Jinny looked suddenly uncertain. Her pique was streaked with compunction. She had been horribly angry with him for running away, and she remembered his opposition to the idea enough to be suspicious of any disappearance—but there was certainly an accent of embarrassed sincerity about him.
Perhaps he had been ill. Sudden seizures were not unknown in Egypt. And for all his desert brown he didn't look very rugged.
She murmured, "I hope you hadn't taken anything that disagreed with you."
"H'm—it rather agreed with me at the time," said Jack, and then brought himself up short. "I expect I haven't looked very sharp after myself—"
But Jinny did not wholly renounce her idea. "Does it always take you at dances you don't want to go to?"
"That's unfair. I came, you know."
"You came—and went."
"I'd have been all right if I hadn't come," he murmured, and Jinny felt suddenly ashamed of herself.
"Do you suppose that you would stay all right if you came to dinner?" she offered pacificably. "It's our last night, you know, till we come back from the Nile."
"I wish I could." Ryder stopped short. Now, why didn't he? Certainly he didn't intend—