clasped behind his head.

"You make a very charming boy," he said lightly, with a faint smile,
"but it was not a boy that I saw in Biskra. You understand?"

Beyond the curtains she stood a moment, shaking all over, her face
hidden in her hands, able to relax a little the hold she was keeping on
herself. Yes! She understood, plainly enough. The understanding had
already been forced upon her. It was an order from one who was prepared
to compel his commands, to make herself more attractive with all that
it implied in the eyes of the man who held her in his power and who
looked at her as no other man had ever dared to look, with appraising
criticism that made her acutely conscious of her sex, that made her
feel like a slave exposed for sale in a public market.

She must take off the boyish clothes that somehow seemed to lend her
courage and substitute, to gratify the whim of the savage in the next
room, the womanly dress that revealed more intimately the slender lines
of her figure and intensified the uncommon beauty of her face.

She went to the dressing table with lagging feet and stared resentfully
at the white face and haggard eyes that looked back at her from the
mirror. It was like the face of a stranger. Aubrey's words came back to
her with an irony that was horrible. To-night she did not dress to
please herself. Her face was set, her eyes almost black with rage, but
behind the rage there was lurking apprehension. She started at every
sound that came from the adjoining room. Her fingers, wet with
perspiration, seemed almost unable to fulfil their task. She hated him,
she hated herself, she hated her beauty that had brought this horror
upon her. She would have rebelled if she had dared, but instinctively