“And so you opened it, monsieur.”  Faintly she smiled, with downcast lashes.

“And I came as you first came to me—­in mantle and veil.”

For a moment their thoughts fled back to that masquerade, which seemed so long ago.

“But it is too late,” she said tremulously.

“Is it too late—­for me to help you?”

At that her eyes rose to his again in a swift flash of hunted fear.

“Oh, take me away from him!” she breathed suddenly, unpremeditately.  “Somehow—­somewhere—­”

Another figure came towards them.  Madame De Coulevain in all her severe elegance of black.

“Come and join your friends at the supper, my dear; there is no need for you to be pilloried here any longer,” she observed with an indifferent scrutiny of the persistent veiled woman, and Ryder moved slowly away while Aimee came dutifully down from the throne, a huge black bending to hold her train.

“I thought you were never coming!  What were you talking about?” demanded a voice in Ryder’s ear, and he found Jinny Jeffries at his side, her bright gray eyes pouncing upon him with curiosity.

“Oh, I wished her joy—­native phrases—­that sort of thing,” he answered mechanically as they drew back into an embrasure of the mashrubiyeh that formed one side of the great room.

“But you were talking forever.  I saw you holding forth at a tremendous rate.  Why wouldn’t you let me stay and listen—?”

“You’d have put me off my shot, I had to feel unobserved to play up.”

“You must be fearfully good at Arabic,” said Jinny guilelessly.  “And what did she say?”

“Why—­she didn’t say anything in particular—­”

“But what was that she was showing you?  I saw her bend forward with a locket or something—?”

A plague upon Jinny’s bright eyes!  “Oh, yes, the locket,” said Ryder with an effort.  “She—­ah—­she showed it to me.”

“But why?  Wasn’t that awfully funny—­”

“Oh, I believe it’s a custom, courtesy stunt you know, to show a poor guest some of the presents,” he explained, manufacturing under pressure.

“I wish she’d show me her rings.  Did you ever see so many?  It was the only thing about her you’d call really Eastern—­all those glittering diamonds on her fingers.  And did you notice her hands?” Jinny went on enthusiastically.  “Jack, I never knew there was anything so lovely as that girl in the world.  She’s simply exquisite....  I suppose it’s her whole life,” Miss Jeffries reflected, “keeping herself beautiful.”  Her eyes rested curiously on the feminine groups before them.  “They haven’t anything else to do or think about, have they?”

“I understand some of them are remarkably educated young women.”

“What’s the use of it?” said the practical daughter of an American college.  “They can’t ever meet any men, but just a husband—­”