A Son of the Sahara Part 21

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.

CHAPTER X

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 b.a.l.l.s 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 b.a.l.l.s.

"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.

CHAPTER XI

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 s.e.x 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 coa.r.s.e, 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."