SEPTIMUS

BY THE SAME AUTHOR

IDOLSJAFFERYVIVIETTESEPTIMUSDERELICTSTHE USURPERSTELLA MARISWHERE LOVE ISTHE ROUGH ROADTHE MOUNTEBANKTHE RED PLANETTHE WHITE DOVEFAR-AWAY STORIESTHE GREAT PANDOLFOSIMON THE JESTERTHE COMING OF AMOSTHE TALE OF TRIONAA STUDY IN SHADOWSA CHRISTMAS MYSTERYTHE WONDERFUL YEARTHE HOUSE OF BALTAZARTHE FORTUNATE YOUTHTHE BELOVED VAGABONDAT THE GATE OF SAMARIATHE GLORY OF CLEMENTINATHE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNETHE DEMAGOGUE AND LADY PHAYRETHE JOYOUS ADVENTURES OF ARISTIDE PUJOL

SEPTIMUS

BYWILLIAM J. LOCKE

NEW YORKDODD, MEAD AND COMPANY1931

Copyright, 1908By The Phillips Publishing Company

Copyright, 1909By Dodd, Mead & Company

Printed in U. S. A. 

The Vail-Ballou PressBinghamton and New York

RUTGER BLEECKER JEWETT

CARO SEPTIMIAUCTORISQUE AMICO HIC LIBERSEPTIMI INSCRIBITUR

SEPTIMUS

CHAPTER I

"I love Nunsmere, " said the Literary Man from London. "It is a spot wherefaded lives are laid away in lavender. "

"I'm not a faded life, and I'm not going to be laid away in lavender, "retorted Zora Middlemist. 

She turned from him and handed cakes to the Vicar. She had no desire to petthe Vicar, but he was less unbearable than the Literary Man from Londonwhom he had brought to call on his parishioners. Zora disliked to be calleda parishioner. She disliked many things in Nunsmere. Her mother, Mrs. Oldrieve, however, loved Nunsmere, adored the Vicar, and foundawe-inspiring in his cleverness the Literary Man from London. 

Nunsmere lies hidden among the oaks of Surrey, far from the busy ways ofmen. It is heaven knows how many miles from a highroad. You have to drivethrough lanes and climb right over a hill to get to it. Two old Georgianhouses covered with creepers, a modern Gothic church, two much morevenerable and pious-looking inns, and a few cottages settling peacefullyaround a common form the village. Here and there a cottage lurks up a lane. These cottages are mostly inhabited by the gentle classes. Some are reallyold, with great oak beams across the low ceilings, and stone-flaggedkitchens furnished with great open fireplaces where you can sit and getscorched and covered with smoke. Some are new, built in imitation of theold, by a mute, inglorious Adam, the village carpenter. All have longcasement windows, front gardens in which grow stocks and phlox andsunflowers and hollyhocks and roses; and a red-tiled path leads from thefront gate to the entrance porch. Nunsmere is very quiet and restful. Should a roisterer cross the common singing a song at half-past nine atnight, all Nunsmere hears it and is shocked--if not frightened to theextent of bolting doors and windows, lest the dreadful drunken man shouldcome in. 

In a cottage on the common, an old one added to by the local architect, with a front garden and a red-tiled path, dwelt Mrs. Oldrieve in entirehappiness, and her daughter in discontent. And this was through no peevishor disagreeable traits in Zora's nature. If we hear Guy Fawkes was fretfulin the Little-Ease, we are not pained by Guy Fawkes's lack of Christianresignation. 

When the Vicar and the Literary Man from London had gone, Zora threw openthe window and let the soft autumn air flood the room. Mrs. Oldrieve drewher woolen shawl around her lean shoulders. 

"I'm afraid you quite snubbed Mr. Rattenden, just when he was saying one ofhis cleverest things. "

"He said it to the wrong person, mother. I'm neither a faded life nor am Igoing to be laid away in lavender. Do I look like it?"

She moved across the room, swiftly, and stood in the slanting light fromthe window, offering herself for inspection. Nothing could be less like afaded life than the magnificent, broad-hipped, full-bosomed woman that mether mother's gaze. Her hair was auburn, her eyes brown with gold flecks, her lips red, her cheeks clear and young. She was cast, physically, inheroic mold, a creature of dancing blood and color and warmth. Disparagingtea-parties called her an Amazon. The Vicar's wife regarded her as toolarge and flaring and curvilinear for reputable good looks. She toweredover Nunsmere. Her presence disturbed the sedateness of the place. She wasa wrong note in its harmony. 

Mrs. Oldrieve sighed. She was small and colorless. Her husband, a wildexplorer, a tornado of a man, had been killed by a buffalo. She was afraidthat Zora took after her father. Her younger daughter Emmy had alsoinherited some of the Oldrieve restlessness and had gone on the stage. Shewas playing now in musical comedy in London. 

"I don't see why you should not be happy here, Zora, " she remarked, "but ifyou want to go, you must. I used to say the same to your poor, dearfather. "

"I've been very good, haven't I?" said Zora. "I've been the model youngwidow and lived as demurely as if my heart were breaking with sorrow. Butnow, I can't stand it any longer. I'm going out to see the world. "

"You'll soon marry again, dear, and that's one comfort. "

Zora brought her hands down passionately to her sides. 

"Never. Never--do you hear, mother? Never. I'm going out into the world, toget to the heart of the life I've never known. I'm going to live. "

"I don't see how you are going to 'live, ' dear, without a man to take careof you, " said Mrs. Oldrieve, on whom there occasionally flashed an eternalverity. 

"I hate men. I hate the touch of them--the very sight of them. I'm going tohave nothing more to do with them for the rest of my natural life. My dearmother!" and her voice broke, "haven't I had enough to do with men andmarriage?"

"All men aren't like Edward Middlemist, " Mrs. Oldrieve argued as shecounted the rows of her knitting. 

"How am I to know that? How could anyone have told that he was what he was?For heaven's sake don't talk of it. I had almost forgotten it all in thisplace. "

She shuddered and, turning to the window, stared into the sunset. 

"Lavender has its uses, " said Mrs. Oldrieve. 

Here again it must be urged on Zora's behalf that she had reason for hermisanthropy. It is not cheerful for a girl to discover within twenty-fourhours of her wedding that her husband is a hopeless drunkard, and to seehim die of delirium tremens within six weeks. An experience so vivid, likelightning must blast something in a woman's conception of life. Because oneman's kisses reeked of whisky the kisses of all male humanity wereanathema. 

After a long spell of silence she came and laid her cheek against hermother's. 

"This is the very last time we'll speak of it, dear. I'll lock the skeletonin its cupboard and throw away the key. "

She went upstairs to dress and came down radiant. At dinner she spokeexultingly of her approaching freedom. She would tear off her widow's weedsand deck herself in the flower of youth. She would plunge into the greatswelling sea of Life. She would drink sunshine and fill her soul withlaughter. She would do a million hyperbolic things, the mention of whichmightily confused her mother. "I, my dear, " said the hen in the fairy tale, "never had the faintest desire to get into water. " So, more or less, saidMrs. Oldrieve. 

"Will you miss me very dreadfully?" asked Zora. 

"Of course, " but her tone was so lacking in conviction that Zora laughed. 

"Mother, you know very well that Cousin Jane will be a more sympatheticcompanion. You've been pining for her all this time. "

Cousin Jane held distinct views on the cut of under-clothes for thedeserving poor, and as clouds disperse before the sun so did household dustbefore her presence. Untidiness followed in Zora's steps, as it does inthose of the physically large, and Cousin Jane disapproved of herthoroughly. But Mrs. Oldrieve often sighed for Cousin Jane as she had neversighed for Zora, Emily, or her husband. She was more than content with theprospect of her companionship. 

"At any rate, my dear, " she said that evening, as she paused, candle inhand, by her bedroom door, "at any rate I hope you'll do nothing that isunbecoming to a gentlewoman. "

Such was her benison. 

Zora bumped her head against the oak beam that ran across her bedroomceiling. 

"It's quite true, " she said to herself, "the place is too small for me, Idon't fit. "

 * * * * *

What she was going to do in this wide world into whose glories she wasabout to enter she had but the vaguest notion. All to her was the BeautifulUnknown. Narrow means had kept her at Cheltenham and afterwards atNunsmere, all her life. She had met her husband in Ipswich while she waspaying a polite visit to some distant cousins. She had married him offhand, in a whirl of the senses. He was a handsome blackguard, of independentmeans, and she had spent her nightmare of a honeymoon at Brighton. On threeoccasions, during her five-and-twenty years of existence, she had spent agolden week in London. That was all she knew of the wide world. It was notvery much. Reading had given her a second-hand acquaintance with the doingsof various classes of mankind, and such pictures as she had seen had filledher head with dreams of strange and wonderful places. But otherwise she wasignorant, beautifully, childishly ignorant--and undismayed. 

What was she going to do? Sensitive and responsive to beauty, filled withartistic impulses, she could neither paint, act, sing, nor write prettylittle stories for the magazines. She had no special gift to develop. Toearn her living in a humdrum way she had no need. She had no high Ibsenitenotions of working out her own individuality. She had no consuming passionfor reforming any section of the universe. She had no mission--that sheknew of--to accomplish. Unlike so many of her sex who yearn to be as menand go out into the world she had no inner mandate to do anything, noambition to be anything. She was simply a great, rich flower, strugglingthrough the shade to the sunlight, plenty of sunlight, as much sunlight asthe heavens could give her. 

The Literary Man from London happened to be returning to town by the trainthat carried Zora on the first stage of her pilgrimage. He obtained herconsent to travel up in the same carriage. He asked her to what branch ofhuman activity she intended to devote herself. She answered that she wasgoing to lie, anyhow, among the leaves. He rebuked her. 

"We ought, " said he, "to justify our existence. "

She drew herself up and flashed an indignant glance at him. 

"I beg your pardon, " he apologized. "You do justify yours. "

"How?"

"You decorate the world. I was wrong. That is the true function of abeautiful woman, and you fulfill it. "

"I have in my bag, " replied Zora slowly, and looking at him steady-eyed, "apreventive against sea-sickness; I have a waterproof to shelter me fromrain; but what can I do to shield myself against silly compliments?"

"Adopt the costume of the ladies of the Orient, " said the Literary Man fromLondon, unabashed. 

She laughed, although she detested him. He bent forward with humorousearnestness. He had written some novels, and now edited a weekly ofprecious tendencies and cynical flavor. 

"I am a battered old man of thirty-five, " said he, "and I know what I amtalking about. If you think you are going to wander at a loose end aboutEurope without men paying you compliments and falling in love with you andmaking themselves generally delightful, you're traveling under a grievoushallucination. "

"What you say, " retorted Zora, "confirms me in my opinion that men are anabominable nuisance. Why can't they let a poor woman go about in peace?"

The train happened to be waiting at Clapham Junction. A spruce young man, passing by on the platform, made a perceptible pause by the window, hiseyes full on her. She turned her head impatiently. Rattenden laughed. 

"Dear lady, " said he, "I must impart to you the elements of wisdom. MissKeziah Skaffles, with brain cordage for hair, and monoliths for teeth, anda box of dominoes for a body, can fool about unmolested among the tribesof Crim Tartary. She doesn't worry the Tartars. But, permit me to say it, as you are for the moment my disciple, a beautiful woman like yourself, radiating feminine magnetism, worries a man exceedingly. You don't let himgo about in peace, so why should he let you?"

"I think, " said Zora, as the train moved on, "that Miss Keziah Skaffles isvery much to be envied, and that this is a very horrid conversation. "

She was offended in her provincial-bred delicacy. It was enough to make herregard herself with repulsion. She took up the fashion paper she had boughtat the station--was she not intending to run delicious riot among thedressmakers and milliners of London?--and regarding blankly the ungodlywaisted ladies in the illustrations, determined to wear a wig and paint herface yellow, and black out one of her front teeth, so that she should notworry the Tartars. 

"I am only warning you against possible dangers, " said Rattenden stiffly. He did not like his conversation to be called horrid. 

"To the race of men?"

"No, to yourself. "

She laughed scornfully. "No fear of that. Why does every man think himselfirresistible?"

"Because he generally is--if he wants to be, " said the Literary Man fromLondon. 

Zora caught her breath. "Well of all--" she began. 

"Yes, I know what you're going to say. Millions of women have said it andeaten their words. Why should you--beautiful as you are--be an exception tothe law of life? You're going out to suck the honey of the world, andmen's hearts will be your flowers. Instinct will drive you. You won't beable to get away from it. You think you're going to be thrilled intopassionate raptures by cathedrals and expensive restaurants and the setpieces of fashionable scenery. You're not. Your store of honey will consistof emotional experiences of a primitive order. If not, I know nothing atall about women. "

"Do you know anything about them?" she asked sweetly. 

"More than would be becoming of me to tell, " he replied. "Anyhow, " headded, "that doesn't matter. I've made my prophecy. You'll tell meafterwards, if I have the pleasure of seeing you again, whether it has cometrue. "

"It won't come true, " said Zora. 

"We shall see, " said the wise man. 

She dashed, that afternoon, into her sister's tiny flat in Chelsea. Emily, taken by surprise, hastily stuffed to the bottom of her work-basket a man'ssilk tie which she was knitting, and then greeted Zora affectionately. 

She was shorter, slimmer, paler than her sister: of a certain babyishprettiness. She had Mrs. Oldrieve's weak mouth and gentle ways. 

"Why, Zora, who would have thought of seeing you? What are you doing intown?"

"Getting hats and frocks--a trousseau of freedom. I've left Nunsmere. I'mon my own. "

Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks were flushed. She caught Emily to her bosom. 

"Oh, darling! I'm so happy--a bird let out of a cage. "

"An awful big bird, " laughed Emily. 

"Yes, let out of an awful small cage. I'm going to see the world, for thefirst time in my life. I'm going to get out of the cold and wet--goingSouth--to Italy--Sicily--Egypt--anywhere. "

"All by yourself?"

"There'll be Turner. "

"Turner?"

"Ah, you don't know her. My new maid. But isn't it glorious? Why shouldn'tyou come with me, darling? Do. Come. "

"And throw up my engagement? I couldn't. I should love it, but you don'tknow how hard engagements are to get. "

"Never mind. I'll pay for everything. "

But Emily shook her fluffy head. She had a good part, a few lines to speakand a bit of a song to sing in a successful musical comedy. She looked backon the two years' price she had paid for that little bit of a song. It wasdearer to her than anything--save one thing--in life. 

"I can't. Besides, don't you think a couple of girls fooling about alonelook rather silly? It wouldn't really be very funny without a man. "

Zora rose in protest. "The whole human race is man-mad! Even mother. Ithink everybody is detestable!"

The maid announced "Mr. Mordaunt Prince, " and a handsome man with finelycut, dark features and black hair parted in the middle and brushed tightlyback over the head, entered the room. Emmy presented him to Zora, whorecognized him as the leading man at the theater where Emmy was playing. Zora exchanged a few polite commonplaces with the visitor and then took herleave. Emmy accompanied her to the front door of the flat. 

"Isn't he charming?"

"That creature?" asked Zora. 

Emmy laughed. "In your present mood you would find fault with anarchangel. Good-bye, darling, and take care of yourself. "

She bore no malice, having a kind heart and being foolishly happy. When shereturned to the drawing-room the man took both her hands. 

"Well, sweetheart?"

"My sister wanted to carry me off to Italy. "

"What did you say?"

"Guess, " said the girl, lifting starry eyes. 

The man guessed, after the manner of men, and for a moment Emmy forgotZora, who went her own way in pursuit of happiness, heedless of the wisdomof the wise and of the foolish. 

CHAPTER II

For five months Zora wandered over the world--chiefly Italy--without anexperience which might be called an adventure. When the Literary Man fromLondon crossed her mind she laughed him to scorn for a prophetic popinjay. She had broken no man's heart, and her own was whole. The tribes of CrimTartary had exhibited no signs of worry and had left her unmolested. Shehad furthermore taken rapturous delight in cathedrals, expensiverestaurants, and the set pieces of fashionable scenery. Rattenden had not aprophetic leg to stand on. 

Yet she longed for the unattainable--for the elusive something of whichthese felicities were but symbols. Now the wanderer with a haunting senseof the Beyond, but without the true vagabond's divine gift of piercing theveil, can only follow the obvious; and there are seasons when the obviousfails to satisfy. When such a mood overcame her mistress, Turner railed atthe upsetting quality of foreign food, and presented bicarbonate of soda. She arrived by a different path at the unsatisfactory nature of theobvious. Sometimes, too, the pleasant acquaintances of travel were lacking, and loneliness upset the nice balance of Zora's nerves. Then, more thanever, did she pine for the Beyond. 

Yet youth, receptivity, imagination kept her buoyant. Hope lured her onwith renewed promises from city to city. At last, on her homeward journey, he whispered the magic name of Monte Carlo, and her heart was aflutter inanticipation of wonderland. 

She stood bewildered, lonely, and dismayed in the first row behind thechairs, fingering an empty purse. She had been in the rooms ten minutes, and she had lost twenty louis. Her last coup had been successful, but abland old lady, with the white hair and waxen face of sainted motherhood, had swept up her winnings so unconcernedly that Zora's brain began to swim. As she felt too strange and shy to expostulate she stood fingering herempty purse. 

The scene was utterly different from what she had expected. She hadimagined a gay, crowded room, wild gamblers shouting in their excitement, aband playing delirious waltz music, champagne corks popping merrily, painted women laughing, jesting loudly, all kinds of revelry and devilryand Bacchic things undreamed of. This was silly of her, no doubt, but thesilliness of inexperienced young women is a matter for the pity, not thereprobation, of the judicious. If they take the world for their oyster andthink, when they open it, they are going to find pearl necklacesready-made, we must not blame them. Rather let hoary-headed sinners envythem their imaginings. 

The corners of Zora Middlemist's ripe lips drooped with a child's pathos ofdisillusionment. Her nose delicately marked disgust at the heavy air andthe discord of scents around her. Having lost her money she could afford tosurvey with scorn the decorous yet sordid greed of the crowded table. Therewas not a gleam of gaiety about it. The people behaved with the correctimpassiveness of an Anglican congregation. She had heard of more jocularfunerals. 

She forgot the intoxication of her first gold and turquoise day at MonteCarlo. A sense of loneliness--such as a solitary dove might feel in awilderness of evil bats--oppressed her. Had she not been aware that shewas a remarkably attractive woman and the object of innumerable glances, she would have cried. And twenty louis pitched into unprofitable space! Yetshe stood half fascinated by the rattle of the marble on the revolvingdisc, the glitter of the gold, the soft pat of the coins on the green clothas they were thrown by the croupier. She began to make imaginary stakes. For five coups in succession she would have won. It was exasperating. Thereshe stood, having pierced the innermost mystery of chance, without even afive-franc piece in her purse. 

A man's black sleeve pushed past her shoulder, and she saw a hand in frontof her holding a louis. Instinctively she took it. 

"Thanks, " said a tired voice. "I can't reach the table. She threw it, _enplein_, on Number Seventeen; and then with a start, realizing what she haddone, she turned with burning cheeks. 

"I _am_ so sorry. "

Her glance met a pair of unspeculative blue eyes, belonging to the owner ofthe tired voice. She noted that he had a sallow face, a little brownmustache, and a shock of brown hair, curiously upstanding, like StruwelPeter's. 

"I am _so_ sorry, " she repeated. "Please ask for it back. What did you wantme to play?"

"I don't know. It doesn't matter, so long as you've put it somewhere. "

"But I've put it _en plein_ on Seventeen, " she urged. "I ought to havethought what I was doing. "

"Why think?" he murmured. 

Mrs. Middlemist turned square to the table and fixed her eyes on the stakedlouis. In spite of the blue-eyed man's implied acquiescence she feltqualms of responsibility. Why had she not played on an even chance, or oneof the dozens, or even a _transversale_? To add to her discomfort no oneelse played the full seventeen. The whole table seemed silently jeering ather inexperience. 

The croupiers had completed the payments of the last coup. The marble fellwith its sharp click and whizzed and rattled around the disc. Zora held herbreath. The marble found its compartment at last, and the croupierannounced:

_"Dix-sept, noir, impair et manque. "_

She had won. A sigh of relief shook her bosom. Not only had she not lost astranger's money, but she had won for him thirty-five times his stake. Shewatched the louis greedily lest it should be swept away by a carelesscroupier--perhaps the only impossible thing that could not happen at MonteCarlo--and stretched out her arm past the bland old lady in tensedetermination to frustrate further felonious proceedings. The croupierpitched seven large gold coins across the table. She clutched themfeverishly and turned to deliver them to their owner. He was nowhere to beseen. She broke through the ring, and with her hands full of gold scannedthe room in dismayed perplexity. 

At last she espied him standing dejectedly by another table. She rushedacross the intervening space and held out the money. 

"See, you have won!"

"Oh, Lord!" murmured the man, removing his hands from his dinner-jacketpockets, but not offering to take his winnings. "What a lot of trouble Ihave given you. "

"Of course you have, " she said tartly. "Why didn't you stay?"

"I don't know, " he replied. "How can one tell why one doesn't do things?"

"Well, please take the money now and let me get rid of it. There are sevenpieces of five louis each. "

She counted the coins into his hand, and then suddenly flushed scarlet. Shehad forgotten to claim the original louis which she had staked. Where wasit? What had become of it? As well try, she thought, to fish up a cointhrown into the sea. She felt like a thief. 

"There ought to be another louis, " she stammered. 

"It doesn't matter, " said the man. 

"But it does matter. You might think that I--I kept it. "

"That's too absurd, " he answered. "Are you interested in guns?"

"Guns?"

She stared at him. He appeared quite sane. 

"I remember now I was thinking of guns when I went away, " he explained. "They're interesting things to think about. "

"But don't you understand that I owe you a louis? I forgot all about it. Ifmy purse weren't empty I would repay you. Will you stay here till I can getsome money from my hotel--the Hôtel de Paris?"

She spoke with some vehemence. How could the creature expect her to remainin his debt? But the creature only passed his fingers through hisupstanding hair and smiled wanly. 

"Please don't say anything more about it. It distresses me. The croupiersdon't return the stake, as a general rule, unless you ask for it. Theyassume you want to back your luck. Perhaps it has won again. For goodness'sake don't bother about it--and thank you very, very much. "

He bowed politely and moved a step or two away. But Zora, struck by asolution of the mystery which had not occurred to her, as one cannot graspall the ways and customs of gaming establishments in ten minutes, rushedback to the other table. She arrived just in time to hear the croupierasking whom the louis on seventeen belonged to. The number had turned upagain. 

This time she brought the thirty-six louis to the stranger. 

"Dear me, " said he, taking the money. "It is very astonishing. But why didyou trouble?"

"Because I'm a woman of common sense, I suppose. "

He looked at the coins in his hand as if they were shells which a child atthe seaside might have brought him, and then raised his eyes slowly tohers. 

"You are a very gracious lady. " His glance and tone checked an impulse ofexasperation. She smiled. 

"At any rate, I've won fifty-six pounds for you, and you ought to begrateful. "

He made a little gesture of acknowledgement. Had he been a more dashinggentleman he might have expressed his gratitude for the mere privilege ofconversing with a gracious lady so beautiful. They had drifted from theoutskirts of the crowded table and found themselves in the thinner crowd ofsaunterers. It was the height of the Monte Carlo season and the feathersand diamonds and rouge and greedy eyes and rusty bonnets of all nationsconfused the sight and paralyzed thought. Yet among all the women of bothworlds Zora Middlemist stood out remarkable. As Septimus Dix afterwardsexplained, the rooms that evening contained a vague kind of conglomeratewoman and Zora Middlemist. And the herd of men envied the creature on whomshe smiled so graciously. 

She was dressed in black, as became a young widow, but it was a blackwhich bore no sign of mourning. The black, sweeping ostrich plume of apicture hat gave her an air of triumph. Black gloves reaching more thanhalfway up shapely arms and a gleam of snowy neck above a black chiffonbodice disquieted the imagination. She towered over her present companion, who was five foot seven and slimly built. 

"You've brought me all this stuff, but what am I to do with it?" he askedhelplessly. 

"Perhaps I had better take care of it for you. "

It was a relief from the oppressive loneliness to talk to a human being; soshe lingered wistfully in conversation. A pathetic eagerness came into theman's face. 

"I wish you would, " said he, drawing a handful from his jacket pocket. "Ishould be so much happier. "

"You can hardly be such a gambler, " she laughed. 

"Oh, no! It's not that at all. Gambling bores me. "

"Why do you play, then?"

"I don't. I staked that louis because I wanted to see whether I should beinterested. I wasn't, as I began to think about the guns. Have you hadbreakfast?"

Again Zora was startled. A sane man does not talk of breakfasting at nineo'clock in the evening. But if he were a lunatic perhaps it were wise tohumor him. 

"Yes, " she said. "Have you?"

"No. I've only just got up. "

"Do you mean to say you've been asleep all day?"

"What's the noisy day made for?"

"Let us sit down, " said Zora. 

They found one of the crimson couches by the wall vacant, and sat down. Zora regarded him curiously. 

"Why should you be happier if I took care of your money?"

"I shouldn't spend it. I might meet a man who wanted to sell me agas-engine. "

"But you needn't buy it. "

"These fellows are so persuasive, you see. At Rotterdam last year, a manmade me buy a second-hand dentist's chair. "

"Are you a dentist?" asked Zora. 

"Lord, no! If I were I could have used the horrible chair. "

"What did you do with it?"

"I had it packed up and despatched, carriage paid, to an imaginary personat Singapore. "

He made this announcement in his tired, gentle manner, without the flickerof a smile. He added, reflectively--

"That sort of thing becomes expensive. Don't you find it so?"

"I would defy anybody to sell me a thing I didn't want, " she replied. 

"Ah, that, " said he with a glance of wistful admiration, "that is becauseyou have red hair. "

If any other strange male had talked about her hair, Zora Middlemist wouldhave drawn herself up in Junoesque majesty and blighted him with a glance. She had done with men and their compliments forever. In that she pridedherself on her Amazonianism. But she could not be angry with theinconclusive being to whom she was talking. As well resent the ingenuousremarks of a four-year-old child. 

"What has my red hair to do with it?" she asked pleasantly. 

"It was a red-haired man who sold me the dentist's chair. "

"Oh!" said Zora, nonplussed. 

There was a pause. The man leaned back, embracing one knee with both hands. They were nerveless, indeterminate hands, with long fingers, such as are inthe habit of dropping things. Zora wondered how they supported his knee. For some time he stared into vacancy, his pale-blue eyes adream. Zoralaughed. 

"Guns?" she asked. 

"No, " said he, awaking to her presence. "Perambulators. "

She rose. "I thought you might be thinking of breakfast. I must be goingback to my hotel. These rooms are too hot and horrible. Good night. "

"I will see you to the lift, if you'll allow me, " he said politely. 

She graciously assented and they left the rooms together. In the atrium shechanged her mind about the lift. She would leave the Casino by the mainentrance and walk over to the Hôtel de Paris for the sake of a breath offresh air. At the top of the steps she paused and filled her lungs. It wasa still, moonless night, and the stars hung low down, like diamonds on acanopy of black velvet. They made the flaring lights of the terrace of theHôtel and Café de Paris look tawdry and meretricious. 

"I hate them, " she said, pointing to the latter. 

"Stars are better, " said her companion. 

She turned on him swiftly. 

"How did you know I was making comparisons?"

"I felt it, " he murmured. 

They walked slowly down the steps. At the bottom a carriage and pairseemed to rise mysteriously out of the earth. 

"'Ave a drive? Ver' good carriage, " said a voice out of the dimness. MonteCarlo cabmen are unerring in their divination of the Anglo-Saxon. 

Why not? The suggestion awoke in her an instant craving for the true beautyof the land. It was unconventional, audacious, crazy. But, again, why not?Zora Middlemist was answerable for her actions to no man or woman alive. Why not drink a great draught of the freedom that was hers? What did itmatter that the man was a stranger? All the more daring the adventure. Herheart beat gladly. But chaste women, like children, know instinctively theman they can trust. 

"Shall we?"

"Drive?"

"Yes--unless--" a thought suddenly striking her--"unless you want to goback to your friends. "

"Good Lord!" said he, aghast, as if she were accusing him of criminalassociations. "I have no friends. "

"Then come. "

She entered the carriage. He followed meekly and sat beside her. Whereshould they drive? The cabman suggested the coast road to Mentone. Sheagreed. On the point of starting she observed that her companion wasbare-headed. 

"You've forgotten your hat. "

She spoke to him as she would have done to a child. 

"Why bother about hats?"

"You'll catch your death of cold. Go and get it at once. "

He obeyed with a docility which sent a little tingle of exaltation throughMrs. Middlemist. A woman may have an inordinate antipathy to men, but sheloves them to do her bidding. Zora was a woman; she was also young. 

He returned. The cabman whipped up his strong pair of horses, and theystarted through the town towards Mentone. 

Zora lay back on the cushions and drank in the sensuous loveliness of thenight--the warm, scented air, the velvet and diamond sky, the fragrantorange groves--the dim, mysterious olive trees, the looming hills, thewine-colored, silken sea, with its faint edging of lace on the dusky sweepof the bay. The spirit of the South overspread her with its wings and tookher amorously in its arms. 

After a long, long silence she sighed, remembering her companion. 

"Thank you for not talking, " she said softly. 

"Don't, " he replied. "I had nothing to say. I never talk. I've scarcelytalked for a year. "

She laughed idly. 

"Why?"

"No one to talk to. Except my man, " he added conscientiously. "His name isWiggleswick. "

"I hope he looks after you well, " said Zora, with a touch of maternalinstinct. 

"He wants training. That's what I am always telling him. But he can't hear. He's seventy and stone-deaf. But he's interesting. He tells me about jailsand things. "

"Jails?"

"Yes. He spent most of his time in prison. He was a professionalburglar--but then he got on in years. Besides, the younger generation wasknocking at the door. "

"I thought that was the last thing a burglar would do, " said Zora. 

"They generally use jemmies, " he said gravely. "Wiggleswick has given mehis collection. They're very useful. "

"What for?" she asked. 

"To kill moths with, " he replied dreamily. 

"But what made you take a superannuated burglar for a valet?"

"I don't know. Perhaps it was Wiggleswick himself. He came up to me one dayas I was sitting in Kensington Gardens, and somehow followed me home. "

"But, good gracious, " cried Zora--forgetful for the moment of stars andsea--"aren't you afraid that he will rob you?"

"No. I asked him, and he explained. You see, it would be out of his line. Aforger only forges, a pickpocket only snatches chains and purses, and aburglar only burgles. Now, he couldn't burgle the place in which he wasliving himself, so I am safe. "

Zora gave him sage counsel. 

"I'd get rid of him if I were you. "

"If I were you, I would--but I can't, " he replied. "If I told him to go hewouldn't. I go instead sometimes. That's why I'm here. "

"If you go on talking like that, you'll make my brain reel, " said Zoralaughing. "Do tell me something about yourself. What is your name?"

"Septimus Dix. I've got another name--Ajax--Septimus Ajax Dix--but I neveruse it. "

"That's a pity, " said Zora. "Ajax is a lovely name. "

He dissented in his vague fashion. "Ajax suggests somebody who defieslightning and fools about with a spear. It's a silly name. A maiden auntpersuaded my mother to give it to me. I think she mixed it up withAchilles. She admired the statue in Hyde Park. She got run over by amilkcart. "

"When was that?" she inquired, more out of politeness than interest in thecareer of Mr. Dix's maiden aunt. 

"A minute before she died. "

"Oh, " said Zora, taken aback by the emotionless manner in which hementioned the tragedy. Then, by way of continuing the conversation:--

"Why are you called Septimus?"

"I'm the seventh son. All the others died young. I never could make out whyI didn't. "

"Perhaps, " said Zora with a laugh, "you were thinking of something else atthe time and lost the opportunity. "

"It must have been that, " said he. "I lose opportunities just as I alwayslose trains. "

"How do you manage to get anywhere?"

"I wait for the next train. That's easy. But there's never anotheropportunity. "

He drew a cigarette from his case, put it in his mouth, and fumbled in hispockets for matches. Finding none, he threw the cigarette into the road. 

"That's just like you, " cried Zora. "Why didn't you ask the cabman for alight?"

She laughed at him with an odd sense of intimacy, though she had known himfor scarcely an hour. He seemed rather a stray child than a man. She longedto befriend him--to do something for him, motherwise--she knew not what. Her adventure by now had failed to be adventurous. The spice of danger hadvanished. She knew she could sit beside this helpless being till the day ofdoom without fear of molestation by word or act. 

He obtained a light for his cigarette from the cabman and smoked insilence. Gradually the languor of the night again stole over her senses, and she forgot his existence. The carriage had turned homeward, and at abend of the road, high up above the sea, Monte Carlo came into view, gleaming white far away below, like a group of fairy palaces lit by fairylamps, sheltered by the great black promontory of Monaco. From the gorge onthe left, the terraced rock on the right, came the smell of the wild thymeand rosemary and the perfume of pale flowers. The touch of the air on hercheek was a warm and scented kiss. The diamond stars drooped towards herlike a Danaë shower. Like Danaë's, her lips were parted. Her eyes strainedfar beyond the stars into an unknown glory, and her heart throbbed with apassionate desire for unknown things. Of what nature they might be she didnot dream. Not love. Zora Middlemist had forsworn it. Not the worship of aman. She had vowed by all the saints in her hierarchy that no man shouldever again enter her life. Her soul revolted against the unutterable sex. 

As soon as one realizes the exquisite humbug of sublunary existence he mustweep for the pity of it. 

The warm and scented air was a kiss, too, on the cheek of Septimus Dix; andhis senses, too, were enthralled by the witchery of the night. But for himstars and scented air and the magic beauty of the sea were incarnate in thewoman by his side. 

Zora, as I have said, had forgotten the poor devil's existence. 

CHAPTER III

When they drove up to the Hôtel de Paris, she alighted and bade him asmiling farewell, and went to her room with the starlight in her eyes. Thelift man asked if Madame had won. She dangled her empty purse and laughed. Then the lift man, who had seen that light in women's eyes before, madecertain that she was in love, and opened the lift door for her with theconfidential air of the Latin who knows sweet secrets. But the lift man waswrong. No man had a part in her soul's exultation. If Septimus Dix crossedher mind while she was undressing, it was as a grotesque, bearing the samerelation to her emotional impression of the night as a gargoyle does to acathedral. When she went to bed, she slept the sound sleep of youth. 

Septimus, after dismissing the cab, wandered in his vague way over to theCafé de Paris, instinct suggesting his belated breakfast, which, like hisexistence, Zora had forgotten. The waiter came. 

"_Monsieur désire?_"

"Absinthe, " murmured Septimus absent-mindedly, "and--er--poached eggs--andanything--a raspberry ice. "

The waiter gazed at him in stupefaction; but nothing being too astoundingin Monte Carlo, he wiped the cold perspiration from his forehead andexecuted the order. 

The unholy meal being over, Septimus drifted into the square and spent mostof the night on a bench gazing at the Hôtel de Paris and wondering whichwere her windows. When she mentioned casually, a day or two later, thather windows looked the other way over the sea, he felt that Destiny hadfooled him once more; but for the time being he found a gentle happiness inhis speculation. Chilled to the bone, at last, he sought his hotel bedroomand smoked a pipe, meditative, with his hat on until the morning. Then hewent to bed. 

Two mornings afterwards Zora came upon him on the Casino terrace. Hesprawled idly on a bench between a fat German and his fat wife, who weretalking across him. His straw hat was tilted over his eyes and his legswere crossed. In spite of the conversation (and a middle-class German doesnot whisper when he talks to his wife), and the going and coming of thecrowd--in spite of the sunshine and the blue air, he slumbered peacefully. Zora passed him once or twice. Then by the station lift she paused andlooked out at the bay of Mentone clasping the sea--a blue enamel in asetting of gold. She stood for some moments lost in the joy of it when avoice behind her brought her back to the commonplace. 

"Very lovely, isn't it?"

A thin-faced Englishman of uncertain age and yellow, evil eyes met herglance as she turned instinctively. 

"Yes, it's beautiful, " she replied coldly; "but that is no reason why youshould take the liberty of speaking to me. "

"I couldn't help sharing my emotions with another, especially one sobeautiful. You seem to be alone here?"

Now she remembered having seen him before--rather frequently. The previousevening he had somewhat ostentatiously selected a table near hers atdinner. He had watched her as she had left the theater and followed her tothe lift door. He had been watching for his opportunity and now thought ithad come. She shivered with sudden anger, and round her heart crept thechill of fright which all women know who have been followed in a lonelystreet. 

"I certainly am not alone, " she said wrathfully. "Good morning. "

The man covered his defeat by raising his hat with ironic politeness, andZora walked swiftly away, in appearance a majestic Amazon, but inwardly aquivering woman. She marched straight up to the recumbent Dix. The LiteraryMan from London would have been amused. She interposed herself between theconversing Teutons and awakened the sleeper. He looked at her for a momentwith a dreamy smile, then leaped to his feet. 

"A man has insulted me--he has been following me about and tried to getinto conversation with me. "

"Dear me, " said Septimus. "What shall I do? Shall I shoot him?"

"Don't be silly, " she said seriously. "It's serious. I'd be glad if you'dkindly walk up and down a little with me. "

"With pleasure. " They strolled away together. "But I _am_ serious. If youwanted me to shoot him I'd do it. I'd do anything in the world for you. I've got a revolver in my room. "

She laughed, disclaiming desire for supreme vengeance. 

"I only want to show the wretch that I am not a helpless woman, " sheobserved, with the bewildering illogic of the sex. And as she passed by theoffender she smiled down at her companion with all the sweetness ofintimacy and asked him why he carried a revolver. She did not point theoffender out, be it remarked, to the bloodthirsty Septimus. 

"It belongs to Wiggleswick, " he replied in answer to her question. "Ipromised to take care of it for him. "

"What does Wiggleswick do when you are away?"

"He reads the police reports. I take in _Reynolds_ and the _News of theWorld_ and the illustrated _Police News_ for him, and he cuts them out andgums them in a scrap book. But I think I'm happier without Wiggleswick. Heinterferes with my guns. "

"By the way, " said Zora, "you talked about guns the other evening. Whathave you got to do with guns?"

He looked at her in a scared way out of the corner of his eye, child-fashion, as though to make sure she was loyal and worthy ofconfidence, and then he said:

"I invent 'em. I have written a treatise on guns of large caliber. "

"Really?" cried Zora, taken by surprise. She had not credited him with soserious a vocation. "Do tell me something about it. "

"Not now, " he pleaded. "Some other time. I'd have to sit down with paperand pencil and draw diagrams. I'm afraid you wouldn't like it. Wiggleswickdoesn't. It bores him. You must be born with machinery in your blood. Sometimes it's uncomfortable. "

"To have cogwheels instead of corpuscles must be trying, " said Zoraflippantly. 

"Very, " said he. "The great thing is to keep them clear of the heart. "

"What do you mean?" she asked quickly. 

"Whatever one does or tries to do, one should insist on remaining human. It's good to be human, isn't it? I once knew a man who was just acomplicated mechanism of brain encased in a body. His heart didn't beat; itclicked and whirred. It caused the death of the most perfect woman in theworld. "

He looked dreamily into the blue ether between sea and sky. Zora feltstrangely drawn to him. 

"Who was it?" she asked softly. 

"My mother, " said he. 

They had paused in their stroll, and were leaning over the parapet abovethe railway line. After a few moments' silence he added, with a faintsmile:--

"That's why I try hard to keep myself human--so that, if a woman shouldever care for me, I shouldn't hurt her. "

A green caterpillar was crawling on his sleeve. In his vague manner hepicked it tenderly off and laid it on the leaf of an aloe that grew in theterrace vase near which he stood. 

"You couldn't even hurt that crawling thing--let alone a woman, " said Zora. This time very softly. 

He blushed. "If you kill a caterpillar you kill a butterfly, " he saidapologetically. 

"And if you kill a woman?"

"Is there anything higher?" said he. 

She made no reply, her misanthropical philosophy prompting none. There wasrather a long silence, which he broke by asking her if she read Persian. Heexcused his knowledge of it by saying that it kept him human. She laughedand suggested a continuance of their stroll. He talked disconnectedly asthey walked up and down. 

The crowd on the terrace thinned as the hour of déjeuner approached. Presently she proclaimed her hunger. He murmured that it must be neardinner time. She protested. He passed his hands across his eyes andconfessed that he had got mixed up in his meals the last few days. Then anidea struck him. 

"If I skip afternoon tea, and dinner, and supper, and petit déjeuner, andhave two breakfasts running, " he exclaimed brightly, "I shall begin fairagain. " And he laughed, not loud, but murmuringly, for the first time. 

They went round the Casino to the front of the Hôtel de Paris, theirnatural parting place. But there, on the steps, with legs apart, stood thewretch with the evil eyes. He looked at her from afar, banteringly. Defiance rose in Zora's soul. She would again show him that she was not alone and helpless woman at the mercy of the casual depredator. 

"I'm taking you in to lunch with me, Mr. Dix. You can't refuse, " she said;and without waiting for a reply she sailed majestically past the wretch, followed meekly by Septimus, as if she owned him body and soul. 

As usual, many eyes were turned on her as she entered the restaurant--aradiant figure in white, with black hat and black chiffon boa, and a deepred rose in her bosom. The maître d'hôtel, in the pride of reflected glory, conducted her to a table near the window. Septimus trailed inconclusivelybehind. When he seated himself he stared at her silently in a mute surmiseas the gentlemen in the poem did at the peak in Darien. It was even awilder adventure than the memorable drive. That was but a caprice of thegoddess; this was a sign of her friendship. The newness of their intimacysmote him dumb. He passed his hand through his Struwel Peter hair andwondered. Was it real? There sat the goddess, separated from him by thestrip of damask, her gold-flecked eyes smiling frankly and trustfully intohis, pulling off her gloves and disclosing, in almost disconcertingintimacy, her warm wrists and hands. Was he dreaming, as he sometimes did, in broad daylight, of a queer heaven in which he was strong like other menand felt the flutter of wings upon his cheek? Something soft was in hishand. Mechanically he began to stuff it up his sleeve. It was his napkin. Zora's laugh brought him to earth--to happy earth. 

It is a pleasant thing to linger _tête-à-tête_ over lunch on the terrace ofthe Hôtel de Paris. Outside is the shade of the square, the blazingsunshine beyond the shadow; the fountain and the palms and the doves; thewhite gaiety of pleasure houses; the blue-gray mountains cut sharp againstthe violet sky. Inside, a symphony of cool tones: the pearl of summerdresses; the snow, crystal, and silver of the tables; the tender green oflettuce, the yellows of fruit, the soft pink of salmon; here and there abold note of color--the flowers in a woman's hat, the purples and topazesof wine. Nearer still to the sense is the charm of privacy. The one humanbeing for you in the room is your companion. The space round your chairs isa magic circle, cutting you off from the others, who are mere decorations, beautiful or grotesque. Between you are substances which it were gross tocall food: dainty mysteries of coolness and sudden flavors; a fish salad inwhich the essences of sea and land are blended in cold, celestial harmony;innermost kernels of the lamb of the salted meadows where must grow theAsphodel on which it fed, in amorous union with what men call a sauce, butreally oil and cream and herbs stirred by a god in a dream; peaches inpurple ichor chastely clad in snow, melting on the palate as the voice ofthe divine singer after whom they are named melts in the soul. 

