Of moods he had many.  Moods when he contemplated his behavior lightly and brightly or darkly, in unrelieved disgust, moods when he refused to contemplate it at all.  But he stayed.  That was the conspicuous and enduring thing.  He stayed.

Jinny Jeffries returned from the Nile by express to find him ensconced at her hotel, and her bright confidence suffered no diminution of its self respect.  And it was through Jinny that chance set another straw of circumstance dancing his way.

Jinny had a frock she wished repaired.  Mrs. Heath-Brown, whom she had met upon the Nile, recommended to her a Mrs. Hendricks, wife of a British soldier and a most clever little needle woman.  Jinny looked up Mrs. Hendricks and found it impossible to secure her for some days as she was busy refitting for a fashionable wedding in the Mohammedan world.

A night later, and two nights before the wedding, Jinny made a narrative of the circumstances for Jack Ryder’s benefit.

“Such frocks h’as h’I ’ave to do—­and the young lady no more caring!” had been a saying of the Hendricks that Jinny passed interestedly on to Jack.  She had no memory of the young lady’s name, but distinctly she recalled that she was young and beautiful and to marry a general.

It was enough to launch Jinny’s eager interest in Mohammedan marriages and foster the wish that she might attend one.  She regretted Mrs. Heath-Brown’s absence and her lack of acquaintance, and suggested that Jack ought to know some one—­

“Better than that, I’ll take you,” said Jack with a promptness that brought a light to Miss Jeffries’ eyes.

There was also a light in Jack Ryder’s eyes, a swift burning of excitement and adventure.

Why not?  The thing was possible.  Muffled in a tcharchaf and veiled with a heavy yashmak, armed with enough Arabic for the briefest of encounters, he might dare the danger.  Who in the world would discover him?  Who would ever know?

The thing was unthinkable.  It was a desperate desecration, comparable only, in his vague analogies, to the Mecca pilgrimage and profanation of a Holy Tomb.  But its very improbability would prevent detection.

Only Jinny had to keep her mouth extremely shut—­before and afterwards.

He impressed this upon her so thoroughly, as they did their shopping for the costume together the next morning, that she had compunctious moments of solicitude when she said he really ought not to....  She would feel responsible....

Thereupon he laughed, and dared her to be game, and she grew all mirthful confidence again.

But that night, sitting alone in a native cafe over his Turkish coffee, Ryder was grimly serious.

He knew that it was a mad thing to do.  He felt, not so much the danger he ran from discovery, but the danger to his already shattered peace of mind from another glimpse of that strange girl ... that young unknown, on whom he had spent such time and thought, of late, that she seemed a very part of his existence.