scandal be hanged! There's never been a breath of scandal
attached to Diana Mayo's name. I've known the child since she was a
baby. Rum little cuss she was, too. Confound that old woman! She
would wreck the reputation of the Archangel Gabriel if he came down
to earth, let alone that of a mere human girl.""Not a very human girl," laughed the American. "She was sure
meant for a boy and changed at the last moment. She looks like a
boy in petticoats, a damned pretty boy—and a damned haughty one,"
he added, chuckling. "I overheard her this morning, in the garden,
making mincemeat of a French officer."The Englishman laughed."Been making love to her, I expect. A thing she does not
understand and won't tolerate. She's the coldest little fish in the
world, without an idea in her head beyond sport and travel. Clever,
though, and plucky as they are made. I don't think she knows the
meaning of the word fear.""There's a queer streak in the family, isn't there? I heard
somebody yapping about it the other night. Father was mad and blew
his brains out, so I was told."The Englishman shrugged his shoulders."You can call it mad, if you like," he said slowly. "I live
near the Mayos' in England, and happen to know the story. Sir John
Mayo was passionately devoted to his wife; after twenty years of
married life they were still lovers. Then this girl was born, and
the mother died. Two hours afterwards her husband shot himself,
leaving the baby in the sole care of her brother, who was just
nineteen, and as lazy and as selfish then as he is now. The problem
of bringing up a girl child was too much trouble to be solved, so
he settled the difficulty by treating her as if she was a boy. The
result is what you see."They moved nearer to the open window, looking into the
brilliantly lit ballroom, already filled with gaily chattering
people. On a slightly raised platform at one end of the room the
host and hostess were receiving their guests. The brother and
sister were singularly unlike. Sir Aubrey Mayo was very tall and
thin, the pallor of his face accentuated by the blackness of his
smoothly brushed hair and heavy black moustache. His attitude was a
mixture of well-bred courtesy and languid boredom. He seemed too
tired even to keep the single eye-glass that he wore in position,
for it dropped continually. By contrast the girl at his side
appeared vividly alive. She was only of medium height and very
slender, standing erect with the easy, vigorous carriage of an
athletic boy, her small head poised proudly. Her scornful mouth and
firm chin showed plainly an obstinate determination, and her deep
blue eyes were unusually clear and steady. The long, curling black
lashes that shaded her eyes and the dark eyebrows were a foil to
the thick crop of loose, red-gold curls that she wore short,
clubbed about her ears."The result is worth seeing," said the American admiringly,
referring to his companion's last remark.A third and younger man joined them."Hallo, Arbuthnot. You're late. The divinity is ten deep in
would-be partners already."A dull red crept into the young man's face, and he jerked his
head angrily."I got waylaid by Lady Conway—poisonous old woman! She had a
great deal to say on the subject of Miss Mayo and her trip. She
ought to be gagged. I thought she was going on talking all night,
so I fairly bolted in the end. All the same, I agree with her on
one point. Why can't that lazy ass Mayo go with his
sister?"Nobody seemed to be able to give an answer. The band had
begun playing, and the floor was covered with laughing, talking
couples.Sir Aubrey Mayo had moved away, and his sister was left
standing with several men, who waited, programme in hand, but she
waved them away with a little smile and a resolute shake of her
head."Things seem to be getting a hustle on," said the
American."Are you going to try your luck?" asked the elder of the
twoEnglishmen.The American bit the end off a cigar with a little
smile."I sure am not. The haughty young lady turned me down as a
dancer very early in our acquaintance. I don't blame her," he
added, with a rueful laugh, "but her extreme candour still rankles.
She told me quite plainly that she had no use for an American who
could neither ride nor dance. I did intimate to her, very gently,
that there were a few little openings in the States for men beside
cattle-punching and cabaret dancing, but she froze me with a look,
and I faded away. No, Sir Egotistical Complacency will be having
some bridge later on, which will suit me much better. He's not a
bad chap underneath if you can swallow his peculiarities, and he's
a sportsman. I like to play with him. He doesn't care a durn if he
wins or loses.""It doesn't matter when you have a banking account the size
of his," said Arbuthnot. "Personally, I find dancing more amusing
and less expensive. I shall go and take my chance with our
hostess."His eyes turned rather eagerly towards the end of the room
where the girl was standing alone, straight and slim, the light
from an electrolier gilding the thick bright curls framing her
beautiful, haughty little face. She was staring down at the dancers
with an absent expression in her eyes, as if her thoughts were far
away from the crowded ballroom.The American pushed Arbuthnot forward with a little
laugh."Run along, foolish moth, and get your poor little wings
singed. When the cruel fair has done trampling on you I'll come
right along and mop up the remains. If, on the other hand, your
temerity meets with the success it deserves, we can celebrate
suitably later on." And, linking his arm in his friend's, he drew
him away to the card-room.Arbuthnot went through the window and worked slowly round the
room, hugging the wall, evading dancers, and threading his way
through groups of chattering men and women of all nationalities. He
came at last to the raised dais on which Diana Mayo was still
standing, and climbed up the few steps to her side."This is luck, Miss Mayo," he said, with an assurance that he
was far from feeling. "Am I really fortunate enough to find you
without a partner?"She turned to him slowly, with a little crease growing
between her arched eyebrows, as if his coming were inopportune and
she resented the interruption to her thoughts, and then she smiled
quite frankly."I said I would not dance until everybody was started," she
said rather doubtfully, looking over the crowded
floor."They are all dancing. You've done your duty nobly. Don't
miss this ripping tune," he urged persuasively.She hesitated, tapping her programme-pencil against her
teeth."I refused a lot of men," she said, with a grimace. Then she
laughed suddenly. "Come along, then. I am noted for my bad manners.
