It was the Sheik's complete indifference to everything beyond his own will, his Oriental egoism, that stung her most. He treated her supplications and invectives with a like unconcern. The paroxysms of wild rage that filled her periodically made no impression on him. He accorded them a shrug of ennui or watched her with cold curiosity, his lips parted in a little cruel smile, as if the dissection of her lacerated feelings amused him, until his patience was exhausted, and then, with one of the lithe, quick movements that she could never evade, his hands would grip and hold her and he would look at her. Only that, but in the grasp of his lean, brown fingers and under the stare of his dark, fierce eyes her own would drop, and the frantic words die from her lips. She was physically afraid of him, and she hated him and loathed herself for the fear he inspired. And her fear was legitimate. His strength was abnormal, and behind it was the lawlessness and absolutism that allowed free rein to his savage impulses. He held life and death in his hand. A few days after he had taken her she had seen him chastise a servant. She did not know what the man's fault had been, but the punishment seemed out of all proportion to anything that could be imagined, and she had watched fascinated with horror, until he had tossed away the murderous whip, and without a second glance at the limp, blood-stained heap that huddled on the ground with suggestive stillness had strolled back unconcerned to the tent. The sight had sickened her and haunted her perpetually. His callousness horrified her even more than his cruelty. She hated him with all the strength of her proud, passionate nature. His personal beauty even was an additional cause of offence. She hated him the more for his handsome face and graceful, muscular body. His only redeeming virtue in her eyes was his total lack of vanity, which she grudgingly admitted. He was as unconscious of himself as was the wild animal with which she compared him.