"Oh, yes, I may do that as soon as some other friends of mine, the Maynards, reach here. They are coming here on their way to the Holy Land and I want to take that trip with them. And then I'll probably go back to America with them."
The Turkish captain stared at her, his dark eyes rather inscrutable, though a certain wonder was permitted to be felt in them.
"You American girls—your ways are absolute like the decrees of Allah!" he laughed softly. "But tell me—what will your father and your mother say to this so rapidly changing from the one chaperon to the other?"
"I haven't any father or mother," said the girl. "I have a big, grown-up, married brother, and he knows I wouldn't change from one party unless it was all right." She laughed amusedly at the young man's comic gesture of bewilderment. "You think we American girls are terribly independent."
"I do, indeed," he avowed, "but," and he inclined his dark head in graceful gallantry, "it is the independence of the princess of the blood royal."
A really nice way of putting it, Arlee thought, contrasting the chivalrous homage of this Oriental with the dreadful "American goose!" of the Anglo-Saxon.
"But tell me," he went on, studying her face with an oddly intent look, "do these friends now, the Evershams, know these others, the—the——"
"Maynards," she supplied. "Oh, no, they have never met each other. The Maynards are friends I made at school. And Brother has never met them either," she added, enjoying his humorous mystification.
"The decrees of Allah!" he murmured again. "But I will promise you an invitation for your chaperon and arrange for the name of the lady 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.