"I couldn't do that. I'm not quite like your desert men, remember. I can't sell a woman who has once pleased me. But, on my return, I'll find her a nice husband, if that will satisfy you."
There was a note in his voice that brooked no argument; and the girl, reared for the harem, was quick to notice it.
She gave a sharp glance at her owner. It seemed that a man she did not know stood behind her Sultan, indulgent master as he had proved. A man she had no hold over.
CHAPTER II
In one of the hotels in the Island of Grand Canary dinner had just been served. Around the door of the large dining-hall the manager, the head waiter and several underlings hovered, with an air of awaiting the arrival of some important personage.
Presently two people appeared in the doorway.
One was a middle-aged woman with grey hair and a prim expression. She was wearing a plain black silk evening dress, and she had the look of a retired governess. Her companion was of quite another type. She was a slender, graceful girl of medium height, with a mop of short, golden curls dancing round a small, frank face, that gave her the look of some lovely, delicate schoolboy. She wore a simple white silk frock, and her only mark of wealth was a large diamond hanging from a thin platinum chain about her slender neck; a gem in itself worth a fortune.
Evidently she was the personage expected. As she appeared the manager went forward to meet her. She smiled at him in a friendly, affable manner. With him at her side, she and her companion went up the big room, towards a specially reserved table, the head-waiter and a little group of others following behind.
As she came up the room, a man seated at one of the tables in the center of the room said to his neighbour: