And what was more he knew it too. For he bent over her, laughing softly.
"So, Heart's Ease, you don't quite hate me," he said. "That fact will keep me patient for quite a little time. And you will be whispering 'yes' in my ear, as I would have you whisper it—of your own free will, as you whispered 'I love you,' on that sweet night six months ago."
He bent still lower, and kissed the little face that watched him with such strained anxiety.
"Good night, my darling," he said fondly.
Long after he had gone Pansy lay trying to crush the truth back into its hiding-place in her heart. And his voice, tender and triumphant, seemed to echo back mockingly from the jewelled ceiling.
For surely she could not love a man so cruel, so barbaric, so profligate as the Sultan Casim Ammeh.
CHAPTER XXIV
The next morning Pansy awoke to find herself back in her gilded prison, and Alice beside her with the customary morning tea, a dish of fruit and a basket of flowers, all as if the last ten days had never been. She knew now the flowers were from the Sultan. But she did not tell Alice to take them away. Instead, as she drank her tea and ate some fruit, she looked at them in a meditating manner.
And Alice looked at her mistress in an inquisitive way, wondering what had happened to her during the last few days.