It is a pleasant thing--hedonistic? yes; but why live on lentils whenlotus is to your hand? and, really, at Monte Carlo lentils are quite asexpensive--it is a pleasant thing, even for the food-worn wanderer of manyrestaurants, to lunch _tête-à-tête_ at the Hôtel de Paris; but for theyoung and fresh-hearted to whom it is new, it is enchantment. 

"I've often looked at people eating like this and I've often wondered howit felt, " said Septimus. 

"But you must have lunched hundreds of times in such places. "

"Yes--but by myself. I've never had a--" he paused. "A what?"

"A--a gracious lady, " he said, reddening, "to sit opposite me. "

"Why not?"

"No one has ever wanted me. It has always puzzled me how men get to knowwomen and go about with them. I think it must be a gift, " he asserted withthe profound gravity of a man who has solved a psychological problem. "Somefellows have a gift for collecting Toby jugs. Everywhere they go theydiscover a Toby jug. I couldn't find one if I tried for a year. It's thesame thing. At Cambridge they used to call me the Owl. "

"An owl catches mice, at any rate, " said Zora. 

"So do I. Do you like mice?"

"No. I want to catch lions and tigers and all the bright and burning thingsof life, " cried Zora, in a burst of confidence. 

He regarded her with wistful admiration. 

"Your whole life must be full of such things. "

"I wonder, " she said, looking at him over the spoonful of pêche Melba whichshe was going to put in her mouth, "I wonder whether you have the faintestidea who I am and what I am and what I'm doing here all by myself, and whyyou and I are lunching together in this delightful fashion. You have toldme all about yourself--but you seem to take me for granted. "

She was ever so little piqued at his apparent indifference. But if men likeSeptimus Dix did not take women for granted, where would be the chivalryand faith of the children of the world? He accepted her unquestioningly asthe simple Trojan accepted the Olympian lady who appeared to him clad ingrace (but otherwise scantily) from a rosy cloud. 

"You are yourself, " he said, "and that has been enough for me. "

"How do you know I'm not an adventuress? There are heaps of them, peoplesay, in this place. I might be a designing thief of a woman. "

"I offered you the charge of my money the other night. "

"Was that why you did it? To test me?" she asked. 

He reddened and started as if stung. She saw the hurt instantly, and with agush of remorse begged for forgiveness. 

"No. I didn't mean it. It was horrid of me. It is not in your nature tothink such a thing. Forgive me. "

Frankly, impulsively, she stretched her hand across the table. He touchedit timidly with his ineffectual fingers, not knowing what to do with it, vaguely wondering whether he should raise it to his lips, and so kepttouching it, until she pressed his fingers in a little grip offriendliness, and withdrew it with a laugh. 

"Do you know, I still have that money, " he said, pulling a handful of greatfive-louis pieces from his pocket. "I can't spend it. I've tried to. Ibought a dog yesterday but he wanted to bite me and I had to give him tothe hotel porter. All this gold makes such a bulge in my pocket. "

When Zora explained that the coins were only used as counters and could bechanged for notes at the rooms, he was astonished at her sapience. He hadnever thought of it. Thus Zora regained her sense of superiority. 

This lunch was the first of many meals they had together; and meals led todrives and excursions, and to evenings at the theater. If she desired stillfurther to convince the wretch with the evil eyes of her befriended state, she succeeded; but the wretch and his friends speculated evilly on therelations between her and Septimus Dix. They credited her with pots ofmoney. Zora, however, walked serene, unconscious of slander, enjoyingherself prodigiously. Secure in her scorn and hatred of men she saw no harmin her actions. Nor was there any, from the point of view of her youngegotism and inexperience. It scarcely occurred to her that Septimus was aman. In some aspects he appealed to her instinctive motherhood like achild. When she met him one day coming out of one of the shops in thearcade, wearing a newly bought Homburg hat too small for him, she marchedhim back with a delicious sense of responsibility and stood over him tillhe was adequately fitted. In other aspects he was like a woman in whose shydelicacy she could confide. She awoke also to a new realization--that ofpower. Now, to use power with propriety needs wisdom, and the woman who iswise at five-and-twenty cannot make out at sixty why she has remained anold maid. The delightful way to use it is that of a babe when he firstdiscovers that a stick hits. That is the way that Zora, who was not wise, used it over Septimus. For the first time in her life she owned a humanbeing. A former joy in the possession of a devoted dog who did tricks wasas nothing to this rapture. It was splendid. She owned him. Whenever shehad a desire for his company--which was often, as solitude at Monte Carlois more depressing than Zora had realized--she sent a page boy, in the truequality of his name of _chasseur_, to hunt down the quarry and bring himback. He would, therefore, be awakened at unearthly hours, at three o'clockin the afternoon, for instance, when, as he said, all rational beingsshould be asleep, it being their own unreason if they were not; or he wouldbe tracked down at ten in the morning to some obscure little café in thetown where he would be discovered eating ices and looking the worse forwear in his clothes of the night before. As this meant delay in theexecution of her wishes, Zora prescribed habits less irregular. By means ofbribery of chambermaids and porters, and the sacrifice of food and sleep, he contrived to find himself dressed in decent time in the mornings. Hewould then patiently await her orders or call modestly for them at herresidence, like the butcher or the greengrocer. 

"Why does your hair stand up on end, in that queer fashion?" she asked himone day. The hat episode had led to a general regulation of his personalappearance. 

He pondered gravely over the conundrum for some time, and then replied thathe must have lost control over it. The command went forth that he shouldvisit a barber and learn how to control his hair. He obeyed, and returnedwith his shock parted in the middle and plastered down heavily withpomatum, a saint of more than methodistical meekness. On Zora declaringthat he looked awful (he was indeed inconceivably hideous), and that shepreferred Struwel Peter after all, he dutifully washed his head with soda(after grave consultation with the chambermaid), and sunned himself oncemore in the smiles of his mistress. 

Now and then, however, as she was kind and not tyrannical, she felt apin-prick of compunction. 

"If you would rather do anything else, don't hesitate to say so. "

But Septimus, after having contemplated the world's potentialities ofaction with lack-luster eye, would declare that there was nothing else thatcould be done. Then she could rate him soundly. 

"If I proposed that we should sail up the Andes and eat fried moonbeams, you would say 'yes. ' Why haven't you more initiative?"

"I'm like Mrs. Shandy, " he replied. "Some people are born so. They arequiescent; other people can jump about like grasshoppers. Do you knowgrasshoppers are very interesting?" And he began to talk irrelevantly oninsects. 

Their intercourse encouraged confidential autobiography. Zora learned thewhole of his barren history. Fatherless, motherless, brotherless, he wasalone in the world. From his father, Sir Erasmus Dix, a well-knownengineer, to whose early repression much of Septimus's timidity was due, hehad inherited a modest fortune. After leaving Cambridge he had wanderedaimlessly about Europe. Now he lived in a little house in Shepherd's Bush, with a studio or shed at the end of the garden which he used as alaboratory. 

"Why Shepherd's Bush?" asked Zora. 

"Wiggleswick likes it, " said he. 

"And now he has the whole house to himself? I suppose he makes himselfcomfortable in your quarters and drinks your wine and smokes your cigarswith his friends. Did you lock things up?"

"Oh, yes, of course, " said Septimus. 

"And where are the keys?"

"Why Wiggleswick has them, " he replied. 

Zora drew in her breath. "You don't know how angry you make me. If ever Imeet Wiggleswick--"

"Well?"

"I'll talk to him, " said Zora with a fine air of menace. 

She, on her side, gave him such of her confidences as were meet formasculine ears. Naturally she impressed upon him the fact that his sex wasabhorrent to her in all its physical, moral, and spiritual manifestations. Septimus, on thinking the matter over, agreed with her. Memories came backto him of the men with whom he had been intimate. His father, themechanical man who had cogs instead of corpuscles in his blood, Wiggleswickthe undesirable, a few rowdy men on his staircase at Cambridge who had ledshocking lives--once making a bonfire of his pyjamas and a brand-newumbrella in the middle of the court--and had since come to early anddisastrous ends. His impressions of the sex were distinctly bad. Germs ofunutterable depravity, he was sure, lurked somewhere in his own nature. 

"You make me feel, " said he, "as if I weren't fit to black the boots ofJezebel. "

"That's a proper frame of mind, " said Zora. "Would you be good and tie thisvexatious shoestring?"

The poor fool bent over it in reverent ecstasy, but Zora was only consciousof the reddening of his gills as he stooped. 

This, to her, was the charm of their intercourse: that he never presumedupon their intimacy. When she remembered the prophecy of the Literary Manfrom London, she laughed at it scornfully. Here was a man, at any rate, whoregarded her beauty unconcerned, and from whose society she derived noemotional experiences. She felt she could travel safely with him to the endof the earth. 

This reflection came to her one morning while Turner, her maid, wasbrushing her hair. The corollary followed: "why not?"

"Turner, " she said, "I'll soon have seen enough of Monte Carlo. I must goto Paris. What do you think of my asking Mr. Dix to come with us?"

"I think it would be most improper, ma'am, " said Turner. 

"There's nothing at all improper about it, " cried Zora, with a flush. "Youought to be ashamed of yourself. "

CHAPTER IV

At Monte Carlo, as all the world knows, there is an Arcade devoted to themost humorously expensive lace, diamond and general vanity shops in theuniverse, the Hôtel Métropole and Ciro's Restaurant. And Ciro's has aterrace where there are little afternoon tea-tables covered with pinkcloths. 

It was late in the afternoon, and save for a burly Englishman in whiteflannels and a Panama hat, reading a magazine by the door, and Zora andSeptimus, who sat near the public gangway, the terrace was deserted. Inside, some men lounged about the bar drinking cocktails. The red Tziganeorchestra were already filing into the restaurant and the electric lampswere lit. Zora and Septimus had just returned from a day's excursion toCannes. They were pleasantly tired and lingered over their tea in acompanionable silence. Septimus ruminated dreamily over the nauseousentanglement of a chocolate eclair and a cigarette while Zora idly watchedthe burly Englishman. Presently she saw him do an odd thing. He tore outthe middle of the magazine, --it bore an American title on theoutside, --handed it to the waiter and put the advertisement pages in hispocket. From another pocket he drew another magazine, and read theadvertisement pages of that with concentrated interest. 

Her attention was soon distracted by a young couple, man and woman, decently dressed, who passed along the terrace, glanced at her, repassedand looked at her more attentively, the woman wistfully, and then stoppedout of earshot and spoke a few words together. They returned, seemed tohesitate, and at last the woman, taking courage, advanced and addressedher. 

"_Pardon, Madame_--but Madame looks so kind. Perhaps will she pardon theliberty of my addressing her?"

Zora smiled graciously. The woman was young, fragile, careworn, and apiteous appeal lay in her eyes. The man drew near and raised his hatapologetically. The woman continued. They had seen Madame there--andMonsieur--both looked kind, like all English people. Although she wasFrench she was forced to admit the superior generosity of the English. Theyhad hesitated, but the kind look of Madame had made her confident. Theywere from Havre. They had come to Nice to look after a lawsuit. Nearly alltheir money had gone. They had a little baby who was ill. In desperationthey had brought the remainder of their slender fortune to Monte Carlo. They had lost it. It was foolish, but yet the baby came out that day withnine red spots on its chest and it seemed as if it was a sign from the bonDieu that they should back nine and red at the tables. Now she knew toolate that it was measles and not a sign from the bon Dieu at all. But theywere penniless. The baby wanted physic and a doctor and would die. As alast resource they resolved to sink their pride and appeal to thegenerosity of Monsieur and Madame. The woman's wistful eyes filled withtears and the corners of her mouth quivered. The man with a great effortchoked a sob. Zora's generous heart melted at the tale. It rang so stupidlytrue. The fragile creature's air was so pathetic. She opened her purse. 

"Will a hundred francs be of any use to you?" she asked in her schoolgirlFrench. 

"Oh, Madame!"

"And I, too, will give a hundred to the baby, " said Septimus. "I likebabies and I've also had the measles. " He opened his pocketbook. 

"Oh, Monsieur, " said the man. "How can I ever be sufficiently grateful?"

He held out his hand for the note, when something hit him violently in theback. It was the magazine hurled by the burly Englishman, who followed upthe assault by a torrent of abuse. 

_"Allez-vous-ong! Cochons! Et plus vite que ça!"_ There was somethingterrific in his awful British accent. 

The pair turned in obvious dismay. He waved them off. 

"Don't give them anything. The baby hasn't any red spots. There isn't ababy. They daren't show their noses in the rooms. _Oh je vous connais. Vousêtes George Polin et Celestine Macrou. Sales voleurs. Allez-vous-ong ouj'appelle la police_. "

But the last few words were shouted to the swiftly retiring backs of thepathetic couple. 

"I've saved you two hundred francs, " said the burly Englishman, picking uphis magazine and tenderly smoothing it. "Those two are the mostaccomplished swindlers in this den of thieves. "

"I can't believe it, " said Zora, half hurt, half resentful. "The woman'seyes were full of tears. "

"It's true, " said her champion. "And the best of it is that the man isactually an accredited agent of Jebusa Jones's Cuticle Remedy. "

He stood, his hands on his broad hips, regarding her with the piercingeyes of a man who is imparting an incredible but all-important piece ofinformation. 

"Why the best of it?" asked Zora, puzzled. 

"It only shows how unscrupulous they are in their business methods. A manlike that could persuade a fishmonger or an undertaker to stock it. Buthe'll do them in the end. They'll suffer for it. "

"Who will?"

"Why, Jebusa Jones, of course. Oh, I see, " he continued, looking at the twoperplexed faces, "you don't know who I am. I am Clem Sypher. "

He looked from one to the other as if to see the impression made by hisannouncement. 

"I am glad to make your acquaintance, " said Septimus, "and I thank you foryour services. "

"Your name?"

"My name is Dix--Septimus Dix. "

"Delighted to meet you. I have seen you before. Two years ago. You weresitting alone in the lounge of the Hôtel Continental, Paris. You weresuffering from severe abrasions on your face. "

"Dear me, " said Septimus. "I remember. I had shaved myself with a safetyrazor. I invented it. "

"I was going to speak to you, but I was prevented. " He turned to Zora. 

"I've met you too, on Vesuvius in January. You were with two elderlyladies. You were dreadfully sunburnt. I made their acquaintance next day inNaples. You had gone, but they told me your name. Let me see. I knoweverybody and never forget anything. My mind is pigeon-holed like myoffice. Don't tell me. "

He held up his forefinger and fixed her with his eye. 

"It's Middlemist, " he cried triumphantly, "and you've an Oriental kind ofChristian name--Zora! Am I right?"

"Perfectly, " she laughed, the uncanniness of his memory mitigating theunconventionality of his demeanor. 

"Now we all know one another, " he said, swinging a chair round and sittingunasked at the table. "You're both very sunburnt and the water here is hardand will make the skin peel. You had better use some of the cure. I use itmyself every day--see the results. "

He passed his hand over his smooth, clean-shaven face, which indeed was asrosy as a baby's. His piercing eyes contrasted oddly with his chubby, fulllips and rounded chin. 

"What cure?" asked Zora, politely. 

"What cure?" he echoed, taken aback, "why, my cure. What other cure isthere?"

He turned to Septimus, who stared at him vacantly. Then the incredibletruth began to dawn on him. 

"I am Clem Sypher--Friend of Humanity--Sypher's Cure. Now do you know?"

"I'm afraid I'm shockingly ignorant, " said Zora. 

"So am I, " said Septimus. 

"Good heavens!" cried Sypher, bringing both hands down on the table, tragically. "Don't you ever read your advertisements?"

"I'm afraid not, " said Zora. 

"No, " said Septimus. 

Before his look of mingled amazement and reproach they felt likeSunday-school children taken to task for having skipped the Kings ofIsrael. 

"Well, " said Sypher, "this is the reward we get for spending millions ofpounds and the shrewdest brains in the country for the benefit of thepublic! Have you ever considered what anxious thought, what consummateknowledge of human nature, what dearly bought experience go to the makingof an advertisement? You'll go miles out of your way to see a picture or apiece of sculpture that hasn't cost a man half the trouble and money toproduce, and you'll not look at an advertisement of a thing vital to yourlife, though it is put before your eyes a dozen times a day. Here's mycard, and here are some leaflets for you to read at your leisure. They willrepay perusal. "

He drew an enormous pocketbook from his breast pocket and selected twocards and two pamphlets, which he laid on the table. Then he arose with anair of suave yet offended dignity. Zora, seeing that the man, in somestrange way, was deeply hurt, looked up at him with a conciliatory smile. 

"You mustn't bear me any malice, Mr. Sypher, because I'm so grateful to youfor saving us from these swindling people. "

When Zora smiled into a man's eyes, she was irresistible. Sypher's pinkface relaxed. 

"Never mind, " he said. "I'll send you all the advertisements I can lay myhands on in the morning. Au revoir. "

He raised his hat and went away. Zora laughed across the table. 

"What an extraordinary person!"

"I feel as if I had been talking to a typhoon, " said Septimus. 

 * * * * *

They went to the theater that evening, and during the first entr'actestrolled into the rooms. Except the theater the Casino administrationprovides nothing that can allure the visitor from the only purpose of theestablishment. Even the bar at the end of the atrium could tempt nobody notseriously parched with thirst. It is the most comfortless pleasure-house inEurope. You are driven, deliberately, in desperation into the rooms. 

Zora and Septimus were standing by the decorous hush of a _trente etquarante_ table, when they were joined by Mr. Clem Sypher. He greeted themlike old acquaintances. 

"I reckoned I should meet you sometime to-night. Winning?"

"We never play, " said Zora. 

Which was true. A woman either plunges feverishly into the vice of gamblingor she is kept away from it by her inborn economic sense of the uses ofmoney. She cannot regard it like a man, as a mere amusement. Light lovesare somewhat in the same category. Hence many misunderstandings between thesexes. Zora found the amusement profitless, the vice degraded. So, afterher first evening, she played no more. Septimus did not count. 

"We never play, " said Zora. 

"Neither do I, " said Sypher. 

"The real way to enjoy Monte Carlo is to regard these rooms asnon-existent. I wish they were. "

"Oh, don't say that, " Sypher exclaimed quickly. "They are most useful. Theyhave a wisely ordained purpose. They are the meeting-place of the world. Icome here every year and make more acquaintances in a day than I doelsewhere in a month. Soon I shall know everybody and everybody will knowme, and they'll take away with them to Edinburgh and Stockholm and Uruguayand Tunbridge Wells--to all corners of the earth--a personal knowledge ofthe cure. "

"Oh--I see. From that point of view--" said Zora. 

"Of course. What other could there be? You see the advantage? It makes thething human. It surrounds it with personality. It shows that 'Friend ofHumanity' isn't a cant phrase. They recommend the cure to their friends. 'Are you sure it's all right?' they are asked. 'Of course it is, ' they canreply. _'I know the man, Clem Sypher himself. '_ And the friends areconvinced and go about saying they know a man who knows Clem Sypher, and sothe thing spreads like a snowball. Have you read the pamphlet?"

"It was most interesting, " said Zora mendaciously. 

"I thought you'd find it so. I've brought something in my pocket for you. "

He searched and brought out a couple of little red celluloid boxes, whichhe handed to Septimus. 

"There are two sample boxes of the cure--one for Mrs. Middlemist and onefor yourself, Mr. Dix. You both have a touch of the sun. Put it onto-night. Let it stay there for five minutes; then rub off with a smooth, dry towel. In the morning you'll see the miracle. " He looked at Septimusearnestly. "Quite sure you haven't anything in the nature of an eruption onyou?"

"Good Lord, no. Of course not, " said Septimus, startled out of a dreamycontemplation of the two little red boxes. 

"That's a pity. It would have been so nice to cure you. Ah!" said he, witha keen glance up the room. "There's Lord Rebenham. I must enquire after hiseczema. You won't forget me now. Clem Sypher. Friend of Humanity. "

He bowed and withdrew, walking kindly and broad-shouldered trough thecrowd, like a benevolent deity, the latest thing in Æsculapiuses, among hisdevotees. 

"What am I to do with these?" asked Septimus, holding out the boxes. 

"You had better give me mine, or heaven knows what will become of it, " saidZora, and she put it in her little chain bag, with her handkerchief, purse, and powder-puff. 

The next morning she received an enormous basket of roses and a bundle ofnewspapers; also a card, bearing the inscription "Mr. Clem Sypher. TheKurhaus. Kilburn Priory, N. W. " She frowned ever so little at the flowers. To accept them would be to accept Mr. Sypher's acquaintance in his privateand Kilburn Priory capacity. To send them back would be ungracious, seeingthat he had saved her a hundred francs and had cured her imaginary sunburn. She took up the card and laughed. It was like him to name his residence"The Kurhaus. " She would never know him in his private capacity, for thesimple reason that he hadn't one. The roses were an advertisement. SoTurner unpacked the basket, and while Zora was putting the roses into watershe wondered whether Mr. Sypher's house was decorated with pictorialadvertisements of the cure instead of pictures. Her woman's instinct, however, caused the reflection that the roses must have cost more than allthe boxes of the cure she could buy in a lifetime. 

Septimus was dutifully waiting for her in the hall. She noted that he wasmore spruce than usual, in a new gray cashmere suit, and that his brownboots shone dazzlingly, like agates. They went out together, and the firstperson who met their eyes was the Friend of Humanity sunning himself in thesquare and feeding the pigeons with bread crumbs from a paper bag. As soonas he saw Zora he emptied his bag and crossed over. 

"Good morning, Mrs. Middlemist. Good morning, Mr. Dix. Used the cure? Isee you have, Mrs. Middlemist. Isn't it wonderful? If you'd only go aboutMonte Carlo with an inscription 'Try Sypher's Cure!' What an advertisement!I'd have you one done in diamonds! And how did you find it, Mr. Dix?"

"I--oh!" murmured Septimus. "I forgot about it last night--and this morningI found I hadn't any brown boot polish--I--"

"Used the cure?" cried Zora, aghast. 

"Yes, " said Septimus, timidly. "It's rather good, " and he regarded hisdazzling boots. 

Clem Sypher burst into a roar of laughter and clapped Septimus on theshoulder. 

"Didn't I tell you?" he cried delightedly. "Didn't I tell you it's good foreverything? What cream could give you such a polish? By Jove! You deserveto be on the free list for life. You've given me a line for an ad. 'If yourskin is all right, try it on your boots. ' By George! I'll use it. This is aman with ideas, Mrs. Middlemist. We must encourage him. "

"Mr. Dix is an inventor, " said Zora. She liked Sypher for laughing. It madehim human. It was therefore with a touch of kindly feeling that she thankedhim for the roses. 

"I wanted to make them blush at the sight of your complexion after thecure, " said he. 

It was a compliment, and Zora frowned; but it was a professionalcompliment--so she smiled. Besides, the day was perfect, and Zora not onlyhad not a care in the wide world, but was conscious of a becoming hat. Shecould not help smiling pleasantly on the world. 

An empty motor car entered the square, and drew up near by. The chauffeurtouched his cap. 

"I'll run you both over to Nice, " said Clem Sypher. "I have to meet myagent there and put the fear of God into him. I shan't be long. My methodsare quick. And I'll run you back again. Don't say no. "

There was the car--a luxurious 40 h. P. Machine, upholstered in green; therewas Clem Sypher, pink and strong, appealing to her with his quick eyes;there was the sunshine and the breathless blue of the sky; and there wasSeptimus Dix, a faithful bodyguard. She wavered and turned to Septimus. 

"What do you say?"

She was lost. Septimus murmured something inconclusive. Sypher triumphed. She went indoors to get her coat and veil. Sypher admiringly watched herretreating figure--a poem of subtle curves--and shrugging himself into hismotor coat, which the chauffeur brought him from the car, he turned toSeptimus. 

"Look here, Mr. Dix, I'm a straight man, and go straight to a point. Don'tbe offended. Am I in the way?"

"Not in the least, " said Septimus, reddening. 

"As for me, I don't care a hang for anything in the universe save Sypher'sCure. That's enough for one man to deal with. But I like having such aglorious creature as Mrs. Middlemist in my car. She attracts attention; andI can't say but what I'm not proud at being seen with her, both as a manand a manufacturer. But that's all. Now, tell me, what's in your mind?"

"I don't think I quite like you--er--to look on Mrs. Middlemist as anadvertisement, " said Septimus. To speak so directly cost him considerableeffort. 

"Don't you? Then I won't. I love a man to speak straight to me. I respecthim. Here's my hand. " He wrung Septimus's hand warmly. "I feel that we aregoing to be friends. I'm never wrong. I hope Mrs. Middlemist will allow meto be a friend. Tell me about her. "

Septimus again reddened uncomfortably. He belonged to a class which doesnot discuss its women with a stranger even though he be a newly swornbrother. 

"She mightn't care for it, " he said. 

Sypher once more clapped him on the shoulder. "Good again!" he cried, admiringly. "I shouldn't like you half so much if you had told me. I've gotto know, for I know everything, so I'll ask her myself. "

Zora came down coated and veiled, her face radiant as a Romney in its frameof gauze. She looked so big and beautiful, and Sypher looked so big andstrong, and both seemed so full of vitality, that Septimus felt criminallyinsignificant. His voice was of too low a pitch to make itself carry whenthese two spoke in their full tones. He shrank into his shell. Had he notrealized, in his sensitive way, that without him as a watchdog--ineffectualspaniel that he was--Zora would not accept Clem Sypher's invitation, hewould have excused himself from the drive. He differentiated, notconceitedly, between Clem Sypher and himself. She had driven alone with himon her first night at Monte Carlo. But then she had carried him off betweenher finger and thumb, so to speak, as the Brobdingnagian ladies carried offGulliver. He knew that he did not count as a danger in the eyes ofhigh-spirited young women. A man like Sypher did. He knew that Zora wouldnot have driven alone with Sypher any more than with the wretch of the evileyes. He did not analyze this out himself, as his habit of mind was toovague and dreamy. But he knew it instinctively, as a dog knows whom he cantrust with his mistress and whom he cannot. So when Sypher and Zora, witha great bustle of life, were discussing seating arrangements in the car, heclimbed modestly into the front seat next to the chauffeur, and would notbe dislodged by Sypher's entreaties. He was just there, on guard, having noplace in the vigorous atmosphere of their personalities. He sat aloof, smoking his pipe, and wondering whether he could invent a motorperambulator which could run on rails round a small garden, fill the baby'slungs with air, and save the British Army from the temptation ofnursery-maids. His sporadic discourse on the subject perplexed thechauffeur. 

It was a day of vivid glory. Rain had fallen heavily during the night, laying the dust on the road and washing to gay freshness the leaves ofpalms and gold-spotted orange trees and the purple bourgainvillea and otherflowers that rioted on wayside walls. All the deep, strong color of theSouth was there, making things unreal: the gray mountains, fragile massesagainst the solid cobalt of the sky. The Mediterranean met the horizon in ablue so intense that the soul ached to see it. The heart of spring throbbedin the deep bosom of summer. The air as they sped through it was like coolspiced wine. 

Zora listened to Clem Sypher's dithyrambics. The wine of the air had gotinto his head. He spoke as she had heard no man speak before. The turns ofthe road brought into sight view after magic view, causing her to catch herbreath: purple rock laughing in the sea, far-off townlets flashing whiteagainst the mountain flank, gardens of paradise. Yet Clem Sypher sang ofhis cure. 

First it was a salve for all external ills that flesh is heir to. It sparedhumanity its heritage of epidermatous suffering. It could not fail. Hereeled off the string of hideous diseases with a lyrical lilt. It was hisown discovery. An obscure chemist's assistant in Bury St. Edmunds, he had, by dint of experiments, hit on this world-upheaving remedy. 

"When I found what it was that I had done, Mrs. Middlemist, " said hesolemnly, "I passed my vigil, like a knight of old, in my dispensary, witha pot of the cure in front of me, and I took a great oath to devote my lifeto spread it far and wide among the nations of the earth. It should bringcomfort, I swore, to the king in his palace and the peasant in his hut. Itshould be a household word in the London slum and on the Tartar steppe. Sypher's Cure could go with the Red Cross into battle, and should be in theclerk's wife's cupboard in Peckham Rye. The human chamois that climbs theAlps, the gentle lunatic that plays golf, the idiot that goes and getsscalped by Red Indians, the missionary that gets half roasted bycannibals--if he gets quite roasted the cure's no good; it can't doimpossibilities--all should carry Sypher's Cure in their waistcoat pockets. All mankind should know it, from China to Peru, from Cape Horn to NovaZembla. It would free the tortured world from plague. I would be the Friendof Humanity. I took that for my device. It was something to live for. I wastwenty then. I am forty now. I have had twenty years of the fiercest battlethat ever man fought. "

"And surely you've come off victorious, Mr. Sypher, " said Zora. 

"I shall never be victorious until it has overspread the earth!" hedeclared. And he passed one hand over the other in a gesture whichsymbolized the terrestrial globe with a coating of Sypher's Cure. 

"Why shouldn't it?"

"It shall. Somehow, I believe that with you on my side it will. "

"I?" Zora started away to the corner of the car, and gazed on him in blankamazement. "I? What in the world have I to do with it?"

"I don't know yet, " said Sypher. "I have an intuition. I'm a believer inintuitions. I've followed them all my life, and they've never played mefalse. The moment I learned that you had never heard of me, I felt it. "

Zora breathed comfortably again. It was not an implied declaration. 

"I'm fighting against the Powers of Darkness, " he continued. "I once read abit of Spenser's 'Faërie Queene. ' There was a Red Cross Knight who slew aDragon--but he had a fabulous kind of woman behind him. When I saw you, youseemed that fabulous kind of woman. "

At a sharp wall corner a clump of tall poinsettias flamed against the sky. Zora laughed full-heartedly. 

"Here we are in the middle of a Fairy Tale. What are the Powers of Darknessin your case, Sir Red Cross Knight?"

"Jebusa Jones's Cuticle Remedy, " said Sypher savagely. 

CHAPTER V

That was Clem Sypher's Dragon--Jebusa Jones's Cuticle Remedy. He drew sovivid a picture of its foul iniquity that Zora was convinced that the earthhad never harbored so scaly a horror. Of all Powers of Evil in the universeit was the most devastating. 

She was swept up by his eloquence to his point of view, and saw things withhis eyes. When she came to examine the poor dragon in the cool light of herown reason it appeared at the worst to be but a pushful patent medicine ofan inferior order which, on account of its cheapness and the superiorAmerican skill in distributing it, was threatening to drive Sypher's Cureoff the market. 

"I'll strangle it as Hercules strangled the dog-headed thing, " criedSypher. 

He meant the Hydra, which wasn't dog-headed and which Hercules didn'tstrangle. But a man can be at once unmythological and sincere. Clem Sypherwas in earnest. 

"You talk as if your cure had something of a divine sanction, " said Zora. This was before her conversion. 

"Mrs. Middlemist, if I didn't believe that, " said Sypher solemnly, "do youthink I would have devoted my life to it?"

"I thought people ran these things to make money, " said Zora. 

It was then that Sypher entered on the exordium of the speech whichconvinced her of the diabolical noisomeness of the Jebusa Jones unguent. His peroration summed up the contest as that between Mithra and Ahriman. 

Yet Zora, though she took a woman's personal interest in the battlebetween Sypher's Cure and Jebusa Jones's Cuticle Remedy, siding loyally andwhole-heartedly with her astonishing host, failed to pierce to thespirituality of the man--to divine him as a Poet with an Ideal. 

"After all, " said Sypher on the way back--Septimus, with his coat-collarturned up over his ears, still sat on guard by the chauffeur, consoled by ahappy hour he had spent alone with his mistress after lunch, while Sypherwas away putting the fear of God into his agent, during which hour he hadunfolded to her his scientific philosophy of perambulators--"after all, "said Sypher, "the great thing is to have a Purpose in Life. Everyone can'thave my Purpose "--he apologized for humanity--"but they can have someguiding principle. What's yours?"

Zora was startled by the unexpected question. What was her Purpose in Life?To get to the heart of the color of the world? That was rather vague. Alsononsensical when so formulated. She took refuge in jest. 

"I thought you had decided that my mission was to help you slay thedragon?"

"We have to decide on our missions for ourselves, " said he. 

"Don't you think it sufficient Purpose for a woman who has been in a grayprison all her life--when she finds herself free--to go out and see allthat is wonderful in scenery like this, in paintings, architecture, manners, and customs of other nations, in people who have other ideas andfeelings from those she knew in prison? You speak as if you're findingfault with me for not doing anything useful. Isn't what I do enough? Whatelse can I do?"

"I don't know, " said Sypher, looking at the back of his gloves; then heturned his head and met her eyes in one of his quick glances. "But you, with your color and your build and your voice, seem somehow to me to standfor Force--there's something big about you--just as there's something bigabout me--Napoleonic--and I can't understand why it doesn't act in someparticular direction. "

"Oh, you must give me time, " cried Zora. "Time to expand, to find out whatkind of creature I really am. I tell you I've been in prison. Then Ithought I was free and found a purpose, as you call it. Then I had aknock-down blow. I am a widow--I supposed you've guessed. Oh, now, don'tspeak. It wasn't grief. My married life was a six-weeks' misery. I forgetit. I went away from home free five months ago--to see all this"--she wavedher hand--"for the first time. Whatever force I have has been devoted toseeing it all, to taking it all in. "

She spoke earnestly, just a bit passionately. In the silence that followedshe realized with sudden amazement that she had opened her heart to thisprime apostle of quackery. As he made no immediate reply, the silence grewtense and she clasped her hands tight, and wondered, as her sex has donefrom time immemorial, why on earth she had spoken. When he answered it waskindly. 

"You've done me a great honor in telling me this. I understand. You wantthe earth, or as much of it as you can get, and when you've got it andfound out what it means, you'll make a great use of it. Have you manyfriends?"

"No, " said Zora. He had an uncanny way of throwing her back on toessentials. "None stronger than myself. "

"Will you take me as a friend? I'm strong enough, " said Sypher. 

"Willingly, " she said, dominated by his earnestness. 

"That's good. I may be able to help you when you've found your vocation. Ican tell you, at any rate, how to get to what you want. You've just got tokeep a thing in view and go for it and never let your eyes wander to rightor left or up or down. And looking back is fatal--the truest thing inScripture is about Lot's wife. She looked back and was turned into a pillarof salt. "

He paused, his face assumed an air of profound reflection, and he addedwith gravity:

"And the Clem Sypher of the period when he came by, made use of her, andplastered her over with posters of his cure. "

 * * * * *

The day she had appointed as the end of her Monte Carlo visit arrived. Shewould first go to Paris, where some Americans whom she had met in Florenceand with whom she had exchanged occasional postcards pressed her to jointhem. Then London; and then a spell of rest in the lavender of Nunsmere. That was her programme. Septimus Dix was to escort her as far as Paris, indefiance of the proprieties as interpreted by Turner. What was to become ofhim afterwards neither conjectured; least of all Septimus himself. He saidnothing about getting back to Shepherd's Bush. Many brilliant ideas hadoccurred to him during his absence which needed careful working out. Wherefore Zora concluded that he proposed to accompany her to London. 

A couple of hours before the train started she dispatched Turner toSeptimus's hotel to remind him of the journey. Turner, a strong-mindedwoman of forty--like the oyster she had been crossed in love and like hermistress she held men in high contempt--returned with an indignant tale. After a series of parleyings with Mr. Dix through the medium of the hotel_chasseur_, who had a confused comprehension of voluble English, she hadmounted at Mr. Dix's entreaty to his room. There she found him, half cladand in his dressing-gown, staring helplessly at a wilderness of clothingand toilet articles for which there was no space in his suit cases and bag, already piled mountain high. 

"I can never do it, Turner, " he said as she entered. "What's to be done?"

Turner replied that she did not know; her mistress's instructions were thathe should catch the train. 

"I'll have to leave behind what I can't get in, " he said despondently. "Igenerally have to do so. I tell the hotel people to give it to widows andorphans. But that's one of the things that make traveling so expensive. "

"But you brought everything, sir, in this luggage?"

"I suppose so. Wiggleswick packed. It's his professional training, Turner. I think they call it 'stowing the swag. '"

As Turner had not heard of Wiggleswick's profession, she did not catch theallusion. Nor did Zora enlighten her when she reported the conversation. 

"If they went in once they'll go in again, " said Turner. 

"They won't. They never do, " said Septimus. 

His plight was so hopeless, he seemed so immeasurably her sex's inferior, that he awoke her contemptuous pity. Besides, her trained woman's handsitched to restore order out of masculine chaos. 

"Turn everything out and I'll pack for you, " she said resolutely, regardless of the proprieties. On further investigation she held outhorrified hands. 

He had mixed up shirts with shoes. His clothes were rolled in bundles, hiscollars embraced his sponge, his trees, divorced from boots, lay on the topof an unprotected bottle of hair-wash; he had tried to fit his brushesagainst a box of tooth-powder and the top had already come off. Turnershook out his dress suit and discovered a couple of hotel towels which hadgot mysteriously hidden in the folds. She held them up severely. 

"No wonder you can't get your things in if you take away half the hotellinen, " and she threw them to the other side of the room. 

In twenty minutes she had worked the magic of Wiggleswick. Septimus washumbly grateful. 

"If I were you, sir, " she said, "I'd go to the station at once and sit onmy boxes till my mistress arrives. "

"I think I'll do it, Turner, " said Septimus. 

Turner went back to Zora flushed, triumphant, and indignant. 

"If you think, ma'am, " said she, "that Mr. Dix is going to help us on ourjourney, you're very much mistaken. He'll lose his ticket and he'll losehis luggage and he'll lose himself, and we'll have to go and find them. "

"You must take Mr. Dix humorously, " said Zora. 

"I've no desire to take him at all, ma'am. " And Turner snorted virtuously, as became her station. 

Zora found him humbly awaiting her on the platform in company with ClemSypher, who presented her with a great bunch of roses and a bundle ofillustrated papers. Septimus had received as a parting guerdon an enormouspackage of the cure, which he embraced somewhat dejectedly. It was Sypherwho looked after the luggage of the party. His terrific accent filled thestation. Septimus regarded him with envy. He wondered how a man daredorder foreign railway officials about like that. 

"If I tried to do it they would lock me up. I once interfered in a streetrow. "

Zora did not hear the dire results of the interference. Sypher claimed herattention until the train was on the point of starting. 

"Your address in England? You haven't given it. "

"The Nook, Nunsmere, Surrey, will always find me. "

"Nunsmere?" He paused, pencil in hand, and looked up at her as she stoodframed in the railway carriage window. "I nearly bought a house there lastyear. I was looking out for one with a lawn reaching down to a main railwaytrack. This one had it. "

"Penton Court?"

"Yes. That was the name. "

"It's still unsold, " laughed Zora idly. 

"I'll buy it at once, " said he. 

_"En voiture_, " cried the guard. 

Sypher put out his masterful hand. 

"Au revoir. Remember. We are friends. I never say what I don't mean. "

The train moved out of the station. Zora took her seat opposite Septimus. 

"I really believe he'll do it, " she said. 

"What?"

"Oh, something crazy, " said Zora. "Tell me about the street row. "

 * * * * *

In Paris Zora was caught in the arms of the normal and the uneventful. AnAmerican family consisting of a father, mother, son and two daughterstouring the continent do not generate an atmosphere of adventure. Theirname was Callender, they were wealthy, and the track beaten by the goldenfeet of their predecessors was good enough for them. They were generous andkindly. There was no subtle complexity in their tastes. They liked thebest, they paid for it, and they got it. The women were charming, cultivated and eager for new sensations. They found Zora a new sensation, because she had that range of half tones which is the heritage of a childof an older, grayer civilization. Father and son delighted in her. Most mendid. Besides, she relieved the family tedium. The family knew the Paris ofthe rich Anglo-Saxon and other rich Anglo-Saxons in Paris. Zora accompaniedthem on their rounds. They lunched and dined in the latest expensiverestaurants in the Champs Elysées and the Bois; they went to races; theywalked up and down the Rue de la Paix and the Avenue de l'Opéra and visitedmany establishments where the female person is adorned. After the theaterthey drove to the Cabarets of Montmartre, where they met other Americansand English, and felt comfortably certain that they were seeing thenaughty, shocking underside of Paris. They also went to the Louvre and tothe Tomb of Napoleon. They stayed at the Grand Hotel. 

Zora saw little of Septimus. He knew Paris in a queer, dim way of his own, and lived in an obscure hotel, whose name Zora could not remember, on theother side of the river. She introduced him to the Callenders, and theywere quite prepared to receive him into their corporation. But he shrankfrom so vast a concourse as six human beings; he seemed to be overawed bythe multitude of voices, unnerved by the multiplicity of personalities. Theunfeathered owl blinked dazedly in general society as the feathered onedoes in daylight. At first he tried to stand the glare for Zora's sake. 

"Come out and mix with people and enjoy yourself, " cried Zora, when he wasarguing against a proposal to join the party on a Versailles excursion. "Iwant you to enjoy yourself for once in your life. Besides--you're always soanxious to be human. This will make you human. "

"Do you think it will?" he asked seriously. "If you do, I'll come. "

But at Versailles they lost him, and the party, as a party, knew him nomore. What he did with himself in Paris Zora could not imagine. A Cambridgeacquaintance--one of the men on his staircase who had not yet terminatedhis disastrous career--ran across him in the Boulevard Sévastopol. 

"Why--if it isn't the Owl! What are you doing?"

"Oh--hooting, " said Septimus. 

Which was more information as to his activities than he vouchsafed to giveZora. Once he murmured something about a friend whom he saw occasionally. When she asked him where his friend lived he waved an indeterminate handeastwards and said, "There!" It was a friend, thought Zora, of whom he hadno reason to be proud, for he prevented further questioning by adroitlychanging the conversation to the price of hams. 

"But what are you going to do with hams?"

"Nothing, " said Septimus, "but when I see hams hanging up in a shop Ialways want to buy them. They look so shiny. "

Zora's delicate nostrils sniffed the faintest perfume of a mystery; but amoment afterwards the Callenders carried her off to Ledoyen's andLongchamps and other indubitable actualities in which she forgot thingsless tangible. Long afterwards she discovered that the friend was an oldwoman, a _marchande des quatre saisons_ who sold vegetables in the Place dela République. He had known her many years, and as she was at the point ofdeath he comforted her with blood-puddings and flowers and hams and theministrations of an indignant physician. But at the time Septimus hid hisGood Samaritanism under a cloud of vagueness. 

