On a wide ottoman in her room Pansy lay. The golden lamps were burning
low, casting black shadows on the gilded walls of her cage. Through
the open arches the moonlight streamed, pouring in from a misty, mystic
world where trees sighed vaguely in a silvered air.
Early that morning the Sultan had brought Pansy back to the palace.
Since then she had seen nothing of him.
She brooded on her attempt to escape, which had only ended in her being
more of a prisoner than ever. The guards about the entrance of her
quarters had been doubled. The door leading into the harem was locked.
Alice had been removed, her place taken by an Arab woman who would not
or could not understand a word Pansy said to her.
Sleepless she lay among the silken cushions, brooding on the life that
had once been hers; a life so remote from her present one that it might
never have been.
It was impossible to believe that far beyond this desert city there lay
a place called London, where she had been free as air, where she could
come and go as she pleased, where she had dined and danced and lunched
and visited. A world of dreams, remote, unreal, lost to her for ever,
where she had been Pansy Langham, feted and courted, with society at
her feet. Now she was a sultan's slave, a chattel, her very life
dependent on a barbaric ruler's whim.
On what punishment would be doled out to her for her attempt to get
away, she next brooded. There had been such a set, determined
expression on her captor's face when he brought her back to her prison.
The sound of someone coming towards her apartment broke in on her
dreary reverie. It was close on midnight. She had never been
disturbed at that hour before.
She looked up quickly.
The third door of her room was opening; one that had never opened
before; a door the harem girls had told her led to the Sultan's private
suite. And the Sultan, himself, was entering. The Sultan attired as
she had never seen him before--in silk pyjamas.
Pansy started to her feet. She stood slight and white and silken-clad
against the golden walls; her heart beating with a sickly force that
almost choked her; her eyes wide with fear.
The end had come with a suddenness she was not prepared for.
He crossed to her side; tenderness and determination on his face; love
and passion in his eyes.
For a moment there was silence.
"So, Pansy," he said at length. "You've tried to solve the problem
your way. Now I'm going to solve it mine. You've fought against love
quite long enough, against yourself and against me. I'm going to end
the fight between us. To-night, my little slave, you sleep within my
arms and learn all that love means."
At his words a flood of crimson swept over her strained face. She had
but a vague idea of what was before her, but instinct told her it was
something she must fight against.
Her gaze went to the arches, as if in search of some way of escape
there. There was none. Only the white stars looked in coldly, and
night breathed on her, soft and sensuous.
He knew where her thoughts were, and he laughed softly.
"There's no escape this time, Pansy," he said.
The fear in her eyes deepened. Wildly she searched round in her head
for a way of getting rid of him for the time being. And only one
course presented itself.
"I ... I'll marry you," she stammered.
"We'll be married by all means, if you wish, as soon as I can find a
man to do the job. But you've been just a little too long in making up
your mind. My patience is worn out."
In her determination to live up to her own standards--standards that
had no value in this desert city:--Pansy saw she had tried this
half-tamed man too far.
He came closer, and held out his arms.
"Come, my little flower," he whispered passionately.
Quickly she moved further away from the arms that would have held her.
"Won't you come willingly?" he asked, in soft, caressing tones. "Do
you still refuse me the love I want, and which I know is mine?"
"I don't want you or your love," she cried wildly, frantic at the
knowledge of her own helplessness.
He laughed with a touch of fierceness.
"What cruel words to throw at your lover! But since you won't come, my
little slave, then--I must take you."
He would have taken her there and then, but with a swift movement she
avoided him.
Then Pansy ran, as she had run from him once before, like a white
wraith in the moonlight. But this time he followed.
There were no electric lights and ragtime band to run to now. Only a
moonlit garden full of the scent of roses. There was no crowd of
people to give her shelter, only the deep shadows of the cypresses.
In the darkness she paused, out of breath, hoping he would not see her.
A vain hope. His eyes had learnt to pierce the gloom. She was in his
arms almost before she knew it.
There was a brief, uneven struggle, as Pansy fought against a man who
knew no law except his own desires.
Weak and weeping she collapsed against him, on a heart that leapt to
meet her.
There was a stone seat near. On it the Sultan seated himself, the girl
in his arms. And in the scented, sighing silence he tried to soothe
the tears his methods had roused.
And trembling she lay against the passion and power that held her,
refusing to be comforted.
