If he had not come!  That would have dealt a sorrily humiliating blow.

But he was here.  And reassured and haughty, repeating that she was mortally offended, her spirit alternating between pride and shame and a delicious fear, she stood there in the shrubbery, fascinated, like a wild, shy thing of another age.

“That was old Miriam,” she explained constrainedly.  “My father had come in—­with unexpectedness.”

“Lord, it was lucky you were back!”

“Yes, it was—­lucky,” she assented.  “If it had been half an hour before—­”

She broke off.  There came to the young man a sobering perception of the risk she ran, of the supreme folly of this escapade to which they were entrusting themselves.

It was a realization that deserved some consideration.  But, obstinately, with young carelessness, he shook it off.  After all, this was comparatively safe for her.  She was not out of bounds.  At an alarm he could slip away and no one could ever know.  What risk there might be was chiefly his own.

“When you asked who it was,” he murmured, “it occurred to me that you did not know my name—­nor I yours.  My own,” he added, as she stood unresponsive, “is Ryder—­Jack Ryder.  You can always get a letter to me at the Agricultural Bank.  That is the quickest way.  My friend, McLean there, always knows where my diggings are.  When in Cairo I stop with him; or at the Rossmore House.”

“I shall not need to get a letter to you, monsieur,” she told him stiffly.

“But, if you did, how would you sign it?”

“Aimee....  That is French—­after my mother.”

“Aimee.  That means Beloved, doesn’t it?”

She was silent.

Surely, she thought with a swelling heart, if he were sorry he would tell her now.  It was the moment for contrition, for appeasement, for whatever explanation his American ways might have.

She had thought about him all night.  She had given his declaration a hundred forms—­but always it had been a declaration.

Now she waited, flagellating her sensitive pride.

Ryder was conscious of the constraint tightening about them and in the dragging pause an uncomfortable common sense had time to put its disconcerting questions.

What did it matter what her name meant?  What in the world was he doing here?....  And what did she think she was doing here?...  Not that he wanted her to go....

And suddenly it didn’t matter—­whatever they thought.  It was enough that they were together in that still, soft, jasmine-scented dark.  He was breathing quickly; his pulses were beating; he had a feeling of strange, heady delight.

The crescent moon was up at last, sailing clear of the house tops, sending its bright rays through the filigree of tall shrubs.  A finger of light edged the contour of her shrouded head.

He bent a little closer.

“Won’t you,” he said softly, “take off your veil for me?”