seconds Noel stood widely gazing at the girl before him
with eyes in which surprise, hurt pride, and smouldering passion
mingled; then very abruptly, as the first chattering couple reached the
half-open door, he swung away from her.

"All right!" he said. "Good-bye!"

He went straight out without a glance behind, nearly running into the
gay invaders.

Olga, with the instinct to escape notice, turned as swiftly to the
window. She went out upon the verandah, blindly groping her way,
scarcely aware of her surroundings. And a figure waiting there in the
dimness laughed a cruel laugh and roughly caught her.

"'You'd sooner marry him,' eh?" gibed a voice close to her ear. "My
dear, that's the wisest resolution you ever made in your life!"

She did not cry out or attempt to resist him. She had known that her
fate was sealed. Only, as his lips sought hers, she shrank away with
every fibre of her being in sick revolt, and for the first time in her
life she begged for mercy.

"Please--please--give me to-night!" she pleaded. "Only to-night! Yes, I
will marry you. But don't--don't ask--any more of me--to-night!"

He paused, still holding her in his arms, feeling the wild beat of her
heart against his own, softened in spite of himself by that quivering,
agonized appeal.

"And if I let you go to-night, what will you give me to-morrow?" he
said.

"I shall be--your _fiancee_--to-morrow," she whispered, gasping.

"And you will marry me--when?"

"You shall decide," she murmured faintly.

He laughed rather brutally. "A somewhat empty favour, my dear, since I
should have decided in any case. But if you give me your promise to come
to me like a sensible girl, without any more nonsense of any kind--"

"I will!" she said. "I will!"

"Then--" he released her with the words--"I give you your freedom--till
to-morrow. Go--and make the most of it!"

He had not kissed her. She slipped from his arms, thankful for his
forbearance, and sped away down the veranda like a shadow.

As for Hunt-Goring, he cursed himself for a soft fool and took out his
cigarettes to wile away what promised to be an evening of infernal
dullness.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE GIFT OF THE RAJAH

Olga danced that night with the feeling that she danced upon her grave,
reminding herself continually, as the hours slipped by, that it was her
last night of freedom.

The failure of Nick to appear for the supper-dances diverted her
thoughts from this but to s