"My sweet, of course I will send one if you wish. You write out just what you would suggest, and I'll give it to Salah to take now."
Regina bent down and kissed him on the thick waves of his black hair, with a swift, passionate enthusiasm.
"Thank you so much," she murmured. Then she went into the body of the boat, behind them, and wrote out the wire:
"Regret your suggestion to join our camp quite impossible. Many reasons.—Everest."
"Will that do?" she asked, bringing it back, and showing it to him.
"First rate," he answered, and the telegram was sent.
No response of any kind came to the wire, either by letter or telegram, and the Lanarks continued their dreaming, lingering journey up to Wady Halfa by boat, undisturbed, and thence by train across the desert to Khartoum.
They arrived there one burning midday, when the sun seemed a blazing disk of fire against a burnished copper sky, and went to the hotel to rest. All their staff of servants and camp equipment had already arrived and were awaiting them. They had a large, cool-looking room assigned to them on the ground floor. Its three lofty windows were tightly closed by green, wooden shutters, made like a rigid Venetian blind, and nothing of the heat and glare of the outside was visible, except the blinding bars of light between the slats. The room was full of green light, and a matting crackled under their feet on the floor. A large white mosquito net hung round the bed. Above it, in a corner of the rafters that supported the ceiling, a sparrow had built its nest, and long trails of grass and straw hung down the wall.
Outside one heard the peculiar cry of the wood, as an Egyptian water-wheel was slowly revolved in the garden.