This will only be one extra sin."Arbuthnot danced well, but with the girl in his arms he
seemed suddenly tongue-tied. They swung round the room several
times, then halted simultaneously beside an open window and went
out into the garden of the hotel, sitting down on a wicker seat
under a gaudy Japanese hanging lantern. The band was still playing,
and for the moment the garden was empty, lit faintly by coloured
lanterns, festooned from the palm trees, and twinkling lights
outlining the winding paths.Arbuthnot leaned forward, his hands clasped between his
knees."I think you are the most perfect dancer I have ever met," he
said a little breathlessly.Miss Mayo looked at him seriously, without a trace of
self-consciousness."It is very easy to dance if you have a musical ear, and if
you have been in the habit of making your body do what you want. So
few people seem to be trained to make their limbs obey them. Mine
have had to do as they were told since I was a small child," she
answered calmly.The unexpectedness of the reply acted as a silencer on
Arbuthnot for a few minutes, and the girl beside him seemed in no
hurry to break the silence. The dance was over and the empty garden
was thronged for a little time. Then the dancers drifted back into
the hotel as the band started again."It's rather jolly here in the garden," Arbuthnot said
tentatively. His heart was pounding with unusual rapidity, and his
eyes, that he kept fixed on his own clasped hands, had a hungry
look growing in them."You mean that, you want to sit out this dance with me?" she
said with a boyish directness that somewhat nonplussed
him."Yes," he stammered rather foolishly.She held her programme up to the light of the lantern. "I
promised this one to Arthur Conway. We quarrel every time we meet.
I cannot think why he asked me; he disapproves of me even more than
his mother does—such an interfering old lady. He will be overjoyed
to be let off. And I don't want to dance to-night. I am looking
forward so tremendously to to-morrow. I shall stay and talk to you,
but you must give me a cigarette to keep me in a good
temper."His hand shook a little as he held the match for her. "Are
you really determined to go through with this tour?"She stared at him in surprise. "Why not? My arrangements have
been made some time. Why should I change my mind at the last
moment?""Why does your brother let you go alone? Why doesn't he go
with you?Oh, I haven't any right to ask, but I do ask," he broke out
vehemently.She shrugged her shoulders with a little laugh. "We fell out,
Aubrey and I. He wanted to go to America. I wanted a trip into the
desert. We quarrelled for two whole days and half one night, and
then we compromised. I should have my desert tour, and Aubrey
should go to New York; and to mark his brotherly appreciation of my
gracious promise to follow him to the States without fail at the
end of a month he has consented to grace my caravan for the first
stage, and dismiss me on my way with his blessing. It annoyed him
so enormously that he could not order me to go with him, this being
the first time in our wanderings that our inclinations have not
jumped in the same direction. I came of age a few months ago, and,
in future, I can do as I please. Not that I have ever done anything
else," she conceded, with another laugh, "because Aubrey's ways
have been my ways until now.""But for the sake of one month! What difference could it make
to him?" he asked in astonishment."That's Aubrey," replied Miss Mayo drily."It isn't safe," persisted Arbuthnot.She flicked the ash from her cigarette carelessly. "I don't
agree with you. I don't know why everybody is making such a fuss
about it. Plenty of other women have travelled in much wilder
country than this desert."He looked at her curiously. She seemed to be totally unaware
that it was her youth and her beauty that made all the danger of
the expedition. He fell back on the easier excuse."There seems to be unrest amongst some of the tribes. There
have been a lot of rumours lately," he said seriously.She made a little movement of impatience. "Oh, that's what
they always tell you when they want to put obstacles in your way.
The authorities have already dangled that bogey in front of me. I
asked for facts and they only gave me generalities. I asked
definitely if they had any power to stop me. They said they had
not, but strongly advised me not to make the attempt. I said I
should go, unless the French Government arrested me…. Why not? I am
not afraid. I don't admit that there is anything to be afraid of. I
don't believe a word about the tribes being restless. Arabs are
always moving about, aren't they? I have an excellent caravan
leader, whom even the authorities vouch for, and I shall be armed.