Then came a period during which Zora lost him altogether. Days passed. Shemissed him. Life with the Callenders was a continuous shooting of rapids. Aquiet talk with Septimus was an hour in a backwater, curiously restful. Shebegan to worry. Had he been run over by an omnibus? Only an ever-recurringmiracle could bring him safely across the streets of a great city. When theCallenders took her to the Morgue she dreaded to look at the corpses. 

"I do wish I knew what has become of him, " she said to Turner. 

"Why not write to him, ma'am?" Turner suggested. 

"I've forgotten the name of his hotel, " said Zora, wrinkling her forehead. 

The name of the Hôtel Quincamboeuf, where he lodged, eluded her memory. 

"I do wish I knew, " she repeated. 

Then she caught an involuntary but illuminating gleam in Turner's eye, andshe bade her look for hairpins. Inwardly she gasped from the shock ofrevelation; then she laughed to herself, half amused, half indignant. Thepreposterous absurdity of the suggestion! But in her heart she realizedthat, in some undefined human fashion, Septimus Dix counted for somethingin her life. What had become of him?

At last she found him one morning sitting by a table in the courtyard ofthe Grand Hotel, patiently awaiting her descent. By mere chance she wasun-Callendered. 

"Why, what--?"

The intended reproval died on her lips as she saw his face. His cheeks werehollow and white, his eyes sunken The man was ill. His hand burned throughher glove. Feelings warm and new gushed forth. 

"Oh, my _dear_ friend, what is the matter?"

"I must go back to England. I came to say good-bye. I've had this fromWiggleswick. "

He handed her an open letter. She waved it away. 

"That's of no consequence. Sit down. You're ill. You have a hightemperature. You should be in bed. "

"I've been, " said Septimus. "Four days. "

"And you've got up in this state? You must go back at once. Have you seen adoctor? No, of course you haven't. Oh, dear!" She wrung her hands. "You arenot fit to be trusted alone. I'll drive you to your hotel and see thatyou're comfortable and send for a doctor. "

"I've left the hotel, " said Septimus. "I'm going to catch the eleven train. My luggage is on that cab. "

"But it's five minutes past eleven now. You have lost the train--thankgoodness. "

"I'll be in good time for the four o'clock, " said Septimus. "This is theway I generally travel. I told you. " He rose, swayed a bit, and put hishand on the table to steady himself. "I'll go and wait at the station. ThenI'll be sure to catch it. You see I must go. "

"But why?" cried Zora. 

"Wiggleswick's letter. The house has been burnt down and everything in it. The only thing he saved was a large portrait of Queen Victoria. "

Then he fainted. 

 * * * * *

Zora had him carried to a room in the hotel and sent for a doctor, who kepthim in bed for a fortnight. Zora and Turner nursed him, much to hisapologetic content. The Callenders in the meanwhile went to Berlin. 

When Septimus got up, gaunt and staring, he appealed to the beholder as themost helpless thing which the Creator had clothed in the semblance of aman. 

"He must take very great care of himself for the next few weeks, " said thedoctor. "If he gets a relapse I won't answer for the consequences. Can'tyou take him somewhere?"

"Take him somewhere?" The idea had been worrying her for some days past. Ifshe left him to his own initiative he would probably go and camp withWiggleswick amid the ruins of his house in Shepherd's Bush, where he wouldfall ill again and die. She would be responsible. 

"We can't leave him here, at any rate, " she remarked to Turner. 

Turner agreed. As well abandon a month-old baby on a doorstep and expect itto earn its livelihood. She also had come to take a proprietary interest inSeptimus. 

"He might stay with us in Nunsmere. What do you think, Turner?"

"I think, ma'am, " said Turner, "that would be the least improperarrangement. "

"He can have Cousin Jane's room, " mused Zora, knowing that Cousin Janewould fly at her approach. 

"And I'll see, ma'am, that he comes down to his meals regular, " saidTurner. 

"Then it's settled, " said Zora. 

She went forthwith to the invalid and acquainted him with his immediatedestiny. At first he resisted. He would be a nuisance. Since his boyhood hehad never lived in a lady's house. Even landladies in lodgings had foundhim impossible. He could not think of accepting more favors from her alltoo gracious hands. 

"You've got to do what you're told, " said Zora, conclusively. She noticed ashade of anxiety cross his face. "Is there anything else?"

"Wiggleswick. I don't know what's to become of him. "

"He can come to Nunsmere and lodge with the local policeman, " said Zora. 

On the evening before they started from Paris she received a letteraddressed in a curiously feminine hand. It ran:

 "DEAR MRS. MIDDLEMIST:

 "I don't let the grass grow under my feet. I have bought Penton Court. I have also started a campaign which will wipe the Jebusa Jones people off the face of the earth they blacken. I hope you are finding a vocation. When I am settled at Nunsmere we must talk further of this. I take a greater interest in you than in any other woman I have ever known, and that I believe you take an interest in me is the proud privilege of

 "Yours very faithfully, "CLEM SYPHER. "

"Here are the three railway tickets, ma'am, " said Turner, who had broughtup the letter. "I think we had better take charge of them. "

Zora laughed, and when Turner had left the room she laughed again. ClemSypher's letter and Septimus's ticket lay side by side on herdressing-table, and they appealed to her sense of humor. They representedthe net result of her misanthropic travels. 

What would her mother say? What would Emmy say? What would be the superiorremark of the Literary Man from London?

She, Zora Middlemist, who had announced in the market place, with such aflourish of trumpets, that she was starting on her glorious pilgrimage tothe Heart of Life, abjuring all conversation with the execrated male sex, to have this ironical adventure! It was deliciously funny. Not only had shefound two men in the Heart of Life, but she was bringing them back with herto Nunsmere. She could not hide them from the world in the secrecy of herown memory: there they were in actual, bodily presence, the sole trophiesof her quest. 

Yet she put a postscript to a letter to her mother. 

"I know, in your dear romantic way, you will declare that these two menhave fallen in love with me. You'll be wrong. If they had, _I shouldn'thave anything to do with them. It would have made them quite impossible_. "

The energy with which she licked and closed the envelope was remarkable butunnecessary. 

CHAPTER VI

Things happen slowly at Nunsmere--from the grasping of an idea to the paceof the church choir over the hymns. Life there is no vulgar, tearingtwo-step, as it is in Godalming, London, and other vortices of humanpassions, but the stately measure of a minuet. Delights are deliberate andhave lingering ends. A hen would scorn to hatch a chicken with the indecenthaste of her sister in the next parish. 

Six months passed, and Zora wondered what had become of them. Only a fewvisits to London, where she had consorted somewhat gaily with Emmy'sacquaintances, had marked their flight, and the gentle fingers of Nunsmerehad graduated the reawakening of her nostalgia for the great world. Shespoke now and then of visiting Japan and America and South Africa, somewhatto her mother's consternation; but no irresistible force drove her thither. She found contentment in procrastination. 

It had also been a mild amusement to settle Septimus Dix, after hisrecovery, in a little house facing the common. He had to inhabit someportion of this planet, and as he had no choice of spot save Hackney Downs, which Wiggleswick suggested, Zora waved her hand to the tenantless houseand told him to take it. As there was an outhouse at the end of the gardenwhich he could use as a workshop, his principal desideratum in a residence, he obeyed her readily. She then bought his furniture, plate, and linen, and a complicated kitchen battery over whose uses Wiggleswick scratched abewildered head. 

"A saucepan I know, and a frying-pan I know, but what you're to put inthose things with holes in them fairly licks me. "

"Perhaps we might grow geraniums in them, " said Septimus brightly, alter afit of musing. 

"If you do, " said Zora, "I'll put a female cook in charge of you both, andwash my hands of you. "

Whereupon she explained the uses of a cullender, and gave Wiggleswick tounderstand that she was a woman of her word, and that an undrained cabbagewould be the signal for the execution of her threat. From the first she hadassumed despotic power over Wiggleswick, of whose influence with his mastershe had been absurdly jealous. But Wiggleswick, bent, hoary, deaf, crabbed, evil old ruffian that he was, like most ex-prisoners instinctively obeyedthe word of command, and meekly accepted Zora as his taskmistress. 

For Septimus began happy days wherein the clock was disregarded. The vagueprojects that had filled his head for the construction of a new type ofquick-firing gun took definite shape. Some queer corner of his brain hadassimilated a marvelous knowledge of field artillery, and Zora was amazedat the extent of his technical library, which Wiggleswick had overlooked inhis statement of the salvage from the burned-down house at Shepherd's Bush. Now and then he would creep from the shyness which enveloped the inventiveside of his nature, and would talk with her with unintelligible earnestnessof these dreadful engines; of radial and initial hoop pressures, of driftangles, of ballistics, of longitudinal tensions, and would jot downtrigonometrical formulae illustrated by diagrams until her brain reeled;or of his treatise on guns of large caliber just written and now in theprinters' hands, and of the revolution in warfare these astounding machineswould effect. His eyes would lose their dreamy haze and would becomeluminous, his nervous fingers would become effectual, the man would becometransfigured; but as soon as the fervid fit passed off he would turn withamiable aimlessness to his usual irrelevance. Sometimes he would work allnight, either in his room or his workshop, at his inventions. Sometimes hewould dream for days together. There was an old-fashioned pond in themiddle of the common, with rough benches placed here and there at thebrink. Septimus loved to sit on one of them and look at the ducks. He saidhe was fascinated by the way they wagged their tails. It suggested aninvention: of what nature he could not yet determine. He also formed abrotherly intimacy with a lame donkey belonging to the sexton, and used tofeed him with _pâté de foie gras_ sandwiches, specially prepared byWiggleswick, until he was authoritatively informed that raw carrots wouldbe more acceptable. To see the two of them side by side watching the ducksin the pond wag their tails was a touching spectacle. 

Another amenity in Septimus's peaceful existence was Emmy. 

Being at this time out of an engagement, she paid various flying visits toNunsmere, bringing with her an echo of comic opera and an odor of _Peaud'Espagne_. She dawned on Septimus's horizon like a mischievous andimpertinent planet, so different from Zora, the great fixed star of hisheaven, yet so pretty, so twinkling, so artlessly and so obviouslyrevolving round some twopenny-halfpenny sun of her own, that he took her, with Wiggleswick, the ducks and the donkey, into his close comradeship. Itwas she who had ordained the carrots. She had hair like golden thistledown, and the dainty, blonde skin that betrays every motion of the blood. Shecould blush like the pink tea-rose of an old-fashioned English garden. Shecould blanch to the whiteness of alabaster. Her eyes were forget-me-notsafter rain. Her mouth was made for pretty slang and kisses. Neither herfeatures nor her most often photographed expression showed the tiniestscrap of what the austere of her sex used to call character. When the worldsmiled on her she laughed: when it frowned, she cried. When she metSeptimus Dix, she flew to him as a child does to a new toy, and spentgorgeous hours in pulling him to pieces to see how he worked. 

"Why aren't you married?" she asked him one day. 

He looked up at the sky--they were on the common--an autumn stretch ofpearls and purples, with here and there a streak of wistful blue, as ifseeking the inspiration of a reason. 

"Because no one has married me, " he replied. 

Emmy laughed. "That's just like you. You expect a woman to drag you out ofyour house by the scruff of your neck and haul you to church without yourso much as asking her. "

"I've heard that lots of women do, " said Septimus. 

Emmy looked at him sharply. Every woman resents a universal criticism ofher sex, but cannot help feeling a twinge of respect for the critic. Shetook refuge in scorn. 

"A real man goes out and looks for a wife. "

"But suppose he doesn't want one?"

"He must want a woman to love. What can his life be without a woman in it?What can anybody's life be without some one to care for? I really believeyou're made of sawdust. Why don't you fall in love?"

Septimus took off his hat, ran his fingers through his upstanding hair, re-covered his head, and looked at her helplessly. 

"Oh, no! I'm booked. It's no use your falling in love with me. "

"I wouldn't--presume to do such a thing, " he stammered, somewhat scared. "Ithink love is serious. It's like an invention: sometimes it lies deep downinside you, great and quiet--and at other times it racks you and keeps youfrom sleeping. "

"Oho!" cried Emmy. "So you know all about it. You _are_ in love. Now, tellme, who is she?"

"It was many years ago, " said Septimus. "She wore pigtails and I burned ahole in her pinafore with a toy cannon and she slapped my face. Afterwardsshe married a butcher. "

He looked at her with his wan smile, and again raised his hat and ran hishand through his hair. Emmy was not convinced. 

"I believe, " she said, "you have fallen in love with Zora. "

He did not reply for a moment or two; then he touched her arm. 

"Please don't say that, " he said, in an altered tone. 

Emmy edged up close to him, as they walked. It was her nature, even whileshe teased, to be kind and caressing. 

"Not even if it's true? Why not?"

"Things like that are not spoken of, " he said soberly. "They're only felt. "

This time it was she who put a hand on his arm, with a charming, sisterlyair. 

"I hope you won't make yourself miserable over it. You see, Zora isimpossible. She'll never marry again. I do hope it's not serious. Is it?"As he did not answer, she continued: "It would be such--such rot wastingyour life over a thing you haven't a chance of getting. "

"Why?" said Septimus. "Isn't that the history of the best lives?"

This philosophic plane was too high for Emmy, who had her pleasant being ina less rarified atmosphere. "To want, to get, to enjoy, " was the guidingmotto of her existence. What was the use of wanting unless you got, andwhat was the use of getting unless you enjoyed? She came to the conclusionthat Septimus was only sentimentally in love with Zora, and she regardedhis tepid passion as a matter of no importance. At the same time her easydiscovery delighted her. It invested Septimus with a fresh air ofcomicality. 

"You're just the sort of man to write poetry about her. Don't you?"

"Oh, no!" said Septimus. 

"Then what do you do?"

"I play the bassoon, " said he. 

Emmy clapped her hands with joy, thereby scaring a hen that was straying onthe common. 

"Another accomplishment? Why didn't you tell us? I'm sure Zora doesn't knowof it. Where did you learn?"

"Wiggleswick taught me, " said he. "He was once in a band. "

"You must bring it round, " cried Emmy. 

But when Septimus, prevailed on by her entreaties, did appear with theinstrument in Mrs. Oldrieve's drawing-room, he made such unearthly andterrific noises that Mrs. Oldrieve grew pale and Zora politely but firmlytook it from his hands and deposited it in the umbrella-stand in the hall. 

"I hope you don't mind, " she said. 

"Oh, dear, no, " said Septimus mildly. "I could never make out why anybodyliked it. "

Seeing that Septimus had a sentimental side to his character, Emmygradually took him into her confidence, until Septimus knew things thatZora did not dream of. Zora, who had been married, and had seen the worldfrom Nunsmere Pond to the crater of Mount Vesuvius, treated her sister withmatronly indulgence, as a child to whom Great Things were unrevealed. Shedid not reckon with the rough-and-tumble experiences of life which a girlmust gain from a two years' battle on the stage. In fact, she did notreckon with any of the circumstances of Emmy's position. She herself wastoo ignorant, too much centered as yet in her own young impulses andaspirations, and far too serene in her unquestioning faith in theimpeccability of the Oldrieve family. To her Emmy was still thefluffy-haired little sister with caressing ways whom she could sendupstairs for her work-basket or could reprimand for a flirtation. Emmy knewthat Zora loved her dearly; but she was the least bit in the world afraidof her, and felt that in affairs of the heart she would be unsympathetic. So Emmy withheld her confidence from Zora, and gave it to Septimus. Besides, it always pleases a woman more to tell her secrets to a man thanto another woman. There is more excitement in it, even though the man be asunmoved as a stock-fish. 

Thus it fell out that Septimus heard of Mordaunt Prince, whose constantappearance in Emmy's London circle of friends Zora had viewed withplentiful lack of interest. He was a paragon of men. He acted like aSalvini and sang like an angel. He had been far too clever to take hisdegree at Oxford. He had just bought a thousand-guinea motor car, and--Septimus was not to whisper a word of it to Zora--she had recentlybeen on a three-days' excursion with him. Mordaunt Prince said this andMordaunt Prince said that. Mordaunt paid three guineas a pair for his brownboots. He had lately divorced his wife, an unspeakable creature only tooanxious for freedom. Mordaunt came to see her every day in London, andevery day during their absence they corresponded. Her existence was wrappedup in Mordaunt Prince. She traveled about with a suit-case (or so itappeared to Septimus) full of his photographs. He had been the leading manat the theater where she had her last engagement, and had fallen madly, devotedly, passionately in love with her. As soon as the divorce was madeabsolute they would be married. She had quarreled with her best friend, whohad tried to make mischief between them with a view to securing Mordauntfor herself. Had Septimus ever heard of such a cat? Septimus hadn't. 

He was greatly interested in as much of the story as he could follow--Emmywas somewhat discursive--and as his interjectory remarks were unprovocativeof argument, he constituted himself a good listener. Besides, romance hadnever come his way. It was new to him, even Emmy's commonplace littleromance, like a field of roses to a town-bred child, and it seemed sweetand gracious, a thing to dream about. His own distant worship of Zora didnot strike him as romantic. It was a part of himself, like the hallowedmemory of his mother and the conception of his devastating guns. Had hebeen more worldly-wise he would have seen possible danger in Emmy'sromance, and insisted on Zora being taken into their confidence. ButSeptimus believed that the radiant beings of the earth, such as Emmy andMordaunt Prince, from whom a quaint destiny kept him aloof, could only leadradiant lives, and the thought of harm did not cross his candid mind. Evenwhile keeping Emmy's secret from Zora, he regarded it as a romantic andeven dainty deceit. 

Zora, seeing him happy with his guns and Wiggleswick and Emmy, applaudedherself mightily as a contriver of good. Her mother also put ideas into herhead. 

From the drawing-room window they once saw Emmy and Septimus part at thelittle front gate. They had evidently returned from a walk. She plucked agreat white chrysanthemum bloom from a bunch she was carrying, flicked itlaughingly in his face, and stuck it in his buttonhole. 

"What a good thing it would be for Emmy, " said Mrs. Oldrieve, with a sigh. 

"To marry Septimus? Oh, mother!"

She laughed merrily; then all at once she became serious. 

"Why not?" she cried, and kissed her mother. 

Mrs. Oldrieve settled her cap. She was small and Zora was large, and Zora'sembraces were often disarranging. 

"He is a gentleman and can afford to keep a wife. "

"And steady?" said Zora, with a smile. 

"I should think quite steady, " said Mrs. Oldrieve, without one. 

"And he would amuse Emmy all day long. "

"I don't think it is part of a husband's duty, dear, to amuse his wife, "said Mrs. Oldrieve. 

The sudden entrance of Emmy, full of fresh air, laughter, andchrysanthemums, put an end to the conversation; but thenceforward Zorathought seriously of romantic possibilities. Like her mother, she did notentirely approve of Emmy's London circle. It was characterized by too muchfreedom, too great a lack of reticence. People said whatever came intotheir minds, and did, apparently, whatever occurred to their bodies. Shecould not quite escape from her mother's Puritan strain. For herself shefelt secure. She, Zora, could wander unattended over Europe, mixing withoutspot or stain with whatever company she listed; that was because she wasZora Middlemist, a young woman of exceptional personality and experience oflife. Ordinary young persons, for their own safe conduct, ought to obey theconventions which were made with that end in view; and Emmy was an ordinaryyoung person. She should marry; it would conduce to her moral welfare, andit would be an excellent thing for Septimus. The marriage was thereforemade in the unclouded heaven of Zora's mind. She shed all her graciousnessover the young couple. Never had Emmy felt herself enwrapped in moresisterly affection. Never had Septimus dreamed of such tender solicitude. Yet she sang Septimus's praises to Emmy and Emmy's praises to Septimus inso natural a manner that neither of the two was puzzled. 

"It is the natural instinct that makes every woman a matchmaker. She worksblindly towards the baby. If she cannot have one directly, she will have itvicariously. The sourest of old maids is thus doomed to have a hand in theperpetuation of the race. "

Thus spake the Literary Man from London, discoursing generally--out ofearshot of the Vicar and his wife, to whom he was paying one of hisperiodical visits--in a corner of their drawing-room. Zora, conscious ofmatchmaking, declared him to be horrid and physiological. 

"A woman is much more refined and delicate in her motives. "

"The highly civilized woman, " said Rattenden, "is delightfully refined inher table manners, and eats cucumber sandwiches in the most delicate way inthe world; but she is obeying the same instinct that makes your ladycannibal thrust raw gobbets of missionary into her mouth with her fingers. "

"Your conversation is revolting, " said Zora. 

"Because I speak the truth? Truth is a Mokanna. "

"What on earth is that?" asked Zora. 

The Literary man sighed. "The Veiled Prophet of Khorasan, Lalla Rookh, TomMoore. Ichabod. "

"It sounds like a cypher cablegram, " said Zora flippantly. "But go on. "

"I will. Truth, I say, is a Mokanna. So long as it's decently covered witha silver veil, you all prostrate yourselves before it and pretend toworship it. When anyone lifts the veil and reveals the revolting horror ofit, you run away screaming, with your hands before your eyes. Why do youwant truth to be pretty? Why can't you look its ghastliness bravely in theface? How can you expect to learn anything if you don't? How can you expectto form judgments on men and things? How can you expect to get to themeaning of life on which you were so keen a year ago?"

"I want beauty, and not disgustfulness, " said Zora. 

"Should it happen, for the sake of argument, that I wanted two dearfriends to marry, it is only because I know how happy they would betogether. The ulterior motive you suggest is repulsive. "

"But it's true, " said Rattenden. "I wish I could talk to you more. I couldteach you a great deal. At any rate I know that you'll think about whatI've said to-day. "

"I won't, " she declared. 

"You will, " said he. And then he dropped a very buttery piece of butteredtoast on the carpet and, picking it up, said "damn" under his breath; andthen they both laughed, and Zora found him human. 

"Why are you so bent on educating me?" she asked. 

"Because, " said he, "I am one of the few men of your acquaintance whodoesn't want to marry you. "

"Indeed?" said Zora sarcastically, yet hating herself for feeling a littlepang of displeasure. "May I ask why?"

"Because, " said he, "I've a wife and five children already. "

 * * * * *

On the top of her matchmaking and her reflections on Truth in the guise ofthe Veiled Prophet of Khorasan, came Clem Sypher to take possession of hisnew house. Since Zora had seen him in Monte Carlo he had been to New York, Chicago, and San Francisco, fighting the Jebusa Jones dragon in its lair. He had written Zora stout dispatches during the campaign. Here a victory. There a defeat. Everywhere a Napoleonic will to conquer--but everywherealso an implied admission of the almost invulnerable strength of his enemy. 

"I'm physically tired, " said he, on the first day of his arrival, spreadinghis large frame luxuriously among the cushions of Mrs. Oldrieve'schintz-covered Chesterfield. "I'm tired for the only time in my life. Iwanted you, " he added, with one of his quick, piercing looks. "It's acurious thing, but I've kept saying to myself for the last month, 'If Icould only come into Zora Middlemist's presence and drink in some of hervitality, I should be a new man. ' I've never wanted a human being before. It's strange, isn't it?"

Zora came up to him, tea in hand, a pleasant smile on her face. 

"The Nunsmere air will rest you, " she said demurely. 

"I don't think much of the air if you're not in it. It's like whiskey-lesssoda water. " He drew a long breath. "My God! It's good to see you again. You're the one creature on this earth who believes in the Cure as I domyself. "

Zora glanced at him guiltily. Her enthusiasm for the Cure as a religion wastepid. In her heart she did not believe in it. She had tried it a few weeksbefore on the sore head of a village baby, with disastrous results; thenthe mother had called in the doctor, who wrote out a simple prescriptionwhich healed the child immediately. The only real evidence of its powersshe had seen was on Septimus's brown boots. Humanity, however, forbade herto deny the faith with which Clem Sypher credited her; also a genuinefeeling of admiration mingled with pity for the man. 

"Do you find much scepticism about?" she asked. 

"It's lack of enthusiasm I complain of, " he replied. "Instead of acceptingit as the one heaven-sent remedy, people will use any other puffed andadvertised stuff. Chemists are even lukewarm. A grain of mustard seed offaith among them would save me thousands of pounds a year. Not that I wantto roll in money, Mrs. Middlemist. I'm not an avaricious man. But a greatbusiness requires capital--and to spend money merely in flogging theinvertebrate is waste--desperate waste. "

It was the first time that Zora had heard the note of depression. 

"Now that you are here, you must stay for a breathing space, " she saidkindly. "You must forget it, put it out of your mind, take a holiday. Strong as you are, you are not cast iron, and if you broke down, think whata disaster it would be for the Cure. "

"Will you help me to have a holiday?"

She laughed. "To the best of my ability--and provided you don't want tomake me shock Nunsmere too much. "

He waved his hand in the direction of the village and said, Napoleonically:

"I'll look after Nunsmere. I have the motor here. We can go all over thecountry. Will you come?"

"On one condition. "

"And that?"

"That you won't spread the Cure among our Surrey villages, and that you'lltalk of something else all the time. "

He rose and put out his hand. "I accept, " he cried frankly. "I'm not afool. I know you're right. When are you coming to see Penton Court? I willgive a housewarming You say that Dix has settled down here. I'll look himup. I'll be glad to see the muddle-headed seraph again. I'll ask him tocome, too, so there will be you and he--and perhaps your sister will honorme, and your mother, Mrs. Oldrieve?"

"Mother doesn't go out much nowadays, " said Zora. "But Emmy will no doubtbe delighted to come. "

"I have a surprise for you, " said Sypher. "It's a brilliant idea--have hadit in my head for months--you must tell me what you think of it. "

The entrance of Mrs. Oldrieve and Emmy put an end to further talk of anintimate nature, and as Mrs. Oldrieve preferred the simple graces ofstereotyped conversation, the remainder of Sypher's visit was uneventful. When he had taken his leave she remarked that he seemed to be a mostsuperior person. 

"I'm so glad he has made a good impression on mother, " said Zoraafterwards. 

"Why?" asked Emmy. 

"It's only natural that I should be glad. "

"Oho!" said Emmy. 

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing, dear. "

"Look here, Emmy, " said Zora, half laughing, half angry. "If you say orthink such a thing I'll--I'll slap you. Mr. Sypher and I are friends. Hehasn't the remotest idea of our being anything else. If he had, I wouldnever speak to him again as long as I live. "

Emmy whistled a comedy air, and drummed on the window-pane. 

"He's a very remarkable man, " said Zora. 

"A most superior person, " mimicked Emmy. 

"And I don't think it's very good taste in us to discuss him in thismanner. "

"But, my dear, " said Emmy, "it's you that are discussing him. I'm not. Theonly remark I made about him was a quotation from mother. "

"I'm going up to dress for dinner, " said Zora. 

She was just a little indignant. Only into Emmy's fluffy head could sopreposterous an idea have entered. Clem Sypher in love with her? If so, whynot Septimus Dix? The thing thus reduced itself to an absurdity. Shelaughed to herself, half ashamed of having allowed Emmy to see that shetook her child's foolishness seriously, and came down to dinner serene andindulgent. 

CHAPTER VII

"Are you going to have your bath first, or your breakfast?" askedWiggleswick, putting his untidy gray head inside the sitting-room door. 

Septimus ran his ivory rule nervously through his hair. 

"I don't know. Which would you advise?"

"What?" bawled Wiggleswick. 

Septimus repeated his remark in a louder voice. 

"If I had to wash myself in cold water, " said Wiggleswick contemptuously, "I'd do it on an empty stomach. "

"But if the water were warm?"

"Well, the water ain't warm, so it's no good speculating. "

"Dear me, " said Septimus. "Now that's just what I enjoy doing. "

Wiggleswick grunted. "I'll turn on the tap and leave it. "

The door having closed behind his body servant, Septimus laid his ivoryrule on the portion of the complicated diagram of machinery which he hadbeen measuring off, and soon became absorbed in his task. It was fouro'clock in the afternoon. He had but lately risen, and sat in pyjamas anddressing-gown over his drawing. A bundle of proofs and a jam-pot containinga dissipated looking rosebud lay on that space of the table not occupied bythe double-elephant sheet of paper. By his side was a manuscript coveredwith calculations to which he referred or added from time to time. A bleakNovember light came in through the window, and Septimus's chair was on theright-hand side of the table. It was characteristic of him to situnnecessarily in his own light. 

Presently a more than normal darkening of the room caused him to look atthe window. Clem Sypher stood outside, gazing at him with amused curiosity. Hospitably, Septimus rose and flung the casement window open. 

"Do come in. "

As the aperture was two feet square, all of Clem Sypher that could respondto the invitation was his head and shoulders. 

"Is it good morning, good afternoon, or good night?" he asked, surveyingSeptimus's attire. 

"Morning, " said Septimus. "I've just got up. Have some breakfast. "

He moved to a bell-pull by the fireplace, and the tug was immediatelyfollowed by a loud report. 

"What the devil's that?" asked Sypher, startled. 

"That, " said Septimus mildly, "is an invention. I pull the rope and apistol is fired off in the kitchen. Wiggleswick says he can't hear bells. What's for breakfast?" he asked, as Wiggleswick entered. 

"Haddock. And the bath's running over. "

Septimus waved him away. "Let it run. " He turned to Sypher. "Have ahaddock?"

"At four o'clock in the afternoon? Do you want me to be sick?"

"Good heavens, no!" cried Septimus. "Do come in and I'll give you anythingyou like. "

He put his hand again on the bell-pull. A hasty exclamation from Sypherchecked his impulse. 

"I say, don't do that again. If you'll open the front door for me, " headded, "I may be able to get inside. "

A moment or two later Sypher was admitted, by the orthodox avenues, intothe room. He looked around him, his hands on his hips. 

"I wonder what on earth this would have been like if our dear lady hadn'thad a hand in it. "

As Septimus's imagination was entirely scientific he could furnish nosolution to the problem. He drew a chair to the fire and bade his guest sitdown, and handed him a box of cigars which also housed a pair of compasses, some stamps, and a collar stud. Sypher selected and lit a cigar, butdeclined the chair for the moment. 

"You don't mind my looking you up? I told you yesterday I would do it, butyou're such a curious creature there's no knowing at what hour you canreceive visitors. Mrs. Middlemist told me you were generally in to lunch athalf-past four in the morning. Hello, an invention?"

"Yes, " said Septimus. 

Sypher pored over the diagram. "What on earth is it all about?"

"It's to prevent people getting killed in railway collisions, " repliedSeptimus. "You see, the idea is that every compartment should consist of anouter shell and an inner case in which passengers sit. The roof is like alid. When there's a collision this series of levers is set in motion, andat once the inner case is lifted through the roof and the people are out ofthe direct concussion. I haven't quite worked it out yet, " he added, passing his hand through his hair. "You see, the same thing might happenwhen they're just coupling some more carriages on to a train at rest, whichwould be irritating to the passengers. "

"Very, " said Sypher, drily. "It would also come rather expensive, wouldn'tit?"

"How could expense be an object when there are human lives to be saved?"

"I think, my friend Dix, " said Sypher, "you took the wrong turning in theMilky Way before you were born. You were destined for a more enlightenedplanet. If they won't pay thirteen pence halfpenny for Sypher's Cure, howcan you expect them to pay millions for your inventions? That Cure--but I'mnot going to talk about it. Mrs. Middlemist's orders. I'm here for a rest. What are these? Proofs? Writing a novel?"

He held up the bundle with one of his kindly smiles and one of his swiftglances at Septimus. 

"It's my book on guns. "

"Can I look?"

"Certainly. "

Sypher straightened out the bundle--it was in page-proof--and read thetitle:

"A Theoretical Treatise on the Construction of Guns of Large Caliber. BySeptimus Dix, M. A. " He looked through the pages. "This seems like sense, but there are text-books, aren't there, giving all this information?"

"No, " said Septimus modestly. "It begins where the text-books leave off. The guns I describe have never been cast. "

"Where on earth do you get your knowledge of artillery?"

Septimus dreamed through the mists of memory. 

"A nurse I once had married a bombardier, " said he. 

Wiggleswick entered with the haddock and other breakfast appurtenances, andwhile Septimus ate his morning meal Sypher smoked and talked and lookedthrough the pages of the Treatise. The lamps lit and the curtains drawn, the room had a cosier appearance than by day. Sypher stretched himselfcomfortably before the fire. 

"I'm not in the way, am I?"

"Good heavens, no!" said Septimus. "I was just thinking how pleasant itwas. I've not had a man inside my rooms since I was up at Cambridge--andthen they didn't come often, except to rag. "

"What did they do?"

Septimus narrated the burnt umbrella episode and other social experiences. 

"So that when a man comes to see me who does not throw my things about, heis doubly welcome, " he explained. "Besides, " he added, after a drink ofcoffee, "we said something in Monte Carlo about being friends. "

"We did, " said Sypher, "and I'm glad you've not forgotten it. I'm so muchthe Friend of Humanity in the bulk that I've somehow been careless as tothe individual. "

"Have a drink, " said Septimus, filling his after-breakfast pipe. 

The pistol shot brought Wiggleswick, who, in his turn, brought whiskey andsoda, and the two friends finished the afternoon in great amity. Beforetaking his departure Sypher asked whether he might read through the proofsof the gun book at home. 

"I think I know enough of machinery and mathematics to understand whatyou're driving at, and I should like to examine these guns of yours. Youthink they are going to whip creation?"

"They'll make warfare too dangerous to be carried on. At present, however, I'm more interested in my railway carriages. "

"Which will make railway traveling too dangerous to be carried on!"laughed Sypher, extending his hand. "Good-by. "

When he had gone, Septimus mused for some time in happy contentment overhis pipe. He asked very little of the world, and oddly enough the worldrewarded his modesty by giving him more than he asked for. To-day he hadseen Sypher in a new mood, sympathetic, unegotistical, non-robustious, andhe felt gratified at having won a man's friendship. It was an addition tohis few anchorages in life. Then, in a couple of hours he would sun himselfin the smiles of his adored mistress, and listen to the prattle of hisother friend, Emmy. Mrs. Oldrieve would be knitting by the lamp, andprobably he would hold her wool, drop it, and be scolded as if he were amember of the family; all of which was a very gracious thing to thesensitive, lonely man, warming his heart and expanding his nature. Itfilled his head with dreams: of a woman dwelling by right in this house ofhis, and making the air fragrant by her presence. But as thewoman--although he tried his utmost to prevent it and to conjure up theform of a totally different type--took the shape of Zora Middlemist, hediscouraged such dreams as making more for mild unhappiness than for joy, and bent his thoughts to his guns and railway carriages and otherworld-upheaving inventions. The only thing that caused him any uneasinesswas an overdraft at his bank due to cover which he had to pay on sharespurchased for him by a circularizing bucket-shop keeper. It had seemed sosimple to write Messrs. Shark & Co. , or whatever alias the philanthropicfinancier assumed, a check for a couple of hundred pounds, and receiveMessrs. Shark's check for two thousand in a fortnight, that he hadwondered why other people did not follow this easy road to fortune. Perhaps they did, he reflected: that was how they managed to keep a largefamily of daughters and a motor car. But when the shark conveyed to him inunintelligible terms the fact that unless he wrote a check for two or threehundred pounds more his original stake would be lost, and when these alsofell through the bottomless bucket of Messrs. Shark & Co. And his bankerscalled his attention to an overdrawn account, it began to dawn upon himthat these were not the methods whereby a large family of daughters and amotor car were unprecariously maintained. The loss did not distress him tothe point of sleeplessness; his ideas as to the value of money were asvague as his notions on the rearing of babies; but he was publishing hisbook at his own expense, and was concerned at not being in a position topay the poor publisher immediately. 

At Mrs. Oldrieve's he found his previsions nearly all fulfilled. Zora, witha sofa-ful of railway time-tables and ocean-steamer handbooks, sought hiscounsel as to a voyage round the world which she had in contemplation; Mrs. Oldrieve impressed on his memory a recipe for an omelette which he was toconvey verbally to Wiggleswick, although he confessed that the onlyomelette that Wiggleswick had tried to make they had used for monthsafterwards as a kettle-holder; but Emmy did not prattle. She sat in acorner, listlessly turning over the leaves of a novel and taking anextraordinary lack of interest in the general conversation. The usualheadache and neuralgia supplied her excuse. She looked pale, ill, andworried; and worry on a baby face is a lugubrious and pitiful spectacle. 

After Mrs. Oldrieve had retired for the night, and while Zora happened tobe absent from the room in search of an atlas, Septimus and Emmy were leftalone for a moment. 

"I'm so sorry you have a headache, " said Septimus sympathetically. "Whydon't you go to bed?"

"I hate bed. I can't sleep, " she replied, with an impatient shake of thebody. "You mustn't mind me. I'm sorry I'm so rotten--ah! well then--such anuninspiring companion, if you like, " she added, seeing that the word hadjarred on him. Then she rose. "I suppose I bore you. I had better go, asyou suggest, and get out of the way. "

He intercepted her petulant march to the door. 

"I wish you'd tell me what's the matter. It isn't only a headache. "

"It's Hell and the Devil and all his angels, " said Emmy, "and I'd like tomurder somebody. "

"You can murder me, if it would do you any good, " said Septimus. 

"I believe you'd let me, " she said, yielding. "You're a good sort. " Sheturned, with a short laugh, her novel held in both hands behind her back, one finger holding the place. A letter dropped from it. Septimus picked itup and handed it to her. It bore an Italian stamp and the Naples postmark. 

"Yes. That's from him, " she said resentfully. "I've not had a letter for aweek, and now he writes to say he has gone to Naples on account of hishealth. You had better let me go, my good Septimus; if I stay here muchlonger I'll be talking slush and batter. I've got things on my nerves. "

"Why don't you talk to Zora?" he suggested. "She is so wonderful. "

"She's the last person in the world that must know anything. Do youunderstand? The very last. "

"I'm afraid I don't understand, " he replied ruefully. 

"She doesn't know anything about Mordaunt Prince. She must never know. Neither must mother. They don't often talk much about the family; butthey're awfully proud of it. Mother's people date from before Noah, andthey look down on the Oldrieves because they sprang up like mushrooms justafter the Flood. Prince's real name is Huzzle, and his father kept a bootshop. I don't care a hang, because he's a gentleman, but they would. "

"But yet you're going to marry him. They must know sooner or later. Theyought to know. "

"Time enough when I'm married. Then nothing can be done and nothing can besaid. "

"Have you ever thought whether it wouldn't be well to give him up?" saidSeptimus, in his hesitating way. 

"I can't, I can't!" she cried. Then she burst into tears, and, afraid lestZora should surprise her, left the room without another word. 

On such occasions the most experienced man is helpless. He shrugs hisshoulders, says "Whew!" and lights a cigarette. Septimus, with an infant'sknowledge of the ways of young women, felt terribly distressed by thetragedy of her tears. Something must be done to stop them. He might startat once for Naples, and, by the help of strong gendarmes whom he mightsuborn, bring back Mordaunt Prince presently to London. Then he rememberedhis overdrawn banking account, and sighfully gave up the idea. If only hewere not bound to secrecy and could confide in Zora. This a sensitive honorforbade. What could he do? As the fire was getting low he mechanically puton a lump of coal with the pincers. When Zora returned with the atlas shefound him rubbing them through his hair, and staring at vacancy. 

"If I do go round the world, " said Zora, a little while later, when theyhad settled on which side of South America Valparaiso was situated--and howmany nice and clever people could tell you positively, offhand?--"if I goround the world, you and Emmy will have to come too. It would do her good. She has not been looking well lately. "

"It would be the very thing for her, " said he. 

"And for you too, Septimus, " she remarked, with a quizzical glance andsmile. 

"It's always good for me to be where you are. "

"I was thinking of Emmy and not of myself, " she laughed. "If you could takecare of her, it would be an excellent thing for you. "

"She wouldn't even trust me with her luggage, " said Septimus, miles awayfrom Zora's meaning. "Would you?"

She laughed again. "I'm different. I should really have to look after thetwo of you. But you could pretend to be taking care of Emmy. "

"I would do anything that gave you pleasure. "

"Would you?" she asked. 

They were sitting by the table--the atlas between them. She moved her handand touched his. The light of the lamp shone through her hair, turning itto luminous gold. Her arm was bare to the elbow, and the warm fragrance ofher nearness overspread him. The touch thrilled him to the depths, and heflushed to his upstanding Struwel Peter hair. He tried to say something--heknew not what; but his throat was smitten with sudden dryness. It seemed tohim that he had sat there, for the best part of an hour, tongue-tied, looking stupidly at the confluence of the blue veins on her arm, longing totell her that his senses swam with the temptation of her touch and the riseand fall of her bosom, through the great love he had for her, and yetterror-stricken lest she might discover his secret, and punish his audacityaccording to the summary methods of Juno, Diana, and other offendedgoddesses whom mortals dared to love. It could only have been a fewseconds, for he heard her voice in his ears, at first faint and thengathering distinctness, continuing in almost the same breath as herquestion. 

"Would you? Do you know the greatest pleasure you could give me? It wouldbe to become my brother--my real brother. "

He turned bewildered eyes upon her. 

"Your brother?"

She laughed, half impatiently, half gaily, gave his hand a final tap androse. He stood, too, mechanically. 

"I think you're the obtusest man I've ever met. Anyone else would haveguessed long ago. Don't you see, you dear, foolish thing"--she laid herhands on his shoulders and looked with agonizing deliciousness into hisface--"don't you see that you want a wife to save you from omelettes thatyou have to use as kettle-holders, and to give you a sense ofresponsibility? And don't you see that Emmy, who is never happier thanwhen--oh!" she broke off impatiently, "don't you see?"

He had built for himself no card house of illusion, so it did not cometoppling down with dismaying clatter. But all the same he felt as if herkind hands had turned death cold and were wringing his heart. He took themfrom his shoulders, and, not unpicturesquely, kissed her finger-tips. Thenhe dropped them and walked to the fire and, with his back to the room, leaned on the mantelpiece. A little china dog fell with a crash into thefender. 

"Oh, I'm so sorry--" he began piteously. 

"Never mind, " said Zora, helping him to pick up the pieces. "A man who cankiss a woman's hands like that is at liberty to clear the whole house ofgimcrackery. "

"You are a very gracious lady. I said so long ago, " replied Septimus. 

"I think I'm a fool, " said Zora. 

His face assumed a look of horror. His goddess a fool? She laughed gaily. 

"You look as if you were about to remark, 'If any man had said that, theword would have been his last'! But I am, really. I thought there might besomething between you and Emmy and that a little encouragement might helpyou. Forgive me. You see, " she went on, a trace of dewiness in her frankeyes, "I love Emmy dearly, and in a sort of way I love you, too. And need Igive any more explanation?"

It was an honorable amends, royally made. Zora had a magnificent style indoing such things: an indiscreet, venturesome, meddlesome princess shemight be, if you will; somewhat unreserved, somewhat too conscious of herown Zoraesque sufficiency to possess the true womanly intuition andsympathy; but still a princess who had the grand manner in her scorn oftrivialities. Septimus's hand shook a little as he fitted the tail to thehollow bit of china dog-end. It was sweet to be loved, although it wasbitter to be loved in a sort of way. Even a man like Septimus Dix has hisfeelings. He had to hide them. 

