The man Rashid could wait upon us all.' Rashid, I knew, was listening at the door.
'Us all?
How many of you are there, then ?' He hemmed a moment ere replying: 'I--er--think of taking the Miss Karams with me'-- Miss Sara Karam, a young lady of Syrian birth but English education, was head teacher at the girls' school, and her younger sister, Miss Habibah Karam, was her constant visitor--'I thought you might take charge of the younger of the two.

The trip will give them both great pleasure, I am sure.' And they were going to Jezzin, where there was no hotel, and we should have to herd together in the village guest-room! What would my Arab friends, censorious in all such matters, think of that?
I told him plainly what I thought of the idea, and what the mountain-folk would think of it and all of us.

I told him that I had no wish to ruin any woman's reputation, nor to be forced into unhappy marriage by a public scandal.

He, as a visitor, would go away again; as an old man, and professionally holy, his good name could hardly suffer among English people.

But the girls would have to live among the mountaineers, who, knowing of their escapade, would thenceforth scorn them.