“You’re going to be a delight. You know in the cinematograph how an invisible pencil writes things on the sheet—or how a message is stamped out on the tape, and you look and wonder what’s coming next. Well, I want to see how this country is going to be stamped letter by letter on your virgin mind. It’s a thing I’ve been longing for—to show somebody with sense like yourself, Egypt of the Pharaohs and Egypt of the English. How long can you stay?” “Indefinitely,” said Martin. “I have no plans.” “From here you might go to Honolulu or Rangoon?” “Or Greenland or Cape Horn,” said Martin. She nodded smiling approval. “That is what I call a free and enlightened Citizen of the World. Let us sit down. I’m waiting for my friend, Mrs. Dangerfield of Philadelphia. Her husband’s here too. You will like them. I generally travel round with somebody, just for the sake of a table-companion. I’m silly enough to feel a fool eating alone every day in a restaurant.” He drew a wicker chair for her and sat beside her. She deposited parasol and gloves on the little round table, and swept him with a quizzical glance from his well-fitting brown shoes to his trim black hair. “May I without impertinence compliment you on your colour-scheme?” His olive cheek flushed like a girl’s. He had devoted an hour’s concentrated thought to it before he rose. How should he appear in the presence of the divinity? He had decided on grey flannels, grey shirt, purple socks and tie. He wondered whether she guessed the part she had played in his anxious selection. Remembering the splotch of grease, he said: “I hadn’t much choice of clothes when you last saw me.” She laughed. “Tell me all about Brantôme. How is my dear little friend Félise?” He gave her discreet news. “And the incomparable Fortinbras?” “You’ll doubtless soon be able to judge for yourself. He’s here.” “In Cairo? You don’t say!” Mingled with her expression of surprise was a little perplexity of the brow, as though, seeing the Fortinbras of the Petit Cornichon, she wondered what on earth she could do with him. “He came with me,” said Martin. “Is he staying in this hotel?” “No,” said Martin. Her brow grew smooth again. “How did he manage to get all this way? Has he retired from business?” “I don’t think so. He needed a holiday. You see he came into a little money on the death of his wife.” “His wife dead?” Lucilla queried. “Félise’s mother? I didn’t know. Perhaps that’s why she hasn’t written to me for such a long time. I think there must be some queer story connected with that mother,” she added shrewdly. “Anyway, Fortinbras can’t be broken-hearted, or he wouldn’t come on a jaunt to Egypt.”