“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “I will do the talking. I shall choose a subject and talk about it: you can listen if you want to.”
Therewith he gave her an account of the Bedouin tribes of this part of the desert, how they had come to settle there, how he had recovered a part of their history from the old tales and ballads which he had recorded; and he told her something of their curious laws and customs.
Muriel’s face did not betray any interest whatsoever, but Daniel persevered courageously until the meal was finished.
“You can stay in this room and read a book if you like,” he said to her, as they rose from the table.
Muriel looked at him coldly. “Thank you,” she replied, with an emphasis which she hoped was withering, “I prefer to go to my room. Good-night!” And with that she took her departure.
The day had seemed intolerably long to her, and her smouldering anger had flamed up within her at frequent intervals. She realized that Daniel was playing the schoolmaster to her, and she was determined not to knuckle under to him. If he had decided to keep her a prisoner here for the full fortnight, she would do her best to make him thoroughly uncomfortable. His cool, impersonal attitude annoyed her; she was amazed that a man who but yesterday was branding her with his burning kisses could be today so entirely detached from emotion, and she flushed at the insult of it.
Her only consolation lay in the thought that he was injuring himself by his behaviour. She would now never be even so much as a sister to him—not even so much as a friend. When she had escaped from this horrible place she would go to England, and soon, no doubt, she would marry a nice, ordinary man, with sleek hair and a tooth-brush moustache and long, thin legs; and as she came out of the church after the marriage ceremony she would catch sight of Daniel in the crowd and would smile contemptuously at him....
She was very tired, and many minutes had not passed before she abandoned the pretence of reading the anthology of English verse which Daniel had placed in her room on the previous evening, nor was it long before she fell into a deep and dreamless sleep which held her as it were entombed until Hussein caused her resurrection by bringing in the bath-water in the morning.
The cool breeze and the sparkling air brought a certain feeling of well-being into her heart; but the meeting with Daniel at the breakfast table was a wretched business, and was made all the more distasteful by his evident good health and the morning freshness of his mind.
“I hope you are feeling fit,” he said to her. “We have a busy morning before us.”