The Sheik Retold(57)

The sheik laughed softly. "You flatter me, Raoul. But do not let us speak any more about it. It is an unfortunate contretemps. I regret that it distresses you, but our friendship is too big a thing to break down over a difference of opinion." With a sudden change of manner, he laid his hands back on the vicomte's shoulders. "You are a French nobleman, and I," he gave a bitter laugh, "I am an uncivilized Arab. We cannot see this thing in the same way."

"You could, but you will not," Raoul replied with an accent of regret. "It is not worthy of you."

Ahmed only shrugged in reply. A few minutes later Raoul left him and went out into the night. Ahmed followed only as far as the doorway, where he paused to look up at the stars. The Persian hound that always slept across the entrance uncurled himself and got up, thrusting a nose into his hand. The sheik absently stroked the dog's shaggy head for a few minutes before returning to the divan where I had been sitting. It was still strewn with the magazines and papers I had abandoned. His forehead contracted in his signature scowl, and then with a sweep of his arm, he scattered them to the floor.

I stifled a gasp and shrank back. He turned his burning gaze toward the curtains that divided our rooms. I was certain he had heard, but he made no move to come to me.

***

The very next day Ahmed pronounced himself strong enough to sit in the saddle and called for his horse. Against Raoul's protests, he rode out early, determined to show himself whole and hale to his tribesmen. Each successive day he did the same. Accompanied by the vicomte, he rode farther and farther afield to visit the outlying camps and draw back into his own hands the affairs that had been relegated to the headmen during his convalescence.

On one of these mornings I came into the living room expecting to find it empty, but as I parted the curtains, I found Raoul sitting at the little desk. He was surrounded by papers and writing quickly, with loose sheets of manuscript littering the floor. It was the first time in days that we had chanced to be alone.

I hesitated with a sudden shyness, but he had heard the rustle of the curtain and sprang to his feet with a courteous bow. "Your pardon, madam. Do I disturb you? I am afraid I have been very untidy." He flushed as he looked down at the heap of sheets strewing the rug.

"I thought you had gone with Monseigneur."

"I had some work to do—some notes I wanted to transcribe before I forgot, so I begged a day off. I may stay? You are sure I do not disturb you?" His sympathetic eyes and the deference in manner brought an unexpected lump to my throat. It had been so long since anyone besides Gaston had shown me such kind consideration.

"No, Raoul. It is I who disturbed you. Please, carry on."

I curled up on the divan with Kopec's head on my lap. The vicomte turned back on his chair, twirling a fountain pen between his fingers. I studied him as he bent over his work. Raoul was so different from the man I had first imagined him to be. I had been prepared to hate him with a jealous antipathy, but he had forced my liking and compelled my confidence with his sympathetic charm. Moreover, he had carried off a difficult position with a delicacy and tact that had saved me a hundred humiliations. We also shared a bond through our mutual love for Ahmed.

The vicomte wrote rapidly for some time and then flung down his pen with an exclamation of relief, gathered up the loose sheets from the floor, and stacked them in an orderly heap on the table.

"You have done your work?" I asked.

"All I can do at the moment. Henri must unravel the rest; he has a passion for hieroglyphics. He is invaluable; I could never get on without him. He bullied me when we were boys together—at least that is what I called it. He called it 'amusing Monsieur le Vicomte,’ and for the last fifteen years, he has tyrannized over me wholeheartedly." He laughed and snapped his fingers at Kopec, who whined and rolled his eyes in his direction, but did not lift his head from my knee.

"I have read your books," I said, "all that Monseigneur has here. Your novel particularly interested me. As a rule, I do not read them, but this one gripped me, although I cannot imagine there really exists such a man as you have drawn—one who could be as tender, as unselfish, as faithful as your hero. I have met many men of many nationalities, and I have never known one who in any degree resembles the preux chevalier of your book. The men who have most intimately touched my life have never had a thought for anyone beyond themselves."

A dull red crept into the vicomte's face as he twirled the pen between his fingers. "It is a most unfortunate fact that beautiful women often provoke in men all that is basest and vilest in their natures."

"So the woman must pay for the beauty God curses her with—the beauty she may hate!" I blurted and then bit my lips. "Oh, forgive me! You don't deserve my anger. You have been nothing but kind. Forgive my peevishness. It must be the heat; it makes one very irritable. Please pardon me while I go out for some air."

Without even giving him time to reply, I rose and went out under the awning where the usual camp hubbub filled the air. A group of men were once more watching one of the rough-riders schooling a young horse, noisily critical and offering advice freely, undeterred by the indifference with which it was received. Others passed by, engaged on the various duties connected with the camp. Nearby one of the older and more devout men prostrated himself, fulfilling his religious ritual with a sublime lack of self-consciousness.

Outside his tent, Gaston and Henri were sitting in the sun, Gaston on an upturned bucket, cleaning a rifle, and his brother stretched full length on the ground, idly flapping at the flies with the duster with which he had been polishing the vicomte's riding-boots. Both men were talking rapidly with frequent little bursts of gay laughter.