"You make me very happy, " he said. "Your caring so much for me as to wishme to marry your sister, I shall never forget it. You see, I've neverthought of her in that way. I suppose I don't think of women at all in thatway, " he went on, with a certain splendid mendacity. "It's a case ofcog-wheels instead of corpuscles. I'm just a heathen bit of machinery, withmy head full of diagrams. "

"You're a tender-hearted baby, " said Zora. "Give me those bits of dog. "

She took them from his hand and threw the mutilated body into the fire. 

"See, " she said, "let us keep tokens. I'll keep the head and you the tail. If ever you want me badly send me the tail, and I'll come to you from anydistance--and if I want you I'll send you the head. "

"I'll come to you from the ends of the earth, " said Septimus. 

So he went home a happy man, with his tail in his pocket. 

 * * * * *

The next morning, about eight o'clock, just as he was sinking into hisfirst sleep, he was awakened through a sudden dream of battle by a seriesof revolver shots. Wondering whether Wiggleswick had gone mad or wasattempting an elaborate and painful mode of suicide, he leaped out of bedand rushed to the landing. 

"What's the matter?"

"Hello! You're up at last!" cried Clem Sypher, appearing at the bottom ofthe stairs, sprucely attired for the city, and wearing a flower in thebuttonhole of his overcoat. "I've had to break open the front door in orderto get in at all, and then I tried shooting the bell for your valet. Can Icome up?"

"Do, " said Septimus, shivering. "Do you mind if I go back to bed?"

"Do anything, except go to sleep, " said Sypher. "Look here. I'm sorry if Idisturbed you, but I couldn't wait. I'm off to the office and heaven knowswhen I shall be back. I want to talk to you about this. "

He sat on the foot of the bed and threw the proofs of the gun book on toSeptimus's body, vaguely outlined beneath the clothes. In the gray Novemberlight--Zora's carefully chosen curtains and blinds had not beendrawn--Sypher, pink and shiny, his silk hat (which he wore) a resplendentmiracle of valetry, looked an urban yet roseate personification of Dawn. Heseemed as eager as Septimus was supine. 

"I've sat up half the night over this thing, " said he, "and I reallybelieve you've got it. "

"Got what?" asked Septimus. 

"_It_. The biggest thing on earth, bar Sypher's Cure. "

"Wait till I've worked out my railway carriages, " said Septimus. 

"Your railway carriages! Good gracious! Haven't you any sense of whatyou're doing? Here you've worked out a scheme that may revolutionize navalgunnery, and you talk rot about railway carriages. "

"I'm glad you like the book, " said Septimus. 

"Are you going to publish it?"

"Of course. "

"Ask your publisher how much he'll take to let you off your bargain. "

"I'm publishing it at my own expense, " said Septimus, in the middle of ayawn. 

"And presenting it gratis to the governments of the world?"

"Yes. I might send them copies, " said Septimus. "It's a good idea. "

Clem Sypher thrust his hat to the back of his head, and paced the roomfrom the wash-stand past the dressing-table to the wardrobe and back again. 

"Well, I'm hanged!" said he. 

Septimus asked why. 

"I thought I was a philanthropist, " said Sypher, "but by the side of youI'm a vulture. Has it not struck you that, if the big gun is what I think, any government on earth would give you what you like to ask for thespecification?"

"Really? Do you think they would give me a couple of hundred pounds?" askedSeptimus, thinking vaguely of Mordaunt Prince in Naples and his overdrawnbanking account. The anxiety of his expression was not lost on Sypher. 

"Are you in need of a couple of hundred pounds?" he asked. 

"Until my dividends are due. I've been speculating, and I'm afraid Ihaven't a head for business. "

"I'm afraid you haven't, " grinned Sypher, leaning over the footrail of thebed. "Next time you speculate come to me first for advice. Let me be youragent for these guns, will you?"

"I should be delighted, " said Septimus, "and for the railway carriages too. There's also a motor car I've invented which goes by clockwork. You've gotto wind it by means of a donkey engine. It's quite simple. "

"I should think it would be, " said Sypher drily. "But I'll only take on theguns just for the present. "

He drew a check book from one pocket and a fountain pen from another. 

"I'll advance you two hundred pounds for the sole right to deal with thething on your behalf. My solicitors will send you a document full ofverbiage which you had better send off to your solicitor to look throughbefore you sign it. It will be all right. I'm going to take the proofs. Ofcourse this stops publishing, " he remarked, looking round from thedressing-table where he was writing the check. 

Septimus assented and took the check wonderingly, remarking that he didn'tin the least know what it was for. 

"For the privilege of making your fortune. Good-by, " said he. "Don't getup. "

"Good night, " said Septimus, and the door having closed behind Clem Sypher, he thrust the check beneath the bedclothes, curled himself up and went tosleep like a dormouse. 

CHAPTER VIII

Clem Sypher stood at the front door of Penton Court a day or twoafterwards, awaiting his guests and taking the air. The leaves of the oaksthat lined the drive fell slowly under the breath of a southwest wind, andjoined their sodden brethren on the path. The morning mist still hungaround the branches. The sky threatened rain. 

A servant came from within the house, bringing a telegram on a tray. Sypheropened it, and his strong, pink face became as overcast as the sky. It wasfrom the London office of the Cure, and contained the information that oneof his largest buyers had reduced his usual order by half. The news wasdepressing. So was the prospect before him, of dripping trees and ofevergreens on the lawn trying to make the best of it in forlorn bravery. Heaven had ordained that the earth should be fair and Sypher's Cureinvincible. Something was curiously wrong in the execution of Heaven'sdecrees. He looked again at the preposterous statement, knitting his brow. Surely this was some base contrivance of the enemy. They had beenunderselling and outadvertising him for months, and had ousted him from thecustom of several large firms already. Something had to be done. As hasbeen remarked before, Sypher was a man of Napoleonic methods. He called fora telegraph form, and wrote as he stood, with the tray as a desk:

"If you can't buy advertising rights on St. Paul's Cathedral orWestminster Abbey, secure outside pages of usual dailies for Thursday. Willdraw up 'ad' myself. "

He gave it to the servant, smiled in anticipation of the battle, and feltbetter. When Zora, Emmy, and Septimus appeared at the turn of the drive, herushed to meet them, beaming with welcome and exuberant in phrase. This wasthe best housewarming that could be imagined. Just three friends toluncheon--three live people. A gathering of pale-souled folk would haveconverted the house into a chilly barn. They would warm it with the glow offriendship. Mrs. Middlemist, looking like a rose in June, had alreadyirradiated the wan November garden. Miss Oldrieve he likened to a springcrocus, and Septimus (with a slap on the back) could choose the vegetablehe would like to resemble. They must look over the house before lunch. Afterwards, outside, the great surprise awaited them. What was it? Ah! Heturned laughing eyes on them, like a boy. 

The great London firm to whom he had entrusted the furniture and decorationhad done their splendid worst. The drawing-room had the appearance of anhotel sitting-room trying to look coy. An air of factitious genialitypervaded the dining-room. An engraving of Frans Hals's "Laughing Cavalier"hung with too great a semblance of jollity over the oak sideboard. Everything was too new, too ordered, too unindividual; but Sypher loved it, especially the high-art wall-paper and restless frieze. Zora, a woman ofinstinctive taste, who, if she bought a bedroom water-bottle, managed toidentify it with her own personality, professed her admiration with awoman's pitying mendacity, but resolved to change many things for the goodof Clem Sypher's soul. Emmy, still pale and preoccupied, said little. Shewas not in a mood to appreciate Clem Sypher, whose loud voice andNapoleonic manners jarred upon her nerves. Septimus thought it allprodigiously fine, whereat Emmy waxed sarcastic. 

"I wish I could do something for you, " he said, heedless of her taunts, during a moment when they were out of earshot of the others. He had alreadyoffered to go to Naples and bring back Mordaunt Prince, and had receivedinstant orders not to be a fool. "I wish I could make you laugh again. "

"I don't want to laugh, " she replied impatiently. "I want to sit on thefloor and howl. "

They happened to be in the hall. At the farther end Septimus caught sightof a fluffy Persian kitten playing with a bit of paper, and guided by oneof his queer intuitions he went and picked it up and laid its baby softnessagainst the girl's cheek. Her mood changed magically. 

"Oh, the darling!" she cried, and kissed its tiny, wet nose. 

She was quite polite to Sypher during luncheon, and laughed when he toldher that he called the kitten Jebusa Jones. She asked why. 

"Because, " said he, showing his hand covered with scratches, "she produceson the human epidermis the same effect as his poisonous cuticle remedy. "

Whereupon Emmy decided that the man who could let a kitten scratch his handin that fashion had elements of good in his nature. 

"Now for the surprise, " said Sypher, when Septimus and he joined the ladiesafter lunch. "Come. "

They followed him outside, through the French windows of the drawing-room. "Other people, " said he, "want houses with lawns reaching down to the sideof the river or the Menai Straits or Windermere. I'm the only person, Ithink, who has ever sought for a lawn running down to a main line ofrailway. "

"That's why this house was untenanted so long, " said Zora. 

A row of trees separated the small garden from the lawn in question. Whenthey passed through this screen, the lawn and the line of railway and thedreamy, undulating Surrey country came into view. Also an enormous board. Why hadn't he taken it down, Zora asked. 

"That's the surprise!" exclaimed Sypher eagerly. "Come round to the front. "

He led the way, striding some yards ahead. Presently he turned and struck adramatic attitude, as a man might do who had built himself a new wonderhouse. And then on three astonished pairs of eyes burst the followinginscription in gigantic capitals which he who flew by in an express traincould read:

 SYPHER'S CURE! Clem Sypher. Friend of Humanity! I LIVE HERE!

"Isn't that great?" he cried. "I've had it in my mind for years. It's thepersonal note that's so valuable. This brings the whole passing world intopersonal contact with me. It shows that Sypher's Cure isn't a quack thingrun by a commercial company, but the possession of a man who has a house, who lives in the very house you can see through the trees. 'What kind of aman is he?' they ask. 'He must be a nice man to live in such a nice house. I almost feel I know him. _I'll try his Cure_. ' Don't you think it's acolossal idea?"

He looked questioningly into three embarrassed faces. Emmy, in spite of herown preoccupation, suppressed a giggle. There was a moment's silence, whichwas broken by Septimus's mild voice:

"I think, by means of levers running down to the line and worked by thetrains as they passed, I could invent a machine for throwing little boxesof samples from the board into the railway carriage windows. "

Emmy burst out laughing. "Come and show me how you would do it. "

She linked her arm in his and dragged him down to the line, where she spokewith mirthful disrespect of Sypher's Cure. Meanwhile Zora said nothing toSypher. 

"Don't you like it?" he asked at last, disconcerted. 

"Do you want me to be the polite lady you've asked to lunch or yourfriend?"

"My friend and my helper, " said he. 

"Then, " she replied, touching his coat sleeve, "I must say that I don'tlike it. I hate it. I think it's everything that is most abominable. "

The board was one pride of his heart, and Zora was another. He looked atthem both alternately in a piteous, crestfallen way. 

"But why?" he asked. 

Zora's eyes filled with tears. She saw that her lack of appreciation hadhurt him to the heart. She was a generous woman, and did not convict him, as she would have done another man, of blatant vulgarity. Yet she feltpreposterously pained. Why could not this great, single-minded creature, with ideas as high as they were queer, perceive the board's rankabomination?

"It's unworthy of you, " she said bravely. "I want everyone to respect youas I do. You see the Cure isn't everything. There's a man behind it. "

"That's the object of the board, " said Sypher. "To show the man. "

"But it doesn't show the chivalrous gentleman that I think you are, " shereplied quickly. "It gives the impression of some one quite different--ahorrid creature who would sell his self-respect for money. Oh, don't youunderstand? It's as bad as walking through the streets with 'Sypher's Cure'painted on your hat. "

"What can I do about it?" he asked. 

"Take it down at once, " said Zora. 

"But to exhibit the board was my sole reason for buying the place. "

"I'm very sorry, " she said gently, "but I can't change my opinion. "

He cast a lingering glance at the board, and then turned. "Let us go backto the house, " he said. 

They walked a little way in silence. As they passed by the shrubbery at theside of the house, he gravely pushed aside a wet, hanging branch for her toproceed dry. Then he joined her again. 

"You are angry with me for speaking so, " said Zora. 

He stopped and looked at her, his eyes bright and clear. "Do you think I'ma born fool? Do you think I can't tell loyalty when I see it, and am suchan ass as not to prize it above all things? It cost you a lot to say thatto me. You're right. I suppose I've lost sense of myself in the Cure. WhenI think of it, I seem just to be the machine that is distributing it overthe earth. And that, too, I suppose, is why I want you. The board is anabomination that cries to heaven. It shall be instantly removed. There!"

He held out his hand. She gave him hers and he pressed it warmly. 

"Are you going to give up the house now that it's useless?" she asked. 

"Do you wish me to?"

"What have I to do with it?"

"Zora Middlemist, " said he, "I'm a superstitious man in some things. Youhave everything to do with my success. Sooner than forfeit your respect Iwould set fire to every stick I possessed. I would give up everything I hadin the world except my faith in the Cure. "

"Wouldn't you give up that--if it were necessary so as to keep my respect?"she asked, prompted by the insane devil that lurks in the heart of even themost sainted of women and does not like its gracious habitat to be reckonedlower than a quack ointment. It is the same little devil that makes a youngwife ask her devoted husband which of the two he would save if she and hismother were drowning. It is the little devil that is responsible forinfinite mendacity on the part of men. "Have you ever said that to anotherwoman?" No; of course he hasn't; and the wretch is instantly, perjured. "Would you sell your soul for me?" "My immortal soul, " says the goodfellow, instantaneously converted into an atrocious liar; and the littledevil coos with satisfaction and curls himself up snugly to sleep. 

But on this occasion the little devil had no success. 

"I would give up my faith in the Cure for nothing in the wide world, " saidSypher gravely. 

"I'm very glad to hear it, " said Zora, in her frankest tone. But thelittle devil asked her whether she was quite sure; whereupon she hit himsmartly over the head and bade him lie down. Her respect, however, forSypher increased. 

They were joined by Emmy and Septimus. 

"I think I could manage it, " said the latter, "if I cut a hole a footsquare in the board and fixed a magazine behind it. "

"There will be no necessity, " returned Sypher. "Mrs. Middlemist has orderedits immediate removal. "

That was the end of the board episode. The next day he had it taken downand chopped into fire-wood, a cart-load of which he sent with his humblecompliments to Mrs. Middlemist. Zora called it a burnt offering. She foundmore satisfaction in the blaze that roared up the chimney than she couldexplain to her mother; perhaps more than she could explain to herself. Septimus had first taught her the pleasantness of power. But that wasnothing to this. Anybody, even Emmy, curly-headed baby that she was, couldturn poor Septimus into a slave. For a woman to impose her will upon ClemSypher, Friend of Humanity, the Colossus of Curemongers, was no suchtrumpery achievement. 

Emmy, when she referred to the matter, expressed the hope that Zora hadrubbed it into Clem Sypher. Zora deprecated the personal bearing of theslang metaphor, but admitted, somewhat grandly, that she had pointed outthe error in taste. 

"I can't see, though, why you take all this trouble over Mr. Sypher, " saidEmmy. 

"I value his friendship, " replied Zora, looking up from a letter she wasreading. 

This was at breakfast. When the maid had entered with the post Emmy hadgripped the table and watched with hungry eyes, but the only letter thathad come for her had been on theatrical business. Not the one she longedfor. Emmy's world was out of joint. 

"You've changed your opinion, my dear, as to the value of men, " shesneered. "There was a time when you didn't want to see them or speak tothem or have anything to do with them. Now it seems you can't get onwithout them. "

"My dear Emmy, " said Zora calmly, "men as possible lovers and men asstaunch friends are two entirely different conceptions. "

Emmy broke a piece of toast viciously. 

"I think they're beasts, " she exclaimed. 

"Good heavens! Why?"

"Oh, I don't know. They are. "

Then, after the quick, frightened glance of the woman who fears she hassaid too much, she broke into a careless half-laugh. 

"They are such liars. Fawcett promised me a part in his new production andwrites to-day to say I can't have it. "

As Emmy's professional disappointments had been many, and as Zora in herheart of hearts did not entirely approve of her sister's musical-comedycareer, she tempered her sympathy with philosophic reflections. She hadnever taken Emmy seriously. All her life long Emmy had been the kittensister, with a kitten's pretty but unimportant likes, dislikes, habits, occupations, and aspirations. To regard her as being under the shadow of awoman's tragedy had never entered her head. The kitten playing Antigone, Ophelia, or such like distressed heroines, in awful, grim earnest is not aconception that readily occurs even to the most affectionate andimaginative of kitten owners. Zora accepted Emmy's explanation of herpetulance with a spirit entirely unperturbed, and resumed the perusal ofher letter. It was from the Callenders, who wrote from California. Zoramust visit them on her way round the world. 

She laid down the letter and stirred her tea absently, her mind full ofsnow-capped sierras, and clear blue air, and peach forests, and all thewonders of that wonderland. And Emmy stirred her tea, too, in an absentmanner, but her mind was filled with the most terrible thoughts wherewith awoman's mind can be haunted. 

CHAPTER IX

Septimus had never seen a woman faint before. At first he thought Emmy wasdead, and rubbed agonized hands together like a fly. When he realized whathad happened, he produced a large jack-knife which he always carried in histrousers pocket--for the purpose, he explained, of sharpening pencils--andoffered it to Zora with the vague idea that the first aid to fainting womenconsisted in cutting their stay-laces. Zora rebuked him for futility, andbade him ring the bell for the maid. 

It was all very sudden. The scene had been one that of late had grown sofamiliar: Zora and Septimus poring over world itineraries, the latter fullof ineffectual suggestion and irrelevant reminiscence, and Emmy reading bythe fire. On this occasion it was the _Globe_ newspaper which Septimus, whohad spent the day in London on an unexecuted errand to his publisher, hadbrought back with him. Evening papers being luxuries in Nunsmere, he hadhidden it carefully from Wiggleswick, in order to present it to the ladies. Suddenly there was a rustle and a slither by the fire-place, and Emmy, in adead faint, hung over the arm of the chair. In her hand she grasped theouter sheet of the paper. The inner sheet, according to the untidy ways ofwomen with newspapers, lay discarded on the floor. 

With Septimus's help Zora and the maid carried her to the sofa; they openedthe window and gave her smelling salts. Septimus anxiously desired to beassured that she was not dying, and Zora thanked heaven that her motherhad gone to bed. Presently Emmy recovered consciousness. 

"I must have fainted, " she said in a whisper. 

"Yes, dear, " said Zora, kneeling by her side. "Are you better?"

Emmy stared past Zora at something unseen and terrifying. 

"It was foolish. The heat, I suppose. Mr. Sypher's burning board. " Sheturned an appealing glance to Septimus. "Did I say anything silly?"

When he told her that she had slipped over the arm of the chair without aword, she looked relieved and closed her eyes. As soon as she had revivedsufficiently she allowed herself to be led up-stairs; but before going shepressed Septimus's hand with feverish significance. 

Even to so inexperienced a mind as his the glance and the hand-shakeconveyed a sense of trust, suggested dimly a reason for the fainting fit. Once more he stood alone and perplexed in the little drawing-room. Oncemore he passed his long fingers through his Struwel Peter hair and lookedabout the room for inspiration. Finding none, he mechanically gathered upthe two parts of the newspaper, with a man's instinct for tidiness inprinted matter, and smoothed out the crumples that Emmy's hand had made onthe outer sheet. Whilst doing so, a paragraph met his eye, causing him tostare helplessly at the paper. 

It was the announcement of the marriage of Mordaunt Prince at the BritishConsulate in Naples. 

The unutterable perfidy of man! For the first time in his guileless lifeSeptimus met it face to face. To read of human depravity in the policereports is one thing, to see it fall like a black shadow across one's lifeis another. It horrified him. Mordaunt Prince had committed theunforgivable sin. He had stolen a girl's love, and basely, meanly, he hadslunk off, deceiving her to the last. To Septimus the lover who kissed androde away had ever appeared a despicable figure of romance. The fellow whodid it in real life proclaimed himself an unconscionable scoundrel. Thememory of Emmy's forget-me-not blue eyes turning into sapphires as she sangthe villain's praises smote him. He clenched his fists and put toincoherent use his limited vocabulary of anathema. Then fearing, in hisexcited state, to meet Zora, lest he should betray the miserable secret, hestuffed the newspaper into his pocket, and crept out of the house. 

Before his own fire he puzzled over the problem. Something must be done. But what? Hale Mordaunt Prince from his bride's arms and bring him penitentto Nunsmere? What would be the good of that, seeing that polygamy is notopenly sanctioned by Western civilization? Proceed to Naples and chastisehim? That were better. The monster deserved it. But how are men chastised?Septimus had no experience. He reflected vaguely that people did this sortof thing with a horsewhip. He speculated on the kind of horsewhip thatwould be necessary. A hunting crop with no lash would not be more effectivethan an ordinary walking stick. With a lash it would be cumbrous, unless hekept at an undignified distance and flicked at his victim as thering-master in the circus flicks at the clown. Perhaps horsewhips for thisparticular purpose could be obtained from the Army and Navy Stores. Itshould be about three feet long, flexible and tapering to a point. Unconsciously his inventive faculty began to work. When he had devised anadequate instrument, made of fine steel wires ingeniously plaited, heawoke, somewhat shame-facedly, to the commonplaces of the original problem. What was to be done?

He pondered for some hours, then he sighed and sought consolation in hisbassoon; but after a few bars of "Annie Laurie" he put the unedifyinginstrument back in its corner and went out for a walk. It was a starrynight of frost. Nunsmere lay silent as Bethlehem; and a star hung low inthe east. Far away across the common gleamed one solitary light in thevicarage windows; the Vicar, good gentleman, finishing his unruffled sermonwhile his parish slept. Otherwise darkness spread over everything save thesky. Not a creature on the road, not a creature on the common, not even thelame donkey. Incredibly distant the faint sound of a railway whistleintensified the stillness. Septimus's own footsteps on the crisp grass rangloud in his ears. Yet both stillness and darkness felt companionable, inharmony with the starlit dimness of the man's mind. His soul was having itsadventure while mystery filled the outer air. He walked on, wrapped in thenebulous fantasies which passed with him for thought, heedless, as healways was, of the flight of time. Once he halted by the edge of the pond, and, sitting on a bench, lit and smoked his pipe until the cold forced himto rise. With an instinctive desire to hear some earthly sound, he pickedup a stone and threw it into the water. He shivered at the ghostly splashand moved away, himself an ineffectual ghost wandering aimlessly in thenight. 

The Vicar's lamp had been extinguished long ago. A faint breeze sprang up. The star sank lower in the sky. Suddenly, as he turned back from the roadto cross the common for the hundredth time, he became aware that he wasnot alone. Footsteps rather felt than heard were in front of him. Hepressed forward and peered through the darkness, and finally made out a dimform some thirty yards away. Idly he followed and soon recognized thefigure as that of a woman hurrying fast. Why a woman should be crossingNunsmere Common at four o'clock in the morning passed his power ofconjecture. She was going neither to nor from the doctor, whose house laybehind the vicarage on the right. All at once her objective became clear tohim. He thought of the splash of the stone. She was making straight for thepond. He hastened his pace, came up within a few yards of her and thenstopped dead. It was Emmy. He recognized the zibeline toque and coat edgedwith the same fur which she often wore. She carried something in her hand, he could not tell what. 

She went on, unconscious of his nearness. He followed her, horror-stricken. Emmy, a new Ophelia, was about to seek a watery grave for herself and herlove sorrow. Again came the problem which in moments of emergency Septimushad never learned to solve. What should he do? Across the agony of his mindshot a feeling of horrible indelicacy in thrusting himself upon a woman atsuch a moment. He was half tempted to turn back and leave her to thesanctity of her grief. But again the splash echoed in his ears and again heshivered. The water was so black and cold. And what could he say to Zora?The thought lashed his pace to sudden swiftness and Emmy turned with alittle scream of fear. 

"Who are you?"

"It's I, Septimus, " he stammered, taking hold of his cap. "For God's sake, don't do it. "

"I shall. Go away. How dare you spy on me?"

She stood and faced him, and her features were just discernible in the dimstarlight. Anger rang in her voice. She stamped her foot. 

"How dare you?"

"I haven't been spying on you, " he explained. "I only recognized you acouple of minutes ago. I was walking about--taking a stroll beforebreakfast, you know. "

"Oh!" she said, stonily. 

"I'm dreadfully sorry to have intruded upon you, " he continued, twirlinghis cap nervously in his fingers while the breeze played through hisupstanding hair. "I didn't mean to--but I couldn't stand by and let you doit. I couldn't, really. "

"Do what?" she asked, still angry. Septimus did not know that beneath thefur-lined jacket her heart was thumping madly. 

"Drown yourself, " said Septimus. 

"In the pond?" she laughed hysterically. "In three feet of water? How doyou think I was going to manage it?"

Septimus reflected. He had not thought of the pond's inadequate depth. 

"You might have lain down at the bottom until it was all over, " he remarkedin perfect seriousness. "I once heard of a servant girl who drowned herselfin a basin of water. "

Emmy turned impatiently and, walking on, waved him away; but he accompaniedher mechanically. 

"Oh, don't follow me, " she cried in a queer voice. "Leave me alone, forGod's sake. I'm not going to commit suicide. I wish to heaven I had thepluck. "

"But if you're not going to do that, why on earth are you here?"

"I'm taking a stroll before breakfast--just like yourself. Why am I here?If you really want to know, " she added defiantly, "I'm going to London--bythe early train from Hensham--the milk train. See, I'm respectable. I havemy luggage. " She swung something in the dark before him and he perceivedthat it was a handbag. "Now are you satisfied? Or do you think I was goingto take a handkerchief and a powder puff into the other world with me? I'mjust simply going to London--nothing more. "

"But it's a seven-mile walk to Hensham. "

She made no reply, but quickened her pace. Septimus, in a whirl of doubtand puzzledom, walked by her side, still holding his cap in his hand. Eventhe intelligence of the local policeman would have connected her astoundingappearance on the common with the announcement in the _Globe_. He took thatfor granted. But if she were not about to destroy herself, why thisuntimely flight to London? Why walk seven miles in wintry darkness when shecould have caught a train at Ripstead (a mile away) a few hours later, inorthodox comfort? It was a mystery, a tragic and perplexing mystery. 

They passed by the pond in silence, crossed the common and reached the mainroad. 

"I wish I knew what to do, Emmy, " he said at last. "I hate forcing mycompany upon you, and yet I feel I should be doing wrong to leave youunprotected. You see, I should not be able to face Zora. "

"You had better face her as late as possible, " she replied quickly. "Perhaps you had better walk to the station with me. Would you?"

"It would ease my mind. "

"All right. Only, for God's sake, don't chatter. I don't want you of allpeople to get on my nerves. "

"Let me carry your bag, " said Septimus, "and you had better have mystick. "

The process of transference brought to his consciousness the fact of hisbareheadedness. He put on his cap and they trudged along the road likegipsy man and wife, saying not a word to each other. For two miles theyproceeded thus, sometimes in utter blackness when the road wound betweenthick oak plantations, sometimes in the lesser dimness of the open when itpassed by the rolling fields; and not a sign of human life disturbed thecountry stillness. Then they turned into the London road and passed througha village. Lights were in the windows. One cottage door stood open. A shaftof light streamed across Emmy's face, and Septimus caught a glimpse ofdrawn and haggard misery. They went on for another mile. Now and then alaborer passed them with an unsurprised greeting. A milkcart rattled by andthen all was silence again. Gradually the stars lost brilliance. 

All of a sudden, at the foot of a rise crowned by a cottage looming blackagainst the sky, Emmy broke down and cast herself on a heap of stones bythe side of the road, a helpless bundle of sobs and incoherentlamentations. She could bear it no longer. Why had he not spoken to her?She could go no further. She wished she were dead. What was going to becomeof her? How could he walk by her side saying nothing, like a dumb jailer?He had better go back to Nunsmere and leave her to die by the wayside. Itwas all she asked of Heaven. 

"Oh, God have pity on me, " she moaned, and rocked herself to and fro. 

Septimus stood for a time tongue-tied in acute distress. This was his firstadventure in knight-errantry and he had served before neither as page norsquire. He would have given his head to say the unknown words that mightcomfort her. All he could do was to pat her on the shoulder in a futile wayand bid her not to cry, which, as all the world knows, is the greatestencouragement to further shedding of tears a weeping woman can have. Emmysobbed more bitterly than ever. Once more on that night of agonizingdubiety, what was to be done? He looked round desperately for guidance, and, as he looked, a light appeared in the window of the hilltop cottage. 

"Perhaps, " said he, "if I knock at the door up there, they can give you aglass of milk. Or a cup of tea, " he added, brightening with the glow ofinspiration. "Or they may be able to let you lie down for a while. "

But Emmy shook her head miserably. Milk, tea, recumbent luxury were asnothing to her. Neither poppy nor mandragora (or words to that effect)could give her ease again. And she couldn't walk four miles, and she mustcatch the morning train. 

"If you'll tell me what I can do, " said Septimus, "I'll do it. "

A creaky rumble was heard in the distance and presently they made out acart coming slowly down the hill. Septimus had another brilliant idea. 

"Let me put you into that and take you back to Nunsmere. "

She sprang to her feet and clutched his arm. 

"Never. Never, do you hear? I couldn't bear it. Mother, Zora--I couldn'tsee them again. Last night they nearly drove me into hysterics. What do yousuppose I came out for at this hour, if it wasn't to avoid meeting them?Let us go on. If I die on the road, so much the better. "

"Perhaps, " said Septimus, "I could carry you. "

She softened, linked her arm in his, and almost laughed, as they started upthe hill. 

"What a good fellow you are, and I've been behaving like a beast. Anyonebut you would have worried me with questions--and small wonder. But youhaven't even asked me--"

"Hush, " said Septimus. "I know. I saw the paragraph in the newspaper. Don'tlet's talk of it. Let us talk of something else. Do you like honey? TheGreat Bear put me in mind. Wiggleswick wants to keep bees. I tell him, ifhe does, I'll keep a bear. He could eat the honey, you see. And then Icould teach him to dance by playing the bassoon to him. Perhaps he wouldlike the bassoon, " he continued, after a pause, in his wistful way. "Nobodyelse does. "

"If you had it with you now, I should love it for your sake, " said Emmywith a sob. 

"If you would take my advice and rest in the cottage, I could send for it, "he replied unsmilingly. 

"We must catch the train, " said Emmy. 

In Wirley, half a mile further, folks were stirring. A cart laden withmarket produce waited by a cottage door for the driver who stood swallowinghis final cup of tea. A bare-headed child clung round his leg, an attendantHebe. The wanderers halted. 

"If the other cart could have taken us back to Nunsmere, " said Septimus, with the air of a man who has arrived at Truth, "this one can carry us tothe station. "

And so it fell out. The men made Emmy as comfortable as could be among thecabbages, with some sacks for rugs, and there she lay drowsy with pain andweariness until they came to the end of their journey. 

A gas-light or two accentuated the murky dismalness of the little station. Emmy sank exhausted on a bench in the booking hail, numb with cold, and toowoebegone to think of her hair, which straggled limply from beneath thezibeline toque. Septimus went to the booking office and asked for twofirst-class tickets to London. When he joined her again she was cryingsoftly. 

"You're coming with me? It is good of you. "

"I'm responsible for you to Zora. "

A shaft of jealousy shot through her tears. 

"You always think of Zora. "

"To think of her, " replied Septimus, vaguely allusive, "is a liberaleducation. "

Emmy shrugged her shoulders. She was not of the type that makes paragonsout of her own sex, and she had also a sisterly knowledge of Zoraunharmonious with Septimus's poetic conception. But she felt too miserableto argue. She asked him the time. 

At last the train came in. There was a great rattling of milk-cans on thegloomy platform, and various slouching shapes entered third-classcarriages. The wanderers had the only first-class compartment tothemselves. It struck cold and noisome, like a peculiarly unairedcharnel-house. A feeble lamp, whose effect was dimmed by the swishing dirtyoil in the bottom of the globe, gave a pretense at illumination. The guardpassing by the window turned his lantern on them and paused for a wonderingmoment. Were they a runaway couple? If so, thought he, they had arrived atquick repentance. As they looked too dismal for tips, he concerned himselfwith them no more. The train started. Emmy shook with cold, in spite ofher fur-lined jacket. Septimus took off his overcoat and spread it overtheir two bodies as they huddled together for warmth. After a while herhead drooped on his shoulder and she slept, while Septimus sucked his emptypipe, not daring to light it lest he should disturb her slumbers. For thesame reason he forbore to change his original awkward attitude, and inconsequence suffered agonies of pins and needles. To have a solid youngwoman asleep in your arms is not the romantic pleasure the poets make out;for comfort, she might just as well stand on your head. Also, as Emmyunconsciously drew the overcoat away from him, one side of his bodyperished with cold; and a dinner suit is not warm enough for traveling on afrosty morning. 

The thought of his dinner jacket reminded him of his puzzledom. What wereEmmy and himself doing in that galley of a railway carriage when they mighthave been so much more comfortable in their own beds in Nunsmere? It was animpenetrable mystery to which the sleeping girl who was causing him suchacute though cheerfully borne discomfort alone had the key. In vain did hepropound to himself the theory that such speculation betokened anindelicate mind; in vain did he ask himself with unwonted severity whatbusiness it was of his; in vain did he try to hitch his thoughts to PatentSafety Railway Carriages, which were giving him a great deal of trouble; invain did he try to sleep. The question haunted him. So much so that whenEmmy awoke and rubbed her eyes, and in some confusion apologized for theuse to which she had put his shoulder, he was almost ashamed to look her inthe face. 

"What are you going to do when you get to Victoria?" Emmy asked. 

Septimus had not thought of it. "Go back to Nunsmere, I suppose, by thenext train--unless you want me?"

"No, I don't want you, " said Emmy absently. "Why should I?"

And she gazed stonily at the suburban murk of the great city until theyreached Victoria. There, a dejected four-wheeled cab with a drooping horsestood solitary on the rank--a depressing object. Emmy shivered at thesight. 

"I can't stand it. Drive me to my door. I know I'm a beast, Septimus dear, but I am grateful. I am, really. "

The cab received them into its musty interior and drove them through thefoggy brown of a London winter dawn. Unimaginable cheerlessness envelopedthem. The world wore an air of disgust at having to get up on such amorning. The atmosphere for thirty yards around them was clear enough, withthe clearness of yellow consommé, but ahead it stood thick, like a purée ofbad vegetables. They passed through Belgravia, and the white-blinded housesgave an impression of universal death, and the empty streets seemed waitingfor the doors to open and the mourners to issue forth. The cab, too, hadsomething of the sinister, in that it was haunted by the ghosts of afourpenny cigar and a sixpenny bottle of scent which continued a lugubriousflirtation; and the windows rattled a _danse macabre_. At last it pulled upat the door of Emmy's Mansions in Chelsea. 

She looked at him very piteously, like a frightened child. Her pretty mouthwas never strong, but when the corners drooped it was babyish. She slippedher hand in his. 

"Don't leave me just yet. It's silly, I know--but this awful journey hastaken everything out of me. Every bit of it has been worse than the last. Edith--that's my maid--will light a fire--you must get warm before youstart--and she'll make some coffee. Oh, do come. You can keep the cab. "

"But what will your maid think?" asked Septimus, who for all his vaguenesshad definite traditions as to the proprieties of life. 

"What does it matter? What does anything in this ghastly world matter? I'mfrightened, Septimus, horribly frightened. I daren't go up by myself. Oh!Come!"

Her voice broke on the last word. Saint Anthony would have yielded; alsohis pig. Septimus handed her out of the cab, and telling the cabman towait, followed her through the already opened front door of the Mansions upto her flat. She let herself in with her latchkey and showed him into thedrawing-room, turning on the electric light as he entered. 

"I'll go and wake Edith, " she said. "Then we can have some breakfast. Thefire's laid. Do you mind putting a match to it?"

She disappeared and Septimus knelt down before the grate and lit the paper. In a second or two the flame caught the wood, and, the blower being down, it blazed fiercely. He spread his ice-cold hands out before it, incuriousof the futile little room whose draperies and fripperies and inconsiderableflimsiness of furniture proclaimed its owner, intent only on the elementalneed of warmth. He was disturbed by the tornadic entrance of Emmy. 

"She's not here!" she exclaimed tragically. Her baby face was white andthere were dark shadows under the eyes which stared at him with a touch ofmadness. "She's not here!"

"Perhaps she has gone out for a walk, " Septimus suggested, as if Londonserving-maids were in the habit of taking the air at eight o'clock on afoggy morning. 

But Emmy heard him not. The dismaying sense of utter loneliness smote herdown. It was the last straw. Edith, on whom she had staked all her hopes ofphysical comfort, was not there. Overstrained in body, nerves, and mind, she sank helplessly in the chair which Septimus set out for her before thefire, too exhausted to cry. She began to speak in a queer, toneless voice:

"I don't know what to do. Edith could have helped me. I want to get awayand hide. I can't stay here. It's the first place Zora will come to. Shemustn't find me. Edith has been through it herself. She would have taken mesomewhere abroad or in the country where I could have stayed in hiding tillit was over. It was all so sudden--the news of his marriage. I was halfcrazy, I couldn't make plans. I thought Edith would help me. Now she hasgone, goodness knows where. My God, what shall I do?"

She went on, looking at him haggardly, a creature driven beyond thereticence of sex, telling her inmost secret to a man as if it were acommonplace of trouble. It did not occur to her distraught mind that he wasa man. She spoke to herself, without thought, uttering the cry for helpthat had been pent within her all that awful night. 

The puzzledom of Septimus grew unbearable in its intensity; then suddenlyit burst like a skyrocket and a blinding rain of fire enveloped him. Hestood paralyzed with pain and horror. 

The sullen morning light diffused itself through the room, minglingironically with the pretty glow cast by the pink-shaded electric globes, while the two forlorn grotesques regarded each other, unconscious of eachother's grotesqueness, the girl disheveled and haggard, the man with roughgray coat unbuttoned, showing the rumpled evening dress; her toquemiserably awry, his black tie riding above his collar, the bow somewherebehind his ear. And the tragedy of tragedies of a young girl's life wasunfolded. 

"My God, what am I to do?"

Septimus stared at her, his hands in his trousers pockets. In one of themhis fingers grasped a folded bit of paper. He drew it out unthinkingly--avery dirty bit of paper. In his absent-minded way he threw it towards thefire, but it fell on the tiled hearth. In moments of great strain the mindseizes with pitiful eagerness on the trivial. Emmy looked at the paper. Something familiar about its shape struck her. She leaned forward, pickedit up and unfolded it. 

"This is a check, " she said in a matter-of-fact tone. "Did you mean tothrow it away?"

He took it from her and, looking at it, realized that It was Clem Sypher'scheck for two hundred pounds. 

"Thanks, " said he, thrusting it into his overcoat pocket. 

Then his queerly working brain focused associations. 

"I know what we can do, " said he. "We can go to Naples. "

"What good would that be?" she asked, treating the preposterous questionseriously. 

He was taken aback by her directness, and passed his fingers through hishair. 

"I don't know, " said he. 

"The first thing we must do, " said Emmy--and her voice sounded in her ownears like someone else's--"is to get away from here. Zora will be down bythe first train after my absence is discovered. You quite see that Zoramustn't find me, don't you?"

"Of course, " said Septimus, blankly. Then he brightened. "You can go to anhotel. A Temperance Hotel in Bloomsbury. Wiggleswick was telling me aboutone the other day. A friend of his burgled it and got six years. A mancalled Barkus. "

"But what was the name of the hotel?"

"Ah! that I forget, " said Septimus. "It had something to do with Sir WalterScott. Let me see. Lockhart--no, Lockhart's is a different place. It waseither the Bride of Lammermoor or--yes, " he cried triumphantly, "it was theRavenswood, in Southampton Row. "

Emmy rose. The switch off onto the trivial piece of paper had braced herunstrung nerves for a final effort: that, and the terror of meeting Zora. 

"You'll take me there. I'll just put some things together. "

He opened the door for her to pass out. On the threshold she turned. 

"I believe God sent you to Nunsmere Common last night. "

She left him, and he went back to the fire and filled and lit his pipe. Herwords touched him. They also struck a chord of memory. His ever-wanderingmind went back to a scene in undergraduate days. It was the Corn Exchangeat Cambridge, where the most famous of all American evangelists was holdingone of a series of revivalist meetings. The great bare hall was packed withyouths, who came, some to scoff and others to pray. The coarse-figured, bald-headed, brown-bearded man in black on the platform, with his homelyphrase and (to polite undergraduate ears) terrible Yankee twang, wastalking vehemently of the trivial instruments the Almighty used to effectHis purposes. Moses's rod, for instance. "You can imagine Pharaoh, " saidhe--and the echo of the great voice came to Septimus through theyears--"you can imagine Pharaoh walking down the street one day and seeingMoses with a great big stick in his hand. 'Hallo, Moses, ' says he, 'whereare you going?' 'Where am I going?' says Moses. 'I guess I'm going todeliver the Children of Israel out of the House of Bondage and conduct themto a land flowing with milk and honey. ' 'And how are you going to do it, Moses?' '_With this rod, sir, with this rod!_'"

Septimus remembered how this bit of unauthenticated history was greetedwith derision by the general, and with a shocked sense of propriety by thecultivated--and young men at the university can be very cultivated indeedon occasion. But the truth the great preacher intended to convey hadlingered at the back of his own mind and now came out into the light. Perhaps Emmy had spoken more truly than she thought. In his simple heart herealized himself to be the least effectual of men, apparently as unhelpfultowards a great deliverance as the walking stick used by Moses. But if Godhad sent him to Nunsmere Common and destined him to be the mean instrumentof Emmy's deliverance? He rubbed the warm pipe bowl against his cheek andexcogitated the matter in deep humility. Yes, perhaps God had sent him. Hisreligious belief was nebulous, but up to its degree of clarity it wassincere. 

A few minutes later they were again in the cab jogging wearily acrossLondon to Southampton Row; and the little empty drawing-room with all itsvanities looked somewhat ghostly, lit as it was by the day and by thefrivolously shaded electric light which they had forgotten to switch off. 

