The Arab glanced at her keenly, wondering if she could be in earnest.
She fluttered her fan and smiled over the top of it with a bewitching look.
“You’re not much of a talker, are you?” she went on. “Well, never mind. American girls can speak for themselves, and the men, too.”
“Are you from America, miss?”
“Sure thing. I’m from Cleveland, Ohio. Really, I started out to travel round the world, writing newspaper letters for the home papers; but all the papers have cut me off, and I’m stranded. I don’t care about going back home, for I made up my mind to catch a rich husband on the trip. Now, if you could put me next with some old gazabo who has lots of the needful, and I succeeded in raking him in, I’d willingly make it worth your while.”
Ras al Had drew a deep breath of wonderment. Although he did not fully understand her, he comprehended that this was one of the free-and-easy young ladies of the Western world of whom he had heard. She was young and bewitching in appearance, but her manner of talk seemed to betray a knowledge of the world one would not suspect her to possess.
The sheik shook his head.
“I can give you no assistance,” he declared.
She laughed and sprang up, crossing the floor toward him.
He rose hastily.