ids and fled from the ostrich farm.
He had withheld from inviting her to the camp on the edge of the
Libyan desert where he was excavating, although her party had shown
unmistakable signs of a willingness to be diverted from the beaten
path of its travel.

And he was not calling on her now. He had come to Cairo for supplies
and she had encountered him by chance upon a corner of the crowded
Mograby, and there promptly she had invited him to to-night's ball.

"But it's not my line, you know, Jinny," he was protesting. "I'm so
fearfully out of dancing--"

"More reason to come, Jack. You need a change from digging up ruins
all the time--it must be frightfully lonely out there on the desert.
I can't think how you stand it."

Jack Ryder smiled. There was no mortal use in explaining to Jinny
Jeffries that his life on the desert was the only life in the world,
that his ruins held more thrills than all the fevers of her tourist
crowds, and that he would rather gaze upon the mummied effigy of any
lady of the dynasty of Amenhotep than upon the freshest and fairest
of the damsels of the present day.

It would only tax Jinny's credulity and hurt her feelings. And he
liked Jinny--though not as he liked Queen Hatasu or the little
nameless creature he had dug out of a king's ante-room.

Jinny was an interfering modern. She was the incarnation of
impossible demands.

But of course there was no real reason why he should not stop over
and go to the dance.

* * * * *

Ten minutes later, when she had extracted his promise and abandoned
him to the costumers, he was scourging his weakness.

He had known better! Very well, then, let him take his medicine. Let
him go as--here he disgustedly eyed the garment that the Greek was
presenting--as Little Lord Fauntleroy! He deserved it.

Shudderingly he looked away from the pretty velvet suit; he scorned
the monk's robes that were too redolent of former wearers; he
rejected the hot livery of a Russian mujik; he flouted the banality
of the Pierrot pantaloons.

Thankfully he remembered McLean. Kilts, that was the thing. Tartans,
the real Scotch plaids. Some use, now, McLean's precious
sporrans.... He'd look him up at once.

Out of the crowded Mograby he made his way on foot to the Esbekeyih
quarters where the streets were wider and emptier of Cairene
traffickers and shrill itinerates and laden camels and jostling
donkeys.

It was a glorious day, a day o