CHAPTER X

When Septimus had seen Emmy admitted to the Ravenswood Hotel, he stood onthe gloomy pavement outside wondering what he should do. Then it occurredto him that he belonged to a club--a grave, decorous place where the gaypop of a champagne cork had been known to produce a scandalized silence inthe luncheon-room, and where serious-minded members congregated to scowl atone another's unworthiness from behind newspapers. A hansom conveyed himthither. In the hall he struggled over two telegrams which had caused himmost complicated thought during his drive. The problem was to ease Zora'smind and to obtain a change of raiment without disclosing the whereaboutsof either Emmy or himself. This he had found no easy matter, diplomacybeing the art of speaking the truth with intent to deceive, and so finelyseparated from sheer lying as to cause grave distress to Septimus's candidsoul. At last, after much wasting of telegraph forms, he decided on thefollowing:

To Zora: "Emmy safe in London. So am I. Don't worry. Devotedly, Septimus. "

To Wiggleswick: "Bring clothes and railway carriage diagrams secretly toClub. "

Having dispatched these, he went into the coffee-room and orderedbreakfast. The waiters served him in horrified silence. A gaunt member, breakfasting a few tables off, asked for the name of the debauchee, andresolved to write to the Committee. Never in the club's history had amember breakfasted in dress clothes--and in such disreputably disheveleddress clothes! Such dissolute mohocks were a stumbling-block and anoffense, and the gaunt member, who had prided himself on going by clockworkall his life, felt his machinery in some way dislocated by the spectacle. But Septimus ate his food unconcernedly, and afterwards, mounting to thelibrary, threw himself into a chair before the fire and slept the sleep ofthe depraved till Wiggleswick arrived with his clothes. Then, havingeffected an outward semblance of decency, he went to the Ravenswood Hotel. Wiggleswick he sent back to Nunsmere. 

Emmy entered the prim drawing-room where he had been waiting for her, thepicture of pretty flower-like misery, her delicate cheeks white, a huntedlook in her baby eyes. A great pang of pity went through the man, hurtinghim physically. She gave him a limp hand, and sat down on a saddle-bagsofa, while he stood hesitatingly before her, balancing himself first onone leg and then on the other. 

"Have you had anything to eat?"

Emmy nodded. 

"Have you slept?"

"That's a thing I shall never do again, " she said querulously. "How can youask?"

"If you don't sleep, you'll get ill and die, " said Septimus. 

"So much the better, " she replied. 

"I wish I could help you. I do wish I could help you. "

"No one can help me. Least of all you. What could a man do in any case?And, as for you, my poor Septimus, you want as much taking care of as Ido. "

The depreciatory tone did not sting him as it would have done another man, for he knew his incapacity. He had also gone through the memory of Moses'srod the night before. 

"I wonder whether Wiggleswick could be of any use?" he said, morebrightly. 

Emmy laughed dismally. Wiggleswick! To no other mind but Septimus's couldsuch a suggestion present itself. 

"Then what's to be done?"

"I don't know, " said Emmy. 

They looked at each other blankly, two children face to face with one ofthe most terrible of modern social problems, aghast at their powerlessnessto grapple with it. It is a situation which wrings the souls of the strongwith an agony worse than death. It crushes the weak, or drives them mad, and often brings them, fragile wisps of human semblance, into the criminaldock. Shame, disgrace, social pariahdom; unutterable pain to dear ones; anever-gaping wound in fierce family pride; a stain on two generations; anincurable malady of a once blithe spirit; woe, disaster, and ruin--such isthe punishment awarded by men and women to her who disobeys the social lawand, perhaps with equal lack of volition, obeys the law physiological. Thelatter is generally considered the greater crime. 

These things passed through Septimus's mind. His ignorance of the ways ofwhat is, after all, an indifferent, self-centered world exaggerated them. 

"You know what it means?" he said tonelessly. 

"If I didn't, should I be here?"

He made one last effort to persuade her to take Zora into her confidence. His nature abhorred deceit, to say nothing of the High Treason he wascommitting; a rudiment of common sense also told him that Zora was Emmy'snatural helper and protector. But Emmy had the obstinacy of a weak nature. She would die rather than Zora should know. Zora would never understand, would never forgive her. The disgrace would kill her mother. 

"If you love Zora, as you say you do, you would want to save her pain, "said Emmy finally. 

So Septimus was convinced. But once more, what was to be done?

"You had better go away, my poor Septimus, " she said, bending forwardlistlessly, her hands in her lap. "You see you're not a bit of use now. Ifyou had been a different sort of man--like anyone else--one who could havehelped me--I shouldn't have told you anything about it. I'll send for myold dresser at the theater. I must have a woman, you see. So you had bettergo away. "

Septimus walked up and down the room deep in thought. A spinster-lookinglady in a cheap blouse and skirt, an inmate of the caravanserai, put herhead through the door and, with a disapproving sniff at the occupants, retired. At length Septimus broke the silence:

"You said last night that you believed God sent me to you. I believe sotoo. So I'm not going to leave you. "

"But what can you do?" asked Emmy, ending the sentence on a hysterical notewhich brought tears and a fit of sobbing. She buried her head in her armson the sofa-end, and her young shoulders shook convulsively. She was an oddmixture of bravado and baby helplessness. To leave her to fight herterrible battle with the aid only of a theater dresser was animpossibility. Septimus looked at her with mournful eyes, hating hisfutility. Of what use was he to any God-created being? Another man, strongand capable, any vital, deep-chested fellow that was passing alongSouthampton Row at that moment, would have known how to take her cares onhis broad shoulders and ordain, with kind imperiousness, a course ofaction. But he--he could only clutch his fingers nervously and shuffle withhis feet, which of itself must irritate a woman with nerves on edge. Hecould do nothing. He could suggest nothing save that he should follow herabout like a sympathetic spaniel. It was maddening. He walked to the windowand looked out into the unexhilarating street, all that was man in him inrevolt against his ineffectuality. 

Suddenly came the flash of inspiration, swift, illuminating, such ashappened sometimes when the idea of a world-upsetting invention burst uponhim with bewildering clearness; but this time more radiant, more intensethan he had ever known before; it was almost an ecstasy. He passed bothhands feverishly through his hair till it could stand no higher. 

"I have it!" he cried; and Archimedes could not have uttered his famousword with a greater thrill. 

"Emmy, I have it!"

He stood before her gibbering with inspiration. At his cry she raised atear-stained face and regarded him amazedly. 

"You have what?"

"The solution. It is so simple, so easy. Why shouldn't we have run awaytogether?"

"We did, " said Emmy. 

"But really--to get married. "

"Married?"

She started bolt upright on the sofa, the feminine ever on the defensive. 

"Yes, " said Septimus quickly. "Don't you see? If you will go through theform of marriage with me--oh, just the form, you know--and we bothdisappear abroad somewhere for a year--I in one place and you in another, if you like--then we can come back to Zora, nominally married, and--and--"

"And what?" asked Emmy, stonily. 

"And then you can say you can't live with me any longer. You couldn't standme. I don't think any woman could. Only Wiggleswick could put up with myways. "

Emmy passed her hands across her eyes. She was somewhat dazed. 

"You would give me your name--and shield me--just like that!" Her voicequavered. 

"It isn't much to give. It's so short, " he remarked absently. "I've alwaysthought it such a silly name. "

"You would tie yourself for life to a girl who has disgraced herself, justfor the sake of shielding her?"

"Why, it's done every day, " said Septimus. 

"Is it? Oh, God! You poor innocent!" and she broke down again. 

"There, there, " said Septimus kindly, patting her shoulder. "It's allsettled, isn't it? We can get married by special license--quite soon. I'veread of it in books. Perhaps the Hall Porter can tell me where to get one. Hall Porters know everything. Then we can write to Zora and tell her it wasa runaway match. It's the easiest thing in the world. I'll go and see afterit now. "

He left her prostrate on the sofa, her heart stone cold, her body lapped inflame from feet to hair. It was not given to him to know her agony ofhumiliation, her agony of temptation. He had but followed the message whichhis simple faith took to be divine. The trivial name of Dix would be theinstrument wherewith the deliverance of Emmy from the House of Bondageshould be effected. He went out cheerily, stared for a moment at the HallPorter, vaguely associating him with the matter in hand, but forgettingexactly why, and strode into the street, feeling greatly uplifted. Thebroad-shouldered men who jostled him as he pursued his absent-minded andtherefore devious course no longer appeared potential champions to begreatly envied. He felt that he was one of them, and blessed them as theyjostled him, taking their rough manners as a sign of kinship. The life ofHolborn swallowed him. He felt glad who once hated the dismaying bustle. His heart sang for joy. Something had been given him to do for the sake ofthe woman he loved. What more can a man do than lay down his life for afriend? Perhaps he can do a little more for a loved woman: marry somebodyelse. 

Deep down in his heart he loved Zora. Deep down in his heart, too, dweltthe idiot hope that the miracle of miracles might one day happen. He lovedthe hope with a mother's passionate love for a deformed and imbecile child, knowing it unfit to live among the other healthy hopes of his conceiving. At any rate, he was free to bring her his daily tale of worship, to glean alook of kindness from her clear eyes. This was his happiness. For her sakehe would sacrifice it. For Zora's sake he would marry Emmy. The heart ofSeptimus was that of a Knight-Errant confident in the righteousness of hisquest. The certainty had come all at once in the flash of inspiration. Besides, was he not carrying out Zora's wish? He remembered her words. Itwould be the greatest pleasure he could give her--to become her brother, her real brother. She would approve. And beyond all that, deep down also inhis heart he knew it was the only way, the wise, simple, Heaven-directedway. 

The practical, broad-shouldered, common-sense children of this world wouldhave weighed many things one against the other. They would have taken intoaccount sentimentally, morally, pharisaically, or cynically, according totheir various attitudes towards life, the relations between Emmy andMordaunt Prince which had led to this tragic situation. But for Septimusher sin scarcely existed. When a man is touched by an angel's feather hetakes an angel's view of mortal frailties. 

He danced his jostled way up Holborn till the City Temple loomed throughthe brown air. It struck a chord of association. He halted on the edge ofthe curb and regarded it across the road, with a forefinger held up beforehis nose as if to assist memory. It was a church. People were apt to bemarried in churches. Sometimes by special license. That was it! A speciallicense. He had come out to get one. But where were they to be obtained? Ina properly civilized country, doubtless they would be sold in shops, likeboots and hair-brushes, or even in post-offices, like dog licenses. ButSeptimus, aware of the deficiencies of an incomplete social organization, could do no better than look wistfully up and down the stream of traffic, as it roared and flashed and lumbered past. A policeman stopped beside him. He appeared so lost, he met the man's eyes with a gaze so questioning, thatthe policeman paused. 

"Want to go anywhere, sir?"

"Yes, " said Septimus. "I want to go where I can get a special license to bemarried. "

"Don't you know?"

"No. You see, " said Septimus confidentially, "marriage has been out of myline. But perhaps you have been married, and might be able to tell me. "

"Look here, sir, " said the policeman, eyeing him kindly, but officially. "Take my advice, sir; don't think of getting married. You go home to yourfriends. "

The policeman nodded knowingly and stalked away, leaving Septimus perplexedby his utterance. Was he a Socrates of a constable with a Xantippe at home, or did he regard him as a mild lunatic at large? Either solution wasdiscouraging. He turned and walked back down Holborn somewhat dejected. Somewhere in London the air was thick with special licenses, but who woulddirect his steps to the desired spot? On passing Gray's Inn one of hisbrilliant ideas occurred to him. The Inn suggested law; the law, solicitors, who knew even more about licenses than Hall Porters andPolicemen. A man he once knew had left him one day after lunch to consulthis solicitors in Gray's Inn. He entered the low, gloomy gateway andaccosted the porter. 

"Are there any solicitors living in the Inn?"

"Not so many as there was. They're mostly architects. But still there'sheaps. "

"Will you kindly direct me to one?"

The man gave him two or three addresses, and he went comforted across thesquare to the east wing, whose Georgian mass merged without skyline intothe fuliginous vapor which Londoners call the sky. The lights behind theblindless windows illuminated interiors and showed men bending over desksand drawing-boards, some near the windows with their faces sharply cut inprofile. Septimus wondered vaguely whether any one of those visible wouldbe his solicitor. 

A member of the first firm he sought happened to be disengaged, abenevolent young man wearing gold spectacles, who received his request forguidance with sympathetic interest and unfolded to him the divers methodswhereby British subjects could get married all over the world, includingthe High Seas on board one of His Majesty's ships of the Mercantile Marine. Solicitors are generally bursting with irrelevant information. When, however, he elicited the fact that one of the parties had a flat in Londonwhich would technically prove the fifteen days' residence, he opened hiseyes. 

"But, my dear sir, unless you are bent on a religious ceremony, why not getmarried at once before the registrar of the Chelsea district? There are twoways of getting married before the registrar--one by certificate and one bylicense. By license you can get married after the expiration of one wholeday next after the day of the entry of the notice of marriage. That is tosay, if you give notice to-morrow you can get married not the next day, butthe day after. In this way you save the heavy special license fee. How doesit strike you?"

It struck Septimus as a remarkable suggestion, and he admired the lawyerexceedingly. 

"I suppose it's really a good and proper marriage?" he asked. 

The benevolent young man reassured him; it would take all the majesty ofthe Probate, Divorce and Admiralty division of the High Court of Justice todissolve it. Septimus agreed that in these circumstances it must be acapital marriage. Then the solicitor offered to see the whole matterthrough and get him married in the course of a day or two. After which hedismissed him with a professional blessing which cheered Septimus all theway to the Ravenswood Hotel. 

CHAPTER XI

"Good heavens, mother, they're married!" cried Zora, staring at a telegramshe had just received. 

Mrs. Oldrieve woke with a start from her after-luncheon nap. 

"Who, dear?"

"Why, Emmy and Septimus Dix. Read it. "

Mrs. Oldrieve put on her glasses with faltering fingers, and read aloud thewords as if they had been in a foreign language: "Septimus and I weremarried this morning at the Chelsea Registrar's. We start for Paris by the2. 30. Will let you know our plans. Love to mother from us both. Emmy. "

"What does this mean, dear?"

"It means, my dear mother, that they're married, " said Zora; "but why theyshould have thought it necessary to run away to do it in thishole-and-corner fashion I can't imagine. "

"It's very terrible, " said Mrs. Oldrieve. 

"It's worse than terrible. It's idiotic, " said Zora. 

She was mystified, and being a woman who hated mystification, was angry. Her mother began to cry. It was a disgraceful thing; before a registrar, too. 

"As soon as I let her go on the stage, I knew something dreadful wouldhappen to her, " she wailed. "Of course Mr. Dix is foolish and eccentric, but I never thought he could do anything so irregular. "

"I have no patience with him!" cried Zora. "I told him only a short whileago that both of us would be delighted if he married Emmy. "

"They must come back, dear, and be married properly. Do make them, " urgedMrs. Oldrieve. "The Vicar will be so shocked and hurt--and what Cousin Janewill say when she hears of it--"

She raised her mittened hands and let them fall into her lap. The awfulnessof Cousin Jane's indignation transcended the poor lady's powers ofdescription. Zora dismissed the Vicar and Cousin Jane as persons of noaccount. The silly pair were legally married, and she would see that therewas a proper notice put in _The Times_. As for bringing them back--shelooked at the clock. 

"They are on their way now to Folkestone. "

"It wouldn't be any good telegraphing them to come back and be properlymarried in church?"

"Not the slightest, " said Zora; "but I'll do it if you like. "

So the telegram was dispatched to "Septimus Dix, Boulogne Boat, Folkestone, " and Mrs. Oldrieve took a brighter view of the situation. 

"We have done what we can, at any rate, " she said by way ofself-consolation. 

Now it so happened that Emmy, like many another person at their wits' end, had given herself an amazing amount of unnecessary trouble. Her flight hadnot been noticed till the maid had entered her room at half-past eight. Shehad obviously packed up some things in a handbag. Obviously again she hadcaught the eight-fifteen train from Ripstead, as she had done once or twicebefore when rehearsals or other theatrical business had required an earlyarrival in London. Septimus's telegram had not only allayed noapprehension, but it had aroused a mild curiosity. Septimus was master ofhis own actions. His going up to London was no one's concern. If he werestarting for the Equator a telegram would have been a courtesy. But whyannounce his arrival in London? Why couple it with Emmy's? And why in thename of guns and musical comedies should Zora worry? But when she reflectedthat Septimus did nothing according to the orthodox ways of men, sheattributed the superfluous message to his general infirmity of character, smiled indulgently, and dismissed the matter from her mind. Mrs. Oldrievehad nothing to dismiss, as she had been led to believe that Emmy had goneup to London by the morning train. She only bewailed the flightyinconsequence of modern young women, until she reflected that Emmy's fatherhad gone and come with disconcerting unexpectedness from the day of theirwedding to that of his death on the horns of a buffalo; whereupon shefatalistically attributed her daughter's ways to heredity. So while the twoincapables were sedulously covering up their tracks, the most placidindifference as to their whereabouts reigned in Nunsmere. 

The telegram, therefore, announcing their marriage found Zora entirelyunprepared for the news it contained. What a pitiful tragedy lay behind thewords she was a million miles from suspecting. She walked with her headabove such clouds, her eyes on the stars, taking little heed of thehappenings around her feet--and, if the truth is to be known, findingmighty little instruction or entertainment in the firmament. The elopement, for it was nothing more, brought her eyes, however, earthwards. "Why?" sheasked, not realizing it to be the most futile of questions when applied tohuman actions. To every such "Why?" there are a myriad answers. When amysterious murder is committed, everyone seeks the motive. Unlesscircumstance unquestionably provides the key of the enigma, who can tell?It may be revenge for the foulest of wrongs. It may be that the assassinobjected to the wart on the other man's nose--and there are men to whom awart is a Pelion of rank offense, and who believe themselvesheaven-appointed to cut it off. It may be for worldly gain. It may bemerely for amusement. There is nothing so outrageous, so grotesque, which, if the human brain has conceived it, the human hand has not done. Many aman has taken a cab, on a sudden shower, merely to avoid the trouble ofunrolling his umbrella, and the sanest of women has been known to cheat a'bus conductor of a penny, so as to wallow in the gratification of acrossing-sweeper's blessing. When the philosopher asks the Everlasting Why, he knows, if he be a sound philosopher--and a sound philosopher is he whois not led into the grievous error of taking his philosophy seriously--thatthe question is but the starting point of the entertaining game ofSpeculation. 

To this effect spake the Literary Man from London, when next he met Zora. Nunsmere was in a swarm of excitement and the alien bee had, perforce, tobuzz with the rest. 

"The interesting thing is, " said he, "that the thing has happened. Thatwhile the inhabitants of this smug village kept one dull eye on thedecalogue and another on their neighbors, Romance on its rosy pinions washovering over it. Two people have gone the right old way of man and maid. They have defied the paralyzing conventions of the engagement. Oh! theunutterable, humiliating, deadening period! When each young person has topass the inspection of the other's relations. When simpering friendsmaddeningly leave them alone in drawing-rooms and conservatories so thatthey can hold each other's hands. When they are on probation _corampublico_. Our friends have defied all this. They have defied the orangeblossoms, the rice, the wedding presents, the unpleasant public affidavits, the whole indecent paraphernalia of an orthodox wedding--the bridal veil--asurvival from the barbaric days when a woman was bought and paid for and aman didn't know what he had got until he had married her and taken herhome--the senseless new clothes which brand them immodestly wherever theygo. Two people have had the courage to avoid all this, to treat marriage asif it really concerned themselves and not Tom, Dick, and Harry. They'vedone it. Why, doesn't matter. All honor to them. "

He waved his stick in the air--they had met on the common--and the lamedonkey, who had strayed companionably near them, took to his heels infright. 

"Even the donkey, " said Zora, "Mr. Dix's most intimate friend, doesn'tagree with you. "

"The ass will agree with the sage only in the millennium, " said Rattenden. 

But Zora was not satisfied with the professional philosopher's presentationof the affair. She sought Wiggleswick, whom she found before a blazing firein the sitting-room, his feet on the mantelpiece, smoking a Havana cigar. On her approach he wriggled to attention, and extinguishing the cigar bymeans of saliva and a horny thumb and forefinger, put the stump into hispocket. 

"Good morning, Wiggleswick, " said Zora cheerfully. 

"Good morning, ma'am, " said Wiggleswick. 

"You seem to be having a good time. "

Wiggleswick gave her to understand that, thanks to his master's angelicdisposition and his own worthiness, he always had a good time. 

"Now that he's married there will have to be a few changes in householdarrangements, " said Zora. 

"What changes?"

"There will be a cook and parlor maid and regular hours, and a mistress tolook after things. "

Wiggleswick put his cunning gray head on one side. 

"I'm sure they'll make me very comfortable, ma'am. If they do the work, Iwon't raise no manner of objection. "

Zora, regarding the egoist with mingled admiration and vexedness, couldonly say, "Oh!"

"I never raised no objection to his marriage from the first, " saidWiggleswick. 

"Did he consult you about it?"

"Of course he did, " he replied with an indulgent smile, while the light ofsportive fancy gleamed behind his blear eyes. "He looks on me as a father, he does, ma'am. 'Wiggleswick, ' says he, 'I'm going to be married. ' 'I'mdelighted to hear it, sir, ' says I. 'A man needs a woman's 'and about him, 'says I. "

"When did he tell you this?"

Wiggleswick searched his inventive memory. 

"About a fortnight ago. 'If I may be so bold, sir, who is the young lady?'I asks. 'It's Miss Emily Oldrieve, ' says he, and I said, 'A nicer, brighter, prettier bit of goods'--I beg your pardon, ma'am--'young lady, you couldn't pick up between here and Houndsditch. ' I did say that, ma'am, I tell you straight. " He looked at her keenly to see whether thisexpression of loyal admiration of his new mistress had taken effect, andthen continued. "And then he says to me, 'Wiggleswick, there ain't going tobe no grand wedding. You know me. '--And I does, ma'am. The outlandishthings he does, ma'am, would shock an alligator. --'I should forget theday, ' says he. 'I should lose the ring. I should marry the wrong party. Ishould forget to kiss the bridesmaids. Lord knows what I shouldn't do. Sowe're going up to London to be married on the Q. T. , and don't you saynothing to nobody. "

"So you've been in this conspiracy for a fortnight, " said Zora severely, "and you never thought it your duty to stop him doing so foolish a thing?"

"As getting married, ma'am?"

"No. Such a silly thing as running away. "

"Of course I did, ma'am, " said Wiggleswick, who went on mendaciously toexplain that he had used every means in his power to prevail on his masterto submit to the orthodox ceremony for the sake of the family. 

"Then you might have given me a hint as to what was going on. "

Wiggleswick assumed a shocked expression. "And disobey my master? Orders isorders, ma'am. I once wore the Queen's uniform. "

Zora, sitting on the arm of a chair, half steadying herself with herumbrella, regarded the old man standing respectfully at attention beforeher with a smile whose quizzicality she could not restrain. The old villaindrew himself up in a dignified way. 

"I don't mean the government uniform, ma'am. I've had my misfortunes likeanyone else. I was once in the army--in the band. "

"Mr. Dix told me that you had been in the band, " said Zora with all hergraciousness, so as to atone for the smile. "You played that instrument inthe corner. "

"I did, ma'am, " said Wiggleswick. 

Zora looked down at the point of her umbrella on the floor. Having noreason to disbelieve Wiggleswick's circumstantial though entirelyfictitious story, and having by the smile put herself at a disadvantage, she felt uncomfortably routed. 

"Your master never told you where he was going or how long he was likely tobe away?" she asked. 

"My master, ma'am, " replied Wiggleswick, "never knows where he is going. That's why he wants a wife who can tell him. "

Zora rose and looked around her. Then, with a sweep of her umbrellaindicating the general dustiness and untidiness of the room:

"The best thing you can do, " said she, "is to have the house thoroughlycleaned and put in order. They may be back any day. I'll send in acharwoman to help you. "

"Thank you, ma'am, " said Wiggleswick, somewhat glumly. Although he had liedvolubly to her for his own ends, he stood in awe of her commandingpersonality, and never dreamed of disregarding her high behests. But he hada moral disapproval of work. He could see no nobility in it, having done somuch enforced labour in his time. 

"Do you think we need begin now, ma'am?" he asked anxiously. 

"At once, " said Zora. "It will take you a month to clean the place. And itwill give you something to do. "

She went away femininely consoled by her exercise of authority--a minorvictory covering a retreat. But she still felt very angry with Septimus. 

When Clem Sypher came down to Penton Court for the week-end, he treatedthe matter lightly. 

"He knew that he was acceptable to your mother and yourself, so he has donenothing dishonorable. All he wanted was your sister and the absence offuss. I think it sporting of him. I do, truly. "

"And I think you're detestable!" cried Zora. "There's not a single man thatcan understand. "

"What do you want me to understand?"

"I don't know, " said Zora, "but you ought to understand it. "

A day or two later, meeting Rattenden again, she found that he comprehendedher too fully. 

"What would have pleased you, " said he, "would have been to play the _soeurnoble_, to have gathered the young couple in your embrace, andmagnanimously given them to each other, and smiled on the happiness ofwhich you had been the bounteous dispenser. They've cheated you. They'vecut your part clean out of the comedy, and you don't like it. If I'm notright will you kindly order me out of the room? Well?" he asked, after apause, during which she hung her head. 

"Oh, you can stay, " she said with a half-laugh. "You're the kind of manthat always bets on a certainty. "

Rattenden was right. She was jealous of Emmy for having unceremoniouslystolen her slave from her service--that Emmy had planned the wholeconspiracy she had not the slightest doubt--and she was angry with Septimusfor having been weak enough to lend himself to such duplicity. Even when hewrote her a dutiful letter from Paris--to the telegram he had merelyreplied, "Sorry; impossible"--full of everything save Emmy and their plansfor the future, she did not forgive him. How dared he consider himself fitto travel by himself? His own servant qualified his doings as outlandish. 

"They'll make a terrible mess of their honeymoon, " she said to Clem Sypher. "They'll start for Rome and find themselves in St. Petersburg. "

"They'll be just as happy, " said Sypher. "If I was on my honeymoon, do youthink I'd care where I went?"

"Well, I wash my hands of them, " said Zora with a sigh, as if bereft ofdear responsibilities. "No doubt they're happy in their own way. "

And that, for a long time, was the end of the matter. The house, cleanedand polished, glittered like the instrument room of a man-of-war, and nomaster or mistress came to bestow on Wiggleswick's toil the meed of theirapprobation. The old man settled down again to well-earned repose, and thehouse grew dusty and dingy again, and dustier and dingier as the weeks wenton. 

It has been before stated that things happen slowly in Nunsmere, even thereawakening of Zora's nostalgia for the Great World and Life and theSecrets of the Earth. But things do happen there eventually, and the timecame when Zora found herself once again too big for the little house. Shemissed Emmy's periodical visits. She missed the regulation of Septimus. Shemissed her little motor expeditions with Sypher, who had sold his car andwas about to sell "The Kurhaus, Kilburn Priory. " The Cure seemed to havetransformed itself from his heart to his nerves. He talked of it--or so itappeared to her--with more braggadocio than enthusiasm. He could converseof little else. It was going to smash Jebusa Jones's Cuticle Remedy to theshreds of its ointment boxes. The deepening vertical line between theman's brows she did not notice, nor did she interpret the wistful look inhis eyes when he claimed her help. She was tired of the Cure and the Remedyand Sypher's fantastic need of her as ally. She wanted Life, real, quivering human Life. It was certainly not to be found in Nunsmere, wherefaded lives were laid away in lavender. For sheer sensations she began totolerate the cynical analysis of the Literary Man from London. She must goforth on her journeyings again. She had already toyed with the idea when, with Septimus's aid, she had mapped out voyages round the world. Now shemust follow it in strenuous earnest. The Callenders had cabled her aninvitation to come out at once to Los Angeles. She cabled back anacceptance. 

"So you're going away from me?" said Sypher, when she announced herdeparture. 

There was a hint of reproach in his voice which she resented. 

"You told me in Monte Carlo that I ought to have a mission in life. I can'tfind it here, so I'm going to seek one in California. What happens in thisSleepy Hollow of a place that a live woman can concern herself with?"

"There's Sypher's Cure--"

"My dear Mr. Sypher!" she laughed protestingly. 

"Oh, " said he, "you are helping it on more than you imagine. I'm goingthrough a rough time, but with you behind me, as I told you before, I knowI shall win. If I turn my head round, when I'm sitting at my desk, I have akind of fleeting vision of you hovering over my chair. It puts heart andsoul into me, and gives me courage to make desperate ventures. "

"As I'm only there in the spirit, it doesn't matter whether the bodily Iis in Nunsmere or Los Angeles. "

"How can I tell?" said he, with one of his swift, clear glances. "I meetyou in the body every week and carry back your spirit with me. ZoraMiddlemist, " he added abruptly, after a pause, "I implore you not to leaveme. "

He leaned his arm on the mantelpiece from which Septimus had knocked thelittle china dog, and looked down earnestly at her, as she sat on thechintz-covered sofa behind the tea-table. At her back was the long casementwindow, and the last gleams of the wintry sun caught her hair. To the man'svisionary fancy they formed an aureole. 

"Don't go, Zora. "

She was silent for a long, long time, as if held by the spell of the man'spleading. Her face softened adorably and a tenderness came into the eyeswhich he could not see. A mysterious power seemed to be lifting her towardshim. It was a new sensation, pleasurable, like floating down a stream withthe water murmuring in her ears. Then, suddenly, as if startled to vividconsciousness out of a dream, she awakened, furiously indignant. 

"Why shouldn't I go? Tell me once and for all, why?"

She expected what any woman alive might have expected save the chosen fewwho have the great gift of reading the souls of the poet and the visionary;and Clem Sypher, in his way, was both. She braced her nerves to hear theexpected. But the poet and the visionary spoke. 

It was the old story of the Cure, his divine mission to spread the healingunguent over the suffering earth. Voices had come to him as they had cometo the girl at Domrémy, and they had told him that through Zora Middlemist, and no other, was his life's mission to be accomplished. 

To her it was anticlimax. Reaction forced a laugh against her will. Sheleaned back among the sofa cushions. 

"Is that all?" she said, and Sypher did not catch the significance of thewords. "You seem to forget that the rôle of Mascotte is not a particularlyactive one. It's all very well for you, but I have to sit at home and twirlmy thumbs. Have you ever tried that by way of soul-satisfying occupation?Don't you think you're just a bit--egotistical?"

He relaxed the tension of his attitude with a sigh, thrust his hands intohis pockets and sat down. 

"I suppose I am. When a man wants something with all the strength of hisbeing and thinks of nothing else day or night, he develops a colossalselfishness. It's a form of madness, I suppose. There was a man calledBernard Palissy who had it, and made everybody sacrifice themselves to hisidea. I've no right to ask you to sacrifice yourself to mine. "

"You have the right of friendship, " said Zora, "to claim my interest inyour hopes and fears, and that I've given you and shall always give you. But beyond that, as you say, you have no right. "

He rose, with a laugh. "I know. It's as logical as a proposition of Euclid. But all the same I feel I have a higher right, beyond any logic. There areall kinds of phenomena in life which have nothing whatsoever to do withreason. You have convinced my reason that I'm an egotistical dreamer. Butnothing you can do or say will ever remove the craving for you that I havehere "--and he thumped his big chest--"like hunger. "

When he had gone Zora thought over the scene with more disturbance of mindthan she appreciated. She laughed to herself at Sypher's fantastic claim. To give up the great things of the world, Life itself, for the sake of aquack ointment! It was preposterous. Sypher was as crazy as Septimus;perhaps crazier, for the latter did not thump his chest and inform her thathis guns or his patent convertible bed-razor-strop had need of her "here. "Decidedly, the results of her first excursion into the big world had notturned out satisfactorily. Her delicate nose sniffed at them in disdain. The sniff, however, was disappointingly unconvincing. The voices ofcontemptible people could not sound in a woman's ears like the drowsymurmuring of waters. The insane little devil that had visited her in ClemSypher's garden whispered her to stay. 

But had not Zora, in the magnificence of her strong womanhood, in thehunger of her great soul, to find somewhere in the world a Mission in Life, a fulness of existence which would accomplish her destiny? Down with theinsane little devil and all his potential works! Zora laughed and recoveredher serenity. Cousin Jane, who had had much to write concerning theelopement, was summoned, and Zora, with infinite baggage in the care ofTurner, set sail for California. 

The New World lay before her with its chances of real, quivering, humanLife. Nunsmere, where nothing ever happened, lay behind her. She smiledgraciously at Sypher, who saw her off at Waterloo, and said nice things tohim about the Cure, but before her eyes danced a mirage in which ClemSypher and his Cure were not visible. The train steamed out of the station. Sypher stood on the edge of the platform and watched the end buffers untilthey were out of sight; then he turned and strode away, and his face wasthat of a man stricken with great loneliness. 

CHAPTER XII

It never occurred to Septimus that he had done a quixotic thing in marryingEmmy, any more than to pat himself on the back for a monstrously cleverfellow when he had completed a new invention. At the door of the RegistryOffice he took off his hat, held out his hand, and said good-by. 

"But where are you going?" Emmy asked in dismay. 

Septimus didn't know. He waved his hand vaguely over London, and said, "Anywhere. "

Emmy began to cry. She had passed most of the morning in tears. She feltdoubly guilty now that she had accepted the sacrifice of his life; an awfulsense of loneliness also overwhelmed her. 

"I didn't know that you hated me like that, " she said. 

"Good heavens!" he cried in horror. "I don't hate you. I only thought youhad no further use for me. "

"And I'm to be left alone in the street?"

"I'll drive you anywhere you like, " said he. 

"And then get rid of me as soon as possible? Oh! I know what you must befeeling. "

Septimus put his hand under her arm, and led her away, in great distress. 

"I thought you wouldn't be able to bear the sight of me. "

"Oh, don't be silly!" said Emmy. 

Her adjuration was on a higher plane of sentiment than expression. Itcomforted Septimus. 

"What would you like me to do?"

"Anything except leave me to myself--at any rate for the present. Don'tyou see, I've only you in the world to look to. "

"God bless my soul, " said he, "I suppose that's so. It's very alarming. Noone has ever looked to me in all my life. I'd wander barefoot for you allover the earth. But couldn't you find somebody else who's more used tolooking after people? It's for your own sake entirely, " he hastened toassure her. 

"I know, " she said. "But you see it's impossible for me to go to any of myfriends, especially after what has happened. " She held out her unglovedleft hand. "How could I explain?"

"You must never explain, " he agreed, sagely. "It would undo everything. Isuppose things are easy, after all, when you've set your mind on them--orget some chap that knows everything to tell you how to do them--and there'slots of fellows about that know everything--solicitors and so forth. There's the man who told me about a Registrar. See how easy it was. Wherewould you like to go?"

"Anywhere out of England. " She shuddered. "Take me to Paris first. We cango on from there anywhere we like. "

"Certainly, " said Septimus, and he hailed a hansom. 

 * * * * *

Thus it fell out that the strangely married pair kept together during thelong months that followed. Emmy's flat in London had been rented furnished. The maid Edith had vanished, after the manner of many of her kind, intoancillary space. The theater and all it signified to Emmy became a pastdream. Her inner world was tragical enough, poor child. Her outer world wasSeptimus. In Paris, as she shrank from meeting possible acquaintances, hefound her a furnished _appartement_ in the Boulevard Raspail, while heperched in a little hotel close by. The finding of the _appartement_ was anillustration of his newly invented, optimistic theory of getting thingsdone. 

He came back to the hotel where he had provisionally lodged her andinformed her of his discovery. She naturally asked him how he had found it. 

"A soldier told me, " he said. 

"A soldier?"

"Yes. He had great baggy red trousers and a sash around his waist and ashort blue jacket braided with red and a fez with a tassel and a shavenhead. He saved me from being run over by a cab. "

Emmy shivered. "Oh, don't talk of it in that calm way--suppose you had beenkilled!"

"I suppose the Zouave would have buried me--he's such a helpful creature, you know. He's been in Algiers. He says I ought to go there. His name isHégisippe Cruchot. "

"But what about the flat?" asked Emmy. 

"Oh, you see, I fell down in front of the cab and he dragged me away andbrushed me down with a waiter's napkin--there was a café within a yard ortwo. And then I asked him to have a drink and gave him a cigarette. Hedrank absinthe, without water, and then I began to explain to him an ideafor an invention which occurred to me to prevent people from being run overby cabs, and he was quite interested. I'll show you--"

"You won't, " said Emmy, with a laugh. She had her lighter moments. "You'lldo no such thing--not until you've told me about the flat. "

"Oh! the flat, " said Septimus in a disappointed tone, as if it were asecondary matter altogether. "I gave him another absinthe and we became sofriendly that I told him that I wanted a flat and didn't in the least knowhow to set about finding one. It turned out that there was an _appartement_vacant in the house of which his mother is concierge. He took me along tosee it, and introduced me to Madame, his mother. He has also got an auntwho can cook. "

"I should like to have seen you talking to the Zouave, " said Emmy. "Itwould have made a pretty picture--the two of you hobnobbing over a littlemarble table. "

"It was iron, painted yellow, " said Septimus. "It wasn't a resplendentcafé. "

"I wonder what he thought of you. "

"Well, he introduced me to his mother, " replied Septimus gravely, whereatEmmy broke into merry laughter, for the first time for many days. 

"I've taken the _appartement_ for a month and the aunt who can cook, " heremarked. 

"What!" cried Emmy, who had not paid very serious regard to the narrative. "Without knowing anything at all about it?"

She put on her hat and insisted on driving there incontinently, full ofmisgivings. But she found a well-appointed house, a deep-bosomed, broad-beamed concierge, who looked as if she might be the mother of twentyhelpful Zouaves, and an equally matronly and kindly-faced sister, a MadameBolivard, the aunt aforesaid who could cook. 

Thus, as the ravens fed Elijah, so did Zouaves and other casual fowl aidSeptimus on his way. Madame Bolivard in particular took them both under herample wing, to the girl's unspeakable comfort. A _brav' femme_, MadameBolivard, who not only could cook, but could darn stockings and mendlinen, which Emmy's frivolous fingers had never learned to accomplish. Shecould also prescribe miraculous _tisanes_ for trivial ailments, could tellthe cards, and could converse volubly on any subject under heaven; the lessshe knew about it, the more she had to say, which is a great gift. Itspared the girl many desolate and despairing hours. 

It was a lonely, monotonous life. Septimus she saw daily. Now and then, ifSeptimus were known to be upstairs, Hégisippe Cruchot, coming to pay hisfilial respects to his mother and his mother's _bouillabaisse_ (she wasfrom Marseilles) and her _matelote_ of eels, luxuries which his halfpenny aday could not provide, would mount to inquire dutifully after his aunt andincidentally after the _belle dame du troisième_. He was their only visitorfrom the outside world, and as he found a welcome and an ambrosial form ofalcohol compounded of Scotch whiskey and Maraschino (whose subtlety Emmyhad learned from an eminent London actor-manager at a far-away supperparty), he came as often as his respectful ideas of propriety allowed. 

They were quaint gatherings, these, in the stiffly furnished little salon:Emmy, fluffy-haired, sea-shell-cheeked, and softly raimented, lyingindolently on the sofa amid a pile of cushions--she had sent Septimus outto "La Samaritaine" to buy some (in French furnished rooms they stuff thecushions with cement), and he had brought back a dozen in a cab, so thatthe whole room heaved and swelled with them; Septimus, with his mild blueeyes and upstanding hair, looking like the conventional picture of one whosees a ghost; Hégisippe Cruchot, the outrageousness of whose piratical kitcontrasted with his suavity of manner, sitting with military precision ona straight-backed chair; and Madame Bolivard standing in a far corner ofthe room; her bare arms crossed above her blue apron, and watching thescene with an air of kindly proprietorship. They spoke in French, for onlyone word of English had Hégisippe and his aunt between them, and that being"Howdodogoddam" was the exclusive possession of the former. Emmy gaveutterance now and then to peculiar vocables which she had learned atschool, and which Hégisippe declared to be the purest Parisian he had everheard an Englishwoman use, while Septimus spoke very fair French indeed. Hégisippe would twirl his little brown mustache--he was all brown, skin andeyes and close-cropped hair, and even the skull under the hair--and tell ofhis military service and of the beautiful sunshine of Algiers and, when hisaunt was out of the room, of his Arcadian love affairs. She served in awine shop in the Rue des Francs-Bouchers. When was he going to get married?At Emmy's question he laughed, with a wave of his cigarette, and a clank ofhis bayonet against the leg of the chair. On a sou a day? Time enough forthat when he had made his fortune. His mother then would doubtless find hima suitable wife with a dowry. When his military service was over he wasgoing to be a waiter. When he volunteered this bit of information Emmy gavea cry of surprise. This dashing, swaggering desperado of a fellow a waiter!

"I shall never understand this country!" she cried. 

"When one has good introductions and knows how to comport oneself, onemakes much"--and he rubbed his thumb and fingers together, according to thenational code of pantomime. 

And then his hosts would tell him about England and the fogs, wherein hewas greatly interested; or Septimus would discourse to him of inventions, the weak spot in which his shrewd intelligence generally managed to strike, and then Septimus would run his fingers through this hair and say, "Godbless my soul, I never thought of that, " and Emmy would laugh; or else theytalked politics. Hégisippe, being a Radical, _fiché_'d himself absolutelyof the Pope and the priests. To be kind to one's neighbors and act as agood citizen summed up his ethical code. He was as moral as any devoutCatholic. 

"What about the girl in the Rue des Francs-Bouchers?" asked Emmy. 

"If I were a good Catholic, I would have two, for then I could getabsolution, " he cried gaily, and laughed immoderately at his jest. 

The days of his visits were marked red in Emmy's calendar. 

"I wish I were a funny beggar, and had lots of conversation like our friendCruchot, and could make you laugh, " said Septimus one day, when the _tædiumvitæ_ lay heavy on her. 

"If you had a sense of humor you wouldn't be here, " she replied, with somebitterness. 

Septimus rubbed his thin hands together thoughtfully. 

"I don't know why you should say that, " said he. "I never heard a joke Ididn't see the point of. I'm rather good at it. "

"If you don't see the point of this joke, I can't explain it, my dear. Ithas a point the size of a pyramid. "

He nodded and looked dreamily out of the window at the opposite houses. Sometimes her sharp sayings hurt him. But he understood all, in his dimway, and pardoned all. He never allowed her to see him wince. He stood solong silent that Emmy looked up anxiously at his face, dreading the effectof her words. His hand hung by his side--he was near the sofa where shelay. She took it gently, in a revulsion of feeling, kissed it, and, as heturned, flung it from her. 

"Go, my dear; go. I'm not fit to talk to you. Yes, go. You oughtn't to behere; you ought to be in England in your comfortable home with Wiggleswickand your books and inventions. You're too good for me, and I'm hateful. Iknow it, and it drives me mad. "

He took her hand in his turn and held it for a second or two in both of hisand patted it kindly. 

"I'll go out and buy something, " he said. 

When he returned she was penitent and glad to see him; and although hebrought her as a present a hat--a thing of purple feathers and green velvetand roses, in which no self-respecting woman would be seen mummified athousand years hence--she neither laughed at it nor upbraided him, buttried the horror on before the glass and smiled sweetly while the coldshivers ran down her back. 

