her hand with his own plump one where bright rings were
sparkling deep in the encroaching flesh. Aimee looked down with a
sudden wild dislike.... That soft, ingratiating hand, with its
dimples and polished nails, which thought it could pat her so easily
into submission....

It was nothing to him, she thought, chokingly, whether she was happy
or unhappy. He had decided on the match--perhaps he had foreseen her
protests and plunged into it, so as to be committed against her
entreaties!--and he was not stopped by any thought of her feelings.

After all her hopes! After all he had promised!

But she told herself that she had never been secure. Beneath all her
trust there had always been the silent fear, slipping through the
shadows like a serpent.... Some instinct for character, more
precocious than her years, had whispered through her fond blindness,
and initiated her into foreboding.

"Come now, my dear," he said heartily, "this is a surprise, of
course, but after all you will find it is for the best--much for the
best--"

His voice died away. After a long pause, "You may make the
arrangements," she told him in a still, tenacious little voice, "but
you cannot make me marry him.... I will never put on the marriage
dress.... Never wear the diadem.... Never stir one step within his
house."

A complete silence succeeded this declaration. He got up violently
from beside her. She did not dare look at him. He was going away,
she thought.

It would be the beginning of war. She did not know what he would do
but she knew that she would endure it.

And the gossip of the harems would be her protection. Her
opposition, bruited through those feminine channels, would not be
long in reaching Hamdi Bey.... And no man could to-day be so callous
of his pride or the world's opinion that he would be willing to
receive such a revolting bride.

Did her father think of that, that poor, pale power of hers? He
stood irresolute, as if meditating a last exhortation, and then
suddenly turned on her the haggard face of a violent despair.

"Would you see me ruined?" he said passionately.

Sharply he glanced about the room, at the far, closed doors where it
was not inconceivable that old Miriam was lurking, and strode over
to her and began talking very jerkily and huskily, over her bent
head.

"I tell you that Hamdi is making this a condition--it is the price
of silence, of those papers back.... He came to me to-night. I knew
that hou