Her thoughts flew back to her father's haggard face. "Oh, it is true! I know." "And he's going to hand you over--What sort is this Hamdi?" "A general. Old. Evil enough to lay traps to obtain me." "It's abomination." The anger in the young man surged beyond his control. "You must not do it.... If your father is clever enough to break a law let him be clever enough to mend it--by himself. Such a sacrifice is not required.... You must realize what this means to you. You must realize--Look here, I'll help you. I'll plan some escape. There must be ways. I have friends--" She stifled the leap of her heart. She held her head high and made what she thought was a very noble little speech. "It is for my father, monsieur. You do not understand. It is to save my father." He looked at her in silence. He was afraid to answer for a moment; he could feel the unruly blood beating even in the lips he pressed together. "But don't you understand--" he blurted at last and broke off. After all, he did not know this girl. If he swayed her judgment now, and dragged her away, what life, what compensation could he offer her? How did he know that she would not regret it? Would she be happier in a world unknown?.... She had been brought up to this sort of thing. It was bred in her.... Marriage was her inevitable game. This very charm she exercised, this subtle, haunting invasion of his senses, what was that but another proof of the harem existence where all influences were forced to serve the ends of sex ... And she was so maddeningly resigned to taking this general! A queer hot rage was gaining possession of him. "Oh, well, if you prefer this," he said brutally, with a youthful desire to wreak pain in return for that strange pain which something was inflicting upon him. A girl who would let him kiss her one night--and on the next inform him that she was giving herself to an unknown--an old Turk.... If she could go like that, to some other's arms and lips ... He wanted to take her fiercely in his arms and crush her lips against his and then fling her away and say, "Oh, go to him now--if you can!" And at the same time he wanted to gather her to him as tenderly as if she were a flower he was guarding and tell her that he would protect her against all the world. He was divided and confused and blindly angry. He felt baffled and frustrated. He was both aching and raging. And yet he was capable of reminding himself, in some corner of his uninvaded mind, that this was undoubtedly the best thing for them both. What else? For him? For her? And yet his tongue went on stabbing her. "If this is what you are determined to do--" he heard himself saying hardly, yet with a hint of deferred finality. It was as if he had said, "If this, then, is what you are like! If you are the soft, submissive harem creature, the toy, the odalisque--If you will endure undesired love rather than face the world--"