A Son of the Sahara Part 20

"No man in his senses would want a _dot_ with 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 const.i.tutes 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 pa.s.s 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.