"I don't want you to say funny things, Septimus, " she said, reverting tothe starting point of the scene, "so long as you bring me such presents asthis. "

"It's a nice hat, " he admitted modestly. "The woman in the shop said thatvery few people could wear it. "

"I'm so glad you think I'm an exceptional woman, " she said. "It's the firstcompliment you have ever paid me. "

She shed tears, though, over the feathers of the hat, before she went tobed, good tears, such as bring great comfort and cleanse the heart. Sheslept happier that night; and afterwards, whenever the devils entered hersoul and the pains of hell got hold upon her, she recalled the tears, andthey became the holy water of an exorcism. 

Septimus, unconscious of this landmark in their curious wedded life, passedtranquil though muddled days in his room at the Hôtel Godet. A gleam ofsunlight on the glazed hat of an omnibus driver, the stick of the whip andthe horse's ear, as he was coming home one day on the _impériale_, put himon the track of a new sighting apparatus for a field gun which he had halfinvented some years before. The working out of this, and thesuperintendence of the making of the model at some works near Vincennes, occupied much of his time and thought. In matters appertaining to hispassion he had practical notions of procedure; he would be at a loss toknow where to buy a tooth-brush, and be dependent on the ministrations of apostman or an old woman in a charcoal shop, but to the place where delicateinstruments could be made he went straight, as instinctively and surely asa buffalo heads for water. Many of his books and papers had been sent himfrom time to time by Wiggleswick, who began to dread the post, the labor ofsearching and packing and dispatching becoming too severe a tax on the oldvillain's leisure. These lay in promiscuous heaps about the floor of hisbedroom, stepping-stones amid a river of minor objects, such as collars andbits of india rubber and the day before yesterday's _Petit Journal_. The_femme de chambre_ and the dirty, indeterminate man in a green baize apron, who went about raising casual dust with a great feather broom, at firststowed the litter away daily, with jackdaw ingenuity of concealment, untilSeptimus gave them five francs each to desist; whereupon they desisted withalacrity, and the books became the stepping-stones aforesaid, stepping-stones to higher things. His only concern was the impossibility ofrepacking them when the time should come for him to leave the Hôtel Godet, and sometimes the more academic speculation as to what Zora would sayshould some miracle of levitation transport her to the untidy chamber. Hecould see her, radiant and commanding, dispelling chaos with the sweep ofher parasol. 

There were few moments in the day when he did not crave her presence. Ithad been warmth and sunshine and color to him for so long that now the sunseemed to have disappeared from the sky, leaving the earth a chillmonochrome. Life was very difficult without her. She had even withdrawnfrom him the love "in a sort of way" to which she had confessed. Thegoddess was angry at the slight cast on her by his secret marriage. And shewas in California, a myriad of miles away. She could not have been moreremote had she been in Saturn. When Emmy asked him whether he did not longfor Wiggleswick and the studious calm of Nunsmere, he said, "No. " And hespoke truly; for wherein lay the advantage of one spot on the earth'ssurface over another, if Zora were not the light thereof? But he kept hisreason in his heart. They rarely spoke of Zora. 

Of the things that concerned Emmy herself so deeply, they never spoke atall. Of her hopes and fears for the future he knew nothing. For all thatwas said between them, Mordaunt Prince might have been the figure of adream that had vanished into the impenetrable mists of dreamland. To thegirl he was a ghastly memory which she strove to hide in the depths of hersoul. Septimus saw that she suffered, and went many quaint and irrelevantways to alleviate her misery. Sometimes they got on her nerves; more oftenthey made the good tears come. Once she was reading a tattered volume ofGeorge Eliot which she had picked up during a stroll on the quays, andcalling him over to her side pointed out a sentence: "Dogs are the bestfriends, they are always ready with their sympathy and they ask noquestions. "

"That's like you, " she said; "but George Eliot had never met a man likeyou, poor thing, so she had to stick the real thing down to dogs. "

Septimus reddened. "Dogs bark and keep one from sleeping, " he said. "Mynext-door neighbor at the Hôtel Godet has two. An ugly man with a beardcomes and takes them out in a motor car. Do you know, I'm thinking ofgrowing a beard. I wonder how I should look in it?"

Emmy laughed and caught his sleeve. "Why won't you even let me tell youwhat I think of you?"

"Wait till I've grown the beard, and then you can, " said Septimus. 

"That will be never, " she retorted; "for if you grow a beard, you'll look ahorror, like a Prehistoric Man--and I sha'n't have anything to do with you. So I'll never be able to tell you. "

"It would be better so, " said he. 

They made many plans for settling down in some part of rural France orSwitzerland--they had the map of Europe to choose from--but Septimus'svagueness and a disinclination for further adventure on the part of Emmykept them in Paris. The winter brightened into spring, and Paris, gay inlilac and sunshine, held them in her charm. There were days when theyalmost forgot, and became the light-hearted companions of the lame donkeyon Nunsmere Common. 

A day on the Seine, for instance, in a steamboat, when the water wasmiraculously turned to sparkling wine and the great masses of buildingswere bathed in amber and the domes of the Pantheon and the Invalides andthe cartouches and bosses of the Pont Alexandre III shone burnished gold. There was Auteuil, with its little open-air restaurants, rustic trellis andcreepers, and its _friture_ of gudgeon and dusty salt and cutlery and greatyards of bread, which Emmy loved to break with Septimus, like Christmascrackers. Then, afterwards, there was the winding Seine again, RobinsonCrusoe's Island in all its greenery, and St. Cloud with its terrace lookingover the valley to Paris wrapped in an amethyst haze, with here and there atriumphant point of glory. 

A day also in the woods of Bas Meudon, alone beneath the trees, when theytalked like children, and laughed over the luncheon basket which MadameBolivard had stuffed full of electrifying edibles; when they lay on theirbacks and looked dreamily at the sky through the leaves, and listened tothe chirrup of insects awakening from winter and the strange cracklings andtiny voices of springtide, and gave themselves up to the general vibrationof life which accompanies the working of the sap in the trees. 

Days, too, in mid-Paris, in the Luxembourg Gardens, among the nursery maidsand working folk; at cafés on the remoter boulevards, where the kindly lifeof Paris, still untouched by touristdom, passes up and down, and the springgets into the step of youth and sparkles in a girl's eyes. At the windoweven of the _appartement_ in the Boulevard Raspail, when the air wasstartlingly clear and scented and brought the message of spring from farlands, from the golden shores of the Mediterranean, from the windy mountaintops of Auvergne, from the broad, tender green fields of Central France, from every heart and tree and flower, from Paris itself, quivering withlife. At such times they would not talk, both interpreting the message intheir own ways, yet both drawn together into a common mood in which theyvaguely felt that the earth was still a Land of Romance, that the mysteryof rebirth was repeating itself according to unchanging and perpetual law;that inconsiderable, forlorn human atoms though they were, the law wouldinevitably affect them too, and cause new hopes, new desires, and newhappiness to bud and flower in their hearts. 

During these spring days there began to dawn in the girl's soul a knowledgeof the deeper meaning of things. When she first met Septimus anddelightedly regarded him as a new toy, she was the fluffy, frivolous littleanimal of excellent breeding and half education, so common in Englishcountry residential towns, with the little refinements somewhat coarsened, the little animalism somewhat developed, the little brain somewhatsharpened, by her career on the musical-comedy stage. Now there were signsof change. A glimmering notion of the duty of sacrifice entered her head. She carried it out by appearing one day, when Septimus was taking her for adrive, in the monstrous nightmare of a hat. It is not given to breathingmale to appreciate the effort it cost her. She said nothing; neither didhe. She sat for two hours in the victoria, enduring the tortures of theuglified, watching him out of the tail of her eye and waiting for a sign ofrecognition. At last she could endure it no longer. 

"I put this thing on to please you, " she said. 

"What thing?"

"The hat you gave me. "

"Oh! Is that it?" he murmured in his absent way. "I'm so glad you like it. "

He had never noticed it. He had scarcely recognized it. It had given him nopleasure. She had made of herself a sight for gods and men to no earthlypurpose. All her sacrifice had been in vain. It was then that she reallyexperienced the disciplinary irony of existence. She never wore the hatagain; wherein she was blameless. 

The spring deepened into summer, and they stayed on in the BoulevardRaspail until they gave up making plans. Paris baked in the sun, andtheaters perished, and riders disappeared from the Acacias, and Cook'sbrakes replaced the flashing carriages in the grand Avenue des ChampsElysées, and the great Anglo-Saxon language resounded from the Place de laBastille to the Bon Marché. The cab horses drooped as if drugged by thevapor of the melting asphalt beneath their noses. Men and women sat bydoorways, in front of little shops, on the benches in wide thoroughfares. The Latin Quarter blazed in silence and the gates of the great schools wereshut. The merchants of lemonade wheeled their tin vessels through thestreets and the bottles crowned with lemons looked pleasant to hot eyes. For the dust lay thick upon the leaves of trees and the lips of men, andthe air was heavy with the over-fulfilment of spring's promise. 

Septimus was sitting with Hégisippe Cruchot outside the little café of theiron tables painted yellow where first they had consorted. 

"_Mon ami_, " said he, "you are one of the phenomena that make me believe inthe _bon Dieu_. If you hadn't dragged me from under the wheels of the cab, I should have been killed, and if I had been killed you wouldn't haveintroduced me to your aunt who can cook, and what I should have donewithout your aunt heaven only knows. I owe you much. "

"_Bah, mon vieux_, " said Hégisippe, "what are you talking about? You owe menothing. "

"I owe you three lives, " said Septimus. 

CHAPTER XIII

Hégisippe Cruchot laughed and twirled his little brows mustache. 

"If you think so much of it, " said he, "you can acquit your debt in full byoffering me another absinthe to drink the health of the three. "

"Why, of course, " said Septimus. 

Hégisippe, who was sitting next the door, twisted his head round andshouted his order to those within. It was a very modest little café; infact it was not a café at all, but a _Marchand des vins_ with a zinccounter inside, and a couple of iron tables outside on the pavement toconvey the air of a _terrasse_. Septimus, with his genius for theinharmonious, drank tea; not as the elegant nowadays drink at Colombin's orRumpelmayer's, but a dirty, gray liquid served with rum, according to theold French fashion, before _five-o'cloquer_ became a verb in the language. When people ask for tea at a _Marchand des vins_, the teapot has to behunted up from goodness knows where; and as for the tea. .. ! Septimus, however, sipped the decoction of the dust of ages with his usual placidity. He had poured himself out a second cup and was emptying into it theremainder of the carafe of rum, so as to be ready for the toast as soon asHégisippe had prepared his absinthe, when a familiar voice behind himcaused him to start and drop the carafe itself into the teacup. 

"Well, I'm blessed!" said the voice. 

It was Clem Sypher, large, commanding, pink, and smiling. The sight ofSeptimus hobnobbing with a Zouave outside a humble wine merchant's haddrawn from him the exclamation of surprise. Septimus jumped to his feet. 

"My dear fellow, how glad I am to see you. Won't you sit down and join us?Have a drink. "

Sypher took off his gray Homburg hat for a moment, and wiped a dampforehead. 

"Whew! How anybody can stay in Paris this weather unless they are obligedto is a mystery. "

"Why do you stay?" asked Septimus. 

"I'm not staying. I'm passing through on my way to Switzerland to lookafter the Cure there. But I thought I'd look you up. I was on my way toyou. I was in Nunsmere last week and took Wiggleswick by the throat andchoked your address out of him. The Hôtel Godet. It's somewhere about here, isn't it?"

"Over there, " said Septimus, with a wave of the hand. He brought a chairfrom the other table. "Do sit down. "

Sypher obeyed. "How's the wife?"

"The--what?" asked Septimus. 

"The wife--Mrs. Dix. "

"Oh, very well, thank you, " he said hurriedly. "Let me introduce you to mygood friend Monsieur Hégisippe Cruchot of the Zouaves--MonsieurCruchot--Monsieur Clem Sypher. "

Hégisippe saluted and declared his enchantment according to the manners ofhis country. Sypher raised his hat politely. 

"Of Sypher's Cure--Friend of Humanity. Don't forget that, " he saidlaughingly in French. 

"_Qu'est ce que c'est que ça?_" asked Hégisippe, turning to Septimus. Septimus explained. 

"Ah-h!" cried Hégisippe, open-mouthed, the light of recognition in hiseyes. "_La Cure Sypher_!" He made it rhyme with "prayer. " "But I know thatwell. And it is Monsieur who fabricates _ce machin-là_?"

"Yes; the Friend of Humanity. What have you used it for?"

"For my heels when they had blisters after a long day's march. "

The effect of these words on Sypher was electrical. He brought both handsdown on the table, leaned back in his chair, and looked at Septimus. 

"Good heavens!" he cried, changing color, "it never occurred to me. "

"What?"

"Why--blistered heels--marching. Don't you see? It will cure the sore feetof the Armies of the World. It's a revelation! It will be in the knapsackof every soldier who goes to manoeuvers or to war! It will be a jolly sightmore useful than a marshal's baton! It will bring soothing comfort tomillions of brave men! Why did I never think of it? I must go round to allthe War Offices of the civilized globe. It's colossal. It makes your brainreel. Friend of Humanity? I shall be the Benefactor of the Human Race. "

"What will you have to drink?" asked Septimus. 

"Anything. _Donnez-moi un bock_, " he said impatiently, obsessed by his newidea. "Tell me, Monsieur Cruchot, you who have used the _Cure Sypher_. Itis well known in the French army is it not? You had it served out from theregimental medical stores?"

"Ah, no, Monsieur. It is my mother who rubbed it on my heels. "

Sypher's face expressed disappointment, but he cheered up againimmediately. 

"Never mind. It is the idea that you have given me. I am very grateful toyou, Monsieur Cruchot. "

Hégisippe laughed. "It is to my mother you should be grateful, Monsieur. "

"I should like to present her with a free order for the Cure for life--if Iknew where she lived. "

"That is easy, " said Hégisippe, "seeing that she is concierge in the housewhere the _belle dame_ of Monsieur has her _appartement_. "

"Her _appartement_?" Sypher turned sharply to Septimus. "What's that? Ithought you lived at the Hôtel Godet. "

"Of course, " said Septimus, feeling very uncomfortable. "I live in thehotel, and Emmy lives in a flat. She couldn't very well stay in the HôtelGodet, because it isn't a nice place for ladies. There's a dog in thecourtyard that howls. I tried to throw him some cold ham the other morningabout six o'clock to stop him; but it hit a sort of dustman, who ate it andlooked up for more. It was very good ham, and I was going to have it forsupper. "

"But, my dear man, " said Sypher, laying his hand on his friend's shoulder, and paying no heed to the dog, ham, and dustman story, "aren't you twoliving together?"

"Oh, dear, not" said Septimus, in alarm, and then, catching at the firstexplanation--"you see, our hours are different. "

Sypher shook his head uncomprehendingly. The proprietor of theestablishment, in dingy shirt-sleeves, set down the beer before him. Hégisippe, who had mixed his absinthe and was waiting politely until theirnew friend should be served, raised his glass. 

"Just before you came, Monsieur, " said he, "I was about to drink to thehealth--"

"Of _L'Armée-Française_, " interrupted Septimus, reaching out his glass. 

"But no, " laughed Hégisippe. "It was to Monsieur, Madame, et Bébé. "

"Bébé?" cried Sypher, and Septimus felt his clear, swift glance read hissoul. 

They clinked glasses. Hégisippe, defying the laws governing the absorptionof alcohols, tossed off his absinthe in swashbuckler fashion, and rose. 

"Now I leave you. You have many things to talk about. My respectfulcompliments to Madame. Messieurs, au revoir. "

He shook hands, saluted and swaggered off, his chechia at the very back ofhis head, leaving half his shaven crown uncovered in front. 

"A fine fellow, your friend, an intelligent fellow--" said Sypher, watchinghim. 

"He's going to be a waiter, " said Septimus. 

"Now that he has had his heels rubbed with the cure he may be moreambitious. A valuable fellow, for having given me a stupendous idea--but abit indiscreet, eh? Never mind, " he added, seeing the piteous look onSeptimus's face. "I'll have discretion for the two of us. I'll not breathea word of it to anybody. "

"Thank you, " said Septimus. 

There was an awkward silence. Septimus traced a diagram on the table withthe spilled tea. Sypher lighted a cigar, which he smoked in the corner ofhis mouth, American fashion. 

"Well, I'm damned!" he muttered below his breath. 

He looked hard at Septimus, intent on his tea drawing. Then he shifted hiscigar impatiently to the other side of his mouth. "No, I'm damned if I am. I can't be. "

"You can't be what?" asked Septimus, catching his last words. 

"Damned. "

"Why should you be?"

"Look here, " said Sypher, "I've rushed in rather unceremoniously into yourprivate affairs. I'm sorry. But I couldn't help taking an interest in thetwo of you, both for your own sake and that of Zora Middlemist. "

"I suppose you would do anything for her. "

"Yes. "

"So would I, " said Septimus, in a low voice. "There are some women onelives for and others one dies for. "

"She is one of the women for whom one would live. "

Septimus shook his head. "No, she's the other kind. It's much higher. I'vehad a lot of time to think the last few months, " he continued after apause. "I've had no one but Emmy and Hégisippe Cruchot to talk to--and I'vethought a great deal about women. They usedn't to come my way, and I didn'tknow anything at all about them. "

"Do you now?" asked Sypher, with a smile. 

"Oh, a great deal, " replied Septimus seriously. "It's astonishing what alot of difference there is between them and between the ways men approachdifferent types. One woman a man wants to take by the hand and lead, andanother--he's quite content if she makes a carpet of his body and walks overit to save her feet from sharp stones. It's odd, isn't it?"

"Not very, " said Sypher, who took a more direct view of things thanSeptimus. "It's merely because he has got a kindly feeling for one womanand is desperately in love with the other. "

"Perhaps that's it, " said Septimus. 

Sypher again looked at him sharply, as a man does who thinks he has caughtanother man's soul secret. It was only under considerable stress of feelingthat such coherence of ideas could have been expressed by his irrelevantfriend. What he had learned the last few minutes had been a surprise, apain, and a puzzle to him. The runaway marriage held more elements than hehad imagined. He bent forward confidentially. 

"You would make a carpet of your body for Zora Middlemist?"

"Why, of course, " replied the other in perfect simplicity. 

"Then, my friend, you're desperately in love with her. "

There was kindness, help, sympathy in the big man's voice, and Septimus, though the challenge caused him agonies of shyness, did not find it in hisheart to resent Sypher's logic. 

"I suppose every man whom she befriends must feel the same towards her. Don't you?"

"I? I'm different. I've got a great work to carry through. I couldn't liedown for anybody to walk over me. My work would suffer--but in this missionof mine Zora Middlemist is intimately involved. I said it when I first sawher, and I said it just before she left for California. She is to stand bymy side and help me. How, God knows. " He laughed, seeing the bewilderedface of Septimus, who had never heard of this transcendental connection ofZora with the spread of Sypher's Cure. "You seem to think I'm crazy. I'mnot. I work everything on the most hard and fast common-sense lines. Butwhen a voice inside you tells you a thing day and night, you must believeit. "

Said Septimus: "If you had not met her, you wouldn't have met HégisippeCruchot, and so you wouldn't have got the idea of Army blisters. "

Sypher clapped him on the shoulder and extolled him as a miracle oflucidity. He explained magniloquently. It was Zora's unseen influenceworking magnetically from the other side of the world that had led hisfootsteps towards the Hôtel Godet on that particular afternoon. She hadtriumphantly vindicated her assertion that geographical location of herbodily presence could make no difference. 

"I asked her to stay in England, you know, " he remarked more simply, seeingthat Septimus lagged behind him in his flight. 

"What for?"

"Why, to help me. For what other reason?"

Septimus took off his hat and laid it on the chair vacated by Hégisippe, and ran his fingers reflectively up his hair. Sypher lit another cigar. Their side of the little street was deep in shade, but on half the road andon the other side of the way the fierce afternoon sunlight blazed. Themerchant of wine, who had been lounging in his dingy shirt-sleeves againstthe door-post, removed the glasses and wiped the table clear of the spilledtea. Sypher ordered two more bocks for the good of the house, whileSeptimus, still lost in thought, brought his hair to its highest pitch ofStruwel Peterdom. Passers-by turned round to look at them, for well-dressedEnglishmen do not often sit outside a _Marchand des vins_, especially onewith such hair. But passers-by are polite in France and do not salute theunfamiliar with ribaldry. 

"Well, " said Sypher, at last. 

"We've been speaking intimately, " said Septimus. He paused, then proceededwith his usual diffidence. "I've never spoken intimately to a man before, and I don't quite know how to do it--it must be just like asking a woman tomarry you--but don't you think you were selfish?"

"Selfish? How?"

"In asking Zora Middlemist to give up her trip to California, just for thesake of the Cure. "

"It's worth the sacrifice, " Sypher maintained. 

"To you, yes; but it mayn't be so to her. "

"But she believes in the thing as I do myself!" cried Sypher. 

"Why should she, any more than I, or Hégisippe Cruchot? If she did, shewould have stayed. It would have been her duty. You couldn't expect a womanlike Zora Middlemist to fail in her duty, could you?"

Sypher rubbed his eyes, as if he saw things mistily. But they were quiteclear. It was really Septimus Dix who sat opposite, concentrating hisdiscursive mind on Sypher's Cure and implicitly denying Zora's faith. Asimple-minded man in many respects, he would not have scorned to learnwisdom out of the mouths of babes and sucklings; but out of the mouth ofSeptimus what wisdom could possibly proceed? He laughed his suggestion awaysomewhat blusteringly and launched out again on his panegyric of the Cure. But his faith felt a quiver all through its structure, just as a greatbuilding does at the first faint shock of earthquake. 

"What made you say that about Zora Middlemist?" he asked when he hadfinished. 

"I don't know, " replied Septimus. "It seemed to be right to say it. I knowwhen I get things into my head there appears to be room for nothing elsein the world. One takes things for granted. When I was a child my fathertook it for granted that I believed in predestination. I couldn't; but Idid not dare tell him so. So I went about with a load of somebody else'sfaith on my shoulders. It became intolerable; and when my father found outhe beat me. He had a bit of rope tied up with twine at the end for thepurpose. I shouldn't like this to happen to Zora. "

This ended the discussion. The landlord at his door-post drew them intotalk about the heat, the emptiness of Paris and the happy lot of those whocould go into villeggiatura in the country. The arrival of a perspiringcabman in a red waistcoat and glazed hat caused him to retire within andadminister to the newcomer's needs. 

"One of my reasons for looking you up, " said Sypher, "was to make myapologies. "

"Apologies?"

"Yes. Haven't you thought about the book on guns and wondered at nothearing from me?"

"No, " said Septimus. "When I've invented a thing the interest has gone. I've just invented a new sighting apparatus. I'll show you the model ifyou'll come to the hotel. "

Sypher looked at his watch and excused himself on the ground of businessengagements. Then he had to dine and start by the nine o'clock train. 

"Anyhow, " said he, "I'm ashamed at not having done anything with the guns. I did show the proofs to a naval expert, but he made all sorts ofcriticisms which didn't help. Experts know everything that is known anddon't want to know anything that isn't. So I laid it aside. "

"It doesn't matter in the least, " said Septimus eagerly, "and if you wantto break the contract you sent me, I can pay you back the two hundredpounds. " But Sypher assured him that he had never broken a contract in hislife, and they shook hands and went their respective ways, Septimus to the_appartement_ in the Boulevard Raspail, and Sypher thoughtfully in thedirection of the Luxembourg. 

He was sorry, very sorry for Septimus Dix. His kindness of heart had notallowed him to tell the brutal truth about the guns. The naval expert hadscoffed in the free manner of those who follow the sea and declared thegreat guns a mad inventor's dream. The Admiralty was overwhelmed with suchthings. The proofs were so much waste paper. Sypher had come prepared tobreak the news as gently as he could; but after all their talk it was notin his heart to do so. And the two hundred pounds--he regarded it as moneygiven to a child to play with. He would never claim it. He was sorry, verysorry for Septimus. He looked back along the past year and saw the man'sdog-like devotion to Zora Middlemist. But why did he marry Emmy, loving thesister as he did? Why live apart from her, having married her? And thechild? It was all a mystery in which he did not see clear. He pitied theineffectuality of Septimus with the kind yet half-contemptuous pity of thestrong man with a fine nature. But as for his denial of Zora's faith, helaughed it away. Egotistical, yes. Zora had posed the same question asSeptimus and he had answered it. But her faith in the Cure itself, hismission to spread it far and wide over the earth, and to save the nationsfrom vulgar competitors who thought of nothing but sordid gain--that, hefelt sure, remained unshaken. 

Yet as he walked along, in the alien though familiar city, he was smitten, as with physical pain, by a craving for her presence, for the gleam of hereyes, for the greatness of sympathy and comprehension that inhabited hergenerous and beautiful frame. The need of her was imperious. He stopped ata café on the Boulevard Saint-Michel, called for the wherewithal to write, and like a poet in the fine frenzy of inspiration, poured out his soul toher over the heels of the armies of the world. 

He had walked a great deal during the day. When he stepped out of the cabthat evening at the Gare de Lyon, he felt an unfamiliar stinging in hisheel. During the process of looking after his luggage and seeking his trainhe limped about the platform. When he undressed for the night in hissleeping compartment, he found that a ruck in his sock had caused a largeblister. He regarded it with superstitious eyes, and thought of the armiesof the world. _In hoc signo vinces!_ The message had come from heaven. 

He took a sample box of Sypher's Cure from his handbag, and, almost withreverence, anointed his heel. 

CHAPTER XIV

Clem Sypher slept the sleep of the warrior preparing for battle. When heawoke at Lyons he had all the sensations of a wounded Achilles. His heelsmarted and tingled and ached, and every time he turned over determined ona continuation of slumber, his foot seemed to occupy the whole width of theberth. He reanointed himself and settled down again. But wakefulness hadgripped him. He pulled up the blinds of the compartment and let the dawnstream in, and, lying on his back, gave himself up to the plans of his newcampaign. The more he thought out the scheme the simpler it became. He hadmade it his business to know personages of high influence in every capitalin Europe. Much of his success had already been gained that way. Themethods of introduction had concerned him but little. For social purposesthey could have been employed only by a pushing upstart; but in thefurtherance of a divine mission the apostle does not bind his inspired feetwith the shackles of ordinary convention. Sypher rushed in, therefore, where the pachyderms of Park Lane would have feared to tread. Just as thefanatical evangelist has no compunction in putting to an entire strangerembarrassing questions as to his possession of the Peace of God, so hadSypher no scruple in approaching any foreigner of distinguished mien in anhotel lounge and converting him to the religion of Sypher's Cure. In mostcosmopolitan resorts his burly figure and pink face were well known. Newspapers paragraphed his arrival and departure. People pointed him outto one another in promenades. Distinguished personages to whom he hadcasually introduced himself introduced him to other distinguishedpersonages. When he threw off the apostle and became the man, his simpledirectness and charm of manner caused him to be accepted pleasurably forhis own sake. Had he chosen to take advantage of his opportunities he mighthave consorted with very grand folks indeed; at a price, be it said, whichhis pride refused to pay. But he had no social ambitions. The grand folkstherefore respected him and held out a cordial hand as he passed by. Thatvery train was carrying to Switzerland a Russian Grand Duke who had greetedhim with a large smile and a "_Ah! ce bon Sypher!_" on the platform of theGare de Lyon, and had presented him as the Friend of Humanity to the GrandDuchess. 

To Sypher, lying on his back and dreaming of the days when through him theforced marches of weary troops would become light-hearted strolls along theroad, the jealously guarded portals of the War Offices of the worldpresented no terrors. He ticked off the countries in his mind until he cameto Turkey. Whom did he know in Turkey? He had once given a certain MusurusBey a light for his cigarette in the atrium of the Casino at Monte Carlo;but that could scarcely be called an introduction. No matter; his star wasnow in the ascendant. The Lord would surely provide a Turk for him inGeneva. He shifted his position in the berth, and a twinge of pain passedthrough his foot, hurting horribly. 

When he rose to dress, he found some difficulty in putting on his boot. Onleaving the train at Geneva he could scarcely walk. In his room at thehotel he anointed his heel again with the Cure, and, glad to rest, sat bythe window looking at the blue lake and Mont Blanc white-capped in thequivering distance, his leg supported on a chair. Then his traveler, whohad arranged to meet him by appointment, was shown into the room. They wereto lunch together. To ease his foot Sypher put on an evening slipper andhobbled downstairs. 

The traveler told a depressing tale. Jebusa Jones had got in everywhere andwas underselling the Cure. A new German skin remedy had insidiously crepton to the market. Wholesale houses wanted impossible discounts, and retailchemists could not be inveigled into placing any but the most insignificantorders. He gave dismaying details, terribly anxious all the while lest hischief should attribute to his incompetence the growing unpopularity of theCure. But to his amazement Sypher listened smilingly to his story ofdisaster, and ordered a bottle of champagne. 

"All that is nothing!" he cried. "A flea bite in the ocean. It will rightitself as the public realize how they are being taken in by these Americanand German impostors. The Cure can't fail. And let me tell you, Dennymede, my son, the Cure is going to flourish as it has never flourished before. I've got a scheme that will take your breath away. "

The glow of inspiration in Sypher's blue eyes and the triumph written onhis resolute face brought the features of the worried traveler for thefirst time into an expression of normal satisfaction with the world. 

"I will stagger you to your commercial depths, my boy, " Sypher continued. "Have a drink first before I tell you. "

He raised his champagne glass. "To Sypher's Cure!" They drank the toastsolemnly. 

And then Sypher unfolded to his awe-stricken subordinate the scheme fordeblistering the heels of the armies of the world. Dennymede, fired by hisenthusiasm, again lifted his brimming glass. 

"By God, sir, you are a conqueror, an Alexander, a Hannibal, a Napoleon!There's a colossal fortune in it. "

"And it will give me enough money, " said Sypher, "to advertise Jebusa Jonesand the others off the face of the earth. "

"You needn't worry about them, sir, when you've got the army contracts, "said the traveler. 

He could not follow the spirituality underlying his chief's remark. Sypherlaid down the peach he was peeling and looked pityingly at Dennymede as atone of little faith, one born to the day of small things. 

"It will be all the more my duty to do so, " said he, "when the instrumentsare placed in my hands. What, after all, is the healing of a few blisteredfeet, compared with the scourge of leprosy, eczema, itch, psoriasis, andwhat not? And, as for the money itself, what is it?"

He preached his sermon. The securing of the world's army contracts was onlya means towards the shimmering ideal. It would clear the path of obstaclesand leave the Cure free to pursue its universal way as _consolatrixafflictorum_. 

The traveler finished his peach, and accepted another which his hosthospitably selected for him. 

"All the same, sir, " said he, "this is the biggest thing you've struck. MayI ask how you came to strike it?"

"Like all great schemes, it had humble beginnings, " said Sypher, incomfortable postprandial mood, unconsciously flattered by the admiration ofhis subordinate. "Newton saw an apple drop to the ground: hence the theoryof gravitation. The glory of Tyre and Sidon arose from the purple droppingsof a little dog's mouth who had been eating shell fish. The greatCunarders came out of the lid of Stephenson's family kettle. A soldierhappened to tell me that his mother had applied Sypher's Cure to hisblistered heels--and that was the origin of the scheme. "

He leaned back in his chair, stretched out his legs and put one foot overthe other. He immediately started back with a cry of pain. 

"I was forgetting my own infernal blister, " said he. "About a square inchof skin is off and all the flesh round, it is as red as a tomato. "

"You'll have to be careful, " advised the traveler. "What are you using forit?"

"Using for it? Why, good heavens, man, the Cure! What else?"

He regarded Dennymede as if he were insane, ' and Dennymede in his confusionblushed as red as the blistered heel. 

They spent the afternoon over the reports and figures which had so greatlydepressed the traveler. He left his chief with hopes throbbing in hisbreast. He had been promised a high position in the new Army ContractDepartment. As soon as he had gone Sypher rubbed in more of the Cure. 

He passed a restless night. In the morning he found the ankle considerablyswollen. He could scarcely put his foot to the ground. He got into bedagain and rang the bell for the valet de chambre. The valet entered. Sypherexplained. He had a bad foot and wanted to see a doctor. Did the valet knowof a good doctor? The valet not only knew of a good doctor, but an Englishdoctor resident in Geneva who was always summoned to attend English andAmerican visitors at the hotel; furthermore, he was in the hotel at thatvery moment. 

"Ask him if he would kindly step up, " said Sypher. 

He looked ruefully at his ankle, which was about the size of his calf, wondering why the Cure had not effected its advertised magic. Theinflammation, however, clearly required medical advice. In the midst of hisruefulness the doctor, a capable-looking man of five and thirty, enteredthe room. He examined the heel and ankle with professional scrutiny. Thenhe raised his head. 

"Have you been treating it in any way?"

"Yes, " said Sypher, "with the Cure. "

"What Cure?"

"Why, Sypher's Cure. "

The doctor brought his hand down on the edge of the footboard of the bed, with a gesture of impatience. 

"Why on earth do people treat themselves with quack remedies they knownothing about?"

"Quack remedies!" cried Sypher. 

"Of course. They're all pestilential, and if I had my way I'd have themstacked in the market place and burned by the common hangman. But the mostpestilential of the lot is Sypher's Cure. You ought never to have used it. "

Sypher had the sensation of the hotel walls crashing down upon his head, falling across his throat and weighing upon his chest. For a few instantshe suffered a nightmare paralysis. Then he gasped for breath. At last hesaid very quietly:

"Do you know who I am?"

"I have not the pleasure, " said the doctor. "They only gave me your roomnumber. "

"I am Clem Sypher, the proprietor of Sypher's Cure. "

The two men stared at one another, Sypher in a blue-striped pyjama jacket, supporting himself by one elbow on the bed, the doctor at the foot. Thedoctor spread out his hands. 

"It's the most horrible moment of my life. I am at your mercy. I only gaveyou my honest opinion, the result of my experience. If I had known yourname--naturally--"

"You had better go, " said Sypher in a queer voice, digging the nails intothe palms of his hands. "Your fee--?"

"There is no question of it. I am only grieved to the heart at havingwounded you. Good morning. "

The door closed behind him, and Sypher gave himself up to his furiousindignation. 

 * * * * *

This soothed the soul but further inflamed the ankle. He called up themanager of the hotel and sent for the leading medical man in Geneva. Whenhe arrived he took care to acquaint him with his name and quality. Dr. Bourdillot, professor of dermatology in the University of Geneva, made hisexamination, and shook a tactful head. With all consideration for the manyadmirable virtues of _la cure Sypher_, yet there were certain maladies ofthe skin for which he personally would not prescribe it. For this, forthat--he rattled off half a dozen of learned diseases--it might very wellbe efficacious. Its effect would probably be benign in a case ofelephantiasis. But in a case of abrasion of the cuticle, where there was alarge surface of raw flesh laid bare, perhaps a simpler treatment might bemore desirable. 

His tone was exquisite, and he chose his language so that not a word couldwound. Sypher listened to him with a sinking heart. 

"In your opinion then, doctor, " said he, "it isn't a good thing forblistered heels?"

"You ask for my opinion, " replied the professor of dermatology at theUniversity of Geneva. "I give it you. No. "

Sypher threw out a hand, desperately argumentative. 

"But I know of a case in which it has proved efficacious. A Zouave of myacquaintance--"

Dr. Bourdillot smiled. "A Zouave? Just as nothing is sacred to a sapper, sois nothing hurtful to a Zouave. They have hides like hippopotamuses, thosefellows. You could dip them in vitriol and they wouldn't feel it. "

"So his heels recovered in spite of the Cure?" said Sypher, grimly. 

"Evidently, " said Dr. Bourdillot. 

 * * * * *

Sypher sat in his room for a couple of days, his leg on a chair, and lookedat Mont Blanc, exquisite in its fairy splendor against the far, pale sky. It brought him no consolation. On the contrary it reminded him of Hannibaland other conquerors leading their footsore armies over the Alps. When heallowed a despondent fancy to wander uncontrolled, he saw great multitudesof men staggering shoeless along with feet and ankles inflamed to the colorof tomatoes. Then he pulled himself together and set his teeth. Dennymedecame to visit him and heard with dismay the verdict of science, whichcrushed his hope of a high position in the new Army Contract Department. But Sypher reassured him as to his material welfare by increasing hiscommission on foreign sales; whereupon he began to take a practical view ofthe situation. 

"We can't expect a patent medicine, sir, to do everything. "

"I quite agree with you, " said Sypher. "It can't make two legs grow whereone grew before, but it ought to cure blisters on the heel. Apparently itwon't. So we are where we were before I met Monsieur Hégisippe Cruchot. Theonly thing is that we mustn't now lead people to suppose that it's good forblisters. "

"They must take their chance, " said Dennymede. He was a sharp, black-hairedyoung man, with a worried brow and a bilious complexion. The soothing ofthe human race with Sypher's Balm of Gilead mattered nothing to him. Hisatrabiliar temperament rendered his attitude towards humanity rathermisanthropic than otherwise. "Indeed, " he continued, "I don't see why youshouldn't try for the army contracts without referring specifically to sorefeet. "

"_Caveat emptor_, " said Sypher. 

"I beg your pardon?" said Dennymede, who had no Latinity. 

"It means, let the buyer beware; it's up to the buyer to see what stuffhe's buying. "

"Naturally. It's the first principle of business. "

Sypher turned his swift clear glance on him and banged the window-ledgewith his hand. 

"It's the first principle of damned knavery and thieving, " he cried, "andif I thought anyone ran my business on it, they'd go out of my employ atonce! It's at the root of all the corruption that exists in modern trade. It salves the conscience of the psalm-singing grocer who puts ground beansinto his coffee. It's a damnable principle. "

He thumped the window-ledge again, very angry. The traveler hedged. 

"Of course it's immoral to tell lies and say a thing is what it isn't. Buton the other hand no one could run a patent medicine on the lines ofwarning the public as to what it isn't good for. You say on the wrapper itwill cure gout and rheumatism. If a woman buys a bottle and gives it to herchild who has got scarlet fever, and the child dies from it, it's herlookout and not yours. When a firm does issue a warning such as 'Won't WashClothes, ' it's a business proceeding for the firm's own protection. "

"Well, we'll issue a warning, 'Won't Cure Blisters, '" said Sypher. "Iadvertise myself as the Friend of Humanity. I am, according to my lights. If I let poor fellows on the march reduce their feet to this condition Ishould be the scourge of mankind like"--he snapped his fingers trying torecall the name--"like Atlas--no it wasn't Atlas, but no matter. Not a boxof the Cure has been sold without the guarantee stamp of my soul'sconviction on it. "

"The Jebusa Jones people aren't so conscientious, " said Dennymede. "Ibought a pot of their stuff this morning. They've got a new wrapper. See. "He unfolded a piece of paper and pointed out the place to his chief. "Theyhave a special paragraph in large print: 'Gives instant relief to blisteredfeet. Every mountaineer should carry it in his gripsack. '"

"They're the enemies of God and man, " said Sypher, "and sooner than copytheir methods I would close down the factory and never sell another box aslong as I lived. "

"It's a thousand pities, sir, anyhow, " said Dennymede, trying to work backdiplomatically, "that the army contract scheme has to be thrown overboard. "

"Yes, it's a nuisance, " said Sypher. 

When he had dismissed the traveler he laughed grimly. "A nuisance!"

The word was a grotesque anticlimax. 

He sat for a long while with his hands blinding his eyes, trying torealize what the abandonment of the scheme meant to him. He was a man whofaced his responsibilities squarely. For the first time in his life he hadtried the Cure seriously on himself--chance never having given him causebefore--and it had failed. He had heard the Cure which he regarded as adivine unction termed a pestilential quackery; the words burned red-hot inhis brain. He had heard it depreciated, with charming tact and courtesy, bya great authority on diseases of the skin. One short word, "no, " had wipedout of existence his Napoleonic scheme for the Armies of the World--forputting them on a sound footing. He smiled bitterly as the incongruous jestpassed through his mind. 

He had been fighting for months, and losing ground; but this was the firstabsolute check that his faith had received. He staggered under it, halfwonderingly, like a man who has been hit by an unseen hand and looks aroundto see whence the blow came. Why should it come now? He looked back alongthe years. Not a breath of disparagement had touched the Cure's fairrepute. His files in London were full of testimonials honorably acquired. Some of these, from lowly folk, were touching in their simple gratitude. Itis true that his manager suggested that the authors had sent them in thehope of gain and of seeing their photographs in the halfpenny papers. Buthis manager, Shuttleworth, was a notorious and dismal cynic who believed innothing save the commercial value of the Cure. Letters had come withcoroneted flaps to the envelopes. The writers certainly hoped neither forgain nor for odd notoriety. He had never paid a fee for a testimonialthroughout his career; every one that he printed was genuine andunsolicited. He had been hailed as the Friend of Humanity by all sorts andconditions of men. Why suddenly should he be branded as a dealer inpestilence?

His thought wandered back to the beginning of things. He saw himself in thechemist's shop in Bury Saint Edmunds--a little shop in a little town, toosmall, he felt, for the great unknown something within him that was cravingfor expansion. The dull making up of prescriptions, the selling of toothpowder and babies' feeding bottles--the deadly mechanical routine--heremembered the daily revolt against it all. He remembered his discovery ofthe old herbalists; his delight in their quaint language; the remedies soextraordinary and yet so simple; his first idea of combining these with theorthodox drugs of the British Pharmacopoeia; his experiments; his talkswith an aged man who kept a dingy little shop of herbs on the outskirts ofthe town, also called a pestilential fellow by the medical faculty of thedistrict, but a learned ancient all the same, who knew the qualities ofevery herb that grew, and with some reeking mess of pulp was said to havecured an old woman's malignant ulcer given up as incurable by the faculty. He remembered the night when the old man, grateful for the lad's interestin his learning, gave him under vows of secrecy the recipe of this healingemulsion, which was to become the basis of Sypher's Cure. In those days hisloneliness was cheered by a bulldog, an ugly, faithful beast whom he calledBarabbas--he sighed to think how many Barabbases had lived and died sincethen--and who, contracting mange, became the _corpus vile_ of manyexperiments--first with the old man's emulsion, then with the emulsionmixed with other drugs, all bound together in pure animal fat, until atlast he found a mixture which to his joy made the sores heal and the skinharden and the hair sprout and Barabbas grow sleek as a swell mobsman inaffluent circumstances. Then one day came His Grace of Suffolk into theshop with a story of a pet of the Duchess's stricken with the same disease. Sypher modestly narrated his own experience and gave the mighty man a boxof the new ointment. A fortnight afterwards he returned. Not only had itcured the dog, but it must have charmed away the eczema on his ducal hands. Full of a wild surmise he tried it next on his landlady's child, who had asore on its legs, and lo! the sore healed. It was then that the DivineRevelation came to him; it was then that he passed his vigil, as he hadtold Zora, and consecrated himself and his Cure to the service of humanity. 

