"You'd think it her picture."

"It's an uncommon face." McLean bent over it again. "I fancied the
artist had just been making a bit of beauty, but if there's a girl
like that--! Fancy stumbling on that!... But where is she? And what
name does she go by?"

"Oh, her name--she doesn't know her own, of course." Ryder paused
uncertainly. "She's in Cairo," he began again vaguely. "She'd be
just about the right age--eighteen or so. She--she's had awf'ly
hard luck." Distressfully he hesitated.

The shrewd eyes of McLean dwelt upon him in sorrowful silence. "Eh,
Jock," he said at last, with mock scandal scarcely veiling rebuke.
"I did not know that you knew any of that sort--the poor, wee lost
thing.... Tell me, now--"

"Tell you you're off your chump," said Jack rudely. "She's no lost
lamb. Fact is, she's never spoken to a man--except myself." He
rather enjoyed the start this gave McLean after his insinuations. It
helped him on with his story.

"The girl doesn't know her own name at all, I gather. She thinks
she's the daughter of Tewfick Pasha. Her mother married the Turk and
died very soon afterwards and he brought up this girl as his own.
She says she's his only child."

He paused, ostensibly to blow an elaborate smoke ring, but actually
to enjoy McLean's astonishment. As astonishment, it was distinctly