In the library of the villa, Le Breton sat alone. The hour was late, getting on to midnight. He was stretched in a deep chair smoking, his gaze fixed on a desk close by, on which was a wide, shallow, crystal bowl full of water where half a dozen purple pansies floated.
As he sat there indulging in some dream of his own, a door opened and he looked round sharply, by no means pleased at being roused from his reverie. The room was his special sanctum; no one was supposed to enter without his permission.
In the doorway Lucille stood, in a foamy white dressing-gown, her wealth of red hair in two thick ropes down her back.
On seeing her, a look of suppressed annoyance crossed his face.
"What is it?" he asked in a none too cordial tone.
She crossed to his side, and stood looking down at him anxiously.
"What has happened to you the last two days?" she asked.
"Happened to me! What do you mean?"
"You've been so very indifferent."
"Was I ever particularly effusive?"
She laid her hand on his sleeve with a lingering, caressing touch.
"I see nothing of you now except at meals," she said.
With an impatient gesture he drew his arm away.
"I'm not always in the mood for women," he said coldly.
"Perhaps it would be nearer the truth if you said some other woman has taken your fancy," she suggested.
There was no reply.
Le Breton got to his feet and crossed to the desk, standing there with his back to her as if he resented her presence.
It was most obvious to Lucille that she was not welcome.
"What is this new fancy of yours like?" she asked in a hurt, jealous tone.
He made no answer, but his very back oozed annoyance.
"What's her price, Raoul?" she asked in a wild manner. "Is it emeralds or pearls or diamonds? Or is she one whose price is above rubies?"
He faced round suddenly, anger flashing in his eyes.
"Be quiet, woman!" he said savagely.
She laughed hysterically.
"So she's something too good for me to talk about, is she? Does she know of all your gay doings in Paris?"
"Oh, you women!" he ejaculated contemptuously. "Can you never learn the virtue of silence?"
In an angry manner he went from the room, leaving Lucille in possession. She watched him until the door closed. Then she sank down into the chair he had vacated and stayed there with bowed head, weeping bitterly.
At a spot about ten miles away from Las Palmas there are some well-known orange groves. Stretch upon stretch of scented trees, they made a lattice-work of smooth boughs and shiny leaves overhead, with a glint of blue sky here and there. The ground was strewn with white petals, and clusters of white blossoms made fragrant the gilded greenness. A glimpse of the sea could be had, and the waves filled the air with a constant, soft, distant murmur.
At one spot in the scented grove preparations had been made for an elaborate picnic. Piles of soft silk cushions were set upon the ground. On a cloth of finest linen was spread an array of frail china and heavy silver, with here and there some golden dish holding dainties.
Two impassive men with lean, brown faces, clad in flowing white robes, stood near. Beyond all view of the feast came a faint rattle of pots and pans, and a little wavering column of smoke rose from a fire where breakfast was being prepared.
When Pansy had come down the hotel steps for her usual early morning ride she had not been very surprised to find Le Breton there waiting for her.
She had had a wide experience of men and their ways, and she knew what she called "the symptoms." Generally "the symptoms" annoyed her; she felt they had more to do with her money than herself. But Le Breton's case was different. She knew who he was, but he had no idea of her identity.
"I'm going to take you out for breakfast this time," he said on seeing her.
"Where are we going?" she asked.
"To the orange groves beyond Telde."
They had ridden through the white city, and then on, skirting the coast, past banana plantations, cindery-looking cliffs and a lava bed where the poisonous euphorbia grew, ten to twelve feet high, stiff and straight, like gigantic candelabras.
"I was thinking about you last night," Pansy remarked once, between their canters. "What you said about the miry depths. And I remember having read somewhere that water can always reach to the level it rises from. When people get into the depths they should remember that; it'll help them to scramble out."
The miry depths of dissipation into which he occasionally plunged had never troubled Le Breton in the least. He was not actively aware that they did now, although he hoped that Pansy would not get to hear of them. But it was all part of the girl's nature to have ready the helpful hand.
"So, Pansy," he said, "having saved my body, you're now after my soul."
"Oh no, I'm not a missionary! But if you like people, there's no harm in giving them a word in season."
He brought his horse closer, and bent towards the girl.
"So you like me?" he said in a caressing tone.
"I shouldn't be here if I didn't," she answered candidly.
"And what if I say I likeyou?" he asked, laughing softly.
