mself 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?"

"Oh, go on, go on," Ryder exhorted bitterly. "I like it. It's better
than I can do myself. Go on.... But while you are talking trot out
your tartans. Something clannish now--one of those ancestral rigs
that you are always cherishing ... Rich and red, to set off my dark,
handsome type."

"Set off you'll be, Jack dear," promised McLean, dragging out a huge
chest. "Set off you'll be."

* * * * *

Set off he was.

And a fool he felt himself that night, as he confronted his
brilliant image in the glass. A Scot of the Scots, kilted in vivid
plaid, a rakish cap on his black hair, a tartan draped across his
shoulder, short, heavy stockings clasping his legs and low shoes gay
with big buckles.

"Oh, young Lochinvar has come out of the west," warbled McLean
merrily, as he straightened the shoulder pin of silver and Scotch
topaz.

"Out of Hades," said Ryder, rather pointlessly, for he felt it was
Hades he was going into.

Chiefly he was concerned with his knees and the striking contrast
between their sheltered whiteness and the desert brown of his
face.... Milky pale they gleamed at him from the glass.... Bony
hard, they flaunted their angles at every move.... He was grateful
that he was not a centipede.

"Oh, 'twas all for my rightful king,
That I gaed o'er the border;
Twas all for--

"You didn't tell me her name, now, Jack."

"Where's my mask?" Ryder was muttering. "I say, aren't there any
pockets in these confounded petti