"You make a very charming boy," he said lightly, with a faint smile, "but it was not a boy that I saw in Biskra. You understand?"
Beyond the curtains she stood a moment, shaking all over, her face hidden in her hands, able to relax a little the hold she was keeping on herself. Yes! She understood, plainly enough. The understanding had already been forced upon her. It was an order from one who was prepared to compel his commands, to make herself more attractive with all that it implied in the eyes of the man who held her in his power and who looked at her as no other man had ever dared to look, with appraising criticism that made her acutely conscious of her s*x, that made her feel like a slave exposed for sale in a public market.
She must take off the boyish clothes that somehow seemed t
