rm shall I do you? I'll halt when you halt, I'll go on when you
go on. I'll be _douce comme un lapin blanc_--I really can be, Mike."
Her eyes asked him if in that respect she was not speaking the truth.

"Yes," he said. "You can be anything you want to be." He sighed. "I
wish you oftener wanted to be good, Millicent; I wish you oftener wanted
to please me and not always only yourself."

"I'd get nothing if I did, Mike. I stole this march on you, half for fun
and half because it's no use trusting to you. I never see you--you are
afraid of yourself."

"I told you it was useless." He moved his camel further from hers. "I
must see what is to be done. You must turn back. Your very presence
disturbs all my ideas."

"The natives think this is a prearranged plan, of course. They give you
the benefit of being more human than you are."

Michael looked at her in annoyance. He knew that she was right; he knew
that even Abdul, the visionary, would not believe him if he told him
otherwise; he knew that already he had formed his own opinion of
Michael's surprise.

Millicent's veil almost completely hid her face. She flung it up over
her sun-hat. As Abdul came to his master's side, Michael saw his eyes
linger on the Englishwoman's beauty. He knew that to the Eastern,
mixture of mystic and fanatic as he was, her freshness and fairness were
like the scent of white jasmine to his nostrils.

This woman, who loved his master--for already Millicent's dragoman had
confided her secret to him--was very rarely beautiful, and in his eyes
very desirable; but she was false. His eyes had instantly seen beyond.
Because she was false she interested him. She was not like other
Englishwomen; she was not like the girl who was the sister of Effendi
Lampton. This wealthy Englishwoman, whose body was as sweet as a branch
of scented almond-blossom, had thoughts in her heart like the thoughts of
his own countrywomen. In his Eastern mind, Englishwomen retained their
virgin minds and ideas even when they were married women with families;
to their end they retained the hearts and minds of innocent children.
This slender creature, a sweet bundle for a man's arms, thought as his
countrywomen thought. He saw into her mind as he had seen into the
unopened tomb.

He was amazed at the Effendi, not because of this meeting with his
mistress--it was not an unheard-of thing in the desert; he was not
unaccustomed to the ways of men and women o