McLean moved toward the door. "We might go and mount guard in the corridor," he suggested, and he and Jinny stepped outside, back into the everyday world of Egypt where nothing at all had been happening but the arrival of a caravan from the excavations. Within the room Ryder stooped and lifted the girl from the case and set her lightly on the floor. Ruefully she shook out the torn chiffons of that French audacity of a robe, and with a whimsical smile surveyed the soiled little slippers that she had discarded in her disguise when she had ridden behind the turbaned Ryder upon the Arab horse. So little time ago, and yet so long away-- Under her long lashes she looked up at the young man, who had set the old life crumbling about her at a touch. Wistfulness edged the brave smile with which she murmured, "And so it is all arranged--so quick. I am safe--I go to the hotel with that nice girl--" "And I won't be able to see you," he said suddenly. "But you have seen me, monsieur, these many days--" "Seen you? I haven't seen you. I've sat outside a tomb on guard, I've marched beside a mummy case--and--and we've said so little--" It was true. They had said little. The hours had been absorbed in action. Their words had always been of explanation, of reassurance, of anxious planning. Of the future, the future after safety had been achieved, they had said nothing. It had all been uncertain, nebulous, vague.... And now it was upon them. "And I have never said Thank you," she murmured. "I--I think I began by saying Thank you, monsieur. I remember saying that my education had proceeded to the Ts!" "If--if only you never want to unsay it," he muttered. "You don't know what's ahead--life's so uncertain--" "No, I do not know what is ahead," she told him, "but I am free--free for whatever will come." The brightness of that freedom shone suddenly from her upturned face. "Anything is better than that man," she vowed. "Even if my aunt, that Madame Delcassé, should not like me--you see, I have thought of everything, and I am not afraid." "Like you--? She'll love you," said Ryder bitterly. "She'll go mad over you and give you all she has--she'll marry you to a count--" "Another marriage?" Aimée raised brows of mockery. "But I am through with the marriages of convenience--" "You're so lovely, darling, that you'll have the world at your feet," said the young man huskily. He looked at her with eyes that could not hide their pain. "Oh, I--you--it's not fair--" he muttered incoherently. He had meant--ever since that sobering moment of guardianship in the desert--to be very fair. He would not bind her with a word, a touch. Not since that impulsive clasp of reunion in the palace had he touched her in caress. With the reverence of his deep tenderness he had served her in the tomb, meaning to deny his heart, to delay its revelation, to wait upon her freedom and her youth.... Nobly he had resolved.... But now parting was upon him.