She moved leisurely towards the hotel, and he paced beside her
wondering if he had forfeited her friendship by his outburst, but on
the verandah she halted and spoke in the frank tone of camaraderie in
which she had always addressed him. "Shall I see you in the morning?"
He understood. There was to be no more reference to what had passed
between them. The offer of friendship held, but only on her own terms.
He pulled himself together.
"Yes. We have arranged an escort of about a dozen of us to ride the
first few miles with you, to give you a proper send-off."
She made a laughing gesture of protest. "It will certainly need four
weeks of solitude to counteract the conceit I shall acquire," she said
lightly, as she passed into the ballroom.
A few hours later Diana came into her bedroom, and, switching on the
electric lights, tossed her gloves and programme into a chair. The room
was empty, for her maid had had a vertige at the suggestion that
she should accompany her mistress into the desert, and had been sent
back to Paris to await Diana's return. She had left during the day, to
take most of the heavy luggage with her.
Diana stood in the middle of the room and looked at the preparations
for the early start next morning with a little smile of satisfaction.
Everything was en train; the final arrangements had all been
concluded some days before. The camel caravan with the camp equipment
was due to leave Biskra a few hours before the time fixed for the Mayos
to start with Mustafa Ali, the reputable guide whom the French
authorities had reluctantly recommended. The two big suit-cases that
Diana was taking with her stood open, ready packed, waiting only for
the last few necessaries, and by them the steamer trunk that Sir Aubrey
would take charge of and leave in Paris as he passed through. On a
chaise-longue was laid out her riding kit ready for the morning. Her
smile broadened as she looked at the smart-cut breeches and high brown
boots. They were the clothes in which most of her life had been spent,
and in which she was far more at home than in the pretty dresses over
which she had laughed with Arbuthnot.
She was glad the dance was over; it was not a form of exercise that
appealed to her particularly. She was thinking only of the coming tour.
She stretched her arms out with a little happy laugh.
"It's the life of lives, and it's going to begin all over again
to-morrow morning." She crossed over to the dressing-table, and,
propping her elbows on it, looked at herself in the glass, with a
little friendly smile at the reflection. In default of any other
confidant she had always talked to herself, with no thought for the
beauty of the face staring back at her from the glass. The only comment
she ever made to herself on her own appearance was sometimes to wish
that her hair was not such a tiresome shade. She looked at herself now
with a tinge of curiosity. "I wonder why I'm so especially happy
to-night. It must be because we have been so long in Biskra. It's been
very jolly, but I was beginning to get very bored." She laughed again
and picked up her watch to wind. It was one of her peculiarities that
she would wear no jewellery of any kind. Even the gold repeater in her
hand was on a plain leather strap. She undressed slowly and each moment
felt more wide-awake. Slipping a thin wrap over her pyjamas and
lighting a cigarette she went out on to the broad balcony on to which
her bedroom gave. The room was on the first floor, and opposite her
window rose one of the ornately carved and bracketed pillars that
supported the balcony, stretching up to the second story above her
head. She looked down into the gardens below. It was an easy climb, she
thought, with a boyish grin--far easier than many she had achieved
successfully when the need of a solitary ramble became imperative. But
the East was inconvenient for solitary ramble; native servants had a
disconcerting habit of lying down to sleep wherever drowsiness overcame
them, and it was not very long since she had slid down from her balcony
and landed plumb on a slumbering bundle of humanity who had roused half
the hotel with his howls. She leant far over the rail, trying to see
into the verandah below, and she thought she caught a glimpse of white
drapery. She looked again, and this time there was nothing, but she
shook her head with a little grimace, and swung herself up on to the
broad ledge of the railing. Settling herself comfortably with her back
against the column she looked out over the hotel gardens into the
night, humming softly the Kashmiri song she had heard earlier in the
evening.