"I should say it's very nice of you, considering you know nothing at all about me."
"I can see you are beautiful. I know your heart is kind. Circumstances have shown me you are not mercenary. What more could I wish to know about you? Isn't the combination enough to attract any man?"
"Considering you are French, you've missed the vital point," she said demurely. "You haven't said anything about adot."
"No man in his senses would want adotwith you."
"He wouldn't get much money out of my father, anyhow," she said. "He's a poor man who has to work hard for his living; and I love him better than anyone in the whole wide world."
"I'd like to meet him," Le Breton remarked.
"So you will, if you behave yourself. He's coming out here very soon."
"What constitutes behaving myself?" he asked. "People have never complained of my behaviour so far."
Pansy knew he was arrogant and overbearing. By his own telling, she guessed he was inclined to be wild. She suspected him of having little or no respect for women, although he had been unfailingly courteous to her.
"I might complain if I had much to do with you, though," she said.
"It would be refreshing, to say the least," he remarked, with a slight smile hovering on his lips. "And what would you complain of especially?"
"You need a lot of reforming in quite a few ways."
"Tell me, and I'll endeavour to mould myself according to your ideals," he said with laughter.
"You know you're very well pleased with yourself as you are."
"But I'm even better pleased with you, Pansy," he answered, watching her with glowing gaze.
This Pansy knew quite well. To get off the topic, she touched her horse lightly and broke into a canter. For it seemed to her "the symptoms" were coming to a head even more rapidly than she had expected.
When the edge of the orange grove was reached, a couple of white-robed men came forward to take their horses—dark men, with hawk-like faces, lean and sun-scorched, who bowed low before her escort with the utmost servility.
"They look like Arabs," Pansy said.
"They are Arabs; some of my servants from Africa. I generally have half a dozen with me."
It seemed to Pansy the whole half-dozen were in the grove, ready to wait on her.
No sooner was she settled among the cushions than one of the servants placed a little box before her, about six inches long and four wide: a costly trifle made of beaten gold, inlaid with flat emeralds and rubies.
"Is it Pandora's box?" she asked, picking it up and examining it with curiosity.
"It and the contents are for you," Le Breton replied.
She turned the tiny golden key. Inside, three purple pansies reposed on a nest of green moss, smiling up at her with velvety eyes.
"I'll have the contents," she said. "The box you can keep for another time."
With slim white fingers she picked out the pansies and tucked them into her coat.
"Still only a few flowers, Pansy?" he said, annoyed, yet pleased that her friendship was disinterested. "Suggest something else that you would accept."
"Breakfast," she said promptly. "I'm dying of hunger."
A sumptuous feast was spread for her benefit, served in gold and jewel-encrusted dishes; an array of the most expensive luxuries. If Le Breton's idea had been to impress her with his wealth and magnificence, he failed. It seemed to pass her by unnoticed; for Pansy was much more interested in his Arab servants, the grove, the distant view of the sea, than any of the regal extravagance immediately before her.
When the meal was over she sat, wistful and dreamy-looking, listening to the sigh of the sea.
For some moments Le Breton watched her. Just then her mood appeared very out of keeping with her boyish attire.
"I'd like to see you dressed in something really feminine," he remarked presently.
"What's your idea of something 'really feminine?'" she inquired.
"Just one garment, a robe that would come from your shoulders to your knees, loose and clinging, soft and white, with a strap of pearls to hold it on."
"It sounds draughty," she commented; "and it might show my horrid scars."
"It would suit you admirably."
"And, I suppose, it would suit you admirably, too, to be lying about on cushions with me so attired waiting on you," she said quickly. "Bringing you sherbet and hubble-bubbles, or whatever you call those big pipe things that men smoke in Eastern pictures and on cigar-box lids. And I shouldn't dare call my soul my own. I should tremble at your look. That one garment would place me at a terrible disadvantage."
"I might not be a severe task-master. I might only ask you to do one thing."
"And what would that be?"
"In English, I could say it in two words; spell it in six letters."
Pansy darted a quick look at him, and a little mocking smile came and hovered on her mouth.
She was too accustomed to men and their ways not to guess what the two words that could be spelt in six letters were.
She sat quiet for a moment or two, an impish look on her face. Then she rattled off a riddle in English:—
"My first is in apple, but not in pie,My second is in do, but not in die,My third is in veal, but not in ham,My fourth is in sheep, but not in lamb,My fifth is in morning, but not in night,My sixth is in darkness, but not in light,My whole is just a word or two,Which is known to me as well as to you."
