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Page 51
"The quality--of indulgence?" he questioned, with a half-railing
air.
"The quality--of gentleness."
"But is there not another quality which you American girls would
admire more than that gentleness--if you ever had the chance in your
lives to see it? The quality of dominance? The courage of the man
who dares what he desires, and who takes what he wills? Is not
that----"
"Ah, yes, we love strong men," Arlee flung into the speech that was
bearing him on like a tide, "but we don't think them strong unless
they are strong enough to fight themselves. They may take what they
will--but they mustn't crush it.... There is a gentleness in great
strength--I can't explain what I mean----"
"Ah, I see, I see." He smiled subtly. "I am not to crush you, little
Rose of Desire," he said softly.
She met the sly significance of his gaze with a look of frank,
unfaltering candor. "Of course not," she said stoutly. "When
you--you make me afraid of you, you make me like you less. You seem
less like the friend I knew on the boat."
"Ah, that boat!... You were my friend, then!" he added suddenly,
with a note of question sounding through the affirmation, and she
answered quickly, looking away with an air of petulant reproach.
"Why, you know I was, Captain Kerissen. And here in Cairo----"
"Yes, here in Cairo," he interrupted triumphantly, "in the face of
those eyes and tongues--I saw that red-headed dog of an Englishman
looking his anger at you! But you smiled on me before them
all--those fools, those tyrannic fools----"
"But you mustn't abuse my other friends! They were only--stupid!"
"Stupid as their blood brother, the ox!... But they are not in the
picture now--those other friends!" Disagreeably he laughed. "And you
do not grieve for them--no? The world has not touched you? There is
no one out there,"--he made a gesture over the guarding walls--"no
one who holds a fragment of your thought, of your heart in his
hands?"
She looked at him as if puzzled, then burst into a bubbling laugh.
"Why, of course not! I've just had a nice time with people. There
has never been a bit of sentiment about it!"
"Not on your side," he said meaningly, and because this was hitting
the truth smartly on the head she looked past him in some confusion.
"Oh--boys!" she said with a deprecating little laugh. "I've never
listened to them."
He leaned back in his chair, feeling for his cigarette case, and
the contentment of his look deepened. "You have been a child, asleep
to life," he murmured complacently. "I told you you were a
princess--let us say a sleeping princess waiting for the prince,
like that old fairy tale of the English." He was looking at his
cigarette as he tapped it on the arm of his chair, and slowly struck
a light, then, after the first breath, "But do you not hear his
footsteps in your sleep?" he added, and gave her a glance from the
corner of his eyes.
She looked up and then down; she stared out into the sun-flooded
garden and laughed softly. "Even princesses dream," she demurely
acknowledged, and thought the line and her fleet, meaning glance
went very well with this mad opera-bouffe which fate was forcing her
to play.
Kerissen seemed to think that went very well, too, for his flashing
teeth acknowledged his pleasure in her aptness; then his smile faded
and she felt him studying her over his cigarette, studying her
averted gaze, the bright color in her cheeks, the curves of her
lips, and he was puzzled and perturbed by the sweet, baffling beauty
of her. A wild elation began to swell his heart. His eyes glowed,
his blood burned with the triumph, not so much of his daring capture
of her, but of the flattering tribute that her pretty ways were
paying toward his personality alone. Wary as he was, cynical of
subterfuge, he did not penetrate her guard. His monstrous vanity
whispered eager flattery in his ears.
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