ds were called back very suddenly, the
Evershams asked me to go on to Egypt with them. It was very nice of
them, for I'm a dreadful bother," said Arlee, dimpling.

"But you speak of leaving them?" he said.

"Oh, yes, I may do that as soon as some other friends of mine, the
Maynards, reach here. They are coming here on their way to the Holy
Land and I want to take that trip with them. And then I'll probably
go back to America with them."

The Turkish captain stared at her, his dark eyes rather inscrutable,
though a certain wonder was permitted to be felt in them.

"You American girls--your ways are absolute like the decrees of
Allah!" he laughed softly. "But tell me--what will your father and
your mother say to this so rapidly changing from the one chaperon to
the other?"

"I haven't any father or mother," said the girl. "I have a big,
grown-up, married brother, and he knows I wouldn't change from one
party unless it was all right." She laughed amusedly at the young
man's comic gesture of bewilderment. "You think we American girls
are terribly independent."

"I do, indeed," he avowed, "but," and he inclined his dark head in
graceful gallantry, "it is the independence of the princess of the
blood royal."

A really nice way of putting it, Arlee thought, contrasting the
chivalrous homage of this Oriental with the dreadful "American
goose!" of the Anglo-Saxon.

"But tell me," he went on, studying her face with an oddly intent
look, "do these friends now, the Evershams, know these others,
the--the----"

"Maynards," she supplied. "Oh, no, they have never met each other.
The Maynards are friends I made at school. And Brother has never met
them either," she added, enjoying his humorous mystification.

"The decrees of Allah!" he murmured again. "But I will promise you
an invitation for your chaperon and arrange for the name of the lady
later--_n'est-ce-pas?_"

"Yes, I will know as soon as I return from the Nile. You are going
to a lot of bother, you and your sister," declared Arlee gratefully.

"I go to ask you to take a little trouble, then, for that sister,"
said the Captain slowly. "She is a widow and alone. Her life is--is
_triste_--melancholy is your English word. Not much of brightness,
of new things, of what you call pleasure, enters into that life, and
she enjoys to meet foreign ladies who are not--what shall I
say?--seekers after curiosities, who think our ladies are strange
sights behind the bars. You k