Le Breton knew more English than he pretended, but riddles did not often come his way.
"Say it again slowly," he requested.
Pansy repeated her composition.
He stored it up in his mind, deciding to go into the matter later on when there was no lovely little face, dimpled with mischief, looking at him teasingly from beneath a halo of golden curls.
Soon after this Pansy glanced at her wrist watch.
"I mustn't stay any longer," she said, getting to her feet.
"It's not nine o'clock yet," he remarked. "I didn't hurry away from you so quickly yesterday."
This Pansy knew quite well.
He had sat on, and on, with her in the summer-house with the red roses, and she had been pleased to let him stay. In fact, it had been afternoon before they had come down to earth again.
"Captain Cameron is coming this morning," she said. "And I promised to be on the quay to meet him."
So saying, she turned towards the spot where the horses were waiting, leaving him to follow or not as he liked.
Pansy wanted to linger in the grove with Raoul Le Breton as she had been pleased to stay with him among the red roses on the previous day; but she decided the mood was not one to be encouraged, especially considering his desire for the two words, containing in all six letters, and her own desire for untrammelled liberty.
Under the trees that shadowed one corner of the tennis-courts of the hotel a couple stood. One was a young man of about twenty-four, in white flannel trousers and shirt-sleeves, who held a tennis racket in one hand and a couple of balls in the other. He was of medium height, fresh and fair and boyish looking.
At his side Pansy stood, in short skirt and blouse and Panama hat.
"Well, old pal, is there anything doing yet?" he was asking cheerfully.
"There's nothing doing, Bob, much as I try."
"Anyhow, it's a standing order," he said.
"I know; and I'm doing my best," she said. "I try to go to bed every night with your name on my lips, but more frequently I go with a yawn. All for the sake of the 'dear dead days beyond recall.'"
"Which ones especially?" Cameron inquired.
"When I was five and you were nine, and we were all the world to one another."
"In the days of my 'dim and distant' youth I learnt a rotten poem, from dire necessity, not choice, you bet. About some bore of a Scotch king and a spider, and the chorus or the moral, I've forgotten which, ran, 'If at first you don't succeed, try again.' Perseverance, Pansy. It's a wonderful thing. You'll find yourself there in the end."
Pansy smiled a trifle wistfully at the boy she had known all her life, who always gave her nonsense for nonsense, and, incidentally, his heart.
"Bob, I wish I could love you," she said, suddenly grave.
Smiling at her, he started juggling with the two balls.
"So the spirit is willing, etc.?" he responded. "Well, I shall go on hoping for a triumph of mind over matter."
For some reason Pansy felt intensely sorry for her old playmate.
She caught herself making comparisons, and something within her suddenly whispered that they would never be more than friends, something she did not quite realise—some change that had taken place within herself since they had parted in Teneriffe only a week before.
Raoul Le Breton took Pansy's riddle home to solve. He went about it in his own private sanctum. Seating himself at the desk, he wrote out the verse, with a French-English dictionary, making sure his spelling was correct. Then he set out to find the solution.
He was not long in doing so.
Afterwards he sat on, gazing at the pansies in the crystal bowl on the desk, a tender look on his arrogant face.
A daring little creature, that beautiful English girl, frank as the boy she looked in her riding suit, with attractions beyond those of her sex and beauty; a courage that roused his admiration; a kindness that moved his heart; a disinterestedness sweet as it was novel; an ability to touch parts of his being no woman had touched before, and with a subtle something about her that brought him an ease of spirit he rarely experienced. "Heart's Ease," truly!
As he brooded on Pansy he forgot his vengeance—that he was only waiting in Grand Canary until quite certain Sir George Barclay was on his way to Gambia.
He thought only of the velvety-eyed girl who had answered him so deftly and laughingly.
The riddle had told him the one thing he would ask her to do; his two words, spelt with six letters:
"Love me."
The fact sent Le Breton to the hotel that evening for an interview with the verse-maker.
The place was a blaze of light and a crash of music. In the big patio the usual bi-weekly dance was taking place, and a crowd of people disported themselves to the strains of a ragtime band.
Le Breton made a striking figure in evening clothes, and more than one woman glanced at him with invitation. He took no notice of them. All he wanted was a slim girl with a mop of short, dancing, golden curls. The room was so crowded that he could get no glimpse of his quarry, although he altered his point of view several times.
