And she—­this slim creature in the black domino—­one of those invisibles?

Stark amazement looked out of his eyes into hers.

“You—­a Turk?” he blurted.

“I—­a Turk!” Her head went suddenly high; she stiffened with defensive pride.  “I am ashamed—­but for the thing I have done.  That is a shameful thing.  To steal out at night—­to a hotel—­to a ball—­And to dance with a man!  To tell him who I am—­Oh, yes, I am much ashamed.  I am as bold as a Christian!” she tossed at him suddenly, between mockery and malice.

Still his wonder and his trouble found no words and the shadow on his face was reflected swiftly in her own.

“I beg you to believe, monsieur, that never before—­never have I done such a thing.  My greatest fault was to be out in the garden after sunset—­when all Moslem women should be within.  But my nurse was indulgent.”

Almost pleadingly she looked up at the young man.  “Believe this of me, monsieur.  I would not have you think of me lightly.  But to-night something possessed me.  I had heard of the masque, and I remembered the balls of the Embassy where I danced when I was so young and so I slipped away—­there was a garden key that I had stolen, long ago, and kept for another thing....  I did not mean to dance.  Only to look on at the world again.”

“Oh, my good Lord,” said Jack Ryder.

And then suddenly he asked, “Are you—­do you—­whom do you live with?”

And when she answered in surprise, “But with whom but my father—­he is Tewfick Pasha,” he drew a long breath.

“I thought you’d tell me next you were married,” he said limply.

The next moment they were laughing the sudden, incredibly absorbed laughter of youth.

“No husband.  I am one of the young revoltees—­the moderns—­and I am the only daughter of a most indulgent father.”

“Well, that’s something to the good,” was Ryder’s comment upon that.  He added, “But if that most indulgent father caught you—­”

He looked down at her.  The secret trouble of her answering look told him more than its assumption of courage.

This was no boarding school girl lingering beyond hours....  This was a high-born Moslem, risking more than he could well know.

The escapade was suddenly serious, tremendously menacing.

She answered faintly, “I have no idea—­the thing is so impossible!  But of course,” she rallied her spirit to protest, “I do not think they would sew me in a sack with a stone and drop me in the river, like the odalisques of yesterday!”

She added, her voice uncertain in spite of her, “I meant only to stay a moment.”

“Which is the way?” said Jack briefly.

With caution he opened the gate into the black canyon of the lane.  Silence and darkness.  Not a loiterer, only one of the furtive starved dogs, slinking back from some rubbish....

The girl moved forward and keeping closely at her side he followed; they crossed to the other wall, and turned towards the right, stopping before the deeper shadow of a small, pointed door set into the heavy brick of the high wall.  From her draperies the girl drew out a huge key.