"Better than that, I'll take you," said Jack with a promptness that brought a light to Miss Jeffries' eyes.
There was also a light in Jack Ryder's eyes, a swift burning of excitement and adventure.
Why not? The thing was possible. Muffled in a tcharchaf and veiled with a heavy yashmak, armed with enough Arabic for the briefest of encounters, he might dare the danger. Who in the world would discover him? Who would ever know?
The thing was unthinkable. It was a desperate desecration, comparable only, in his vague analogies, to the Mecca pilgrimage and profanation of a Holy Tomb. But its very improbability would prevent detection.
Only Jinny had to keep her mouth extremely shut—before and afterwards.
He impressed this upon her so thoroughly, as they did their shopping for the costume together the next morning, that she had compunctious moments of solicitude when she said he really ought not to.... She would feel responsible....
Thereupon he laughed, and dared her to be game, and she grew all mirthful confidence again.
But that night, sitting alone in a native café over his Turkish coffee, Ryder was grimly serious.
He knew that it was a mad thing to do. He felt, not so much the danger he ran from discovery, but the danger to his already shattered peace of mind from another glimpse of that strange girl ... that young unknown, on whom he had spent such time and thought, of late, that she seemed a very part of his existence.
What was the good of going to her wedding reception? Feebly he told himself that it was his only chance to inform her upon the history of the Delcassés. There might have been reasons for her non-appearance at the gate, for her not writing.... He could have no glimmering of what went on behind those barred windows. This was his only chance—he meant to say, to tell her—but his eager senses murmured, to see her again.