later--_n'est-ce-pas?_"

"Yes, I will know as soon as I return from the Nile. You are going
to a lot of bother, you and your sister," declared Arlee gratefully.

"I go to ask you to take a little trouble, then, for that sister,"
said the Captain slowly. "She is a widow and alone. Her life is--is
_triste_--melancholy is your English word. Not much of brightness,
of new things, of what you call pleasure, enters into that life, and
she enjoys to meet foreign ladies who are not--what shall I
say?--seekers after curiosities, who think our ladies are strange
sights behind the bars. You know that the Europeans come uninvited
to our wedding receptions and make the strange questions!"

Arlee had the grace to blush, remembering her own avid desire to
make her way into one of those receptions, where the doors of the
Moslem harem are thrown open to the feminine world in widespread
hospitality.

The Captain went on, slowly, his eyes upon her, "But she knows that
you are not one of those others and has requested that you do her
the grace to call upon her. I assured her that you would, for I know
that you are kind, and also," with an air of naïve pride which Arlee
found admirable in him, "it is not all the world who is invited to
the home of our--our _haut-monde_, you understand?... And then it
will interest you to see how our ladies live in that seclusion which
is so droll to you. Confess you have heard strange stories," and he
smiled in quizzical raillery upon her.

The girl's flush deepened with the memory of the confusing stories