At the end of half an hour he decided to take a turn round the grounds.
The garden was soft with moonlight, filled with a misty brightness, and the palms hung limp and sighing. From beyond the wall came the murmur of the sea. Syringa and roses filled the night with perfume. At one spot a fountain sang sweetly to itself.
There Le Breton lingered with the moonlight and the ebony shadows, the tropical trees sighing languorously around him.
As he waited there, deep in some reverie of his own, the sound of footsteps reached him. Then, from an adjacent path, voices talking in English—a man's thick, low, and protesting, then a girl's clear and indignant.
"When did I encourage you?" she asked, her voice raised in righteous anger. "Once you brought me a cup of tea I didn't want. Twice you mixed my books and papers with somebody else's. I was three times your partner at Bridge, and that wasn't any fault of mine. I defy you to mention more encouragement than that. Go to your woman with red hair, and don't talk nonsense to me."
The man's voice came again. Then there was a little cry of anger and the sound of a struggle.
The girl's voice brought Le Breton out of his reverie. He knew it, although he could not follow a quarter of what was said. But the little cry and the subsequent scuffle sent him quickly in that direction.
He saw Pansy struggling vainly to get away from a short, thick-set man with a red face and fishy eyes, who held her by one bare arm.
Le Breton was not long in covering the distance that lay between himself and the couple. His coming made Pansy's persecutor let go quickly, and make off. The girl had been struggling with all her might to escape from his coarse, hot grip. And she was too intent on getting out of an undesirable situation even to notice that someone's approach was responsible for her sudden freedom.
The force of her struggles sent her staggering backwards, right on Le Breton. His arm went round her. He held her pressed against him, his hand on her heart.
It seemed to Pansy, she had gotten out of the frying-pan into the fire.
Quivering with indignation she looked up. Then she laughed in a tremulous manner.
"Oh, it's you, is it? I wondered who else was on my trail."
"You ought not to be out at night alone," he said severely. "A beautiful girl is a temptation to any man."
"I'm no temptation. It's my money. He likes women with red hair."
Le Breton scanned Pansy more closely.
He had noticed she was dressed in white, but with her unexpectedly in his arms he had not troubled to look further.
She was wearing a dress of chiffon, light as air, vague as moonlight, that clung about her like a mist, caught up here and there with tiny diamond buckles which made the garment look as if studded with dewdrops. And on a thin platinum chain about her neck was hung one great sparkling drop of light.
Le Breton knew real gems when he saw them, and that one diamond alone was worth a fortune.
He bent his proud head, until his lips just touched the fluff of golden curls.
"Who are you really, Pansy?" he asked softly.
"You despise and dislike me already, so why should I get further into your black books?"
"I, despise and dislike you?"
"You said you disliked all the English."
"I'm quite willing to make an exception in your favour."
"When you learn the truth you'll 'detest' me."
"Never!" he said emphatically.
"Well then, I'm 'that woman of the name of Langham.'"
"You!" he exclaimed.
Then he laughed.
"Pansy, you're a little creature of rare surprises."
The surprise held him silent for some moments. Or else it was sufficient to have the girl there, unresisting against his heart.
Up till now Pansy had avoided all male arms as far as it was possible for a girl who was beautiful, wealthy and light-hearted. Whenever caught she had wriggled out indignantly.
From the arm that held her now she made no attempt to escape. A fearsome fascination lay within its embrace. It seemed that he would have but to close the hand that rested on her bosom, and her heart would be in his grip, snatched out of her keeping before she knew it.
Suddenly it dawned on Pansy that if she stayed there much longer she would want to stay for ever.
One by one she lifted the sinewy, brown fingers from her dress, holding them in one hand as she went about her task with the other.
With a slight smile Le Breton watched her. But when the last of his fingers was removed, she was still a prisoner, held secure within his arm.
Then Pansy descended to strategy.
"Mr. Le Breton, will you lend me your handkerchief?" she asked in a mild tone.
"Why do you want it?" the voice of the master demanded.
"To dip it in the fountain there and wash my arm. It feels all horrid and nasty and clammy where that odious man touched it," she said meekly.
The sentiment was one Le Breton approved of and sympathised with.
Letting her go, he drew out his handkerchief.
Taking it, Pansy turned towards the fountain. He followed and stood beside her, obviously waiting until her task was finished before carrying the situation further.
