"The marrying is just as you like," he replied. "Forms and ceremonies are nothing to me, but I'd an idea you preferred them."
There was a brief silence.
With her face turned away Pansy sat ignoring him entirely, leaving him only a slender white neck, a small ear and part of a rose-tinted cheek to study.
And the Sultan studied them, amused that anything so helpless should dare to defy him.
"You've not only yourself to consider when you set me at defiance in this manner," he remarked presently. "There's your father, and your English friends."
His words brought Pansy's eyes to him, fear in their velvety depths.
At her look he laughed.
"Your kind heart has given me some hostages, Pansy," he said. "But nothing will happen to them for another week. I'll give you that much time to make up your mind. Not longer. For my patience is wearing very thin. And I've had a lot where you're concerned. More than I ever dreamt I was capable of. In the meantime, my little girl, try and remember I'm not quite the hopeless villain you think me, or you wouldn't have liked me, even for a day."
But just then it seemed to Pansy there was no greater villain on earth than the Sultan Casim Ammeh.