The steps, the struggles, the purchase of the chemist's business, the earlyexploitation of the Cure, its gradual renown in the district, the firstwhisperings of its fame abroad, thanks to His Grace of Suffolk, the earlyadvertising, the gradual growth, the sale of the chemist's business, theestablishment of "Sypher's Cure" as a special business in the town, thetransference to London, the burst into world-wide fame--all the memoriescame back to him, as he sat by the window of the Hôtel de l'Europe andblinded his face with his hands. 

He dashed them away, at last, with a passionate gesture. 

"It can't be! It can't be!" he cried aloud, as many another man has criedin the righteous rebellion of his heart against the ironical decrees of thehigh gods whom his simple nature has never suspected of their eternal andinscrutable irony. 

CHAPTER XV

If you travel on the highroad which skirts the cliff-bound coast ofNormandy you may come to a board bearing the legend "Hottetôt-sur-Mer" anda hand pointing down a narrow gorge. If you follow the direction anddescend for half a mile you come to a couple of villas, a humble café, somefishermen's cottages, one of which is also a general shop and a _débit detabac_, a view of a triangle of sea, and eventually to a patch of shinglybeach between two great bastions of cliffs. The beach itself contains adiminutive jetty, a tiny fleet of fishing smacks, some nets, three bathingmachines joined together by ropes on which hang a few towels and bathingcostumes, a dog, a child or so with spade and bucket, two English maidenladies writing picture post-cards, a Frenchman in black, reading a Rouennewspaper under a gray umbrella, his wife and daughter, and a stall ofmussels presided over by an old woman with skin like seaweed. Just abovethe beach, on one side of the road leading up the gorge, is a miniaturebarn with a red cupola, which is the Casino, and, on the other, a long, narrow, blue-washed building with the words written in great black lettersacross the façade, "Hôtel de la Plage. "

As soon as Emmy could travel, she implored Septimus to find her a quietspot by the sea whither the fashionable do not resort. Septimus naturallyconsulted Hégisippe Cruchot. Hégisippe asked for time to consult hiscomrades. He returned with news of an ideal spot. It was a village in thePyrenees about six thousand feet up in the air and forty miles from arailway station. They could shoot bears all day long. When Emmy explainedthat a village on the top of the Pyrenees was not by the seaside, and thatneither she nor his aunt, Madame Bolivard, took any interest in thedestruction of bears, he retired somewhat crestfallen and went with hisdifficulties to Angélique, the young lady in the wine shop in the Rue desFrancs-Bouchers. Angélique informed him that a brave sailor on leave fromhis torpedo boat was in the habit of visiting the wine shop every evening. He ought to know something of the sea. A meeting was arranged by Angéliquebetween Hégisippe, Septimus and the brave sailor, much to Emmy's skepticalamusement; and the brave sailor, after absorbing prodigious quantities ofalcohol and reviewing all the places on the earth's coastline from Yokohamato Paris-Plage, declared that the veritable Eden by the Sea was none otherthan his native village of Hottetôt-sur-Mer. He made a plan of it on thetable, two square packets of tobacco representing the cliffs, a pipe stemthe road leading up the gorge, some tobacco dust the beach, and some coffeeslops applied with the finger the English Channel. 

Septimus came back to Emmy. "I have found the place. It isHottetôt-sur-Mer. It has one hotel. You can catch shrimps, and its musselsare famous all over the world. "

After consultation of a guide to Normandy, on which Emmy's prudenceinsisted, they found the brave sailor's facts mainly correct, and decidedon Hottetôt-sur-Mer. 

"I will take you there, see that you are comfortably settled, and then comeback to Paris, " said Septimus. "You'll be quite happy with Madame Bolivard, won't you?"

"Of course, " said Emmy, looking away from him. "What are you going to do inParis, all by yourself?"

"Guns, " he replied. Then he added reflectively: "I also don't see how Ican get out of the Hôtel Godet. I've been there some time, and I don't knowhow much to give the servants in tips. The only thing is to stay on. "

Emmy sighed, just a bit wistfully, and made no attempt to prove thefutility of his last argument. The wonderfully sweet of life had come toher of late mingled with the unutterably bitter. She was in the state ofbeing when a woman accepts, without question. Septimus then went to the St. Lazare station to make arrangements and discovered an official who knew asurprising amount about railway traveling and the means of bringing afamily from domicile to station. He entered Septimus's requirements in abook and assured him that at the appointed hour an omnibus would be waitingoutside the house in the Boulevard Raspail. Septimus thought him a personof marvelous intellect and gave him five francs. 

So the quaint quartette started in comfort: Septimus and Emmy and MadameBolivard and the little lump of mortality which the Frenchwoman carried inher great motherly arms. Madame Bolivard, who had not been out of Paris fortwenty years, needed all her maternal instincts to subdue her excitement atthe prospect of seeing the open country and the sea. In the railwaycarriage she pointed out cattle to the unconscious infant with thetremulous quiver of the traveler who espies a herd of hippogriffin. 

"Is it corn that, Monsieur? _Mon Dieu_, it is beautiful. Regard then thecorn, my cherished one. "

But the cherished one cared not for corn or cattle. He preferred to fix hiscold eyes on Septimus, as if wondering what he was doing in that galley. Now and again Septimus would bend forward and, with a vague notion of theway to convey one's polite intentions to babies, would prod him gingerly inthe cheek and utter an insane noise and then surreptitiously wipe hisfinger on his trousers. When his mother took him she had little spasms oftenderness during which she pressed him tightly to her bosom and lookedfrightened. The child was precious to her. She had paid a higher price thanmost women, and that perhaps enhanced its value. 

At Fécamp a rusty ramshackle diligence awaited them. Their luggage, together with hen-coops, baskets, bundles, packing-cases, were piled on topin an amorphous heap. They took their places inside together with an oldpriest and a peasant woman in a great flapping cap. The old priest absorbedsnuff in great quantities and used a red handkerchief. The closed windowsof the vehicle rattled, it was very hot, and the antiquated cushionssmelled abominably. Emmy, tired of the railway journey and suffocated bythe heat, felt inclined to cry. This was her first step into her newlyconditioned world, and her heart sank. She regretted her comfortable roomsin Paris and the conditions of existence there of which Septimus was anintegral part. She had got used to them, to his forced association with theintimate details of her life, to his bending over the child like agrotesque fairy godfather and making astonishing suggestions for itsupbringing. She had regarded him less as a stranger to be treated withfeminine reserve than the doctor. Now it was different. She was about totake up her own life again, with new responsibilities, and the dearly lovedcreature whom she had bullied and laughed at and leaned on would go away totake up his own queer way of life, and the relations between them could notpossibly be the same again. The diligence was taking her on the last stageof her journey towards the new conditions, and it jolted and bumped andsmelled and took an interminable time. 

"I'm sure, " said she woefully, "there's no such place as Hottetôt-sur-Mer, and we are going on forever to find it. "

Presently Septimus pointed triumphantly through the window. 

"There it is!"

"Where?" cried Emmy, for not a house was in sight. Then she saw the board. 

The old diligence turned and creaked and swung and pitched down the gorge. When they descended at the Hôtel de la Plage, the setting sun blazed ontheir faces across the sea and shed its golden enchantment over the littlepebbly beach. At that hour the only living thing on it was the dog, and hewas asleep. It was a spot certainly to which the fashionable did notresort. 

"It will be good for baby. "

"And for you. "

She shrugged her shoulders. "What is good for one is not always--" Shepaused, feeling ungrateful. Then she added, "It's the best place you couldhave brought us to. "

After dinner they sat on the beach and leaned against a fishing-boat. Itwas full moon. The northern cliff cast its huge shadow out to sea and halfway across the beach. A knot of fisher folk sat full in the moonlight onthe jetty and sang a song with a mournful refrain. Behind them in thesquare of yellow light of the salon window could be seen the figures of thetwo English maiden ladies apparently still addressing picture post-cards. The luminous picture stood out sharp against the dark mass of the hotel. Beyond the shadow of the cliff the sea lay like a silver mirror in thewindless air. A tiny border of surf broke on the pebbles. Emmy drew a longbreath and asked Septimus if he smelled the seaweed. The dog came andsniffed at their boots; then from the excellent leather judging them to bepersons above his social station, he turned humbly away. Septimus calledhim, made friends with him--he was a smooth yellow dog of no account--andeventually he curled himself up between them and went to sleep. Septimussmoked his pipe. Emmy played with the ear of the dog and looked out to sea. It was very peaceful. After a while she sighed. 

"I suppose this must be our last evening together. "

"I suppose it must, " said Septimus. 

"Are you quite sure you can afford all the money you're leaving with me?"

"Of course. It comes out of the bank. "

"I know that, you stupid, " she laughed. "Where else could it come fromunless you kept it in a stocking? But the bank isn't an unlimited gold-minefrom which you can draw out as many handfuls as you want. "

Septimus knocked the ashes out of his pipe. 

"People don't get sovereigns out of gold-mines. I wish they did. Theyextract a bit of gold about the size of this pebble out of a ton of quartz. I once bought shares in a gold-mine and there wasn't any gold in it at all. I always used to be buying things like that. People sold them to me. I waslike Moses. "

"Moses?"

"Oh, not _that_ Moses. He could get anything out of anything. He got waterout of a rock. I mean the son of the Vicar of Wakefield, who bought thegreen spectacles. "

"Oh, " said Emmy, who after the way of her generation had never heard ofhim. 

"I don't do it--let people sell me things--any more, now, " he said gravely. "I seem to have got wise. Perhaps it has come through having had to lookafter you. I see things much clearer. "

He filled and lit another pipe and began to talk about Orion just visibleover the shoulder of the cliff. Emmy, whose interests were for the momentterrestrial, interrupted him:

"There's one thing I want you to see clearly, my dear, and that is that Iowe you a frightful lot of money. But I'm sure to get something to do whenI'm back in London and then I can repay you by instalments. Remember, I'mnot going to rest until I pay you back. "

"I sha'n't rest if you do, " said Septimus, nervously. "Please don't talk ofit. It hurts me. I've done little enough in the world, God knows. Give methis chance of--the Buddhists call it 'acquiring merit. '"

This was not a new argument between them. Emmy had a small income under herfather's will, and the prospect of earning a modest salary on the stage. She reckoned that she would have sufficient to provide for herself and thechild. Hitherto Septimus had been her banker. Neither of them had anynotion of the value of money, and Septimus had a child's faith in the magicof the drawn check. He would as soon have thought of measuring the portionof whisky he poured out for a guest as of counting the money he advanced toEmmy. 

She took up his last words, and speaking in a low tone, as a woman doeswhen her pride has gone from her, she said:

"Haven't you acquired enough merit already, my dear? Don't you see theimpossibility of my going on accepting things from you? You seem to take itfor granted that you're to provide for me and the child for the rest of ourlives. I've been a bad, unprincipled fool of a girl, I know--yes, rottenbad; there are thousands like me in London--"

Septimus rose to his feet. 

"Oh, don't, Emmy, don't! I can't stand it. "

She rose too and put her hands on his shoulders. 

"You must let me speak to-night--our last night before we part. It isn'tgenerous of you not to listen. "

The yellow dog, disturbed in his slumbers, shook himself, and regardingthem with an air of humble sympathy turned and walked away discreetly intothe shadow. The fisher folk on the jetty still sang their mournful chorus. 

"Sit down again. "

Septimus yielded. "But why give yourself pain?" he asked gently. 

"To ease my heart. The knife does good. Yes, I know I've been worthless. But I'm not as bad as that. Don't you see how horrible the idea is to me? Imust pay you back the money--and of course not come on you for any more. You've done too much for me already. It sometimes stuns me to think of it. It was only because I was in hell and mad--and grasped at the hand you heldout to me. I suppose I've done you the biggest wrong a woman can do a man. Now I've come to my senses, I shudder at what I've done. "

"Why? Why?" said Septimus, growing miserably unhappy. 

"How can you ever marry, unless we go through the vulgarity of a collusivedivorce?"

"My dear girl, " said he, "what woman would ever marry a preposterouslunatic like me?"

"There's not a woman living who ought not to have gone down on her bendedknees if she had married you. "

"I should never have married, " said he, laying his hand for a momentreassuringly on hers. 

"Who knows?" She gave a slight laugh. "Zora is only a woman like the restof us. "

"Why talk of Zora?" he said quickly. "What has she to do with it?"

"Everything. You don't suppose I don't know, " she replied in a low voice. "It was for her sake and not for mine. "

He was about to speak when she put out her hand and covered his mouth. 

"Let me talk for a little. "

She took up her parable again and spoke very gently, very sensibly. Themoonlight peacefulness was in her heart. It softened the tone of her voiceand reflected itself in unfamiliar speech. 

"I seem to have grown twenty years older, " she said. 

She desired on that night to make her gratitude clear to him, to ask hispardon for past offenses. She had been like a hunted animal; sometimes shehad licked his hand and sometimes she had scratched it. She had not beenquite responsible. Sometimes she had tried to send him away, for his ownsake. For herself, she had been terrified at the thought of losing him. 

"Another man might have done what you did, out of chivalry; but no otherman but you would not have despised the woman. I deserved it; but I knewyou didn't despise me. You have been just the same to me all through asyou were in the early days. It braced me up and helped me to keep some sortof self-respect. That was the chief reason why I could not let you go. Nowall is over. I am quite sane and as happy as I ever shall be. Afterto-night it stands to reason we must each lead our separate lives. Youcan't do anything more for me, and God knows, poor dear, I can't doanything for you. So I want to thank you. "

She put her arm around his shoulder and kissed his cheek. 

Septimus flushed. Her lips were soft and her breath was sweet. No womansave his mother had ever kissed him. He turned and took her hands. 

"Let me accept that in full payment for everything. You want me to go awayhappy, don't you?"

"My dear, " she said, with a little catch in her voice, "if there wasanything in the world I could do to make you happy, short of throwing babyto a tiger, I would do it. "

Septimus took off his cap and brought his hair to its normalperpendicularity. Emmy laughed. 

"Dear me! What are you going to say?"

Septimus reflected for a moment. 

"If I dine off a bloater in a soup-plate in the drawing-room, or if my bedisn't made at six o'clock in the evening, and my house is a cross between apigsty and an ironmonger's shop, nobody minds. It is only Septimus Dix'sextraordinary habits. But if the woman who is my wife in the eyes of theworld--"

"Yes, yes, I see, " she said hurriedly. "I hadn't looked at it in thatlight. "

"The boy is going to Cambridge, " he murmured. "Then I should like him to gointo Parliament. There are deuced clever fellows in Parliament. I met onein Venice two or three years ago. He knew an awful lot of things. We spentan evening together on the Grand Canal and he talked all the time mostinterestingly on the drainage system of Barrow-in-Furness. I wonder howfellows get to know about drains. "

Emmy said: "Would it make you happy?"

From her tone he gathered that she referred to the subject of contentionbetween them and not to his thirst for sanitary information. 

"Of course it would. "

"But how shall I ever repay you?"

"Perhaps once a year, " he said. "You can settle up in full, as you did justnow. "

There was a long silence and then Emmy remarked that it was a heavenlynight. 

CHAPTER XVI

In the course of time Sypher returned to London to fight a losing battleagainst the Powers of Darkness and derive whatever inspiration he couldfrom Zora's letters. He also called dutifully at "The Nook" during hisweek-end visits to Penton Court, where he found restfulness in theatmosphere of lavender. Mrs. Oldrieve continued to regard him as a mostsuperior person. Cousin Jane, as became a gentlewoman of breeding, receivedhim with courtesy--but a courtesy marked by that shade of reserve which isdue from a lady of quality to the grandfatherless. If she had not strivenagainst the unregeneracy of mortal flesh she would have disapproved of himoffhand because she disapproved of Zora; but she was a conscientious woman, and took great pride in overcoming prejudices. She also collected pewter, the history of which Sypher, during his years of self-education, had oncestudied, in the confused notion that it was culture. All knowledge is good;from the theory of quaternions to the way to cut a ham-frill. It is sure tocome in useful, somehow. An authority on Central African dialects has beenknown to find them invaluable in altercations with cabmen, and a convertedburglar has, before now, become an admirable house-agent. What Sypher, therefore, had considered merely learned lumber in his head cemented hisfriendship with Cousin Jane--or rather, to speak by the book, soldered itwith pewter. As for the Cure, however, she did not believe in it, and toldhim so, roundly. She had been brought up to believe in doctors, theCatechism, the House of Lords, the inequality of the sexes, and theOldrieve family, and in that faith she would live and die. Sypher bore herno malice. She did not call the Cure pestilential quackery. He wasbeginning not to despise the day of small things. 

"It may be very good in its way, " she said, "just as Liberalism andDarwinism and eating in restaurants may be good things. But they are notfor me. "

Cousin Jane's conversation provided him with much innocent entertainment. Mrs. Oldrieve was content to talk about the weather, and what Zora and Emmyused to like to eat when they were little girls: subjects interesting inthemselves but not conducive to discussion. Cousin Jane was nothing if notargumentative. She held views, expounded them, and maintained them. Nothingshort of a declaration from Jehovah bursting in glory through the sky couldhave convinced her of error. Even then she would have been annoyed. Sheprofoundly disapproved of Emmy's marriage to Septimus, whom shecharacterized as a doddering idiot. Sypher defended his friend warmly. Healso defended Wiggleswick at whose ways and habits the good lady expressedunrestrained indignation. She could not have spoken more disrespectfully ofAntichrist. 

"You mark my words, " she said, "he'll murder them both in their sleep. "

Concerning Zora, too, she was emphatic. 

"I am not one of those who think every woman ought to get married; but ifshe can't conduct herself decently without a husband, she ought to haveone. "

"But surely Mrs. Middlemist's conduct is irreproachable, " said Sypher. 

"Irreproachable? Do you think trapesing about alone all over theearth--mixing with all sorts of people she doesn't know from Adam, andgoing goodness knows where and doing goodness knows what, and idling herlife away, never putting a darn in her stockings even--is irreproachableconduct on the part of a young woman of Zora's birth and appearance? Theway she dresses must attract attention, wherever she goes. It's supposed tobe 'stylish' nowadays. In my time it was immodest. When a young woman wasforced to journey alone she made herself as inconspicuous as possible. Zoraought to have a husband to look after her. Then she could do as sheliked--or as he liked, which would be much the best thing for her. "

"I happen to be in Mrs. Middlemist's confidence, " said Sypher. "She hastold me many times that she would never marry again. Her marriage--"

"Stuff and rubbish!" cried Cousin Jane. "You wait until the man comes alongwho has made up his mind to marry her. It must be a big strong man whowon't stand any nonsense and will take her by the shoulders and shake her. She'll marry him fast enough. We'll see what happens to her in California. "

"I hope she won't marry one of those dreadful creatures with lassos, " saidMrs. Oldrieve, whose hazy ideas of California were based on hazier memoriesof Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show which she had seen many years ago inLondon. 

"I hope Mrs. Middlemist won't marry at all, " said Sypher, in a tone ofalarm. 

"Why?" asked Cousin Jane. 

She shot the question at him with almost a snarl. Sypher paused for amoment or two before replying. 

"I should lose a friend, " said he. 

"Humph!" said Cousin Jane. 

If the late Rev. Laurence Sterne had known Cousin Jane, "Tristram Shandy"would have been the richer by a chapter on "Humphs. " He would have analyzedthis particular one with a minute delicacy beyond the powers of Clem Sypherthrough whose head rang the echo of the irritating vocable for some timeafterwards. It meant something. It meant something uncomfortable. It wasdirectly leveled at himself and yet it seemed to sum up her previousdisparaging remarks about Zora. "What the dickens _did_ she mean by it?" heasked himself. 

He came down to Nunsmere every week now, having given up his establishmentat Kilburn Priory and sold the house--"The Kurhaus, " as he had named it inhis pride. A set of bachelor's chambers in St. James's sheltered him duringhis working days in London. He had also sold his motor-car; forretrenchment in personal expenses had become necessary, and thepurchase-money of house and car were needed for the war of advertisingwhich he was waging against his rivals. These were days black with anxietyand haunting doubt, illuminated now and then by Zora, who wrote graciousletters of encouragement. He carried them about with him like talismans. 

Sometimes he could not realize that the great business he had created couldbe on the brink of failure. The routine went on as usual. At the works atBermondsey the same activity apparently prevailed as when the Cure hadreached the hey-day of its fortune some five years before. In thesweet-smelling laboratory gleaming with white tiles and copper retorts, thewhite-aproned workmen sorted and weighed and treated according to thesecret recipe the bundles of herbs that came in every day and were stackedin pigeon-holes along the walls. In the boiling-sheds, not sosweet-smelling, the great vats of fat bubbled and ran, giving out to thecooling-troughs the refined white cream of which the precious ointment wasmade. Beyond there was another laboratory vast and clean and busy, wherethe healing ichor of the herbs was mixed with the drugs and the cream. Thencame the work-rooms where rows of girls filled the celluloid boxes, onedabbing in the well-judged quantity, another cutting it off clean to thelevel of the top with a swift stroke of the spatula, another fitting on thelid, and so on, in endless but fascinating monotony until the last girlplaced on the trolley by her side, waiting to carry it to the packing-shed, the finished packet of Sypher's Cure as it would be delivered to the world. Then there were the packing-sheds full of deal cases for despatching theCure to the four quarters of the globe, some empty, some being filled, others stacked in readiness for the carriers: a Babel of sounds, ofhammering clamps, of creaking barrows, of horses by the open doors rattlingtheir heavy harness and trampling the flagstones with their heavy hoofs; aceaseless rushing of brawny men in sackcloth aprons, of dusty men withstumps of pencils and note-books and crumpled invoices, counting andchecking and reporting to other men in narrow glass offices against thewall. Outside stood the great wagons laden with the white deal boxes boundwith iron hoops and bearing in vermilion letters the inscription ofSypher's Cure. 

Every detail of this complicated hive was as familiar to him as his kitchenwas to his cook. He had planned it all, organized it all. Every action ofevery human creature in the place from the skilled pharmaceutistresponsible for the preparation of the ointment to the grimy boy who didodd jobs about the sheds had been pre-conceived by him, had had itsmainspring in his brain. Apart from idealistic aspirations concerned withthe Cure itself, the perfecting of this machinery of human activity hadbeen a matter of absorbing interest, its perfection a subject of honorablepride. 

He walked through the works day after day, noting the familiar sights andsounds, pausing here and there lovingly, as a man does in his garden totouch some cherished plant or to fill himself with the beauty of some rareflower. The place was inexpressibly dear to him. That those furnaces shouldever grow cold, that those vats should ever be empty, that those two magicwords should cease to blaze on the wooden boxes, should fade from the sightof man, that those gates should ever be shut, seemed to transcendimagination. The factory had taken its rank with eternal, unchangingthings, like the solar system and the Bank of England. Yet he knew only toowell that there had been change in the unchanging and in his soul dwelt asickening certainty that the eternal would be the transient. Gradually thestaff had been reduced, the output lessened. Already two of the long tablesonce filled with girls stood forlornly empty. 

His comfortably appointed office in Moorgate Street told the same story. Week after week the orders slackened and gradually the number of the clerkshad shrunk. Gloom settled permanently on the manager's brow. He almostwalked on tiptoe into Sypher's room and spoke to him in a hushed whisper, until rebuked for dismalness. 

"If you look like that, Shuttleworth, I shall cry. "

On another occasion Shuttleworth said:

"We are throwing money away on advertisements. The concern can't standit. "

Sypher turned, blue pencil in hand, from the wall where draft proofs ofadvertisements were pinned for his correction and master's touch. This wasa part of the business that he loved. It appealed to the flamboyant in hisnature. It particularly pleased him to see omnibuses pass by bearing thefamous "Sypher's Cure, " an enlargement of his own handwriting, in streamingletters of blood. 

"We're going to double them, " said he; and his air was that of the racingMississippi captains of old days who in response to the expostulation oftheir engineers sent a little nigger boy to sit on the safety-valve. 

The dismal manager turned up his eyes to heaven with the air of the familysteward in Hogarth's "Mariage à la Mode. " He had not his chief's Napoleonicmind; but he had a wife and a large family. Clem Sypher also thought ofthat--not only of Shuttleworth's wife and family, but also of the wives andfamilies of the many men in his employ. It kept him awake at nights. 

In the soothing air of Nunsmere, however, he slept, in long dead stretches, as a tired man sleeps, in spite of trains which screeched past the bottomof his lawn. Their furious unrest enhanced the peace of village things. Hebegan to love the little backwater of the earth whose stillness calmed thefever of life. As soon as he stepped out on to the platform at Ripstead acool hand seemed to touch his forehead, and charm away the cares that madehis temples throb. At Nunsmere he gave himself up to the simplicities ofthe place. He took to strolling, like Septimus, about the common and madefriends with the lame donkey. On Sunday mornings he went to church. He hadfirst found himself there out of curiosity, for, though not an irreligiousman, he was not given to pious practices; but afterwards he had gone onaccount of the restfulness of the rural service. His mind essentiallyreverend took it very seriously, just as it took seriously the works of agreat poet which he could not understand or any alien form of humanaspiration; even the parish notices and the publication of banns hereceived with earnest attention. His intensity of interest as he listenedto the sermon sometimes flattered the mild vicar, and at other times--whenthinness of argument pricked his conscience--alarmed him considerably. ButSypher would not have dared enter into theological disputation. He took thesermon as he took the hymns, in which he joined lustily. Cousin Jane, whomhe invariably met with Mrs. Oldrieve after the service and escorted home, had no such scruples. She tore the vicar's theology into fragments andscattered them behind her as she walked, like a hare in a paper chase. 

Said the Literary Man from London, who had strolled with them on one ofthese occasions:

"The good lady's one of those women who speak as if they had a relation whohad married a high official in the Kingdom of Heaven and now and then gavethem confidential information. "

Sypher liked Rattenden because he could often put into a phrase his ownunformulated ideas. He also belonged to a world to which he himself was astranger, the world of books and plays and personalities and theories ofart. Sypher thought that its denizens lived on a lofty plane. 

"The atmosphere, " said Rattenden, "is so rarified that the kettle refusesto boil properly. That is why we always have cold tea at literarygatherings. My dear fellow, it's a damned world. It talks all day and doesnothing all night. The ragged Italian in front of the fresco in his villagechurch or at the back of the gallery at the opera of his town knows moreessentials of painting and music than any of us. It's a hollow sham of aworld filled with empty words. I love it. "

"Then why abuse it?" laughed Sypher. 

"Because it's a wanton and the wanton angers you and fascinates you at thesame time. You never know how to take her. You are aware she hasn't got aheart, but her lips are red. She is unreal. She holds views in defiance ofcommon sense. Which is the nobler thing to do--to dig potatoes or paint aman digging potatoes? She swears to you that the digger is a clod of earthand the painter a handful of heaven. She is talking rot. You know it. Yetyou believe her. "

Sypher was not convinced by the airy paradoxician. He had a childish ideathat painters and novelists and actors were superior beings. Rattendenfound this Arcadian and cultivated Sypher's society. They took long walkstogether on Sunday afternoons. 

"After all, " said Rattenden, "I can speak freely. I am a pariah among mykind. "

Sypher asked why. 

"Because I don't play golf. In London it is impossible to be seriouslyregarded as a literary man unless you play golf. "

He found Sypher a good listener. He loved to catch a theory of life, holdit in his hand like a struggling bird while he discoursed about it, and letit go free into the sunshine again. Sypher admired his nimbleness of mind. 

"You juggle with ideas as the fellows on the stage do with gilt balls. "

"It's a game I learned, " said Rattenden. "It's very useful. It takes one'smind off the dull question of earning bread and butter for a wife and fivechildren. "

"I wish you'd teach it to me, " said Sypher. "I've many wives and manychildren dependent on me for bread and butter!"

Rattenden was quick to note the tone of depression. He laughed kindly. 

"Looking on is just as good. When you're worried in London why don't youlook me up? My wife and I will play the game for you. She's an amusingbody. Heaven knows how I should have got through without her. She alsoswears by Sypher's Cure. "

So they became friends. Sypher, since the blistered heel episode, had losthis fearless way of trumpeting the Cure far and wide, having a nervousdread of seeing the _p_ and _q_ of the hateful words form themselves on thelips of a companion. He became subdued, and spoke only of travel and menand things, of anything but the Cure. He preferred to listen and, asRattenden preferred to talk, he found conversation a simple matter. Rattenden was an amusing anecdotist and had amassed a prodigious amount ofraw material for his craft. To the collector, by some unknown law ofattraction, come the objects which he collects. Everywhere he goes he findsthem to his hand, as Septimus's friend found the Toby jugs. WhereverRattenden turned, a bit of gossip met his ear. Very few things, therefore, happened in literary and theatrical London which did not come inevitably tohis knowledge. He could have wrecked many homes and pricked manyreputations. As a man of the world, however, he used his knowledge withdiscretion, and as an artist in anecdote he selected fastidiously. Heseldom retailed a bit of gossip for its own sake; when he did so he had apurpose. 

One evening they dined together at Sypher's club, a great semi-politicalinstitution with many thousand members. He had secured, however, a quiettable in a corner of the dining-room which was adorned with full-lengthportraits of self-conscious statesmen. Sypher unfolded his napkin with anair of satisfaction. 

"I've had good news to-day. Mrs. Middlemist is on her way home. "

"You have the privilege of her friendship, " said Rattenden. "You're to beenvied. _O fortunate nimium_. "

He preserved some of the Oxford tradition in tone and manner. He had brownhair turning gray, a drooping mustache and wore pince-nez secured by abroad black cord. Being very short-sighted his eyes seen through the thicklenses were almost expressionless. 

"Zora Middlemist, " said he, squeezing lemon over his oysters, "is a grandand splendid creature whom I admire vastly. As I never lose an opportunityof telling her that she is doing nothing with her grand and splendidqualities, I suffer under the ban of her displeasure. "

"What do you think she ought to do with them?" asked Sypher. 

"It's a difficult and delicate matter to discuss a woman with another man;especially--" he waved a significant hand. "But I, in my little way, havewritten a novel or two--studies of women. I speak therefore as an expert. Now, just as a painter can't correctly draw the draped figure unless he hasan anatomical knowledge of the limbs beneath, so is a novelist unable topresent the character of a woman with sincerity and verisimilitude unlesshe has taken into account all the hidden physiological workings of thatwoman's nature. He must be familiar with the workings of the sex principlewithin her, although he need not show them in his work, any more than thepainter shows the anatomy. Analyzing thus the imaginary woman, one forms ahabit of analyzing the real woman in whom one takes an interest--or ratherone does it unconsciously. " He paused. "I told you it was rather delicate. You see what I'm trying to get at? Zora Middlemist is driven round theearth like Io by the gadfly of her temperament. She's seeking the Beauty orMeaning or Fulfilment, or whatever she chooses to call it, of Life. Whatshe's really looking for is Love. "

"I don't believe it, " said Sypher. 

Rattenden shrugged his shoulders. "It's true all the same. But in her caseit's the great love--the big thing for the big man--the gorgeous tropicalsunshine in which all the splendor of her can develop. No little man willmove her. She draws them all round her--that type has an irresistibleatmosphere--but she passes them by with her magnificent head in the air. She is looking all the time for the big man. The pathetic comedy of it isthat she is as innocent and as unconscious of the object of her search asthe flower that opens its heart to the bee bearing the pollen on its wings. I'm not infallible as a general rule. In this case I am. "

He hastened to consume his soup which had got cold during his harangue. 

"You've mixed much with women and studied them, " said Sypher. "I haven't. Iwas engaged to a girl once, but it was a tepid affair. She broke it offbecause it was much more vital to me to work in my laboratory than to holdher hand in her mother's parlor. No doubt she was right. This was in theearly days when I was experimenting with the Cure. Since then I've been aman of one idea. It has absorbed all my soul and energies, so that I've hadnone to spare for women. Here and there, of course--"

"I know. The trifling things. They are part of the banquet of life. Oneeats and forgets. "

Sypher glanced at him and nodded his appreciation of the Literary Man'sneat way of putting things. But he did not reply. He ate his fish insilence, hardly tasting it, his mind far away following Zora Middlemistacross the seas. A horrible, jealous hatred of the big man for whom shesought sprang up in his heart. His pink face flushed red. 

"This _sole bonne femme_ is excellent, " said Rattenden. 

Sypher started in confusion, and praised the chef, and talked gastronomywhile his thoughts were with Zora. He remembered the confession of SeptimusDix in Paris. Septimus had been caught in the irresistible atmosphere. Heloved her, but he was one of the little men and she had passed him by withher magnificent head in the air. The gastronomic talk languished. PresentlyRattenden said:

"One of the feminine phenomena that has puzzled me most of late has beenthe marriage of her sister to Septimus Dix. "

Sypher laid down his knife and fork. 

"How extraordinary that you should mention it! He was in my mind as youspoke. "

"I was thinking of the sister, " said Rattenden. "She has Mrs. Middlemist'stemperament without her force of character--the sex without the splendor. I heard a very curious thing about her only yesterday. "

"What was it?"

"It was one of those things that are not told. "

"Tell me, " said Sypher, earnestly. "I have reasons for asking. I amconvinced there are circumstances of which neither Mrs. Dix's mother norsister know anything. I'm a loyal man. You may trust me. "

"Very well, " said Rattenden. "Have you ever heard of a man called MordauntPrince? Yes--a well-known actor--about the biggest blackguard thatdisgraces the stage. He was leading man at the theater where she lastplayed. They were doing 'The Widow of Ware. ' They were about a great dealtogether. It was common gossip at the time. "

"Gossip is notoriously uncharitable, " said Sypher. 

"If charity covers a multitude of sins, uncharitableness has the advantageof uncovering them. The _pudor britannicus_, however, is responsible foruncovering the one I am going to tell you of. About two or three monthsbefore the marriage, Emmy Oldrieve and Mordaunt Prince were stayingtogether at an hotel in Tunbridge Wells. There was no mistake about it. There they were. They had a motor with them. A week before the Dix marriagewas announced Mordaunt Prince married a Mrs. Morris--old Sol Morris, themoney-lender's widow. "

Sypher stared at him. 

"It's one of the least amazing of human phenomena, " said Rattenden, cynically. "I'm only puzzled at Calypso being so soon able to consoleherself for the departure of Ulysses, and taking up with such adreamy-headed shadow of a man as our friend Dix. The end of the MordauntPrince story is that he soon grew too much for the widow, who haspensioned him off, and now he is drinking himself to death in Naples. "

"Emmy Oldrieve! Good God, is it possible?" cried Sypher, absently pushingaside the dish the waiter handed him. 

Rattenden carefully helped himself to partridge and orange salad. 

"It's not only possible, but unquestionable fact. You see, " he addedcomplacently, "nothing can happen without its coming sooner or later to me. My informant was staying at the hotel all the time. You will allow me tovouch absolutely for her veracity. "

Sypher did not speak for some moments. The large dining-room with itsportraits of self-conscious statesmen faded away and became a little streetin Paris, one side in shade and the other baking in the sun; and at alittle iron table sat a brown and indiscreet Zouave and Septimus Dix, pale, indecisive, with a wistful appeal in his washed-out blue eyes. Suddenly heregained consciousness, and, more for the sake of covering his loss ofself-possession than for that of eating, he recalled the waiter and putsome partridge on his plate. Then he looked across the table at his guestand said very sternly:

"I look to you to prevent this story going any further. "

"I've already made it my duty to do so, " said Rattenden. 

Sypher helped his guest to wine. 

"I hope you like this Roederer, " said he. "It's the only exquisite wine inthe club, and unfortunately there are not more than a few bottles left. Ihad seven dozen of the same _cuvée_ in my cellar at Priory Park--ifanything, in better condition. I had to sell it with the rest of the thingswhen I gave up the house. It went to my heart. Champagne is the only wineI understand. There was a time when it stood as a symbol to me of theunattainable. Now that I can drink it when I will, I know that all the lawsof philosophy forbid its having any attraction for me. Thank heaven I'm notdyspeptic enough in soul to be a philosopher and I'm grateful for myaspirations. I cultivated my taste for champagne out of sheer gratitude. "

"Any wise man, " said Rattenden, "can realize his dreams. It takes somethingmuch higher than wisdom to enjoy the realization. "

"What is that?"

"The heart of a child, " said Rattenden. He smiled in his inscrutable waybehind his thick lenses, and sipped his champagne. "Truly a deliciouswine, " said he. 

Sypher said good-by to his guest on the steps of the club, and walked hometo his new chambers in St. James's deep in thought. For the first timesince his acquaintance with Rattenden, he was glad to part from him. He hada great need of solitude. It came to him almost as a shock to realize thatthings were happening in the world round about him quite as heroic, in theeyes of the High Gods, as the battle between Sypher's Cure and JebusaJones's Cuticle Remedy. The curtain of life had been lifted, and a flash ofits inner mysteries had been revealed. His eyes still were dazed. But hehad received the gift of vision. He had seen beyond doubt or question theheart of Septimus Dix. He knew what he had done, why he had done it. 

Zora Middlemist had passed Septimus by with her magnificent head in theair. But he was not one of the little men. 

"By God, he is not!" he cried aloud, and the cry came from his depths. 

Zora Middlemist had passed him, Clem Sypher, by with her magnificent headin the air. 

He let himself into his chambers; they struck him as being chill andlonely, the casual, uncared-for hiding-place of one of the little men. Hestirred the fire, almost afraid to disturb the cold silence by the rattleof the poker against the bars of the grate. His slippers were set inreadiness on the hearth-rug, and the machine who valeted him had fittedthem with boot-trees. He put them on, and unlocking his desk, took out theletter which he had received that morning from Zora. 

"For you, " she wrote, "I want victory all along the line--the apotheosis ofSypher's Cure on Earth. For myself, I don't know what I want. I wish youwould tell me. "

Clem Sypher sat in an arm-chair and looked into the fire until it went out. For the first time in his life he did not know what he wanted. 

CHAPTER XVII

The days that followed were darkened by overwhelming anxieties, so that hespeculated little as to the Ultimately Desired. A chartered accountant satin the office at Moorgate Street and shed around him the gloom ofstatistics. Unless a miracle happened the Cure was doomed. 

It is all very well to seat a little nigger on the safety-valve if the endof the journey is in sight. The boiler may just last out the strain. But tosuppose that he will sit there in permanent security to himself and theship for an indefinite time is an optimism unwarranted by the generalexperience of this low world. Sypher's Cure could not stand the strain ofthe increased advertisement. Shuttleworth found a dismal pleasure in thefulfilment of his prophecy. A reduction in price had not materiallyaffected the sales. The Jebusa Jones people had lowered the price of theCuticle Remedy and still undersold the Cure. During the year the Bermondseyworks had been heavily mortgaged. The money had all been wasted on a publicthat had eyes and saw not, that had ears and heard not the simple gospel ofthe Friend of Humanity--"Try Sypher's Cure. " In the midst of the gloomShuttleworth took the opportunity of deprecating the unnecessary expense ofproduction, never having so greatly dared before. Only the best and purestmaterials had been possible for the divine ointment. By using secondqualities, a great saving could be effected without impairing the efficacyof the Cure. Thus Shuttleworth. Sypher blazed into holy anger, as if hehad been counseled to commit sacrilege. 

Radical reforms were imperative, if the Cure was to be saved. He spent hisnights over vast schemes only to find the fatal flaw in the cold light ofthe morning. This angered him. It seemed that the sureness of his visionhad gone. Something strange, uncanny had happened within him, he knew notwhat. It had nothing to do with his intellectual force, his personalenergy. It had nothing to do with his determination to win through andrestore the Cure to its former position in the market. It was somethingsubtle, spiritual. 

The memory of the blistered heel lived with him. The slight doubt cast bySeptimus on Zora's faith remained disturbingly at the back of his mind. Yethe clung passionately to his belief. If it were not Heaven-sent, then washe of men most miserable. 

Never had he welcomed the sight of Nunsmere more than the next Saturdayafternoon when the trap turned off the highroad and the common came intoview. The pearls and faint blues of the sky, the tender mist softening therusset of the autumn trees, the gray tower of the little church, the redroofs of the cottages dreaming in their old-world gardens, the quiet greenof the common with the children far off at play and the lame donkeywatching them in philosophic content--all came like the gift of a very calmand restful God to the tired man's eyes. 

He thought to himself: "It only lacks one figure walking across the commonto meet me. " Then the thought again: "If she were there would I seeanything else?"

At Penton Court the maid met him at the door. 

"Mr. Dix is waiting to see you, sir. "

"Mr. Dix! Where is he?"

"In the drawing-room. He has been waiting a couple of hours. "

He threw off his hat and coat, delighted, and rushed in to welcome theunexpected guest. He found Septimus sitting in the twilight by the Frenchwindow that opened on the lawn, and making elaborate calculations in anote-book. 

"My dear Dix!" He shook him warmly by the hand and clapped him on theshoulder. "This is more than a pleasure. What have you been doing withyourself?"

Septimus said, holding up the note-book:

"I was just trying to work out the problem whether a boy's expenses fromthe time he begins feeding-bottles to the time he leaves the Universityincreases by arithmetical or geometrical progression. "

Sypher laughed. "It depends, doesn't it, on his taste for luxuries?"

"This one is going to be extravagant, I'm afraid, " said Septimus. "He cutshis teeth on a fifteenth-century Italian ivory carving of St. John theBaptist--I went into a shop to buy a purse and they gave it to meinstead--and turns up his nose at coral and bells. There isn't much of itto turn up. I've never seen a child with so little nose. I invented amachine for elongating it, but his mother won't let me use it. "

Sypher expressed his sympathy with Mrs. Dix, and inquired after her health. Septimus reported favorably. She had passed a few weeks atHottetôt-sur-Mer, which had done her good. She was now in Paris under themothering care of Madame Bolivard, where she would stay until she cared totake up her residence in her flat in Chelsea, which was now free fromtenants. 

"And you?" asked Sypher. 

"I've just left the Hôtel Godet and come back to Nunsmere. Perhaps I'llgive up the house and take Wiggleswick to London when Emmy returns. Shepromised to look for a flat for me. I believe women are rather good atfinding flats. "

Sypher handed him a box of cigars. He lit one and held it awkwardly withthe tips of his long, nervous fingers. He passed the fingers of his otherhand, with the familiar gesture, up his hair. 

"I thought I'd come and see you, " he said hesitatingly, "before going to'The Nook. ' There are explanations to be made. My wife and I are goodfriends, but we can't live together. It's all my fault. I make the houseintolerable. I--I have an ungovernable temper, you know, and I'm harsh andunloving and disagreeable. And it's bad for the child. We quarreldreadfully--at least, she doesn't. "

"What about?" Sypher asked gravely. 

"All sorts of things. You see, if I want breakfast an hour beforedinner-time, it upsets the household. Then there was the nose machine--andother inventions for the baby, which perhaps might kill it. You can explainall this and tell them that the marriage has been a dreadful mistake onpoor Emmy's side, and that we've decided to live apart. You will do thisfor me, won't you?"

