just sit still and be waited on by the soft-footed, soft-spoken
manservant who seemed such a curious adjunct to the household of an
Arab chief.

"Monseigneur begs that you will excuse him until this evening. He will
return in time for dinner," he murmured as he handed her a cous-cous.

Diana looked up blankly. "Monseigneur?"

"My master. The Sheik."

She flushed scarlet and her face hardened. Hypocritical, Oriental beast
who "begged to be excused"! She refused the last dish curtly, and as
the servant carried it away she propped her elbows on the table and
rested her aching head on her hands. A headache was among the new
experiences that had overwhelmed her since the day before. Suffering in
any form was new to her, and her hatred of the man who had made her
suffer grew with every breath she drew.

The Frenchman came back with coffee and cigarettes. He held a match for
her, coaxing the reluctant flame with patience that denoted long
experience with inferior sulphur.

"Monseigneur dines at eight. At what hour will Madame have tea?" he
asked, as he cleared away and folded up the table.

Diana choked back the sarcastic retort that sprang to her lips. The
man's quiet, deferential manner, that refused to see anything
extraordinary in her presence in his master's camp, was almost harder
to bear than flagrant impertinence would have been. That she could have