rds
portrayed its less commendable features.

"It was a woman's reception," she began again, "at a Turkish house.
A marriage reception--"

She had certainly secured McLean's whole-hearted attention.

"A marriage reception--a Turkish marriage reception?" he said very
sharply and amazedly as his caller continued to pause. "Do you mean
to say that Jack Ryder went into a Turkish house dressed as a
woman--?"

There was a pronounced angularity of feature about the young
Scotchman which now took on a chiseled sternness.

Swiftly Jinny interposed. "Oh, you mustn't blame him, Mr. McLean!
You see, I wanted very much to go to a Turkish reception and I
didn't have the courage to go alone or drag some other tourist as
inexperienced as myself, and so Jack--why, there didn't seem any
harm in his dressing up. Just for fun, you know. He put on a Turkish
mantle and a veil up to his eyes and he was sure he'd never be found
out. I ought not to have let him, I know--it was my fault--"

She looked so flushed and innocent and distressed that McLean's
chivalry rose swiftly to her need.

"Indeed you mustn't blame yourself Miss--Miss Jeffries. You don't
know Egypt--and Jack does. He knew that if he had been discovered
there would have been no help for him--and no questions asked
afterwards. And it might have been very dangerous for you. The
blame is just his now," he said decisively, yet not without a
certain weak-kneed sympathy with the culprit.

For if the girl had looked like this ... he could see that she would
be a difficult little piece to withstand ... though any man with an
ounce of sense in his head would have behaved as a responsible
protector and not as a reckless school boy.

"What happened?" he said quickly.

"Oh, nothing happened--nothing that I know of. We got along very
well, I thought, although now I remember that some people _did_
stare.... But I wasn't worried at the time. I thought it was just
because I was an American and he was apparently a Turkish woman, but
there was no reason why an American might not get a Turkish woman to
act as a guide, was there?... And then Jack told me to go home
first--he said it would be simpler that way and that he would slip
over to some friend's or to some safe place and take his disguise
off. He wore a gray suit beneath it, and the only funny thing was
some black tennis shoes.... So I left him. And he hasn't been back
since."

She added as McLean was silent, "He told me that h