I am perfectly able to take care of myself. I can shoot straight
and I am used to camping. Besides, I have given my word to Aubrey
to be in Oran in a month, and I can't get very far away in that
time."There was an obstinate ring in her voice, and when she
stopped speaking he sat silent, consumed with anxiety, obsessed
with the loveliness of her, and tormented with the desire to tell
her so. Then he turned to her suddenly, and his face was very
white. "Miss Mayo—Diana—put off this trip only for a little, and
give me the right to go with you. I love you. I want you for my
wife more than anything on earth. I shan't always be a penniless
subaltern. One of these days I shall be able to give you a position
that is worthy of you; no, nothing could be that, but one at least
that I am not ashamed to offer to you. We've been very good
friends; you know all about me. I'll give my whole life to make you
happy. The world has been a different place to me since you came
into it. I can't get away from you. You are in my thoughts night
and day. I love you; I want you. My God, Diana! Beauty like yours
drives a man mad!""Is beauty all that a man wants in his wife?" she asked, with
a kind of cold wonder in her voice. "Brains and a sound body seem
much more sensible requirements to me.""But when a woman has all three, as you have, Diana," he
whispered ardently, his hands closing over the slim ones lying in
her lap.But with a strength that seemed impossible for their
smallness she disengaged them from his grasp. "Please stop. I am
sorry. We have been good friends, and it has never occurred to me
that there could be anything beyond that. I never thought that you
might love me. I never thought of you in that way at all, I don't
understand it. When God made me He omitted to give me a heart. I
have never loved any one in my life. My brother and I have
tolerated each other, but there has never been any affection
between us. Would it be likely? Put yourself in Aubrey's place.
Imagine a young man of nineteen, with a cold, reserved nature,
being burdened with the care of a baby sister, thrust into his
hands unwanted and unexpected. Was it likely that he would have any
affection for me? I never wanted it. I was born with the same cold
nature as his. I was brought up as a boy, my training was hard.
Emotion and affection have been barred out of my life. I simply
don't know what they mean. I don't want to know. I am very content
with my life as it is. Marriage for a woman means the end of
independence, that is, marriage with a man who is a man, in spite
of all that the most modern woman may say. I have never obeyed any
one in my life; I do not wish to try the experiment. I am very
sorry to have hurt you. You've been a splendid pal, but that side
of life does not exist for me. If I had thought for one moment that
my friendship was going to hurt you I need not have let you become
so intimate, but I did not think, because it is a subject that I
never think of. A man to me is just a companion with whom I ride or
shoot or fish; a pal, a comrade, and that's just all there is to
it. God made me a woman. Why, only He knows."Her quiet, even voice stopped. There had been a tone of cold
sincerity in it that Arbuthnot could not help but recognise. She
meant everything that she said. She said no more than the truth.
Her reputation for complete indifference to admiration and her
unvarying attitude towards men were as well known as her dauntless
courage and obstinate determination. With Sir Aubrey Mayo she
behaved like a younger brother, and as such entertained his
friends. She was popular with everybody, even with the mothers of
marriageable daughters, for, in spite of her wealth and beauty, her
notorious peculiarities made her negligible as a rival to plainer
and less well-dowered girls.Arbuthnot sat in silence. It was hardly likely, he thought
bitterly, that he should succeed where other and better men had
failed. He had been a fool to succumb to the temptation that had
been too hard for him to resist. He knew her well enough to know
beforehand what her answer would be. The very real fear for her
safety that the thought of the coming expedition gave him, her
nearness in the mystery of the Eastern night, the lights, the
music, had all combined to rush to his lips words that in a saner
moment would never have passed them. He loved her, he would love
her always, but he knew that his love was as hopeless as it was
undying. But it was men who were men whom she wanted for her
friends, so he must take his medicine like a man."May I still be the pal, Diana?" he said
quietly.She looked at him a moment, but in the dim light of the
hanging lanterns his eyes were steady under hers, and she held out
her hand frankly. "Gladly," she said candidly. "I have hosts of
acquaintances, but very few friends. We are always travelling,
Aubrey and I, and we never seem to have time to make friends. We
rarely stay as long in one place as we have stayed in Biskra. In
England they call us very bad neighbours, we are so seldom there.
We generally go home for three months in the winter for the
hunting, but the rest of the year we wander on the face of the
globe."He held her slender fingers gripped in his for a moment,
smothering an insane desire to press them to his lips, which he
knew would be fatal to the newly accorded friendship, and then let
them go. Miss Mayo continued sitting quietly beside him. She was in
no way disturbed by what had happened. She had taken him literally
at his word, and was treating him as the pal he had asked to be. It
no more occurred to her that she might relieve him of her society
than it occurred to her that her continued presence might be
distressing to him. She was totally unembarrassed and completely
un-self-conscious. And as they sat silent, her thoughts far away in
the desert, and his full of vain longings and regrets, a man's low
voice rose in the stillness of the night. "Pale
hands I loved beside the Shalimar. Where are you now? Who lies
beneath your spell?" he sang in a passionate,
vibrating baritone. He was singing in English, and yet the almost
indefinite slurring from note to note was strangely un-English.
