urves ... her whole silken scented body seemed to slip into his
embrace. A bare arm touched his neck, resting heavily.

"Sweet--heart," she said slowly, in her difficult English.

It was the deuce of a position.

No man can rudely snatch from his neck the arm of the lady who has
just saved him from a harrowing death. And a lady who was risking
more than her life in sheltering him--decidedly the situation was
delicate.

It was not the lady's fault that her impetuosity, the impetuosity
which had been his salvation, now plunged her into amorous caprice.
There were obvious handicaps, moral, social and ethical, in her
upbringing. She was a child of nature, a nature undisciplined,
unruly, tempestuous.

And even queening over Hamdi and his palace must have offered little
diversion to a wild dancing girl familiar with the excitement of
more varied conquest.

Ryder was horribly embarrassed. He was visited with a fearful
constraint, a chivalrous wish not to hurt her feelings, and a sharp
prevision of the danger of offending her.

He took the first turn of least resistance.

He did not need to bend his head; their eyes were on a level. He
simply kissed her. And she kissed him back.

He hated himself for the leap of his blood... and for the
Puritanical discomfort of his nature....

Her arm about his neck was pressing closer. It was the moment for
action and Ryder acted. Very firmly he put his hand upon her hand,
withdrew it from its clasp about him, and raised it to his lips.

His kiss was respectful gratitude and an abdication of the delights
of dalliance.

"Good-bye, my dear," he murmured. "Now, if you will show me the way
out--"

Her eyes agleam between half-closed lids, she studied him. It
occurred to Ryder that probably never before had her hands been
detached--and kissed--and put away. He must be a phenomenon, an
enigma.

Then her lips parted in a faintly scornful smile.

"You afraid--you? You want--run?"

"I'm horribly afraid," he said earnestly. "I want to get out of here
as quick as I can."

That was putting, he considered, the very wisest construction upon
it.

Negligently her gesture reminded him of the opening in the window.
"Here you are safe." she murmured in the vernacular. "And the doors
are locked--"

"Yes, but--but Aimee isn't safe, you know--and I must get her out of
here."

"Aimee?" In those yellow eyes he caught the flash of capricious
resentment at the reminder. Then, indifferentl