The Sheik quotes

"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!

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."

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.

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.

"

"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.

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 will never obey any will but my 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.

His hand went to his forehead mechanically.

"To-morrow is with Allah!" he murmured with unctuous piety.

A retort trembled on Diana's lips, but her attention was distracted from her annoying guide to a collection of black specks far off across the desert. They were too far away for her to see clearly, but she pointed to them, peering at them intently.

It was impossible to count how many there were, for they were riding in close formation, the wind filling their great white cloaks, making each man look gigantic. Diana's interest flamed up excitedly.

It was like passing another ship upon a hitherto empty sea.

They seemed to add a desired touch to the grim loneliness of the scene that had begun to be a little awe-inspiring.

it was quite another thing to be deliberately chased across the desert by an Arab freebooter. Her obstinate chin was almost square. Then the shadow of a laugh flickered in her eyes and curved her mouth. New experiences were crowding in upon her to-day.

She had often wondered what the feelings of a hunted creature were. She seemed in a fair way of finding out.

She had always stoutly maintained that the fox enjoyed the run as much as the hounds; that remained to be proved, but, in any case, she would give this hound a run for his money.

Diana's eyes passed over him slowly till they rested on his brown, clean-shaven face, surmounted by crisp, close-cut brown hair.

It was the handsomest and cruellest face that she had ever seen.

Her gaze was drawn instinctively to his. He was looking at her with fierce burning eyes that swept her until she felt that the boyish clothes that covered her slender limbs were stripped from her, leaving the beautiful white body bare under his passionate stare.

The young Arab who had ridden in with the Sheik was standing beside the divan. The fierce eyes that were watching her every movement met hers, and his cigarette was waved towards the young man.

"My lieutenant, Yusef, a son of the desert with the soul of a flaneur. His body is here with me, but his heart is on the trottoirs of Algiers."

The tall lad laughed and salaamed profoundly, then straightened himself, posing magnificently until a curt word from the Sheik recalled him to his errand and his swagger changed swiftly to a deference of which the significance was not lost on Diana.

For a moment an ugly look crossed his face, and then he laughed again.

"Hate me by all means, ma belle, but let your hatred be thorough. I detest mediocrity," he said lightly, as he passed on into the other room.

She sank down on to the couch. She had never felt so desperate, so powerless. She stared straight before her, shivering, as she went over the scene she had just witnessed, her fingers picking nervously at the jade-green silk of her dress.

"Pearls are too cold and diamonds too banal for you," he said slowly.

"You should wear nothing but jade. It is the colour of the evening sky against the sunset of your hair."

He had never spoken like that to her before, or used that tone of voice. His methods had been more fierce than tender. She glanced up swiftly at his face, but it baffled her.

What was she to do? She looked all around the little oasis with startled eyes, at the few palm trees and clumps of camel thorn, the broken well and the grey horse still snuffing about its mouth.

She felt frightened for the first time; she was alone and about her was unending space, and she felt an atom, insignificant, the least of all things.

She looked up into the clear sky and the blue vastness appalled her.

Only the worst might be expected from the wild, lawless tribesmen towards a woman alone amongst them. She had fled from one hideousness to another which would be ten times more horrible. Her face blanched and she set her teeth in desperation.

The human beings she had prayed for were now a deadly menace, and she prayed as fervently that they might pass on and not notice her.

Perhaps it was not too late, perhaps they had not yet seen her and she might still slip away and hide in the twisting turnings of the defile.

A reckless feeling, like the excitement of the morning, came over her, and she urged the grey on with coaxing words, and responding to her voice, and hardly feeling her light weight, he raced on untiringly.

All around was silence and a solitude that was stupendous.

The vast emptiness was awe-inspiring. The afternoon was wearing away; already it was growing cooler. Diana had seen no sign of human life since she had left Gaston hours before and a little feeling of anxiety stirred faintly deep down in her heart.

She turned the pages, dipping here and there, finally forgetting the author altogether in the book. It was a wonderful story of a man's love and faithfulness, and Diana pushed it aside at last with a very bitter sigh.

