He came in laughing, a cigarette dangling from one blood-stained hand, while with the other he wiped the perspiration from his forehead, leaving a dull red smear. She shrank from him, looking at him with blazing eyes. "You are a brute, a beast, a devil! I hate you!" she choked furiously. For a moment an ugly look crossed his face, and then he laughed again. "Hate me by all means, _ma belle_, but let your hatred be thorough. I detest mediocrity," he said lightly, as he passed on into the other room. She sank down on to the couch. She had never felt so desperate, so powerless. She stared straight before her, shivering, as she went over the scene she had just witnessed, her fingers picking nervously at the jade-green silk of her dress. She longed for some power that would deaden her feelings and blunt her capacity for suffering. She looked at Gaston with hard eyes when he came in. He had approved of what the Sheik had done, would have done it himself if he had been able. They were all alike. "The man who was hurt first," she asked abruptly, with a touch of her old hauteur in her voice, "is he dead?" "Oh no, Madame. He has concussion but he will be all right. They have hard heads, these Arabs." "And Yusef?" Gaston grinned. "_Le petit_ Sheik has a broken collar-bone. It is nothing. A few days' holiday to be petted in his harem, _et voila_!" "His harem?" echoed Diana in surprise. "Is he married?" "_Mais oui_, Madame. He has two wives." At Diana's exclamation he shrugged deprecatingly. "_Que voulez-vous?_ It is the custom of the country," he said tolerantly, with the air of conceding a melancholy fact with the best grace possible. The customs of the country was dangerous ground, and Diana changed the subject hastily. "Where did you learn to ride, Gaston?" "In a racing-stable at Auteuil, Madame, when I was a boy. Then I was five years in the French cavalry. After that I came to Monseigneur." "And you have been with him--how long?" "Fifteen years, Madame." "Fifteen years," she repeated wonderingly. "Fifteen years here, in the desert?" "Here and elsewhere, Madame," he answered rather more shortly than usual, and with a murmur of excuse left the tent.