' Indeed I can,' he smiled. ' This is my bedroom.'
'Then you must take me to another.'
His smile deepened. ' That would not be hospitable. Since you have lived in a harem, you are not used to sleeping alone; so you might wake up in the night and be frightened, and this divan is more than big.enough for both of us.'
' I refuse! ' she cried. ' I refuse to sleep in the same room with you.'
' My beautiful Zanthe, I fear you have no choice. I am loath to remind you of it, but you are now a slave, bought and paid for by me, and you will henceforth do as I tell you, without argument.'
'Then . . . then, monsieur, I demand that you respect me.'
Roger made no direct reply, but asked her, ' How old are you? '
'I am seventeen.'
' Excellent. I guessed you were somewhere about that. And now I will tell you something. In Mohammedan countries no girl as beautiful as you remains unmarried after she is fifteen. She is a valuable chattel and her father sees to it that by giving her to one of his friends he forms a useful alliance for his family.'
' That . . . that is true in most cases. But I ... I am an exception. My father allowed me to remain unmarried because . . . because I am half French. I am still a virgin. You cannot-'
'Were that so, I might have scruples. But even in France all pretty girls are married at your age. As to your virginity, there is an easy way by which I can find out.'
'You would not dare! ' she gasped.
' I certainly would,' he retorted quickly. ' And I will tell you another matter on which I believe you lied to me. All you told me about your father really applied to your husband. Come now. Am I not right? And, remember, you are my prisoner. Tomorrow I can set enquiries going about you, and in a few days a description of anyone so beautiful as yourself is certain to reveal the truth.'
Her angry eyes fell before his. ' Well . . . yes. It seems I must admit it.'
He smiled again. ' You also said he was no longer young, and was at times cruel; so it is clear that you can have had little love for him. That is a relief to me, for I should be reluctant to force a widow of a few days who was grieving deeply for a much-loved husband.'
' So you mean to force me! ' she flared.
'1 trust not. Must I remind you that barely an hour ago I saved you from a most terrible ordeal at the hands of six ruffians, who would later have hired you out to scores of their comrades. Since you are a fully experienced woman, I should have thought you would be happy to reward me.'
' You did only what any decent man would have done. It was Allah, blessed be the name of His Prophet, who saved me. The fate of every one of us is bound about his brow, and I was not born to be taken like an animal by any man who wants me.'
'Listen, madame,' Roger said earnestly. 'It was no doubt the will of Allah that brought me, and no one else, to your rescue. Had you been some other woman the odds are that I would have left you with those men. But if one can fall in love at first sight then I did so with you. I am an officer on the Staff of the General-in-Chief, so I can protect you. And now that your husband is dead you need a protector. I am also rich enough to give you everything in reason that you want. While I remain in Cairo this pleasant little house will make a charming home for us. When I have to leave I will arrange with the Garrison Commander for a continuance of your protection. Other women have accounted me a good lover and a kind one. I do not threaten now, but beseech you. Will you not accept my homage, allow me to become your slave instead of your being mine, and grant me this night that which is now my dearest wish? '
Coming from as fine a man as Roger, it was a declaration that would have flattered any woman. Few, had they been under such an obligation as Zanth£ was, would have hardened their hearts against such an appeal. But she violently shook her head and cried:
' No! No! No! Even if I believed all you said I would not be willing. To give myself to you would be to disgrace my blood. You are an enemy. Nobody believes the lies told by your General— that he has come here as the friend of Turkey and only to chastise the Mamelukes. We are not ignorant of what he did in Italy: of how he snared the people into believing that he was bringing them liberty, then trampled on them and robbed them of all they possessed. That is what he means to do here. He comes as a conqueror, to despoil our country and make us into slaves. And you, Monsieur le Colonel, have admitted to being on his Staff; so you must lend yourself willingly to the evil that he does. No! If it be my fate to be taken against my will I would rather it should be by an honest Arab bandit.'
Roger listened with amazement to her outburst. It had not occurred to him that she would regard him in such a light, and he was half inclined to think that she was making a show of patriotism only as another excuse for repulsing him. After a moment he said with a frown:
' Madame, I fail to understand you. This is neither the time nor place for us to enter on a discussion of General Bonaparte's principles. At least no one can deny that he is a great soldier and that his victories have brought glory to France. Since you are half French one would expect you to be no less than neutral and have some admiration for him. But all this is irrelevant to our situation. I give not a damn how you feel on such matters. The night grows old and I have no mind to parley with you further. Under the age-old usages of war you are now mine, to do with as I will, and I have made clear my intentions. Oblige me by getting yourself undressed.'
Her tawny eyes flashed. 'I refuse! I refuse to display myself naked before you.'
' About that we shall see,' he said grimly. Then he began to take off his clothes.
As he did so, he was thinking with distress of how the delightful visions he had had of what would happen when he got her up to the bedroom had been rudely shattered. An Eastern beauty of seventeen was the equivalent of a woman of twenty-five in Europe; so he had felt certain that she must have been married for some years. That being so, in view of what she owed him he had not expected to have any trouble with her. A becoming display of reluctance, no doubt, soon overcome by a little playful teasing. Then an acceptance of the will of Allah, followed by a sweet rhapsody of passion.
Instead he would now have to take her by force; and he had never had the least inclination for that sort of love-making for, to him, it robbed the act of the major part of its pleasure. He had taken a woman that way only once—the cynically promiscuous but beautiful Natalia Androvna—and then only to teach her a lesson for having given him a rendezvous and, instead of keeping it, having had him set upon and whipped for her amusement.
Yet he meant to take the lovely Zanthe. It was getting on for six months since he had parted from Georgina. He had lived with her only for six weeks and before that had endured a period of continence of ten months since the tragic death of Clarissa. As a very virile man his need for a woman was, therefore, great, and all the greater now that he had found one who satisfied his exceptionally high standards. He felt not the faintest scruple about the morality of the matter. He was doing no more and no less than hundreds of soldiers were doing that night in Cairo, and had done all over the world in conquered countries from time immemorial.
Having stripped to the buff, he slipped on a silk robe that he had bought the previous day, and poured himself another glass of wine, drank it off and advanced on Zanthe. She had been standing by the big divan with her back half turned, so as to avert her eyes from him while he was undressing. In a final effort to render her complaisant he said:
' My very dear and beautiful Zanthe. Once more I beg you to be reasonable. As you have been married you know what to expect and have naught to fear. Your husband is dead and you had no love for him. As a woman of French extraction you cannot really regard me as an enemy. Were it not for me you would now be going through hell upon bare boards, under a succession of filthy, brutal ruffians, and-'