“An ardent idiot,” thrust in McLean unfeelingly.  “Knocking a woman about the desert....  Not much chance of a clue after all these years,” he concluded with a very British air of dismissal.

But the French agent was not to be sundered from the American who remembered the book of Delcasse.

From his pocket he brought a leather case and from the case a large and ornate gold locket.

“His picture, monsieur.”  He pressed the spring and offered Ryder the miniature.  “It was done in France before he returned on that last trip, and was left with the aunt.  It is said to be a good likeness.”

Ryder looked down upon the young face presented to his gaze with a feeling of sympathy for this unlucky searcher of the past who had left his own secret in the sands he had come to conquer—­sympathy mingled with blank wonder at the insanity which had brought a woman with it....

McLean couldn’t understand a man’s doing it.

Jack Ryder couldn’t understand a man’s wanting to do it.  Love to Ryder was incomprehensible idiocy.  Woman, as far as he was concerned, had never been created.  She was still a spectacle, an historical record, an uncomprehended motive.

“Nice looking chap,” he commented briefly, fingering the curious old case as he handed it back.

“I’ll keep up the inquiries,” McLean assured them, “but, as I said, nothing will come of it....  It’s been fifteen years.  One more grain lost in the desert of sand....  By luck, you know, you might just stumble on something, some native who knew the story, but if fever carried them off and the Arabs rifled their camp, as I fancy, they’ll jolly well keep their mouths shut.  No white man will know....  I don’t advise your people to spend much money on the search.”

“Odd, the inquiries we get,” he commented to Ryder when the Frenchmen had completed their courteous farewells.  “You’d think the Bank was a Bureau of Information!  Yesterday there was a stir about two crazy lads who are supposed to have joined the Mecca pilgrims in disguise....  Of course our clerks are Copts and do pick up a bit and the Copts will talk....  I say, Jack, what are you doing?” he broke off to demand in astonishment, for Jack Ryder had seated himself upon a divan and was absorbedly rolling up his trouser leg.

“The dear Egyptian flea?” he added.

“Not at all.  I am looking at my knees,” said Ryder glumly.  “I just remembered that I have to show them to-night....  A ball—­in masquerade.  At a hotel.  Tourist crowd....  How do you think they’ll look with one of your Scotch plaidies atop?” he inquired feelingly.

“Fascinating, Jack, fascinating,” said the promptly sardonic McLean.  “You—­at a masquerade!...  So that’s what brought you to town.”

He cocked a taunting eye at him.  “Well, well, she must be a most engaging young person—­you’ll be taking her out on the desert with you now, like our friend Delcasse—­a pleasant, retired spot for a body to have his honeymoon ... no distractions of society ... undiluted companionship, you might say....  Now what made you think she’d like your knees?” he murmured contemplatively.  “Aren’t you just a bit—­previous?  Apt to startle and frighten the lady?”