Page:Marion Crawford - Khaled.djvu/56

 'You are my lord and my master,' she answered, looking modestly downward, and her hand lay quite still.

She was so very beautiful that as Khaled sat beside her and looked at her downcast face, and knew that she was his, he could not easily believe that she was cold and indifferent to him.

'By Allah!' he thought, 'can it be so hard to get a woman's love? Truly, I think she begins to love me already.'

Zehowah looked up and smiled carelessly as though answering his question, but Khaled was obliged to admit in his heart that the answer lacked clearness, for he found it no easier to interpret a woman's smile than men had found it before him, and have found it since, even to this day.

'You have had many suitors,' he said at last, 'and it is said that your father has given you your own free choice, allowing you to see them and hear them speak while he was receiving them. Tell me why you have chosen me rather than the rest, unless it is because you love me? For I came with empty hands, and without servants or slaves, or retinue of any kind, riding alone out of the Red Desert. It was therefore for myself that you took me.'

'You are right. It was for yourself that I took you.'

'Then it was for love of me, was it not?'