Diana Mayo leaned forward, her head raised, listening intently,
with shining eyes. The voice seemed to come from the dark shadows
at the end of the garden, or it might have been further away out in
the road beyond the cactus hedge. The singer sang slowly, his voice
lingering caressingly on the words; the last verse dying away
softly and clearly, almost imperceptibly fading into
silence.For a moment there was utter stillness, then Diana lay back
with a little sigh. "The Kashmiri Song. It makes me think of India.
I heard a man sing it in Kashmere last year, but not like that.
What a wonderful voice! I wonder who it is?"Arbuthnot looked at her curiously, surprised at the sudden
ring of interest in her tone, and the sudden animation of her
face."You say you have no emotion in your nature, and yet that
unknown man's singing has stirred you deeply. How do you reconcile
the two?" he asked, almost angrily."Is an appreciation of the beautiful emotion?" she
challenged, with uplifted eyes. "Surely not. Music, art, nature,
everything beautiful appeals to me. But there is nothing emotional
in that. It is only that I prefer beautiful things to ugly ones.
For that reason even pretty clothes appeal to me," she added,
laughing."You are the best-dressed woman in Biskra," he acceded. "But
is not that a concession to the womanly feelings that you
despise?""Not at all. To take an interest in one's clothes is not an
exclusively feminine vice. I like pretty dresses. I admit to
spending some time in thinking of colour schemes to go with my
horrible hair, but I assure you that my dressmaker has an easier
life than Aubrey's tailor."She sat silent, hoping that the singer might not have gone,
but there was no sound except a cicada chirping near her. She swung
round in her chair, looking in the direction from which it came.
"Listen to him. Jolly little chap! They are the first things I
listen for when I get to Port Said. They mean the East to
me.""Maddening little beasts!" said Arbuthnot
irritably."They are going to be very friendly little beasts to me
during the next four weeks…. You don't know what this trip means to
me. I like wild places. The happiest times of my life have been
spent camping in America and India, and I have always wanted the
desert more than either of them. It is going to be a month of pure
joy. I am going to be enormously happy."She stood up with a little laugh of intense pleasure, and
half turned, waiting for Arbuthnot. He got up reluctantly and stood
silent beside her for a few moments. "Diana, I wish you'd let me
kiss you, just once," he broke out miserably.She looked up swiftly with a glint of anger in her eyes, and
shook her head. "No. That's not in the compact. I have never been
kissed in my life. It is one of the things that I do not
understand." Her voice was almost fierce.She moved leisurely towards the hotel, and he paced beside
her wondering if he had forfeited her friendship by his outburst,
but on the verandah she halted and spoke in the frank tone of
camaraderie in which she had always addressed him. "Shall I see you
in the morning?"He understood. There was to be no more reference to what had
passed between them. The offer of friendship held, but only on her
own terms. He pulled himself together."Yes. We have arranged an escort of about a dozen of us to
ride the first few miles with you, to give you a proper
send-off."She made a laughing gesture of protest. "It will certainly
need four weeks of solitude to counteract the conceit I shall
acquire," she said lightly, as she passed into the
ballroom.A few hours later Diana came into her bedroom, and, switching
on the electric lights, tossed her gloves and programme into a
chair. The room was empty, for her maid had had avertigeat the suggestion that she
should accompany her mistress into the desert, and had been sent
back to Paris to await Diana's return. She had left during the day,
to take most of the heavy luggage with her.Diana stood in the middle of the room and looked at the
preparations for the early start next morning with a little smile
of satisfaction. Everything wasen
train; the final arrangements had all been
concluded some days before. The camel caravan with the camp
equipment was due to leave Biskra a few hours before the time fixed
for the Mayos to start with Mustafa Ali, the reputable guide whom
the French authorities had reluctantly recommended. The two big
suit-cases that Diana was taking with her stood open, ready packed,
waiting only for the last few necessaries, and by them the steamer
trunk that Sir Aubrey would take charge of and leave in Paris as he
passed through. On a chaise-longue was laid out her riding kit
ready for the morning. Her smile broadened as she looked at the
smart-cut breeches and high brown boots. They were the clothes in
which most of her life had been spent, and in which she was far
more at home than in the pretty dresses over which she had laughed
with Arbuthnot.She was glad the dance was over; it was not a form of
exercise that appealed to her particularly. She was thinking only
of the coming tour. She stretched her arms out with a little happy
laugh."It's the life of lives, and it's going to begin all over
again to-morrow morning." She crossed over to the dressing-table,
and, propping her elbows on it, looked at herself in the glass,
with a little friendly smile at the reflection. In default of any
other confidant she had always talked to herself, with no thought
for the beauty of the face staring back at her from the glass. The
only comment she ever made to herself on her own appearance was
sometimes to wish that her hair was not such a tiresome shade. She
looked at herself now with a tinge of curiosity. "I wonder why I'm
so especially happy to-night. It must be because we have been so
long in Biskra. It's been very jolly, but I was beginning to get
very bored." She laughed again and picked up her watch to wind. It
was one of her peculiarities that she would wear no jewellery of
any kind. Even the gold repeater in her hand was on a plain leather
strap. She undressed slowly and each moment felt more wide-awake.
