One represented a woman from thirty-eight to forty years, corpulent, robust, covered with horrible cheap jewelry that she had evidently put on for the purpose of being photographed.  The other was a young girl of about twenty years, pretty, simply and elegantly dressed, whose distinguished and reserved physiognomy was a strong contrast to the first portrait.

While Saniel looked at these pictures Caffie studied him, trying to discover the effect they produced.

“Now that you have seen them,” he said, “let us talk of them a little.  If you knew me better, my dear sir, you would know that I am frankness itself, and in business my principle is to tell everything, the good and the bad, so that my clients are responsible for the decisions they make.  In reality, there is nothing bad about these two persons, because, if there were, I would not propose them to you.  But there are certain things that my delicacy compels me to point out to you, which I do frankly, feeling certain that a man like you is not the slave of narrow prejudices.”

An expression of pain passed over his face, and he clasped his jaw with both hands.

“You suffer?” Saniel asked.

“Yes, from my teeth, cruelly.  Pardon me that I show it; I know by myself that nothing is more annoying than the sight of the sufferings of others.”

“At least not to doctors.”

“Never mind; we will return to my clients.  This one”—­and he touched the portrait of the bejewelled woman—­” is, as you have divined already, a widow, a very amiable widow.  Perhaps she is a little older than you are, but that is nothing.  Your experience must have taught you that the man who wishes to be loved, tenderly loved, pampered, caressed, spoiled, should marry a woman older than himself, who will treat him as a husband and as a son.  Her first husband was a careful merchant, who, had he lived, would have made a large fortune in the butcher business”—­he mumbled this word instead of pronouncing it clearly—­“but although he died just at the time when his affairs were beginning to develop, he left twenty thousand pounds’ income to his wife.  As I have told you what is good, I must tell you what is to be regretted.  Carried away by gay companions, this intelligent man became addicted to intemperance, and from drinking at saloons she soon took to drinking at home, and his wife drank with him.  I have every reason to believe that she has reformed; but, if it is otherwise, you, a doctor, can easily cure her—­”

“You believe it?”

“Without doubt.  However, if it is impossible, you need only let her alone, and her vice will soon carry her off; and, as the contract will be made according to my wishes in view of such an event, you will find yourself invested with a fortune and unencumbered with a wife.”

“And the other?” Saniel said, who had listened silently to this curious explanation of the situation that Caffie made with the most perfect good-nature.  So grave were the circumstances that he could not help being amused at this diplomacy.