He paced across to her side and stood looking down at her.
“Do you ask why?”
“Indeed,” she said bitterly, “there is scarce the need perhaps. And yet can it be that your lust of vengeance is so insatiable that sooner than willingly forgo an ounce of it you will lose your head?”
His face became grim again. “Of course,” he sneered, “it would be so that you’d interpret me.”
“Nay. If I have asked it is because I doubt.”
“Do you realize what it can mean to become the prey of Asad-ed-Din?”
She shuddered, and her glance fell from his, yet her voice was composed when she answered him—“Is it so very much worse than becoming the prey of Oliver-Reis or Sakr-el-Bahr, or whatever they may call you?”
“If you say that it is all one to you there’s an end to my opposing him,” he answered coldly. “You may go to him. If I resisted him—like a fool, perhaps—it was for no sake of vengeance upon you. It was because the thought of it fills me with horror.”
“Then it should fill you with horror of yourself no less,” said she.
His answer startled her.