Slipping a thin wrap over her pyjamas and lighting a cigarette she
went out on to the broad balcony on to which her bedroom gave. The
room was on the first floor, and opposite her window rose one of
the ornately carved and bracketed pillars that supported the
balcony, stretching up to the second story above her head. She
looked down into the gardens below. It was an easy climb, she
thought, with a boyish grin—far easier than many she had achieved
successfully when the need of a solitary ramble became imperative.
But the East was inconvenient for solitary ramble; native servants
had a disconcerting habit of lying down to sleep wherever
drowsiness overcame them, and it was not very long since she had
slid down from her balcony and landed plumb on a slumbering bundle
of humanity who had roused half the hotel with his howls. She leant
far over the rail, trying to see into the verandah below, and she
thought she caught a glimpse of white drapery. She looked again,
and this time there was nothing, but she shook her head with a
little grimace, and swung herself up on to the broad ledge of the
railing. Settling herself comfortably with her back against the
column she looked out over the hotel gardens into the night,
humming softly the Kashmiri song she had heard earlier in the
evening.The risen moon was full, and its cold, brilliant light filled
the garden with strong black shadows. She watched some that seemed
even to move, as if the garden were alive with creeping, hurrying
figures, and amused herself tracking them until she traced them to
the palm tree or cactus bush that caused them. One in particular
gave her a long hunt till she finally ran it to its lair, and it
proved to be the shadow of a grotesque lead statue half hidden by a
flowering shrub. Forgetting the hour and the open windows all
around her, she burst into a rippling peal of laughter, which was
interrupted by the appearance of a figure, imperfectly seen through
the lattice-work which divided her balcony from the next one, and
the sound of an irritable voice."For Heaven's sake, Diana, let other people sleep if you
can't.""Which, being interpreted, is let Sir Aubrey Mayo sleep," she
retorted, with a chuckle. "My dear boy, sleep if you want to, but I
don't know how you can on a night like this. Did you ever see such
a gorgeous moon?""Oh, damn the moon!""Oh, very well. Don't get cross about it. Go back to bed and
put your head under the clothes, and then you won't see it. But I'm
going to sit here.""Diana, don't be an idiot! You'll go to sleep and fall into
the garden and break your neck.""Tant pis pour moi. Tant mieux pour
toi," she said flippantly. "I have left you all
that I have in the world, dear brother. Could devotion go
further?"She paid no heed to his exclamation of annoyance, and looked
back into the garden. It was a wonderful night, silent except for
the cicadas' monotonous chirping, mysterious with the inexplicable
mystery that hangs always in the Oriental night. The smells of the
East rose up all around her; here, as at home, they seemed more
perceptible by night than by day. Often at home she had stood on
the little stone balcony outside her room, drinking in the smells
of the night—the pungent, earthy smell after rain, the aromatic
smell of pine trees near the house. It was the intoxicating smells
of the night that had first driven her, as a very small child, to
clamber down from her balcony, clinging to the thick ivy roots, to
wander with the delightful sense of wrong-doing through the moonlit
park and even into the adjoining gloomy woods. She had always been
utterly fearless.Her childhood had been a strange one. There had been no near
relatives to interest themselves in the motherless girl left to the
tender mercies of a brother nearly twenty years her senior, who was
frankly and undisguisedly horrified at the charge that had been
thrust upon him. Wrapped up in himself, and free to indulge in the
wander hunger that gripped him, the baby sister was an intolerable
burden, and he had shifted responsibility in the easiest way
possible. For the first few years of her life she was left
undisturbed to nurses and servants who spoiled her
indiscriminately. Then, when she was still quite a tiny child, Sir
Aubrey Mayo came home from a long tour, and, settling down for a
couple of years, fixed on his sister's future training, modelled
rigidly on his own upbringing. Dressed as a boy, treated as a boy,
she learned to ride and to shoot and to fish—not as amusements, but
seriously, to enable her to take her place later on as a companion
to the man whose only interests they were. His air of weariness was
a mannerism. In reality he was as hard as nails, and it was his
intention that Diana should grow up as hard. With that end in view
her upbringing had been Spartan, no allowances were made for sex or
temperament and nothing was spared to gain the desired result. And
from the first Diana had responded gallantly, throwing herself
heart and soul into the arduous, strenuous life mapped out for her.
