ation--"

"We'll have to look sharp," said Ryder quickly. "There's no time to
lose. The girl is to be married."

"Married?... But she'll inherit the money just the same."

"But she doesn't want to be married," Ryder insisted anxiously. "Her
father--her alleged father--has just sprung this on her. Says there
are political or financial reasons. He's been caught in some dirty
work by this Hamdi Bey and he's stopping Hamdi's mouth with the
girl.... And we've got to stop that."

"I wonder if we can," said McLean thoughtfully.

"If we can? When the girl is French? When she's been lied to and
deceived?"

"She seems to have been taken jolly well care of. Brought up as his
own and all that. Keep your shirt on, Jack," McLean advised dryly
with a shrewd glance from his gray eyes at the other's unguarded
heat.

Then his eyes dropped to the miniature again. A lovely face. A
lovely unfortunate creature.... And if the daughter looked like
that, small wonder that Jack was touched.... Beauty in distress.

Some men had all the luck, McLean reflected. He had never taken Jack
for the gallivanting kind, either, yet here he was going to
masquerades with one girl and coming home with another....

Jack was too good looking, that was the trouble with the youngster.
Good looking and gay humored. The kind that attracted women....
Women and romance were never fluttering about lank, light-eyed,
uninteresting old Scotchmen of twenty-nine!

A mild and wistful pang, which McLean refused to name, made itself
known.

"I'll see the legation," he began.

"At once. I'll wait," urged Ryder.

And at once McLean went.

* * * * *

The result was what he had foreseen. The legation was appreciative
of his interest. That special agent had returned to France but his
address was left, and undoubtedly the family of Delcasse would be
grateful for any information which Monsieur McLean could send.

"Send!" repudiated Ryder hotly. "Write to France and back--wait for
somebody to come over! Can't the legation do something now?"

"The legation has no authority. They can't take the girl away from
the man who is, at any rate, her step-father."

"They can put the fear of God into him about this marriage. They
can deny his right to hand her over to one of his pals. They can
threaten him with an inquiry into the circumstances of her mother's
marriage."

"And why should they? They may regard it as a very natural marriage.