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 She stopped. "A kiss, please, mister."

He gave it to her. "Now stop being perverse, or I'll run away and leave you to just be to your heart's content."

She shuddered, and took a new grip of his arm. The mere threat intimidated her.

Paul had food for thought during the rest of the journey. He could have roamed all over the desert alone without being afraid, because alone he could imagine himself unhuman. In the desert with Gritty just beyond reach, he had been terror-stricken. On the other hand, Gritty, provided he were in the vicinity, could not experience a fear she had courted, whereas alone she would have collapsed. He concluded that he was not as weak as he had been on the point of believing.

When they reached the hotel the lounge was deserted, but voices came from the direction of the card and billiard-rooms. Paul gave an order for coffee and sandwiches, and they sank into deep chairs.

"Now play something," Gritty begged.

"It's too late."

"But it's my last night. I want to hear some nice Oriental music to complete everything. Why, I haven't heard a bit since I been here. That's another way I feel I been had. At Shepheard's they played things like 'Alexander's Rag-time Band'—and it's old at that!"

Paul opened the piano. At least, he mused, if he couldn't just be in the routine of life he could in terms of music. Left to himself he would have chosen music which would have conveyed very little emotion to Gritty Kestrell. But to-night Gritty must be humoured. He began to play a piece by Emile Blanchet: "Au Jardin du Vieux Serail."

"That's it," Gritty murmured, in response to the weird opening cadences, and she sank deeper into her arm-chair, tired and contented, as the music went on, muffled,