The only drawback to a perfect enjoyment of life were the necessary
lessons that had to be gone through, though even these might have
been worse. Every morning she rode across the park to the rectory
for a couple of hours' tuition with the rector, whose heart was
more in his stable than in his parish, and whose reputation was
greater across country than it was in the pulpit. His methods were
rough and ready, but she had brains, and acquired an astonishing
amount of diverse knowledge. But her education was stopped with
abrupt suddenness when she was fifteen by the arrival at the
rectory of an overgrown young cub who had been sent by a despairing
parent, as a last resource, to the muscular rector, and who quickly
discovered what those amongst whom she had grown up had hardly
realised, that Diana Mayo, with the clothes and manners of a boy,
was really an uncommonly beautiful young woman. With the assurance
belonging to his type, he had taken the earliest opportunity of
telling her so, following it with an attempt to secure the kiss
that up to now his own good looks had always secured for him. But
in this case he had to deal with a girl who was a girl by accident
of birth only, who was quicker with her hands and far finer trained
than he was, and whose natural strength was increased by furious
rage. She had blacked his eyes before he properly understood what
was happening, and was dancing around him like an infuriated young
gamecock when the rector had burst in upon them, attracted by the
noise.What she left he had finished, and then, breathless and
angry, had ridden back across the park with her and had briefly
announced to Sir Aubrey, who happened to be at home upon one of his
rare visits, that his pupil was both too old and too pretty to
continue her studies at the rectory, and had taken himself off as
hurriedly as he had come, leaving Sir Aubrey to settle for himself
the new problem of Diana. And, as before, it was settled in the
easiest possible way. Physically she was perfectly able to take up
the role for which he had always intended her; mentally he presumed
that she knew as much as it was necessary for her to know, and, in
any case, travelling itself was an education, and a far finer one
than could be learned from books. So Diana grew up in a day, and in
a fortnight the old life was behind her and she had started out on
the ceaseless travels with her brother that had continued for the
last six years—years of perpetual change, of excitements and
dangers.She thought of it all, sitting on the broad rail of the
balcony, her head slanted against the column on which she leaned.
"It's been a splendid life," she murmured, "and to-morrow—to-day
begins the most perfect part of it." She yawned and realised
suddenly that she was desperately sleepy. She turned back into her
room, leaving the windows wide, and, flinging off her wrap, tumbled
into bed and slept almost before her head was on the
pillow.It must have been about an hour later when she awoke,
suddenly wide awake. She lay quite still, looking cautiously under
her thick lashes. The room was flooded with moonlight, there was
nothing to be seen, but she had the positive feeling that there was
another presence in the room beside her own; she had had a
half-conscious vision in the moment of waking of a shadowy
something that had seemed to fade away by the window. As the actual
reality of this thought pierced through the sleep that dulled her
brain and became a concrete suggestion, she sprang out of the bed
and ran on to the balcony. It was empty. She leaned over the
railing, listening intently, but she could see nothing and hear
nothing. Puzzled, she went back into her room and turned on the
lights. Nothing seemed to be missing: her watch lay where she had
left it on the dressing table; and the suit-cases had apparently
not been tampered with. By the bedside the ivory-mounted revolver
that she always carried was lying as she had placed it. She looked
around the room again, frowning. "It must have been a dream," she
said doubtfully, "but it seemed very real. It looked tall and white
and solid, and Ifeltit there."
She waited a moment or two, then shrugged her shoulders, turned out
the lights, and got into bed. Her nerves were admirable, and in
five minutes she was asleep again.
CHAPTER II
The promised send-off had been enthusiastic. The arrangements
for the trip had been perfect; there had been no hitch anywhere.
The guide, Mustafa Ali, appeared capable and efficient, effacing
himself when not wanted and replying with courteous dignity when
spoken to. The day had been full of interest, and the long, hot
ride had for Diana been the height of physical enjoyment. They had
reached the oasis where the first night was to be passed an hour
before, and found the camp already established, tents pitched, and
everything so ordered that Sir Aubrey could find nothing to
criticise; even Stephens, his servant, who had travelled with him
since Diana was a baby, and who was as critical as his master on
the subject of camps, had no fault to find.
Diana glanced about her little travelling tent with complete
content. It was much smaller than the ones to which she had always
been accustomed, ridiculously so compared with the large one she
had had in India the previous year, with its separate bath—and
dressing-rooms. Servants, too, had swarmed in India. Here service
promised to be inadequate, but it had been her whim on this tour to
dispense with the elaborate arrangements that Sir Aubrey cultivated
and to try comparative roughing it. The narrow camp cot, the tin
bath, the little folding table and her two suit-cases seemed to
take up all the available space. But she laughed at the
inconvenience, though she had drenched her bed with splashing, and
the soap had found its way into the toe of one of her long boots.
