“Your face had haunted me ever since we met in the Bazaar. I kept thinking about you, remembering the fragrance of the scent you use. It seemed to linger on my coat and I wanted to see you again.”

“So you came – to look for me,” Yamina said softly.

“I told myself that I was behaving courteously to a lady in distress,” Lord Castleford admitted, “but I know now that it was a yearning need to look at you, to be certain that you were as beautiful as I remembered.”

He drew a deep breath before he added,

“I could still feel the softness of your body in my arms, although last night it was even softer and closer!”

Yamina made a little helpless gesture with her hand.

“How can this have – happened?” she asked. “How can we – feel like this? We are – enemies!”

“Do you really believe that?” Lord Castleford asked.

For the first time there was a faint smile on his lips and a note of amusement in his voice as he went on,

“If enemies behaved like us, my lovely one, no war would last very long!”

“It was just an explosion between us,” Yamina said hastily. “We were both tense – both perhaps on edge. We must try to – forget what has happened, but you must not – touch me again.”

“Do you really think I could ever forget?” Lord Castleford asked.

As he spoke, he walked across the cabin towards her.

He came near to her as she watched him, her eyes on his.

Then when he was about a foot away from her he said very softly,

“And do you really think it possible for us to stay here together and for me not to touch you?”

She did not answer, she only looked at him, but he knew that she trembled.

“My darling!” he said very very softly. “I am in love! I had no idea that love was like this, but now I can think of nothing but you and how much I need you!”

He opened his arms as he spoke and for a moment Yamina strove to refuse him, until, as if her need was irresistible, she moved towards him and hid her face against his shoulder.

His arms went round her, he kissed her hair and then one hand went to the ribbons with which she had so painstakingly arranged her chignon.

He pulled her hair loose and it fell in luxuriant waves over her shoulders as if glad to be free of confinement.

Lord Castleford touched it and felt the silkiness of it with his fingers.

Then he turned Yamina’s face up to his and looked down into her eyes.

“I love you!” he breathed. “Those are words which have never come to my lips before and now I want to keep on saying them. I love you! But you have not yet told me what you feel for me.”