lf at all! You
are laughing at me!"

"Laughing at you?... I am worshipping you," he said tensely, his
eyes on hers, and the fierce words shattered her light defenses to
confusion.

Silence gripped her. She tried to meet his look and smile in mock
reproof, but her eyes fled away affrighted, so full of desperate,
passionate things was the dark gaze they touched. She gripped her
cold little hands in her lap and looked out beyond the lebbek's
shade into the vivid garden. The hot sunshine lay orange on the
white-sanded paths; the shadows were purple and indigo. A little
lizard had come out from a crack in a stone and was sunning himself,
while one bright eye upon them, fixed, motionless, irridescent,
warned him of their least stir. She envied him the safety of his
crack.... She herself must meet this crisis--must turn this tide....

"It is--so soon," she faltered.

"Soon?" He had risen and was standing over her. "Soon? I was with
you on the boat--I walked by your side--I danced with you and held
you against my heart. And here in Cairo I walked and talked with
you.... And now for three days you have been under my roof, eating
at the table with me, alone within these walls, and you call it
soon! Truly, you are beyond belief! _Soon!_"

"But soon--for _me_!" she interrupted swiftly, and sprang to her
feet to face him with eyes and lips that smiled without a trace of
fear. Only her cheeks were no longer crimson but white as chalk.
"Too soon--for me to be sure--how _I_ feel! I hadn't realized--I
hadn't known--Oh, you mustn't hurry me! You mustn't hurry me!" She
broke off in a confusion he might well misconstrue, and moved
nervously away, her back to him.

He stood staring after her, a man not in two minds but in three and
four. Her broken words--her smiles--her emotion--these might well
arouse the most flattering surmise, and his vanity and his curiosity
were stirred to swift delight. He broke into a storm of words, of
protestations, of eager persuasion and honied flattery, drawing
nearer and nearer to her, while she slipped continually away from
him.

"You mustn't hurry me," she echoed defensively. "I am not like
you--you Southerners. I----"

"You are asleep--I have told you that you are that sleeping
princess," he broke in, and following after as she turned away from
him, he put a quick arm about her, and bending over her, tried to
turn her about toward him. "Do you know how that little sleeping
princess was awakene