“I am very tired; may I stop now?” came at last in a low murmur from the curved lips so sweetly smiling at him, and the whole soft body drooped like a flower with fatigue.  Hamilton opened his arms wide.  She saw how the fresh colour glowed in the handsome cheek, how his splendid neck swelled as the red deer’s in November, how the dark eyes blazed upon her.

“Come to me,” he commanded, and she flew to his arms as the love-bird flies upward to her mate in the pomegranate tree.

CHAPTER III

For three months Hamilton and Saidie lived in the white bungalow in the palms, and drank of the wine of life together, and were happy in the overwhelming intoxication it gives.

For three months Saidie lived there, never going beyond the precincts of the house and the palace of flowers that was the compound.

Why should she leave them?  What had she to gain by going out into the dusty way?  What had she to seek?  Her garden of Eden, her Paradise, was here.  She was too wise to go beyond its limits.

Pedlars and merchants of all sorts brought their best and richest wares to her, and Hamilton sat by her in the verandah, commanding her to buy all that pleased her, though she protested she needed nothing.

Jewels for her neck, and gold anklets and bracelets, and robes and sweetmeats were laid out before her.  Only the best of the bazaar was brought, and of this again only the best was chosen.  And when Hamilton was not there she walked from room to room singing, clothed in purple silken gauze, with his jewels blazing on her breast, his kisses still burning on her lips.  Then she would take her rabab and play to the listening flowers, or practise her dancing, the source of his pleasure, or lie in the noonday heat on the edge of the bubbling spring that rose up in the moss under the boughain-villia and look towards the East and dream of his home-coming.  What did she want more?

Hamilton now lived the enchanted life of one who is wholly absorbed in a secret passion.  He was wise—­more wise than men generally are—­and made no effort to parade his treasure.  This wonderful exotic, this flower of happiness, that bloomed so vividly in the dark, secluded recesses of his heart, how did he know that the destructive heat and light of publicity might not fade and sear its marvellous petals?  He told no one of his life; took no one out into the desert with him, to the bungalow among the palms.

He was away a great deal.  His work and certain social duties claimed a large part of his day, and during all that time he had to leave her alone with her flowers, but this gave him no anxiety.  It was not a dangerous experiment, as it always is to leave a European woman alone.  He knew that Saidie, the Oriental, would spend the whole time dreaming of him, longing for him, singing to the flowers of him, talking to her women-attendants of him, filling the whole garden and house with his image till the longed-for moment of his return.