“Then you will bury even the memory of this time and never whisper a word of it,” he told her stoutly.  “The talk and explanation will be over five minutes after your return.  The thing is, to manage that return.  Now the Evershams left Friday and this is Wednesday—­six days.”

“Only six days,” she echoed with a ghost of a sigh.

“Now let me see where were we on the sixth day?  When I was on the Nile?” He knitted his brows over it.  “Why, the steamer leaves Assiout at noon of the fifth day—­that was yesterday.”

“Oh!  I must have passed them on the Nile,” cried Arlee.

“Maragha is where they stopped last night.  To-day they’ll be steaming along steadily and stop to-night at Desneh.  To-morrow night they’ll be at Luxor.”

“And they stay three days at Luxor?”

“The steamer does, I believe.  I left the steamer there and went to the hotel for a while and spent another while at Thebes with a friend of mine.”

“The excavator!” cried Arlee quickly.

“Then you do remember,” said Billy with a direct look, “that dance and——­”

“And our talk,” she finished gaily.  “And your being Phi Beta Kappa.  Oh, I was properly impressed!  And I didn’t know then that you were a regular Sherlock Holmes as well.”

“I didn’t know it either,” said Billy grinning.  But he knew that she didn’t know now how much of a Sherlock Holmes he had managed to be for her.

“That seems ages ago,” she declared, “and in an altogether different world.  The only real world seems to be this desert——­”

“Bedouin breakfast and camel races,” finished Billy.  “And it’s so much of a lark for me that I can’t keep my mind on the problem of the future.  But I have to get you to Luxor by to-morrow night——­”

“And I can’t arrive in the rags and tatters of a white silk calling gown,” mentioned Arlee cheerfully, surveying her disreputable and most delightful disarray.  “I must have trunks and a respectable air—­and a chaperon, I suppose.”

“And I won’t do at that.  But if you get to Luxor you’ll be all right.  You can go to the hotel and to-morrow night the Evershams’ boat will get in about seven in the evening.”

“Did you say my trunks were sent to Cook’s?”

He repeated the story of the telegram to the Evershams.  Over the arrival of the boy with money for her hotel bill she wrinkled her brows in perplexity.  “I suppose he thought there would be less discussion about me if my bills were paid,” she said finally.  “But I’d like to get that money back to him.”

“I’ll see he gets it—­with interest,” responded Billy.

“And you——?” She looked up at him with a startled, vivid blush that stained her soft skin from throat to brow.  “You must have been to a great deal of expense——­”

“Not a bit.  Please don’t——­”

“But I must.  When I get to a bank.  I still have my letter of credit with me,” she said thankfully, “but it didn’t do me any good in that wretched palace.  It was just paper to them.  I showed it to the girl once and tried to make her understand.”