“In the first place she will be tall. Your idea of the ludicrous would not let you marry a small woman. She will have large hands and feet, and the latter will be heavily shod. That is how in London I always pick out the girls who live in the country. She will be handsome rather than pretty, for the reason that your taste lies in that direction. She will not flirt, because she will be in love with you. She will be an admirable housewife of the solid order, and while I should be prepared to trust to her judgment in the matter of dogs and horses, roots, crops, and the dairy farm, finer susceptibilities she will have none. Do you like the picture?” “Scarcely,” said Henderson; “and yet, when all is said and done a man might do worse.” There was a pause, during which each man knew what the other was thinking about. Godfrey was recalling Teresina’s beautiful face, and Fensden knew that he was doing so. “By the way,” said Fensden, very quietly, “I noticed this morning that you received a letter bearing an Italian post-mark. Would it be indiscreet if I inquired your correspondent’s name?” “I don’t see why there should be any mystery about it,” Henderson replied. “It was from Teresina.” “From Teresina?” said the other, with a look of surprise. “Yes, from Teresina,” his friend answered. “I made her promise before we left home that should she leave England she would let me have her address, and, if she were in need of anything, she would communicate with me. You can see the letter if you like. Here it is.” He took the letter in question from his pocket and handed it to his companion. It consisted of only a few lines and gave the writer’s address with the hope that the time might soon come when she would again be allowed to sit to “her kind patron.” Victor, having perused it, handed it back to Godfrey, who replaced it in his pocket without a word. Two days later they returned by steamer to Cairo, where they took up their abode at the Mena House Hotel. Godfrey preferred it, because it was some distance from the dust of the city, and Fensden because he averred that the sneer on the face of the Sphinx soothed him more than all the luxuries of Cairo. As it was, he sat in the veranda of the hotel and made impressionist sketches of dragomen, camels, and the backsheesh-begging Bedouins of the Pyramids. Godfrey found it impossible to work. “I am absorbing ideas,” he said. “The work will come later on.” In the meantime he played polo in the Ghezireh, shot jackals in the desert, flirted with the charming tourists in the verandas of the hotel, and enjoyed himself immensely in his own fashion. Then one day he received a telegram from England announcing the fact that his mother was seriously ill, and asking him to return without delay. “I am sincerely sorry,” said Fensden, politely. Then he added, regretfully: “I suppose our tour must now, like all good things, come to an end. When do you leave?”