"You American girls--your ways are absolute like the decrees of
Allah!" he laughed softly. "But tell me--what will your father and
your mother say to this so rapidly changing from the one chaperon to
the other?"

"I haven't any father or mother," said the girl. "I have a big,
grown-up, married brother, and he knows I wouldn't change from one
party unless it was all right." She laughed amusedly at the young
man's comic gesture of bewilderment. "You think we American girls
are terribly independent."

"I do, indeed," he avowed, "but," and he inclined his dark head in
graceful gallantry, "it is the independence of the princess of the
blood royal."

A really nice way of putting it, Arlee thought, contrasting the
chivalrous homage of this Oriental with the dreadful "American
goose!" of the Anglo-Saxon.

"But tell me," he went on, studying her face with an oddly intent
look, "do these friends now, the Evershams, know these others,
the--the----"

"Maynards," she supplied. "Oh, no, they have never met each other.
The Maynards are friends I made at school. And Brother has never met
them either," she added, enjoying his humorous mystification.

"The decrees of Allah!" he murmured again. "But I will promise you
an invitation for your chaperon and arrange for the name of the lady