Things happened so in books. In real life they happened very differently.

She looked round the room with pain-filled eyes, at the medley of her own and the Sheik's belongings, her ivory toilet appointments jostling indiscriminately among his brushes and his razors on the dressing-table, and then at the pillow beside her where his head rested every …

She was at his feet, tamed thoroughly at last, all her proud, angry self-will swamped in the love that was consuming her with an intensity that was an agony.

Love was a bitter pain, a torment that was almost unendurable, a happiness that mocked her with its hollowness, a misery that tortured her with visions of what might have been.

She went to him slowly, and he turned to her abruptly.

She looked after him as he went through the curtains with a long, sobbing sigh.

She was paying a heavy price for her happiness, but she would have paid a heavier one willingly.

Nothing mattered now that he was not angry any more. She knew what her total submission meant: it was an end to all individualism, a complete self-abnegation, an absolute surrender to his wishes, his moods and his temper.

"

If you loved her you would not care for her nationality.

"

He had never been given to thinking of himself, or criticising or analysing his passing whims and fancies.

All his life he had taken what he wanted; nothing on which he had ever laid eyes of desire had been denied him.

His wealth had brought him everything he had ever wished. His passionate temper had been characteristic even when he was a child, but these strange fits of unreasonable irritability were new, and he searched for a cause vainly.

A dull red crept into the Vicomte's face, and he continued looking at the pen in his fingers. "Beautiful women, Madame," he said slowly, "unfortunately provoke in some men all that is basest and vilest in their natures.

No man knows to what depths of infamy he may stoop under the stress of a sudden temptation.

"

To him, all his life, a thing desired had upon possession become valueless. With the fulfilment of acquisition had come always disinterest.

The pleasure of pursuit faded with ownership.

Would this hapless girl who had poured out such a wealth of love at the feet of the man who had treated her brutally fare any better at his hands? Her chance was slight, if any.

He carried her into the bedroom, hesitating beside the couch before he put her down.

Surely one moment out of a lifetime might be granted to him.

He would never have the torturing happiness of holding her in his arms again, would never again clasp her against the heart that was crying out for her with the same mad passion that had swept over him yesterday.

Saint Hubert broke off and looked anxiously at Diana, but she did not move or meet his gaze. She was sitting with her hand still clasped over the Sheik's and the other one shading her face, and the Vicomte went on speaking: "

It is so easy to judge, so difficult to understand another person's temptations.

Ahmed's position has always been a curious one. He has had unique temptations with always the means of gratifying them."

The situation was becoming impossible. She had said good-bye to him the night before. She had never guessed the love she had inspired in him, and she wondered at the sadness in his eyes and his unaccustomed lack of words.

He had wanted to say so much and he had said so little.

She must never guess and Ahmed must never guess, so he played the game to the end. Only that night after she had left them the voices sounded in the adjoining room for a very short time.

… she, proud Diana Mayo, who had the history of her race at her fingers' ends, who had gloried in the long line of upright men and chaste women, had no thankfulness in her heart that in her degradation she had been spared a crowning shame.

Beside her love everything dwindled into nothingness.

He was her life, he filled her horizon. Honour itself was lost in the absorbing passion of her love. He had stripped it from her and she was content that it should lie at his feet.

Diana flung one arm across her face to shut him out from her sight.

Her heart was breaking, and she longed with a feeling of sick misery to crawl to his feet, but a remnant of pride kept her back.

He spoke at length in the same level, toneless voice. "I will take you to the first desert station outside of Oran, where you can join the train.

You are strong enough to put the memory of these last months out of your mind—to forget the past and live only for the future. No one need ever know. There can be no fear for your—reputation.

Things are forgotten in the silence of the desert.

Mustafa Ali is many hundreds of miles away, but not so far that he would dare to talk. My own men need not be considered, they speak or are silent as I wish. There is only Raoul, and there is no question of him.

The temptation to lie to him and let the consequences rest with the future was almost more than she could resist. One little word and she would be in his arms … but afterwards——?

It was the fear of the afterwards that kept her silent.

The colour slowly drained from her face and she shook her head mutely.