“It is an idle life, less idle for me perhaps than for some of those about me, but even for me not over-full of occupations.  The climate occupies all the time not actually spent in eating, sleeping and visiting ruins.  It is fair, I suppose, to tell you something of myself since I ask for news of you.  I will tell you what I can.

“I am travelling with an old lady, as her companion—­not exactly out of inclination and yet not exactly out of duty.  Is that too mysterious?  Do you see me as Companion and general amuser to an old lady—­over seventy years of age?  No.  I presume not.  And I am not with her by necessity either, for I have not suffered any losses.  On the contrary, since I dismissed a certain person—­an attendant, we will call her—­from my service, it seems to me that my income is doubled.  The attendant, by the bye, has opened a hotel on the Lake of Como.  Perhaps you, who are so good a man of business, may see some connexion between these simple facts.  I was never good at managing money, nor at understanding what it meant.  It seems that I have not inherited all the family talents.

“But I return to Egypt, to the Nile, to this dahabiyah, on board of which it has pleased the fates to dispose my existence for the present.  I am not called a companion, but a lady in waiting, which would be only another term for the same thing, if I were not really very much attached to the Princess, old and deaf as she is.  And that is saying a great deal.  No one knows what deafness means who has not read aloud to a deaf person, which is what I do every day.  I do not think I ever told you about her.  I have known her all my life, ever since I was a little girl in the convent in Vienna.  She used to come and see me and bring me good things—­and books of prayers—­I remember especially a box of candied fruits which she told me came from Kiew.  I have never eaten any like them since.  I wonder how many sincere affections between young and old people owe their existence originally to a confectioner!

“When I left Rome, I met her again in Nice.  She was there with the Prince, who was in wretched health and who died soon afterwards.  He never was so fond of me as she was.  After his death, she asked me to stay with her as long as I would.  I do not think I shall leave her again so long as she lives.  She treats me like her own child—­or rather, her grandchild—­and besides, the life suits me very well.  I am, really, perfectly independent, and yet I am perfectly protected.  I shall not repeat the experiment of living alone for three years, until I am much older.

“It is a rather strange friendship.  My Princess knows all about me—­all that you know.  I told her one day and she did not seem at all surprised.  I thought I owed her the truth about myself, since I was to live with her, and since she had always been so kind to