es and wired for hotel reservations.
Every moment that they hesitated I was excitedly quoting, though not
aloud, lines that came back from the days of a less-mature literary
taste:

"'Why dost thou stay and turn away,
Here lies the path to Rome.'"

I thought it the part of wisdom to refrain from mentioning until the
actual moment of their departure that my own way lay in an opposite
direction. But when I had seen them settled in their first-class
compartments and the accommodating guard had reassured me by locking
them in, I turned with a sigh of contentment and fled back to Monte
Carlo. I had been absent only a few days, but I returned to a dusty and
desolate town. Perhaps the numbers of gamblers and pleasure-seekers had
not actually diminished. Perhaps they had even increased, but a day's
search satisfied me that the unknown lady had gone, and for me the town
was empty.

What idiosyncrasy drove me to the Holy Land, I cannot say, unless it was
that after my exhausting term of cathedral inspection I felt a desire to
have a look at that temple which, except for the Taj Mahal, has always
appealed to me as the world's most beautiful place of worship--the
Mosque of Omar.

Riding one day on a donkey around the walls of Jerusalem, I had a
glimpse of Her standing on the ramparts above me by the gate of the
Needle's Eye. But as I looked up, the sun was full in my eyes and I
could distinguish only the lashing of her skirts in the wind, and a
halo-like aura of gold about her head, which was uncovered. At that
distance her face was a featureless oval. Until night came with its
howling of a thousand dogs I visited the places to which guides most
frequently conduct their charges. But in the Temple of The Sepulchre, on
the Mount of Olives, at the Jews' Wailing Place and among the vaulted
bazaars, there was only failure for my quest. For two days I hunted, and
while I hunted she must have gone down to Jaffa or departed for the
overland trip to Syria.

CHAPTER III

I EMBARK ON A FOOL'S ERRAND

I was sitting on the terrace at Shepheard's Hotel on the evening of my
arrival there. I was finding life flat, as one must who can discover no
fascination in Cairo's appeal to the eyes, nostrils and ears. Before me
was the olla-podrida of touring fashion and fellaheen squalor; the smell
of camels and attar of roses; the polyglot chatter of European
pleasure-seekers and the tom-toms of Arab pilgrims.

Then once more I s