As Pansy scrubbed away at her arm, she kept a rather nervous eye on him.
When the task was completed, she screwed the handkerchief up into a loose, wet ball. But she did not throw it on the ground as Le Breton expected and was waiting for her to do, before taking her into his arms again.
Instead, she threw it into his face.
It took him by surprise; an indignity that had not come his way hitherto. People were not in the habit of throwing wet handkerchiefs with stinging force into the face of the Sultan Casim Ammeh.
The force and wetness temporarily blinded him. He was perhaps ten seconds in recovering his sight and his dignity.
Then he looked for the girl.
She was running as fast as she could away from him, down a misty, moonlit path, in her chiffon and diamonds looking a shimmer of moonlight and sparkling dew herself.
Pansy's only desire just then was to get out of the white, romantic moonlit world with its scents and sighs and seductive murmurs, back to one of electric light and ragtime, where there was no Raoul Le Breton looking at her gravely, with glowing eyes.
He had suddenly become a startling menace to her cherished liberty, this big, dark man with his masterful air and high-handed ways.
Whatever he said she would have to listen to. Perhaps even—agree with!
Le Breton did not run after the girl. He watched her go, with a feeling that he could afford to bide his time. But at six o'clock the next morning he was round at the hotel waiting for Pansy to come for her usual ride.
However, there was no sign of her either that morning or the following. In fact, it was not until the afternoon of the second day that he saw anything of her.
A tennis tournament was taking place at the hotel. Le Breton went feeling sure Pansy would be there, and incidentally, to find out what Captain Cameron, the local tennis champion, was like.
He saw a fresh-faced youngster, decidedly better-looking than the rest of the men there, but too much like the girl herself ever to be able to hold her.
Then he looked for Pansy.
She was seated with a group of acquaintances, awaiting her turn on the courts.
On seeing Le Breton, she vouchsafed him a smile and a nod, but no further attention.
After a three days' tournament, Cameron emerged victor, but Le Breton had managed to get no word with Pansy. Whenever he came within speaking distance she edged away, taking cover behind someone. To catch her was like setting a trap to catch a moonbeam.
At the end of the tournament word went round that a rank outsider had challenged the victor.
"Who is it, Bob?" Pansy asked when the news reached her.
Cameron pointed with his racket across the court, to where Le Breton stood, in panama hat and grey flannels.
"That big chap over there," he said. "He's got a nerve, hasn't he?"
"And did you accept?" Pansy asked.
"Of course I did. I couldn't let that sort of cheek pass."
Other people had heard what was happening. An interested crowd collected around the court. For word had gone round that the man who had challenged the English champion was Raoul Le Breton, the French millionaire.
Captain Cameron had not been long on the court before he discovered he had met his equal, if not his superior.
With a long, lithe movement Le Breton was all over the ground, seemingly unhurried, but always there at the right moment, making his opponent's play look like a heated scramble. But Le Breton's serving was his great point; a lightning stroke that gave no hint as to where the ball would land; sometimes it was just over the net; sometimes just within the furthermost limits of the court.
Cameron was beaten; a beating he took with a boyish smile, as he congratulated the winner.
Others crowded round Le Breton, anxious to add their quota to the praise.
When the crowd dispersed Pansy approached him, as he stood cool and dignified, despite the strenuous game.
"You never told me you could play tennis," she remarked.
"There are lots of things about myself I haven't told you," he replied drily.
"What are they?" she asked. "You mustn't rouse my curiosity and then not satisfy it."
"You needn't worry. I shall tell you some day," he answered.
As Pansy talked to him she played battledore and shuttlecock with her racket and ball.
"When will that day be?" she asked. "The sooner, the better. It's bad for my health to be kept in a state of inquisitive suspense."
"The sooner the better will suit me admirably," he said. "For I shall tell you when we are—married."
Pansy just stared at him.
"Then I shall never hear," she said, when she had recovered her breath. "For I shall never get married. Never. At least, not before I'm forty."
There was a brief pause.
"Why are you avoiding me?" he asked presently.
"What a stupid thing to say! Aren't I here talking to you now?"
"With a whole crowd of people round, yes."
She tapped the tennis ball from her racket to his chest, hitting it back and back again, as if he were a wall. For some minutes Le Breton watched her in an amused manner, as if she were something so favoured that she could do what she liked with him. Then he caught the ball and stopped the game.