"There's nothing to weep about, my darling," he whispered. "Sooner or
later you have to learn that I'm your master. Just as you've taught me
that all women are not ripe fruit, willing and anxious to fall into my
hands. And I must have some closer tie between us since love alone
won't keep you from running away from me."
Pansy's tears fell all the faster. For now it seemed her own doings
were responsible for this crisis.
He sat on, waiting until the storm was over.
The tremors of the slight form that lay against his heart, so helpless
yet so anxious not to do wrong, struck through the fire and passion in
the man, to what lay beneath--true love and protection.
Presently he kissed the strained, tear-stained face pillowed against
his shoulder.
"It's like old times to be sitting in the moonlight and among the
roses, with you in my arms," he said, all at once.
"Do you remember, Pansy, that sweet night in Grand Canary? But you
were not weeping then. Why are you now, my little slave? Because a
Sultan loves you more than his life? More than anything that has been
in his life. You're not very flattering. But then, you never were."
He paused for a moment, watching her tenderly.
"Yet you paid me the greatest compliment I ever had in my life. When
you said you loved me. There could be no sweeter music that those
words. And the choicest gift life has ever given me was a kiss from
your lips, given willingly."
He bent his head.
"Won't you give me another, Pansy?"
But the girl's strained face was turned away from the proud, passionate
one so close to her own.
"No, my little flower? Will you make a thief of your Sultan? Will you
give him nothing willingly now? I know I don't deserve it. But
still--I want it. And my wants have been my only law so far."
Again he paused, stroking her curls with a loving hand.
"Just now, as man and woman together, Pansy, I know I don't deserve
you. I know I'm not worthy of you. But I want my soul, although I've
only a blackened body to offer it. And the soul will have to do the
best it can with the grimy accommodation. For I must have you, my
darling. You've taken everything out of my life, but a desire for you."
From a tangle of trees in an adjacent garden a nightingale burst into
song, filling the night with liquid melody. At the sound the Sultan's
arms tightened around the slender figure he held.
"No man appreciates virtue so much as the one who has had his fill of
vice," he continued presently. "And I was born into it, steeped and
sodden in it from my earliest recollection, until I didn't realise it
was vice until I met you. And then it seemed to me I had run off the
lines, and pretty badly."
As he sat talking and caressing her, Pansy's sobs died down. There was
always magic in his touch, happiness within his arms. With throbbing
heart she lay against him, watching him anxiously.
He smiled into the tired, purple eyes.
"No, perhaps, I won't be a thief," he said. "Perhaps I shall climb up
and up with many a stumble to the clear heights where you are, my
darling. What would you say if you saw me there? 'Here is a poor
wretch who has climbed painfully upwards to touch the feet of his
ideal,' you would say to yourself. And to me you would say, 'As a
reward, will you come and have breakfast with me?' And I should come,
like a shot. And I should want lunch and tea and dinner and--you.
Just you, my soul, always and for ever."
After this outburst, he was quiet.
Passive within his arms Pansy waited for the last hopeless struggle for
right against wrong.
He sat on, as if at peace with himself and the world. The restless
look that always lurked in his eyes had gone; in its place was one of
happiness and contentment.
Pansy's shivers roused him from his reverie. Not shivers of fear, but
of chilliness. A heavy dew had started falling, bringing a sudden
coolness into the night.
"Why, Heart's Ease," he said, full of concern. "I'm keeping you out
here when you ought to be indoors. But with you in my arms, I forget
everything but you."
Getting to his feet, he took her back to the gilded room. The lamps
had burnt out. It was a place of deep shadows, and here and there the
silver of the moon patched its golden richness.
Once within its dimness Pansy started struggling again.
He took the slim white hands into one of his own, and kissed them.
"There's no need for you to fight against me with weak little hands,"
he whispered. "There's another fighting for you, far stronger than you
are. A new Raoul Le Breton of your making, Pansy. A man strong enough
to wait until we're really married."
Laying his burden on a couch, he bent his head until his ear almost
touched the girl's lips.
"Say 'Yes,' Pansy, and I'll go, 'nicely and quietly like a good boy,'
still remembering 'your reputation,'" he said in a teasing tone.
Into his ear "Yes" trembled.
He kissed the lips that at last had consented to his wishes.
"Good night, my little girl, and if you go on at this rate you'll make
a white man of me yet."
Long after he had gone Pansy stayed brooding on his words. The battle
between them was over at last.