She had changed from her riding clothes into a dress of clinging
jade-green silk, swinging short above her slender ankles, the neck
cut low, revealing the gleaming white of her soft, girlish bosom.
She came out of the tent and stood a moment exchanging an amused
smile with Stephens, who was hovering near dubiously, one eye on
her and the other on his master. She was late, and Sir Aubrey liked
his meals punctually. The baronet was lounging in one deck-chair
with his feet on another.
Diana wagged an admonishing forefinger. "Fly, Stephens, and
fetch the soup! If it is cold there will be a riot." She walked to
the edge of the canvas cloth that had been thrown down in front of
the tents and stood revelling in the scene around her, her eyes
dancing with excitement as they glanced slowly around the camp
spread out over the oasis—the clustering palm trees, the desert
itself stretching away before her in undulating sweeps, but
seemingly level in the evening light, far off to the distant hills
lying like a dark smudge against the horizon. She drew a long
breath. It was the desert at last, the desert that she felt she had
been longing for all her life. She had never known until this
moment how intense the longing had been. She felt strangely at
home, as if the great, silent emptiness had been waiting for her as
she had been waiting for it, and now that she had come it was
welcoming her softly with the faint rustle of the whispering sand,
the mysterious charm of its billowy, shifting surface that seemed
beckoning to her to penetrate further and further into its unknown
obscurities.
Her brother's voice behind her brought her down to earth
suddenly."You've been a confounded long time."
She turned to the table with a faint smile. "Don't be a bear,
Aubrey. It's all very well for you. You have Stephens to lather
your chin and to wash your hands, but thanks to that idiot Marie, I
have to look after myself."
Sir Aubrey took his heels down leisurely from the second
chair, pitched away his cigar, and, screwing his eyeglass into his
eye with more than usual truculence, looked at her with
disapproval. "Are you going to rig yourself out like that every
evening for the benefit of Mustafa Ali and the
camel-drivers?"
"I do not propose to invite the worthy Mustafa to meals, and
I am not in the habit of 'rigging myself out,' as you so charmingly
put it, for any one's benefit. If you think I dress in camp to
please you, my dear Aubrey, you flatter yourself. I do it entirely
to please myself. That explorer woman we met in London that first
year I began travelling with you explained to me the real moral and
physical value of changing into comfortable, pretty clothes after a
hard day in breeches and boots. You change yourself. What's the
difference?"
"All the difference," he snapped. "There is no need for you
to make yourself more attractive than you are already."
"Since when has it occurred to you that I am attractive? You
must have a touch of the sun, Aubrey," she replied, with uplifted
eyebrows, drumming impatiently with her fingers on the
table.
"Don't quibble. You know perfectly well that you are
good-looking—too good-looking to carry through this preposterous
affair."
"Will you please tell me what you are driving at?" she asked
quietly. But the dark blue eyes fixed on her brother's face were
growing darker as she looked at him.
"I've been doing some hard thinking to-day, Diana. This tour
you propose is impossible."
"Isn't it rather late in the day to find that out?" she
interrupted sarcastically; but he ignored the interruption.
"You must see for yourself, now that you are face to face
with the thing, that it is impossible. It's quite unthinkable that
you can wander for the next month all alone in the desert with
those damned niggers. Though my legal guardianship over you
terminated last September I still have some moral obligations
towards you. Though it has been convenient to me to bring you up as
a boy and to regard you in the light of a younger brother instead
of a sister, we cannot get away from the fact that you are a woman,
and a very young woman. There are certain things a young woman
cannot do. If you had been the boy I always wished you were it
would have been a different matter, but you are not a boy, and the
whole thing is impossible—utterly impossible." There was a fretful
impatience in his voice.
Diana lit a cigarette slowly, and swung round on her chair
with a hard laugh. "If I had not lived with you all my life,
Aubrey, I should really be impressed with your brotherly
solicitude; I should think you really meant it. But knowing you as
I do, I know that it is not anxiety on my behalf that is prompting
you, but the disinclination that you have to travel alone without
me. You have come to depend on me to save you certain annoyances
and inconveniences that always occur in travelling. You were more
honest in Biskra when you only objected to my trip without giving
reasons. Why have you waited until to-night to give me those
reasons?"
"Because I thought that here, at least, you would have sense
enough to see them. In Biskra it was impossible to argue with you.
You made your own arrangements against my wishes. I left it,
feeling convinced that the impossibility of it would be brought
home to you here, and that you would see for yourself that it was
out of the question. Diana, give up this insane trip."
"I will not."
"I've a thundering good mind to make you."
