"And so he had his tomb made where he could overlook the whole city
and observe the conduct of his widows."

"They could move," objected Miss Jeffries.

"The female of the Mohammedan species is not the free agent that you
imagine," Ryder retorted, beginning with a smile and ending with a
queer, reminiscent pang. He had a moment's rather complicated twinge
of amusement at her reactions if she should know that to an
encounter with a female of the Mohammedan species was to be
attributed his departure from her party last night.

And then he remembered that he hadn't decided yet what to tell her
and the time was undoubtedly at hand.

The time _was_ at hand. The Pendletons were too thorough-going
Americans not to abdicate before the young. They did not saunter
self-consciously away and make any opportunity for Jack and Jinny,
as sympathetic European chaperons might have done; they sat
matter-of-factedly upon the rocks while their competent young people
betook themselves to higher heights.

Conscientiously Ryder was pointing out the pyramid fields.

"Gizeh, Abusir, Sakkara, Dahsur--and now here, if you look--that's
the Medun pyramid--that tiny, sharp prick. If we had glasses...."

"Yes; but why didn't you like the ball?" murmured Jinny the direct.

"I did like the ball. Very much."

"Then why didn't you stay?"

"I--I wasn't feeling top-hole," he murmured lamely, wondering why
girls always wanted to go back and stir up dogs that had gone
comfortably to sleep.

"Did it come on suddenly?" said Jinny, unsympathetically, her eyes
still upon the pyramids.

Something whimsical twitched at Jack Ryder's lips. "Very suddenly.
Like thunder, out of China crost the bay."

"I suppose that dancing with the same girl in succession brings on
the seizures?"

So she had noticed that!... Not for nothing were those bright, gray
eyes of hers! Not for nothing the red hair.

"Well, I rather think it did," he said deliberately. "That girl was
a child who hadn't danced in four years--so she said, and I believe
her."

And Jinny received what he intended to convey. "Stepped on your
buckled shoon and you felt a martyr?... But why bolt? There were
other girls who _had_ danced within four years--"

"I went into the garden," he murmured. "The fact is, I was feeling
awfully--queer," he brought out in an odd tone.

Queer was a good word for it. He let it go at that. He couldn't do
better.

Jinny looked suddenly uncertain. Her piqu