e--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