I thought," Max dared to argue, "that it took days arranging the legal
part of a marriage? You're an Englishman, Mr. Stanton, and Colonel
DeLisle's daughter's a French subject, though she is half British. You
may find difficulties."

"Damn difficulties!" exclaimed Stanton, all his savage impatience of
opposition breaking out at last. "Don't you say so, Sanda? When a man
and woman need each other's companionship in lonely places outside the
world, is the world's red tape going to make a barrier between them? My
God, no! Sanda, if your church will give you to me, and send us into the
desert with its blessing, is it, or is it not, enough for you? If not,
you're not the girl I want. You're not my woman."

"If you love me, I _am_ 'your woman,'" said Sanda.

"You hear her?" Stanton asked. "If it's enough for her, I suppose it's
enough for you, St. George?"

Through the blue dusk two blue eyes stared into Max's face. They put a
question without words. "Have you any reason of your own for wanting to
keep her from me?"

"Will it be enough for Colonel DeLisle?" Max persisted.

"I promised to shoulder all responsibility with him," repeated Stanton.

"And father would be the last man in the world to spoil two lives for a
convention," Sanda added. "Do you remember his love story that I told
you?"

Did Max remember? It was not a story to forget, that tragic tale of love
and death in the desert. Must the story of the daughter be tragic, too?
A great fear for the girl was in his heart. He believed that he could
think of her alone, now, apart from selfishness. Realizing her worship
of Stanton, had her fate lain in his hands he would have placed it in
those of the other man could he have been half sure they would be
tender. But her fate was in her own keeping. He could do no more than
beg, for DeLisle's sake, that they would wait for the wedding until
Stanton came back from his expedition. Even as he spoke, it seemed
strange and almost absurd that he should be urging legal formalities
upon any one, especially a man like Stanton, almost old enough to be his
father. What, after all, did law matter in the desert if two people
loved each other? And as Stanton said--patient and pleasant again after
his outburst--they could have all the legal business, to make things
straight in the silly eyes of the silly world, when they won through to
Egypt, under English law.

The matter settled itself exactly as it would have settled itself had