"You can't. I'm my own mistress. You have no right over me at
all. You have no claim on me. You haven't even that of ordinary
brotherly affection, for you have never given me any, so you cannot
expect it from me. We needn't make any pretence about it, I am not
going to argue any more. I will not go back to Biskra."
"If you are afraid of being laughed at——" he sneered; but she
took him up swiftly.
"I am not afraid of being laughed at. Only cowards are afraid
of that, and I am not a coward."
"Diana, listen to reason!"
"Aubrey! I have said my last word. Nothing will alter my
determination to go on this trip. Your arguments do not convince
me, who know you. It is your own considerations and not mine that
are at the bottom of your remonstrances. You do not deny it,
because you can't, because it is true."
They were facing each other across the little table. An angry
flush rose in Sir Aubrey's face, and his eyeglass fell with a
little sharp tinkle against a waistcoat button.
"You're a damned obstinate little devil!" he said
furiously.
She looked at him steadily, her scornful mouth firm as his
own. "I am what you have made me," she said slowly. "Why quarrel
with the result? You have brought me up to ignore the restrictions
attached to my sex; you now round on me and throw them in my face.
All my life you have set me an example of selfishness and
obstinacy. Can you wonder that I have profited by it? You have made
me as hard as yourself, and you now profess surprise at the
determination your training has forced upon me. You are illogical.
It is your fault, not mine. There was bound to be a clash some day.
It has come sooner than I expected, that's all. Up till now my
inclinations have gone with yours, but this seems to be the parting
of the ways. As I reminded you before, I am my own mistress, and I
will submit to no interference with my actions. Please understand
that clearly, Aubrey. I don't want to wrangle any more. I will join
you in New York as I promised. I am not in the habit of breaking my
promises, but my life is my own to deal with, and I will deal with
it exactly as I wish and not as any one else wishes. I will do what
I choose when and how I choose, and I willneverobey any will but my own."
Sir Aubrey's eyes narrowed suddenly. "Then I hope to Heaven
that one day you will fall into the hands of a man who will make
you obey," he cried wrathfully.
Her scornful mouth curled still more scornfully. "Then Heaven
help him!" she retorted scathingly, and turned away to her
tent.
But, alone, her anger gave way to amusement. It had been
something, after all, to rouse the lazy Aubrey to wrath. She knew
exactly the grievance he had been nursing against her during the
last few weeks in Biskra. Though he travelled perpetually and often
in remote and desolate places, he travelled with the acme of
comfort and the minimum of inconveniences. He put himself out for
nothing, and the inevitable difficulties that accrued fell on
Diana's younger and less blase shoulders. She had always known the
uses he put her to and the convenience she was to him. He might
have some latent feelings with regard to the inadvisability of her
behavior, he might even have some prickings of conscience on the
subject of his upbringing of her, but it was thoughts of his own
comfort that were troubling him most. That she knew, and the
knowledge was not conducive to any kinder feeling towards him. He
always had been and always would be supremely selfish. The whole of
their life together had been conducted to suit his conveniences and
not hers. She knew, too, why her company was particularly desired
on his visit to America. It was a hunting trip, but not the kind
that they were usually accustomed to: it was a wife and not big
game that was taking Sir Aubrey across the ocean on this occasion.
It had been in his mind for some time as an inevitable and somewhat
unpleasant necessity. Women bored him, and the idea of marriage was
distasteful, but a son to succeed him was imperative—a Mayo must be
followed by a Mayo. An heir was essential for the big property that
the family had held for hundreds of years. No woman had ever
attracted him, but of all women he had met American women were less
actively irritating to him, and so it was to America that he turned
in search of a wife. He proposed to take a house in New York for a
few months and later on in Newport, and it was for that that
Diana's company was considered indispensable. She would save him
endless trouble, as all arrangements could be left in her hands and
Stephens'. Having made up his mind to go through with a proceeding
that he regarded in the light of a sacrifice on the family altar,
his wish was to get it over and done with as soon as possible, and
Diana's interference in his plans had exasperated him. It was the
first time that their wills had crossed, and she shrugged her
shoulders impatiently, with a grimace at the recollection. A little
more and it would have degenerated into a vulgar quarrel. She
banished Aubrey and his selfishness resolutely from her mind. It
was very hot, and she lay very still in the narrow cot, wishing she
had not been so rigid in the matter of its width, and wondering if
a sudden movement in the night would precipitate her into the bath
that stood alongside. She thought regretfully of a punkah, and then
smiled derisively at herself.
"Sybarite!" she murmured sleepily. "You need a few
discomforts."
She was almost aggressively cheerful next morning at
breakfast and for the time that they lingered at the oasis after
the baggage camels had started. Sir Aubrey was morose and silent,
and she exchanged most of her badinage with Stephens, who was
superintending the packing of the tiffin basket that would
accompany her in charge of the man who had been selected as her
personal servant, and who was waiting, with Mustafa Ali and about
ten men, to ride with her.
