The old courageous self had never failed her, this new
shrinking fearful personality filled her with distrust. Her confidence
in herself was gone. Her contempt of herself was unutterable. The
strength that remained was not sufficient to conquer the fear that had
taken so strong a hold upon her. She could only hope to hide it, to
deny him at least that much satisfaction. She had grovelled at his feet
once and it had amused him. He had laughed! She would die rather than
afford him a similar amusement. She could never wipe out the
recollection of her cowardice; he would remember always, and so would
she; but she could atone for it if her strength held. And she prayed
that it might hold, until a sob broke from her and her hands cramped
around her knees. She pushed her hair off her forehead with a heavy
sigh, and she looked back over her shoulder at the empty room. It had
changed since this morning in the indefinable way a strange room does
change after a few hours' association. If she could leave it now and
never see it again in all her life no single detail of it would ever be
forgotten. Its characteristics had been stamped upon her as familiarly
as if the hours passed in it had been years. And yesterday was years
ago, when the poor silly fool that had been Diana Mayo had ridden
blindly into the trap from which her boasted independence had not been
able to save her. She had paid heavily for the determination to ignore
the restrictions of her sex laid upon her and the payment was not yet
over.
Her tired body shrank from the struggle that must recommence so
soon. If he would only spare her until this numbing weariness that made
her so powerless should lessen. She heard his voice at the door and her
icy fingers grasped at the book that had slipped to the ground. The
thick rugs deadened the sound of his movements, but she knew
instinctively that he had come in and gone back to the divan where he
had been sitting before. She knew that he was looking at her. She could
feel his eyes fixed on her and she quivered with the consciousness of
his stare. She waited, shivering, for him to speak or move. His methods
of torture were diverse, she thought with dreary bitterness. Behind the
tent in the men's lines a tom-tom was beating, and the irregular rhythm
seemed hammering inside her own head. She could have shrieked with the
agony of it.
"Come here--Diane."
She started, for a moment hardly recognising the Gallic rendering of
her name, and then flushed angrily without answering or moving. It was
a very little thing to stir her after all that had been done, but the
use of her name flamed the anger that had been almost swamped in fear.
The proprietory tone in his voice roused all her inherent obstinacy.
She was not his to go at his call. What he wanted he must take--she
would never give voluntarily. She sat with her hands gripped tightly in
her lap, breathing rapidly, her eyes dark with apprehension.