"I've a challenge for you, too, Pansy," he said. "Will you meet me to-night, after dinner, near the fountain?"
"It wouldn't require a great amount of courage to do that."
"Will you come then?"
"You said I wasn't to wander about in the grounds alone at night."
"I'll come for you then, since you're so anxious to comply with my desires."
"'Comply with my desires,'" she repeated mockingly. "That's a nice useful phrase to hurl about."
There was an air of unusual and unaccustomed patience about Le Breton, as he argued with his moonbeam. Curious glances were cast in the direction of the couple. Miss Langham had never been seen to favour a man as she was favouring the French millionaire.
"Birds of a feather," someone remarked.
With some surprise young Cameron watched her. Another watched her too. The red-faced, fishy-eyed man from whose undesired attentions Le Breton had rescued her a few nights before.
"If you don't come I shall know what to think," Le Breton said. "That you dare not."
A suspicion of a blush deepened the pink in the girl's cheeks.
"And if I do come, what shall you think then?" she asked him with a nonchalant air.
"It'll be quite time enough to tell you when that comes to pass," he answered.
Pansy had no intention that it should come to pass. Raoul Le Breton might keep the tryst if he liked, but she would not be there.
Not if she could help it—a little voice within her added.
When night came Pansy tried not to think of Le Breton, but the idea of him out there in the moonlight haunted her. She wondered how long he would wait; patience did not look to be one of his virtues.
There was a dance at the hotel again that evening. As she whirled round and round, slim and light, looking in her chiffon and diamonds a creature of mist and dew, her thoughts were with none of her partners. They were out in the garden with the big, masterful man who was so different from all others of his sex who had come into her life.
By midnight the gaieties were over. Pansy went up to her room. But she did not go to bed. Dismissing her maid, she went out on the balcony, and stood there watching the sea, as she had watched it barely a week before, when Le Breton had come into her life.
The world was as white and peaceful as then; the sea a stretch of murmurous silver; the garden vaguely sighing; the little, moist, cool puffs of wind ladened with the scent of roses and the fragrance of foreign flowers.
As she watched the scene, an overpowering desire to go and see if Le Breton were still there seized her; a desire that rapidly became an obsession.
Of course he would not stay from nine o'clock until after midnight!
For all that Pansy felt she must go. That she must linger for a moment in the spot where he had lingered.
She turned quickly into her room; then out into the corridor; down the stairs and on towards a door that led out into the grounds.
Once there, the moonlight drew her on towards the fountain.
On reaching the trysting-place there was no sign of anybody there.
With a feeling of intense disappointment Pansy turned towards the sea-wall, and stood there with the soft light shimmering on her, her face wistful as she watched the molten sea.
Now that she had come, to find Le Breton gone hurt her.
If he really liked her, he would have stayed all night on the chance of her coming. She would, if she were really fond of anybody.
A tear came and sparkled on her long, dark lashes.
He could not love her very much, or he would not have left.
A slight movement in the shadows behind made her face round quickly, her heart giving a sudden bound.
"Well, Pansy," the voice she knew so well said in a caressing tone.
She laughed tremulously.
"I thought you'd gone hours ago," she said.
Le Breton came to her side, a mocking look in his dark, smouldering eyes as he watched her.
"There are two things a man will always wait for if they cut deeply enough," he replied. "Love and revenge."
"How dramatic you sound! Which has kept you on the prowl to-night?" she asked lightly, edging away from him.
But his arm went round her quickly, and she was drawn back to his side.
"No, my little girl, not this time," he whispered.
She tried to free herself from his embrace.
"I didn't mean to come. I really didn't," she said breathlessly.
He laughed in a tender, masterful fashion.
"Possibly not, but since you're here I intend that you shall stay."
"No, no," she said quickly. "Let me go."
Pansy struggled after a liberty that she saw rapidly vanishing. But he just held her, firmly, strongly, watching her with an amused air.
"I shall spoil my dress if I have to wrestle with you like this," she panted presently.
"Don't wrestle then," he said coolly. "Stay where you are, little moonbeam, and no harm will come to the dress."
It was fatal to be in his arms again. She stopped struggling and stayed passive within his embrace.
With easy strength Le Breton lifted her. Going to a bench, he sat down with her on his knee.
"Why did you run away from me the other night?" he asked.
A slim finger played rather nervously with a black pearl stud in the front of his dress shirt.
