Wisdom and counsel looked significantly out at him out of those patriarchal eyes. Prudence and sanity clamored within him for a hearing.
And then he smiled, the whimsical, boyish smile of young adventuring.
"But whoever, O, my father, had opened that forbidden door the veriest crack, and breathed its scent and glimpsed its dazzlement—then for him there is no turning back," he confided.
He rose and Khazib's eyes followed him.
"Luck go with you, my son," he said clearly, "in Allah's name," and smiling in faint ruefulness, "May Allah heed thee!" Ryder murmured piously.
CHAPTER XII
THE UNINVITED GUEST
Now as he stood before Aimée, and saw her eyes widen with recognition, he knew that he would have need of all his luck and all his wit. He stepped hastily forward.
"Alhamdolillah—Glory to God that he has permitted me to behold you this day," he murmured, in the studiously sing-song Arabic that might be expected from a humble Turkish woman in plain mantle and yashmak. "May Allah continue to spread before thee the carpet of enjoyment—" and then lower, almost muffled by the thick veil, "Can you give me a moment—?"