A Son of the Sahara Part 23

After a three days' tournament, Cameron emerged victor, but Le Breton had managed to get no word with Pansy. Whenever he came within speaking distance she edged away, taking cover behind someone. To catch her was like setting a trap to catch a moonbeam.

At the end of the tournament word went round that a rank outsider had challenged the victor.

"Who is it, Bob?" Pansy asked when the news reached her.

Cameron pointed with his racket across the court, to where Le Breton stood, in panama hat and grey flannels.

"That big chap over there," he said. "He's got a nerve, hasn't he?"

"And did you accept?" Pansy asked.

"Of course I did. I couldn't let that sort of cheek pa.s.s."

Other people had heard what was happening. An interested crowd collected around the court. For word had gone round that the man who had challenged the English champion was Raoul Le Breton, the French millionaire.

Captain Cameron had not been long on the court before he discovered he had met his equal, if not his superior.

With a long, lithe movement Le Breton was all over the ground, seemingly unhurried, but always there at the right moment, making his opponent's play look like a heated scramble. But Le Breton's serving was his great point; a lightning stroke that gave no hint as to where the ball would land; sometimes it was just over the net; sometimes just within the furthermost limits of the court.

Cameron was beaten; a beating he took with a boyish smile, as he congratulated the winner.

Others crowded round Le Breton, anxious to add their quota to the praise.

When the crowd dispersed Pansy approached him, as he stood cool and dignified, despite the strenuous game.

"You never told me you could play tennis," she remarked.

"There are lots of things about myself I haven't told you," he replied drily.

"What are they?" she asked. "You mustn't rouse my curiosity and then not satisfy it."

"You needn't worry. I shall tell you some day," he answered.

As Pansy talked to him she played battledore and shuttlec.o.c.k with her racket and ball.

"When will that day be?" she asked. "The sooner, the better. It's bad for my health to be kept in a state of inquisitive suspense."

"The sooner the better will suit me admirably," he said. "For I shall tell you when we are--married."

Pansy just stared at him.

"Then I shall never hear," she said, when she had recovered her breath.

"For I shall never get married. Never. At least, not before I'm forty."

There was a brief pause.

"Why are you avoiding me?" he asked presently.

"What a stupid thing to say! Aren't I here talking to you now?"

"With a whole crowd of people round, yes."

She tapped the tennis ball from her racket to his chest, hitting it back and back again, as if he were a wall. For some minutes Le Breton watched her in an amused manner, as if she were something so favoured that she could do what she liked with him. Then he caught the ball and stopped the game.

"I've a challenge for you, too, Pansy," he said. "Will you meet me to-night, after dinner, near the fountain?"

"It wouldn't require a great amount of courage to do that."

"Will you come then?"

"You said I wasn't to wander about in the grounds alone at night."

"I'll come for you then, since you're so anxious to comply with my desires."

"'Comply with my desires,'" she repeated mockingly. "That's a nice useful phrase to hurl about."

There was an air of unusual and unaccustomed patience about Le Breton, as he argued with his moonbeam. Curious glances were cast in the direction of the couple. Miss Langham had never been seen to favour a man as she was favouring the French millionaire.

"Birds of a feather," someone remarked.

With some surprise young Cameron watched her. Another watched her too.

The red-faced, fishy-eyed man from whose undesired attentions Le Breton had rescued her a few nights before.

"If you don't come I shall know what to think," Le Breton said. "That you dare not."

A suspicion of a blush deepened the pink in the girl's cheeks.

"And if I do come, what shall you think then?" she asked him with a nonchalant air.

"It'll be quite time enough to tell you when that comes to pa.s.s," he answered.

Pansy had no intention that it should come to pa.s.s. Raoul Le Breton might keep the tryst if he liked, but she would not be there.

Not if she could help it--a little voice within her added.

CHAPTER XIII

When night came Pansy tried not to think of Le Breton, but the idea of him out there in the moonlight haunted her. She wondered how long he would wait; patience did not look to be one of his virtues.

There was a dance at the hotel again that evening. As she whirled round and round, slim and light, looking in her chiffon and diamonds a creature of mist and dew, her thoughts were with none of her partners.

They were out in the garden with the big, masterful man who was so different from all others of his s.e.x who had come into her life.

By midnight the gaieties were over. Pansy went up to her room. But she did not go to bed. Dismissing her maid, she went out on the balcony, and stood there watching the sea, as she had watched it barely a week before, when Le Breton had come into her life.

The world was as white and peaceful as then; the sea a stretch of murmurous silver; the garden vaguely sighing; the little, moist, cool puffs of wind ladened with the scent of roses and the fragrance of foreign flowers.