"I don't know," she said, her eyes avoiding his.
Then she laughed.
"Oh, yes, I do," she went on. "Because I couldn't do as I liked if I stayed with you."
"I could never be a hard taskmaster. Not with you," he said softly.
"Are you with some people?" she asked.
Le Breton thought of the desert kingdom he ruled alone, and he laughed. Then he kissed the little mouth so temptingly close to his own; a long, passionate caress that seemed to take all strength from the girl. Her head fell on his shoulder, and she lay limp within his arms, watching him in a vague, dreamy manner.
For a time there was silence. Le Breton sat with her pressed against his heart, as if to have her there were all-sufficient.
"I feel like Jonah," Pansy said presently. "All swallowed up. There seems to be nothing in the whole wide world now but you."
With a loving hand he caressed her silky curls.
"And I, Heart's Ease, want nothing but you, henceforth and forever."
Pansy snuggled closer to him.
"To think I'm sitting here on your knee," she whispered. "A week ago I didn't know there was any you. And now I only know your name and——"
She broke off, a blush deepening the roses on her cheeks.
"And what, my darling?" he asked tenderly.
"Put your ear quite close. It's not a matter that can be shouted from the house-tops."
He bent his proud head down, close to the girl's lips.
"And that I love you," she whispered.
Then she kissed the ear the confession had been made into.
"And that you will marry me," he added.
"Perhaps, some day, twenty years hence," she said airily. "When I've had my fling."
Le Breton had never had to wait for any woman he fancied, and he had no intention of waiting now.
"No, Pansy, you must marry me now, at once," he said firmly.
"What a hustler you are, Raoul. You must have American blood in you."
She said his name as if she loved it: on her lips it was a caress.
With a touch of savagery his arms tightened round the girl. Even with her in his embrace he guessed that if she knew of the Sultan Casim Ammeh there would be no chance for him. His dark blood would be an efficient barrier; one she would never cross willingly.
"Say you will marry me next week, my little English flower," he said in a fierce, insistent tone.
"I couldn't dream of getting married for ages and ages."
He held her closer, kissing the vivid lips that refused him.
"Say next week, my darling," he whispered passionately. "I shall keep you here until you say next week."
Pansy looked at him with love and teasing in her eyes. "It's midnight now, or perhaps it's one, or even two in the morning. Time flies so when I'm with you. But at six o'clock the gardeners will be here with rakes and brooms, and they'll scratch and sweep us out of our corner. Six hours at most you can keep me, but the gardeners won't let you keep me longer than that. Good-night, Raoul, I'll go to sleep in the meantime."
In a pretence of slumber Pansy closed her eyes.
With a tender smile he watched the little face that looked so peacefully asleep on his shoulder.
"Wake up, my flower, and say things are to be as I wish," he said presently.
One eye opened and looked at him full of love and mischief.
"In ten years' time then, Raoul. That's a great concession."
"In a fortnight. That would seem eternity enough," he replied.
"Well, five years then," Pansy answered, suddenly wide awake. "I could see and do a lot in five years, if I worked hard at it. Especially with the thought of you looming ominously in the background."
"In three weeks, little girl. I've been waiting for you all my life."
Pansy stroked his face with a mocking, caressing hand.
"Poor boy, you don't look like a waiter."
He took the small, teasing hand into his own.
"Never mind what I look like just now," he said. "Say in three weeks' time, my darling."
"Two years. Give me two years to get used to the cramped idea of matrimony."
"A month. Not a day longer, Heart's Ease, unless you want to drive me quite mad," he said, a note of desperate entreaty in his voice.
Suddenly Pansy could not meet the eyes that watched her with such love and passion in their smouldering depths.
This big, dark man who had come into her life so strangely, seemed to leave her nothing but a desire for himself. At that moment she could refuse him nothing.
"In a month then, Raoul. But it's very weak-minded of me giving in to you this way."
He laughed in a tender and triumphant manner.
"My darling, I promise you'll never regret it," he said, a slight catch in his strong voice.
Then he sat on, with Pansy pressed close against him. And the latent searching look had gone from his eyes, as if the girl lying on his heart had brought him ease and peace.
And Pansy was content to stay.
Just then it was sufficient to be with him; to feel the tender strength of his arms; to listen to the music of his deep, caressing voice; to have his long, passionate kisses. Nothing else mattered. Even liberty was forgotten.