"Counterfeit," she cried. "You have had little experience of women, if you cannot discriminate between real and pretended passion. You have held me in your arms, and I have given you every proof that woman can of how I love you. You insult me when you suggest that my passion was assumed."
"Then why repudiate our marriage?"
"For the safety of us both. Be calm, my dear, and listen to me. First, as to the position. I am no longer in Egypt; I am in France and am a naturalized Frenchwoman. And you are a Frenchman. The Mahommedan ceremony we went through is not binding on us here. Were I to proclaim myself a Christian and disown the tie between us, you would be powerless to enforce it. Impersonally I have made inquiries. No doubt were I to admit your claim, I could not afterwards have it set aside. Now those are the cold, hard facts. Next, to consider the consequence that would ensue from such admission. I have said before, that I would be frank with you, and I will; I will keep nothing from you. Buonaparte pursues me with his attentions, but I know how to keep him at a distance. For all that, if he knew that I was married, he would see in it the cause of my refusing his advances. In such a case, for how long would your life be safe? Do you think his promises to you would bar the way to his desire? Even if he spared your life, he would either imprison you, or, at best, order you to join some regiment now abroad; in any case we should be separated. I am as firm as ever in my resolve to punish Buonaparte, and I want your help. As my acknowledged husband you could not give it. I cannot spare you, dear; believe me when I say that my love for you is true and deep. No other man has ever touched my heart like you; has made it leap within my bosom, and the blood to rush like a torrent through my veins. Be reasonable, my own man, and come and sit by me, and I will wind my arms around your neck, and kiss you to compliance. Come, Henri, to your Halima, whose heart and soul are wholly yours."
She held out her arms to him invitingly.
The man cast his eyes upon her glowing face and then on her heaving bosom, over which her draperies rose and fell; thence they traveled downwards, past the rounded arms and tapering fingers, to her dainty ankles and the little slender feet that rested on a footstool; and the blood began to boil within him with desire; but still he hesitated. She saw it and resumed:
"Henri, you will not desert me. There is no one I can absolutely trust, but you. I cannot do without you, but the public knowledge of the tie between us would defeat my plans, and would, I know, result in harm to you; and that I could not bear; for you are all the world to me."
The last words were uttered low, but were full of seductive sweetness to the hearer. She turned her liquid eyes on him, eyes in which his own image was reflected, and there was a witchery in her smiling, pleading mouth. Once more his gaze roamed over the woman's sensuous perfections, and he felt drunk with passion.
He sprang forward into her extended arms, and she caught him in her sinuous embrace.
"My queen! My life," he murmured.
She read her victory in his eyes and words, and was content. His passion seemed to have entered into her, for she pressed him tightly to her breast, and kissed him madly—almost hungrily—on his lips and eyes, as though she could not have enough of him.