The next moment they were laughing the sudden, incredibly absorbed
laughter of youth.

"No husband. I am one of the young revoltées--the moderns--and I am
the only daughter of a most indulgent father."

"Well, that's something to the good," was Ryder's comment upon that.
He added, "But if that most indulgent father caught you--"

He looked down at her. The secret trouble of her answering look told
him more than its assumption of courage.

This was no boarding school girl lingering beyond hours.... This was
a high-born Moslem, risking more than he could well know.

The escapade was suddenly serious, tremendously menacing.

She answered faintly, "I have no idea--the thing is so impossible!
But of course," she rallied her spirit to protest, "I do not think
they would sew me in a sack with a stone and drop me in the river,
like the odalisques of yesterday!"

She added, her voice uncertain in spite of her, "I meant only to
stay a moment."

"Which is the way?" said Jack briefly.

With caution he opened the gate into the black canyon of the lane.
Silence and darkness. Not a loiterer, only one of the furtive
starved dogs, slinking back from some rubbish....