uded that he
was not at the hotel but had spent the night with some friend of
his--probably that Andrew McLean to whom he was always running off.

Nor was he in to luncheon. That was rank extravagance because he was
paying at pension rates. His extravagance, however, was no affair of
hers. Neither, she informed herself frigidly, was his appearance or
his non-appearance. It was only rather dull of Jack to lose so many,
well, opportunities.

She was not going to be in Cairo forever. Not much longer, in fact.
There were adages about gathering rosebuds while ye may and making
hay while the sun shone that Jack Ryder would do well to observe.

Other men did, reflected Jinny Jeffries with a proud lift of her
ruddy head. Only somehow, the other men--

Well, Jack _was_ provokingly attractive! Only of course, if he was
going to rely upon his attraction and not upon his attentions--

Deliberately Miss Jeffries smiled upon a stalwart tourist from New
York and promised her society for a foursome at bridge in the hotel
lounge that evening.

Later, when Jack still failed to materialize and behold her
inaccessibility, the exhibition seemed hardly to have been worth
while.... And there were difficulties getting rid of the New Yorker
the next day. He had ideas about excursions.

It was during the forenoon of the next day that the first twinge of
genuine worry shot across the sustained resentment which she was
pleased to call her complete indifference. She recalled the vigor of
Ryder's warnings about mentioning his adventure and the grave
dangers of disclosure, and she began to wonder.

She wished, rather, that he had gone safely out of the house before
she went away.

Of course nothing could happen. He had done nothing to give himself
away. He was simply a veiled shadow, moving humbly as befitted a
lowly stranger among the high and hospitable surroundings.

But still, it would have been better if he had gone....

Those turbaned women had looked queerly at them when they were
talking so long in the window. Perhaps it was not simply at the
intimacy between a young American and a veiled Oriental. Perhaps
their voices had been unguarded or Jack's tones had awakened
suspicion. Perhaps he had given himself away in his long talk with
the bride. She remembered a Frenchwoman who had come to interrupt
that talk who had looked rather sharply at Jack.... And that
dreadful eunuch was always staring....

She thought of a great many thi