"I can't say I'll do it with pleasure, " said Sypher, "for I'm more thansorry to hear your news. I suspected as much when I met you in Paris. ButI'll see Mrs. Oldrieve as soon as possible and explain. "

"Thank you, " said Septimus; "you don't know what a service you would berendering me. "

He uttered a sigh of relief and relit his cigar which had gone out duringhis appeal. Then there was a silence. Septimus looked dreamily out at therow of trees that marked the famous lawn reaching down to the railway line. The mist had thickened with the fall of the day and hung heavy on thebranches, and the sky was gray. Sypher watched him, greatly moved; temptedto cry out that he knew all, that he was not taken in by the simple legendof his ungovernable temper and unlovely disposition. His heart went out tohim, as to a man who dwelt alone on lofty heights, inaccessible to commonhumanity. He was filled with pity and reverence for him. Perhaps heexaggerated. But Sypher was an idealist. Had he not set Sypher's Cure asthe sun in his heaven and Zora as one of the fixed stars?

It grew dark. Sypher rang for the lamp and tea. 

"Or would you like breakfast?" he asked laughingly. 

"I've just had supper, " said Septimus. "Wiggleswick found some cheese in acupboard. I buried it in the front garden. " A vague smile passed on hisface like a pale gleam of light over water on a cloudy day. "Wiggleswick isdeaf. He couldn't hear it. "

"He's a lazy scoundrel, " said Sypher. "I wonder you don't sack him. "

Septimus licked a hanging strip of cigar-end into position--he could neversmoke a cigar properly--and lit it for the third time. 

"Wiggleswick is good for me, " said he. "He keeps me human. I am apt tobecome a machine. I live so much among them. I've been working hard on anew gun--or rather an old gun. It's field artillery, quick-firing. I got onto the idea again from a sighting apparatus I invented. I have thespecification in my pocket. The model is at home. I brought it from Paris. "

He fetched a parcel of manuscript from his pocket and unrolled it intoflatness. 

"I should like to show it to you. Do you mind?"

"It would interest me enormously, " said Sypher. 

"I invent all sorts of things. I can't help it. But I always come back toguns--I don't know why. I hope you've done nothing further with the guns oflarge caliber. I've been thinking about them seriously, and I find they'reall moonshine. "

He smiled with wan cheerfulness at the waste of the labor of years. Sypher, on whose conscience the guns had laid their two hundred ton weight, feltgreatly relieved. Their colossal scale had originally caught hisimagination which loved big conceptions. Their working had seemed plausibleto his inexpert eye. He had gone with confidence to his friend, the experton naval gunnery, who had reported on them in breezy, sea-going terms ofdisrespect. Since then he had shrunk from destroying his poor friend'sillusions. 

"Yes, they're all unmanageable. I see what's wrong with them--but I've lostmy interest in naval affairs. " He paused and added dreamily: "I washorribly seasick crossing the Channel this time. 

"Let us have a look at the field-gun, " said Sypher encouragingly. Remembering the naval man's language, he had little hope that Septimuswould be more successful by land than by sea; but his love and pity for theinventor compelled interest. Septimus's face brightened. 

"This, " said he, "is quite a different thing. You see I know more aboutit. "

"That's where the bombardier comes in, " laughed Sypher. 

"I shouldn't wonder, " replied Septimus. 

He spread the diagram on a table, and expounded the gun. Absorbed in hisexplanation he lost the drowsy incertitude of his speech and the dreaminessof his eyes. He spoke with rapidity, sureness, and a note of enthusiasmrang oddly in his voice. On the margins he sketched illustrations of theGatling, the Maxim, and the Hotchkiss and other guns, and demonstrated thesuperior delicate deadliness of his own. It could fire more rounds perminute than any other piece of artillery known to man. It could feed itselfautomatically from a magazine. The new sighting apparatus made it asaccurate as a match rifle. Its power of massacre was unparalleled in thehistory of wholesale slaughter. A child might work it. 

Septimus's explanation was too lucid for a man of Sypher's intelligence notto grasp the essentials of his invention. To all his questions Septimusreturned satisfactory answers. He could find no flaw in the gun. Yet in hisheart he felt that the expert would put his finger on the weak spot andconsign the machine to the limbo of phantasmagoric artillery. 

"If it is all you say, there's a fortune in it, " said he. 

"There's no shadow of doubt about it, " replied Septimus. "I'll sendWiggleswick over with the model to-morrow, and you can see for yourself. "

"What are you going to do with it?"

"I don't know, " said Septimus, in his usual manner. "I never know what todo with things when I invent them. I once knew a man in the Patent Officewho patented things for me. But he's married now and gone to live inBalham. "

"But he's still at the Patent Office?"

"Perhaps he is, " said Septimus. "It never occurred to me. But it has neverdone me any good to have things patented. One has to get them taken up. Some of them are drunk and disorderly enough for them to be taken up atonce, " he added with his pale smile. He continued: "I thought perhaps youwould replace the big-caliber guns in our contract by this one. "

Sypher agreed with pleasure to the proposal. He knew a high militaryofficial in the Ordnance Department of the War Office who would see thatthe thing was properly considered. "If he's in town I'll go and see him atonce. "

"There's no hurry, " said Septimus. "I shouldn't like you to put yourselfout. I know you're a very busy man. Go in any time you happen to bepassing. You are there pretty often: now, I suppose. "

"Why?"

"My friend Hégisippe Cruchot gave you an idea in Paris--about soldiers'feet. How is it developing?"

Sypher made a wry face. "I found, my dear Dix, it was like your guns oflarge caliber. " He rose and walked impatiently about the room. "Don't letus talk about the Cure, there's a dear fellow. I come down here to forgetit. "

"Forget it?"

Septimus stared at him in amazement. 

"Yes. To clear my mind and brain of it. To get a couple of nights' sleepafter the rest of the week's nightmare. The concern is going to hell asfast as it can, and"--he stopped in front of Septimus and brought down hishands in a passionate gesture--"I can't believe it. I can't believe it!What I'm going through God only knows. "

"I at least had no notion, " said Septimus. "And I've been worrying youwith my silly twaddle about babies and guns. "

"It's a godsend for me to hear of anything save ruin and the breaking up ofall that was dear to me in life. It's not like failure in an ordinarybusiness. It has been infinitely more than a business to me. It has been areligion. It is still. That's why my soul refuses to grasp facts andfigures. "

He went on, feeling a relief in pouring out his heart to one who couldunderstand. To no one had he thus spoken. With an expansive nature he hadthe strong man's pride. To the world in general he turned the conqueringface of Clem Sypher, the Friend of Humanity, of Sypher's Cure. To Septimusalone had he shown the man in his desperate revolt against defeat. Thelines around his mouth deepened into lines of pain, and pain lay behind hisclear eyes and in the knitting of his brows. 

"I believed the Almighty had put an instrument for the relief of humansuffering into my hands. I dreamed great dreams. I saw all the nations ofthe earth blessing me. I know I was a damned fool. So are you. So is everyvisionary. So are the apostles, the missionaries, the explorers--all whodream great dreams--all damned fools, but a glorious company all the same. I'm not ashamed to belong to it. But there comes a time when the apostlefinds himself preaching to the empty winds, and the explorer discovers hisEl Dorado to be a barren island, and he either goes mad or breaks hisheart, and which of the two I'm going to do I don't know. Perhaps both. "

"Zora Middlemist will be back soon, " said Septimus. "She is coming by theWhite Star line, and she ought to be in Marseilles by the end of nextweek. "

"She writes me that she may winter in Egypt. That is why she chose theWhite Star line, " said Sypher. 

"Have you told her what you've told me?"

"No, " said Sypher, "and I never shall while there's a hope left. She knowsit's a fight. But I tell her--as I have told my damned fool of a soul--thatI shall conquer. Would you like to go to her and say, 'I'm done--I'mbeaten'? Besides, I'm not. "

He turned and poked the fire, smashing a great lump of coal with a strokeof his muscular arm as if it had been the skull of the Jebusa Jones dragon. Septimus twirled his small mustache and his hand inevitably went to hishair. He had the scared look he always wore at moments when he was comingto a decision. 

"But you would like to see Zora, wouldn't you?" he asked. 

Sypher wheeled round, and the expression on his face was that of a prisonerin the Bastille who had been asked whether he would like a summer banquetbeneath the trees of Fontainebleau. 

"You know that very well, " said he. 

He laid down the poker and crossed the room to a chair. 

"I've often thought of what you said in Paris about her going away. Youwere quite right. You have a genius for saying and doing the simple rightthing. We almost began our friendship by your saying it. Do you remember?It was in Monte Carlo. You remember that you didn't like my looking on Mrs. Middlemist as an advertisement. Oh, you needn't look uncomfortable, my dearfellow. I loved you for it. In Paris you practically told me that Ioughtn't to regard her as a kind of fetich for the Cure, and claim herbodily presence. You also put before me the fact that there was no morereason for her to believe in the Cure than yourself or Hégisippe Cruchot. If you could tell me anything more, " said he earnestly, "I should valueit. "

What he expected to learn from Septimus he did not know. But once havingexalted him to inaccessible heights, the indomitable idealist was convincedthat from his lips would fall words of gentle Olympian wisdom. Septimus, blushing at his temerity in having pointed out the way to the man whom heregarded as the incarnation of force and energy, curled himself upawkwardly in his chair, clasping his ankles between his locked fingers. Atlast the oracle spoke. 

"If I were you, " he said, "before going mad or breaking my heart, I shouldwait until I saw Zora. "

"Very well. It will be a long time. Perhaps so much the better. I shallremain sane and heart-whole all the longer. "

 * * * * *

After dinner Sypher went round to "The Nook, " and executed his difficultmission as best he could. To carry out Septimus's wishes, which involvedthe vilification of the innocent and the beatification of the guilty, wentagainst his conscience. He omitted, therefore, reference to the demoniacrages which turned the home into an inferno, and to the quarrels over themachine for elongating the baby's nose. Their tempers were incompatible;they found a common life impossible; so, according to the wise modern viewof things, they had decided to live apart while maintaining cordialrelations. 

Mrs. Oldrieve was greatly distressed. Tears rolled down her cheeks on toher knitting. The old order was changing too rapidly for her and the newto which it was giving place seemed anarchy to her bewildered eyes. Sheheld up tremulous hands in protest. Husband and wife living apart socheerfully, for such trivial reasons! Even if one had suffered great wrongat the hands of the other it was their duty to remain side by side. "Thosewhom God had joined together--"

"He didn't, " snapped Cousin Jane. "They were joined together by a scrubbyman in a registry office. "

This is the wild and unjust way in which women talk. For aught Cousin Janeknew the Chelsea Registrar might have been an Antinous for beauty. 

Mrs. Oldrieve shook her head sadly. She had known how it would be. If onlythey had been married in church by their good vicar, this calamity couldnot have befallen them. 

"All the churches and all the vicars and all the archbishops couldn't havemade that man anything else than a doddering idiot! How Emmy could haveborne with him for a day passes my understanding. She has done well to getrid of him. She has made a mess of it, of course. People who marry in thatway generally do. It serves her right. "

So spoke Cousin Jane, whom Sypher found, in a sense, an unexpected ally. She made his task easier. Mrs. Oldrieve remained unconvinced. 

"And the baby just a month or so old. Poor little thing! What's to becomeof it?"

"Emmy will have to come here, " said Cousin Jane firmly, "and I'll bring itup. Emmy isn't fit to educate a rabbit. You had better write and order herto come home at once. "

"I'll write to-morrow, " sighed Mrs. Oldrieve. 

Sypher reflected on the impossibilities of the proposition and on thereasons Emmy still had for remaining in exile in Paris. He also pitied thechild that was to be brought up by Cousin Jane. It had extravagant tastes. He smiled. 

"My friend Dix is already thinking of sending him to the University; so yousee they have plans for his education. "

Cousin Jane sniffed. She would make plans for them! As for theUniversity--if it could turn out a doddering idiot like Septimus, it wascriminal to send any young man to such a seat of unlearning. She would notallow him to have a voice in the matter. Emmy was to be summoned toNunsmere. 

Sypher was about to deprecate the idea when he reflected again, and thoughtof Hotspur and the spirits from the vasty deep. Cousin Jane could call, andso could Mrs. Oldrieve. But would Emmy come? As the answer to the questionwas in the negative he left Cousin Jane to her comfortable resolutions. 

"You will no doubt discuss the matter with Dix, " he said. 

Cousin Jane threw up her hands. "Oh, for goodness' sake, don't let him comehere! I couldn't bear the sight of him. "

Sypher looked inquiringly at Mrs. Oldrieve. 

"It has been a great shock to me, " said the gentle lady. "It will take timeto get over it. Perhaps he had better wait a little. "

Sypher walked home in a wrathful mood. Ostracism was to be added toSeptimus's crown of martyrdom. 

Perhaps, on the other hand, the closing of "The Nook" doors wasadvantageous. He had dreaded the result of Cousin Jane'scross-examination, as lying was not one of his friend's conspicuousaccomplishments. Soothed by this reflection he smoked a pipe, and took downBunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress" from his shelves. 

While he was deriving spiritual entertainment from the great battle betweenChristian and Apollyon and consolation from the latter's discomfiture, Septimus was walking down the road to the post-office, a letter in hishand. The envelope was addressed to "Mrs. Middlemist, White Star Co. 's S. S. _Cedric_, Marseilles. " It contained a blank sheet of headed note-paper andthe tail of a little china dog. 

CHAPTER XVIII

As soon as a woman knows what she wants she generally gets it. Somephilosophers assert that her methods are circuitous; others, on the otherhand, maintain that she rides in a bee line toward the desired object, galloping ruthlessly over conventions, susceptibilities, hearts, and suchlike obstacles. All, however, agree that she is unscrupulous, that the wishof the woman is the politely insincere wish of the Deity, and that shepursues her course with a serene sureness unknown to man. It is when awoman does not know what she wants that she baffles the philosopher just asthe ant in her aimless discursiveness baffles the entomologist. Of course, if the philosopher has guessed her unformulated desire, then things areeasy for him, and he can discourse with certitude on feminine vagaries, asRattenden did on the journeyings of Zora Middlemist. He has the word of theenigma. But to the woman herself her state of mind is an exasperatingpuzzle, and to her friends, philosophic or otherwise, her consequentactions are disconcerting. 

Zora went to California, where she was hospitably entertained, and shownthe sights of several vast neighborhoods. She peeped into the Chinesequarter at San Francisco, and visited the Yosemite Valley. Attentive youngmen strewed her path with flowers and candy. Young women vowed her eternaldevotion. She came into touch with the intimate problems of the mostwonderful social organism the world has ever seen, and was confronted withstupendous works of nature and illimitable solitudes wherein the soulstands appalled. She also ate a great quantity of peaches. When her visitto the Callenders had come to an end she armed herself with introductionsand started off by herself to see America. She traveled across theContinent, beheld the majesty of Niagara and the bewildering life of NewYork. She went to Washington and Boston. In fact, she learned many thingsabout a great country which were very good for her to know, receivingimpressions with the alertness of a sympathetic intellect, and pigeonholingthem with feminine conscientiousness for future reference. 

It was all very pleasant, healthful, and instructive, but it no more helpedher in her quest than gazing at the jewelers' windows in the Rue de laPaix. Snow-capped Sierras and crowded tram-cars were equally unsuggestiveof a mission in life. In the rare moments which activity allowed her fordepression she began to wonder whether she was not chasing the phantom of awild goose. A damsel to whom in a moment of expansion she revealed theobject of her journeying exclaimed: "What other mission in life has a womanthan to spend money and look beautiful?"

Zora laughed incredulously. 

"You've accomplished half already, for you do look beautiful, " said thedamsel. "The other half is easy. "

"But if you haven't much money to spend?"

"Spend somebody else's. Lord! If I had your beauty I'd just walk down WallStreet and pick up a millionaire between my finger and thumb, and carry himoff right away. "

When Zora suggested that life perhaps might have some deeper significance, the maiden answered:

"Life is like the school child's idea of a parable--a heavenly story (ifyou've lots of money) with no earthly meaning. "

"Don't you ever go down beneath the surface of things?" asked Zora. 

"If you dig down far enough into the earth, " replied the damsel, "you cometo water. If you bore down deep enough into life you come to tears. Mydear, I'm going to dance on the surface and have a good time as long as Ican. And I guess you're doing the same. "

"I suppose I am, " said Zora. And she felt ashamed of herself. 

At Washington fate gave her an opportunity of attaining the other half ofthe damsel's idea. An elderly senator of enormous wealth proposed marriage, and offered her half a dozen motor-cars, a few palaces and most of the twohemispheres. She declined. 

"If I were young, would you marry me?"

Zora's beautiful shoulders gave the tiniest shrug of uncertainty. Perhapsher young friend was right, and the command of the earth was worth theslight penalty of a husband. She was tired and disheartened at findingherself no nearer to the heart of things than when she had left Nunsmere. Her attitude toward the once unspeakable sex had imperceptibly changed. Sheno longer blazed with indignation when a man made love to her. She evenfound it more agreeable than looking at cataracts or lunching withambassadors. Sometimes she wondered why. The senator she treated verytenderly. 

"I don't know. How can I tell?" she said a moment or two after the shrug. 

"My heart is young, " said he. 

Zora met his eyes for the millionth part of a second and turned her headaway, deeply sorry for him. The woman's instinctive look dealtinstantaneous death to his hopes. It was one more enactment of the tragedyof the bald head and the gray beard. He spoke with pathetic bitterness. Like Don Ruy Gomez da Silva in "Hernani, " he gave her to understand thatnow, when a young fellow passed him in the street, he would give up all hismotor-cars and all his colossal canned-salmon business for the youngfellow's raven hair and bright eyes. 

"Then you would love me. I could make you. "

"What is love, after all?" asked Zora. 

The elderly senator looked wistfully through the years over an infinitewelter of salmon-tins, seeing nothing else. 

"It's the meaning of life, " said he. "I've discovered it too late. "

He went away sorrowful, and Zora saw the vanity of great possessions. 

On the homeward steamer she had as a traveling companion a young Englishmanwhom she had met at Los Angeles, one Anthony Dasent, an engineer of somedistinction. He was bronzed and healthy and lithe-limbed. She liked himbecause he had brains and looked her squarely in the face. On the firstevening of the voyage a slight lurch of the vessel caused her to slip, andshe would have fallen had he not caught her by the arms. For the first timeshe realized how strong a man could be. It was a new sensation, notunpleasurable, and in thanking him she blushed. He remained with her ondeck, and talked of their California friends and the United States. Thenext day he established himself by her side, and discoursed on the sea andthe sky, human aspirations, the discomforts of his cabin, and a belief ineternal punishment. The day after that he told her of his ambitions, andshowed her photographs of his mother and sisters. After that they exchangedviews on the discipline of loneliness. His profession, he observed, tookhim to the waste places of the earth, where there was never a woman tocheer him, and when he came back to England he returned to a hearth equallyunconsoled. Zora began to pity his forlorn condition. To build strongbridges and lay down railroads was a glorious thing for a man to do; to doit without sweetheart or wife was nothing less than heroic. 

In the course of time he told her that she was the most beautiful woman hehad ever met. He expressed his admiration of the gold flecks in her browneyes and the gleams of gold in her hair when it was caught by the sun. Healso wished that his sisters could have their skirts cut like hers andcould learn the art of tying a veil over a hat. Then he took to scowling oninoffensive young men who fetched her wraps and lent her their binoculars. He declared one of them to be an unmitigated ass to throw whom overboardwould be to insult the Atlantic. And then Zora recognized that he wasstolidly in love with her after the manner of his stolid kind. She feltfrightened, and accused herself of coquetry. Her sympathy with his barrenexistence had perhaps overstepped the boundaries of polite interest. Shehad raised false hopes in a young and ingenuous bosom. She worked herselfup to a virtuous pitch of self-reprobation and flagellated herself soundly, taking the precaution, however, of wadding the knots of the scourge withcotton-wool. After all, was it her fault that a wholesome young Britonshould fall in love with her? She remembered Rattenden's uncomfortablewords on the eve of her first pilgrimage: "Beautiful women like yourself, radiating feminine magnetism, worry a man exceedingly. You don't let him goabout in peace, so why should he let you?"

So Zora came face to face with the eternal battle of the sexes. She stampedher foot in the privacy of her cabin, and declared the principle to behorrid and primeval and everything that was most revolting to a woman whohad earnestly set forth to discover the highest things of life. For theremainder of the voyage she avoided Anthony Dasent's company as much aspossible, and, lest he should add jealousy to the gloom in which heenveloped himself, sought unexciting joys in the society of a one-eyedgeologist who discoursed playfully on the foraminifera of the Pacificslope. 

One day Dasent came on her alone, and burst out wrathfully:

"Why are you treating me like this?"

"Like what?"

"You are making a fool of me. I'm not going to stand it. "

Then she realized that when the average man does not get what he wantsexactly when he wants it he loses his temper. She soothed him according tothe better instincts of her sex, but resolved to play no more withelementary young Britons. One-eyed geologists were safer companions. Theformer pitched their hearts into her lap; the latter, like Pawkins, thegeologist of the Pacific slope, gave her boxes of fossils. She preferredthe fossils. You could do what you liked with them: throw them overboardwhen the donor was not looking, or leave them behind in a railway carriage, or take them home and present them to the vicar who collected butterflies, beetles, ammonites, and tobacco stoppers. But an odd assortment of heartsto a woman who does not want them is really a confounded nuisance. Zora wasvery much relieved when Dasent, after eating an enormous breakfast, badeher a tragic farewell at Gibraltar. 

 * * * * *

It was a cloudless afternoon when she steamed into Marseilles. The barrenrock islands on the east rose blue-gray from a blue sea. To the west laythe Isles of Frioul and the island of the Château d'If, with its prisonlying grim and long on the crest; in front the busy port, the white noblecity crowned by the church of Notre Dame de la Garde standing sentinelagainst the clear sky. 

Zora stood on the crowded deck watching the scene, touched as she alwayswas by natural beauty, but sad at heart. Marseilles, within four-and-twentyhours of London, meant home. Although she intended to continue herwanderings to Naples and Alexandria, she felt that she had come to the endof her journey. It had been as profitless as the last. Pawkins, by herside, pointed out the geological feature of the rocks. She listenedvaguely, and wondered whether she was to bring him home tied to her chariotas she had brought Septimus Dix and Clem Sypher. The thought of Sypher drewher heart to Marseilles. 

"I wish I were landing here like you, and going straight home, " she said, interrupting the flow of scientific information. "I've already been toNaples, and I shall find nothing I want at Alexandria. "

"Geologically, it's not very interesting, " said Pawkins. "I'm afraidprehistoric antiquity doesn't make my pulses beat faster. "

"That's the advantage of it. "

"One might just as well be a fossil oneself. "

"Much better, " said Pawkins, who had read Schopenhauer. 

"You are not exhilarating to a depressed woman, " said Zora with a laugh. 

"I am sorry, " he replied stiffly. "I was trying to entertain you. "

He regarded her severely out of his one eye and edged away, as if herepented having wasted his time over so futile an organism as a woman. Buther feminine magnetism drew him back. 

"I'm rather glad you are going on to Alexandria, " he remarked in a tone ofdispleasure, and before she could reply he marched off to look after hisluggage. 

Zora's eyes followed him until he disappeared, then she shrugged hershoulders. Apparently one-eyed geologists were as unsafe as elementaryyoung Britons and opulent senators. She felt unfairly treated byProvidence. It was maddening to realize herself as of no use in theuniverse except to attract the attention of the opposite sex. She clenchedher hands in impotent anger. There was no mission on earth which she couldfulfil. She thought enviously of Cousin Jane. 

The steamer entered the harbor; the passengers for Marseilles landed, andthe mail was brought aboard. There was only one letter for Mrs. Middlemist. It bore the Nunsmere postmark. She opened it and found the tail of thelittle china dog. 

She looked at it for a moment wonderingly as it lay absurdly curled in thepalm of her hand, and then she burst into tears. The thing was sogrotesquely trivial. It meant so much. It was a sign and a token falling, as it were, from the sky into the midst of her despairing mood, rebukingher, summoning her, declaring an unknown mission which she was bound toexecute. It lay in her hand like a bit of destiny, inexorable, unquestionable, silently compelling her forthwith to the human soul thatstood in great need of her. Fate had granted the wish she had expressed tothe one-eyed geologist. She landed at Marseilles, and sped homeward by thenight train, her heart torn with anxiety for Septimus. 

All night long the rhythmic clatter of the train shaped itself into theburden of her words to him: "If ever you want me badly, send me the tail, and I'll come to you from any distance. " She had spoken then halfjestingly, all tenderly. That evening she had loved him "in a sort of way, "and now that he had sent for her, the love returned. The vivid experiencesof the past months which had blinded her to the quieter light of home fadedaway into darkness. Septimus in urgent need, Emmy and Clem Sypher filledher thoughts. She felt thankful that Sypher, strong and self-reliant, wasthere to be her ally, should her course with Septimus be difficult. Betweenthem they could surely rescue the ineffectual being from whatever dangersassailed him. But what could they be? The question racked her. Did itconcern Emmy? A child, she knew, had just been born. A chill fear crept onher lest some tragedy had occurred through Septimus's folly. From him anyoutrageous senselessness might be expected, and Emmy herself was scarcelyless irresponsible than her babe. She reproached herself for havingsuggested his marriage with Emmy. Perhaps in his vacant way he had actedentirely on her prompting. The marriage was wrong. Two helpless childrenshould never have taken on themselves the graver duties of life towardeach other and, future generations. 

If it were a case in which a man's aid were necessary, there stood Sypher, a great pillar of comfort. Unconsciously she compared him with the man withwhom she had come in contact during her travels--and she had met many ofgreat charm and strength and knowledge. For some strange reason which shecould not analyze, he towered above them all, though in each separatequality of character others whom she could name surpassed him far. She knewhis faults, and in her lofty way smiled at them. Her character as goddessor guardian angel or fairy patroness of the Cure she had assumed with thegraciousness of a grown-up lady playing charades at a children's party. Hisoccasional lapses from the traditions of her class jarred on her finesusceptibilities. Yet there, in spite of all, he stood rooted in her life, a fact, a puzzle, a pride and a consolation. The other men paled intounimportant ghosts before him, and strayed shadowy through the limbo of hermind. Till now she had not realized it. Septimus, however, had always dweltin her heart like a stray dog whom she had rescued from vagrancy. He didnot count as a man. Sypher did. Thus during the long, tedious hours of thejourney home the two were curiously mingled in her anxious conjectures, andshe had no doubt that Sypher and herself, the strong and masterful, wouldcome to the deliverance of the weak. 

 * * * * *

Septimus, who had received a telegram from Marseilles, waited for her trainat Victoria. In order to insure being in time he had arrived a couple ofhours too soon, and patiently wandered about the station. Now and then hestopped before the engines of trains at rest, fascinated, as he alwayswas, by perfect mechanism. A driver, dismounting from the cab, and seeinghim lost in admiration of the engine, passed him a civil word, to whichSeptimus, always courteous, replied. They talked further. 

"I see you're an engineer, sir, " said the driver, who found himself inconversation with an appreciative expert. 

"My father was, " said Septimus. "But I could never get up in time for myexaminations. Examinations seem so silly. Why should you tell a set of menwhat they know already?"

The grimy driver expressed the opinion that examinations were necessary. Hewho spoke had passed them. 

"I suppose you can get up at any time, " Septimus remarked enviously. "Somebody ought to invent a machine for those who can't. "

"You only want an alarm-clock, " said the driver. 

Septimus shook his head. "They're no good. I tried one once, but it madesuch a dreadful noise that I threw a boot at it. "

"Did that stop it?"

"No, " murmured Septimus. "The boot hit another clock on the mantelpiece, aLouis Quinze clock, and spoiled it. I did get up, but I found the methodtoo expensive, so I never tried it again. "

The engine of an outgoing train blew off steam, and the resounding dindeafened the station. Septimus held his hands to his ears. The drivergrinned. 

"I can't stand that noise, " Septimus explained when it was over. "Once Itried to work out an invention for modifying it. It was a kind ofcombination between a gramaphone and an orchestrion. You stuck it insidesomewhere, and instead of the awful screech a piece of music would comeout of the funnel. In fact, it might have gone on playing all the time thetrain was in motion. It would have been so cheery for the drivers, wouldn'tit?"

The unimaginative mechanic whose wits were scattered by this fantasticproposition used his bit of cotton waste as a handkerchief, and remarkedwith vague politeness that it was a pity the gentleman was not an engineer. But Septimus deprecated the compliment. He looked wistfully up at thegirders of the glass roof and spoke in his gentle, tired voice. 

"You see, " he concluded, "if I had been in practice as an engineer I shouldnever have designed machinery in the orthodox way. I should have always putin little things of my own--and then God knows what would have happened. "

He brought his eyes to earth with a wan smile, but his companion hadvanished. A crowd had filled the suburban platform at the end of which hestood, and in a few moments the train clattered off. Then, remembering thathe was hungry, he went to the refreshment-room, where, at the suggestion ofthe barmaid, he regaled himself on two hard-boiled eggs and a glass ofsherry. The meal over, he loitered palely about the busy station, jostledby frantic gentlemen in silk hats rushing to catch suburban trains, andwatched grimly by a policeman who suspected a pocket-picking soul beneathhis guileless exterior. 

At last, by especial grace of heaven, he found himself on the platformwhere the custom-house barrier and the long line of waiting portersheralded the approach of the continental train. Now that only a few momentsseparated him from Zora, his heart grew cold with suspense. He had not seenher since the night of Emmy's fainting fit. Her letters, though kind, hadmade clear to him her royal displeasure at his unceremonious marriage. Forthe first time he would look into her gold-flecked eyes out of adisingenuous soul. Would she surprise his guilty secret? It was the onlything he feared in a bewildering world. 

The train came in, and as her carriage flashed by Zora saw him on theplatform with his hat off, passing his fingers nervously through hisStruwel Peter hair. The touch of the familiar welcoming her broughtmoisture to her eyes. As soon as the train stopped she alighted, andleaving Turner (who had accompanied her on the pilgrimage, and from Doverhad breathed fervent thanks to Heaven that at last she was back in the landof her fathers) to look after her luggage, she walked down the platform tomeet him. 

He was just asking a porter at frantic grapple with the hand baggage of alarge family whether he had seen a tall and extraordinarily beautiful ladyin the train, when she came up to him with outstretched hands and beamingeyes. He took the hands and looked long at her, unable to speak. Never hadshe appeared to him more beautiful, more gracious. The royal waves of herhair beneath a fur traveling-toque invested her with queenliness. The fullyouth of her figure not hidden by a fur jacket brought to him the generouswoman. A bunch of violets at her bosom suggested the fragrant essence ofher. 

"Oh, it's good to see you, Septimus. It's good!" she cried. "The sight ofyou makes me feel as if nothing mattered in the world except the people onecares for. How are you?"

"I'm very well indeed, " said Septimus. "Full of inventions. "

She laughed and guided him up the platform through the cross-traffic ofporters carrying luggage from train to cabs. 

"Is mother all right?" she asked anxiously. 

"Oh, yes, " said Septimus. 

"And Emmy and the baby?"

"Remarkably well. Emmy has had him christened. I wanted him to be calledafter you. Zoroaster was the only man's name I could think of, but she didnot like it, and so she called it Octavius after me. Also Oldrieve afterthe family, and William. "

"Why William?"

"After Pitt, " said Septimus in the tone of a man who gives the obviousanswer. 

She halted for a moment, perplexed. 

"Pitt?"

"Yes; the great statesman. He's going to be a member of Parliament, youknow. "

"Oh, " said Zora, moving slowly on. 

"His mother says it's after the lame donkey on the common. We used to callit William. He hasn't changed a bit since you left. "

"So the baby's full name is--" said Zora, ignoring the donkey. 

"William Octavius Oldrieve Dix. It's so helpful to a child to have a goodname. "

"I long to see him, " said Zora. 

"He's in Paris just now. "

"Paris?" she echoed. 

"Oh, he's not by himself, you know, " Septimus hastened to reassure her, lest she might think that the babe was alone among the temptations anddissipations of the gay city. "His mother's there, too. "

She shook him by the coat-sleeve. 

"What an exasperating thing you are! Why didn't you tell me? I could havebroken my journey or at least asked them to meet me at the Gare du Nord. But why aren't they in England?"

"I didn't bring them with me. "

She laughed again at his tone, suspecting nothing. 

"You speak as if you had accidentally left them behind, like umbrellas. Didyou?"

Turner came up, attended by a porter with the hand baggage. 

"Are you going on to Nunsmere to-night, ma'am?"

"Why should you?" asked Septimus. 

"I had intended to do so. But if mother is quite well, and Emmy and thebaby are in Paris, and you yourself are here, I don't quite see thenecessity. "

"It would be much nicer if you remained in London, " said he. 

"Very well, " said Zora, "we shall. We can put up at the Grosvenor Hotelhere for the night. Where are you staying?"

Septimus murmured the name of his sedate club, where his dissolute morningappearance was still remembered against him. 

"Go and change and come back and dine with me in an hour's time. "

He obeyed the command with his usual meekness, and Zora followed the porterthrough the subway to the hotel. 

"We haven't dined together like this, " she said, unfolding her napkin anhour afterwards, "since Monte Carlo. Then it was hopelessly unconventional. Now we can dine in the strictest propriety. Do you understand that you'remy brother-in-law?"

She laughed, radiant, curiously happy at being with him. She realized, witha little shock of discovery, the restfulness that was the essential qualityof his companionship. He was a quiet haven after stormy seas; herepresented something intimate and tender in her life. 

They spoke for a while of common things: her train journey, the crossing, the wonders she had seen. He murmured incoherent sketches of his life inParis, the new gun, and Hégisippe Cruchot. But of the reason for hissummons he said nothing. At last she leaned across the table and saidgently:

"Why am I here, Septimus? You haven't told me. "

"Haven't I?"

"No. You see, the little dog's tail brought me post-haste to you, but itgave me no inkling why you wanted me so badly. "

He looked at her in his scared manner. 

"Oh, I don't want you at all; at least, I do--most tremendously--but notfor myself. "

"For whom, then?"

"Clem Sypher, " said Septimus. 

She paled slightly, and looked down at her plate and crumbled bread. For along time she did not speak. The announcement did not surprise her. In aninexplicable way it seemed natural. Septimus and Sypher had shared herthoughts so oddly during her journey. An unaccountable shyness had checkedher impulse to inquire after his welfare. Indeed, now that the name wasspoken she could scarcely believe that she had not expected to hear it. 

"What is the matter?" she asked at length. 

"The Cure has failed. "

"Failed?"

She looked up at him half incredulously. The very last letter she hadreceived from Sypher had been full of the lust of battle. Septimus noddedgloomily. 

"It was only a silly patent ointment like a hundred others, but it wasSypher's religion. Now his gods have gone, and he's lost. It's not good fora man to have no gods. I didn't have any once, and the devils came in. Theydrove me to try haschisch. But it must have been very bad haschisch, for itmade me sick, and so I was saved. "

"What made you send for me so urgently? The dog's tail--you knew I had tocome. "

"Sypher wanted you--to give him some new gods. "

"He could have sent for me himself. Why did he ask you?"

"He didn't, " cried Septimus. "He doesn't know anything about it. He hasn'tthe faintest idea that you're in London to-night. Was I wrong in bringingyou back?"

To Zora the incomprehensible aspect of the situation was her own attitude. She did not know whether Septimus was wrong or not. She told herself thatshe ought to resent the summons which had caused her such needless anxietyas to his welfare, but she could feel no resentment. Sypher had failed. Themighty had fallen. She pictured a broken-hearted man, and her own heartached for him. 

"You did right, Septimus, " she said very gently. "But of what use can I beto him?"

Septimus said: "He's the one to tell you that. "

"But do you think he knows? He didn't before. He wanted me to stay as akind of Mascotte for the Cure--simply sit still while he drew influenceout of me or something. It was absurd. "

It was on this occasion that Septimus made his one contribution topessimistic philosophy. 

"When you analyze anything in life, " said he, "don't you think that youalways come down to a _reductio ad absurdum?_"

CHAPTER XIX

"I'm very sorry to leave you, Mr. Sypher, " said Shuttleworth, "but my firstduty is to my wife and family. "

Clem Sypher leaned back in his chair behind his great office desk andlooked at his melancholy manager with the eyes of a general whose officersrefuse the madness of a forlorn hope. 

"Quite so, " he said tonelessly. "When do you want to go?"

"You engaged me on a three-months' notice, but--"

"But you want to go now?"

"I have a very brilliant position offered me if I can take it up in afortnight. "

"Very well, " said Sypher. 

"You won't say it's a case of rats deserting a sinking ship, will you, sir?As I say, my wife and family--"

"The ship's sinking. You're quite right to leave it. Is the positionoffered you in the same line of business?"

"Yes, " said Shuttleworth, unable to meet his chief's clear, unsmiling eyes. 

"One of the rival firms?"

Shuttleworth nodded, then broke out into mournful asseverations of loyalty. Tithe Cure had flourished he would have stayed with Mr. Sypher till the dayof his death. He would have refused the brilliant offer. But in thecircumstances--"

"_Sauve qui peut, _" said Sypher. "Another month or two and Sypher's Curebecomes a thing of the past. Nothing can pull it through. I was toosanguine. I wish I had taken your advice oftener, Shuttleworth. "

Shuttleworth thanked him for the compliment. 

"One learns by experience, " said he modestly. "I was born and bred in thepatent-medicine business. It's very risky. You start a thing. It catches onfor a while. Then something else more attractive comes on the market. There's a war of advertising, and the bigger capital wins. The wise mangets out of it just before the rival comes. If you had taken my advice fiveyears ago, and turned it into a company, you'd have been a rich man now, without a care in the world. Next time you will. "

"There'll be no next time, " said Sypher gravely. 

"Why not? There's always money in patent medicines. For instance, in a newcure for obesity if properly worked. A man like you can always get themoney together. "

"And the cure for obesity?"

Shuttleworth's dismal face contracted into the grimace which passed withhim for a smile. 

"Any old thing will do, so long as it doesn't poison people. "

Uncomfortable under his chief's silent scrutiny, he took off hisspectacles, breathed on them, and wiped them with his handkerchief. 

"The public will buy anything, if you advertise it enough. "

"I suppose they will, " said Sypher. "Even Jebusa Jones's Cuticle Remedy. "

Shuttleworth started and put on his spectacles. 

"Why shouldn't they buy the Remedy, after all?"

"You ask me that?" said Sypher. All through the interview he had notshifted his position. He sat fixed like a florid ghost. 

The manager shuffled uneasily in his chair beside the desk, and clearedhis throat nervously. 

"I'm bound to, " said he, "in self-defense. I know what you think of theCure--but that's a matter of sentiment. I've been into the thing prettythoroughly, and I know that there's scarcely any difference in thecomposition of the Remedy and the Cure. After all, any protecting greasethat keeps the microbes in the air out of the sore place does just aswell--sometimes better. There's nothing in patent ointment that reallycures. Now is there?"

"Are you going to the Jebusa Jones people?" asked Sypher. 

"I have my wife and family, " the manager pleaded. "I couldn't refuse. They've offered me the position of their London agent. I know it must painyou, " he added hurriedly, "but what could I do?"

"Every man for himself and the devil take the hindmost. So you will give mewhat they used to call my _coup de grâce_. You'll just stab me dead as Ilie dying. Well, in a fortnight's time you can go. "

The other rose. "Thank you very much, Mr. Sypher. You have always treatedme generously, and I'm more than sorry to leave you. You bear me no illwill?"

"For going from one quack remedy to another? Certainly not. "

It was only when the door closed behind the manager that Sypher relaxed hisattitude. He put both hands up to his face, and then fell forward on to thedesk, his head on his arms. 

The end had come. To that which mattered in the man, the lingering faithyet struggling in the throes of dissolution, Shuttleworth had indeed giventhe _coup de grâce_. That he had joined the arch-enemy who in a short timewould achieve his material destruction signified little. When somethingspiritual is being done to death, the body and mind are torpid. Even amonth ago, had Shuttleworth uttered such blasphemy within those walls ClemSypher would have arisen in his wrath like a mad crusader and have cloventhe blasphemer from skull to chine. To-day, he had sat motionless, petrified, scarcely able to feel. He knew that the man spoke truth. As wellput any noxious concoction of drugs on the market and call it a specificagainst obesity or gravel or deafness as Sypher's Cure. Between theheaven-sent panacea which was to cleanse the skin of the nations and sendhis name ringing down the centuries as the Friend of Humanity and theshiveringly vulgar Jebusa Jones's Cuticle Remedy there was not an atom ofimportant difference. One was as useful or as useless as the other. TheCure was pale green; the Remedy rose pink. Women liked the latter best onaccount of its color. Both were quack medicaments. 

He raised a drawn and agonized face and looked around the familiar room, where so many gigantic schemes had been laid, where so many hopes had shoneradiant, and saw for the first time its blatant self-complacency, itspiteous vulgarity. Facing him was the artist's original cartoon for thegreat poster which once had been famous all over the world, and now, forlack of money, only lingered in shreds on a forgotten hoarding in some Backof Beyond. It represented the Friend of Humanity, in gesture, white beard, and general appearance resembling a benevolent minor prophet, distributingthe Cure to a scrofulous universe. In those glorified days, he had strivento have his own lineaments depicted above the robe of the central figure, but the artist had declared them to be unpictorial, and clung to themajesty of the gentleman in the white beard. Around the latter's feet weregathered a motley crew--the fine lady in her ball dress, the shoeblack, thecrowned king, the red Indian in Fenimore Cooper feathers, the half-nakednegro, the wasted, ragged mother with her babe, the jockey, the Syrianleper, and a score of other types of humans, including in the background ahairy-faced creature, the "dog-faced man" of Barnum's show. They were wellgrouped, effective, making the direct appeal to an Anglo-Saxon populace, which in its art must have something to catch hold of, like the tannin inits overdrawn tea. It loved to stand before this poster and pick out theeasily recognized characters and argue (as Sypher, whose genius hadsuggested the inclusion of the freak had intended) what the hairy creaturecould represent, and, as it stood and picked and argued, the great fact ofSypher's Cure sank deep into their souls. He remembered the glowing pridewith which he had regarded this achievement, the triumphal progress he madein a motor-car around the London hoardings the day after the poster hadbeen pasted abroad. And now he knew it in his heart to be nothing but atawdry, commercial lie. 

Framed in oak on his walls hung kindly notes relating to the Cure fromgreat personages or their secretaries. At the bottom of one ran thesprawling signature of the Grand Duke who had hailed him as "_ce bonSypher_" at the Gare de Lyon when he started on the disastrous adventure ofthe blistered heel. There was the neatly docketed set of pigeonholescontaining the proofs of all the advertisements he had issued. Lying beforehim on his desk was a copy, resplendently bound in morocco for his owngratification, of the forty-page, thin-paper pamphlet which was wrapped, amiracle of fine folding, about each packet of the Cure. On each page thedirections for use were given in a separate language. French, Fijian, Syrian, Basque were there--forty languages--so that all the sons of mencould read the good tidings and amuse themselves at the same time by tryingto decipher the message in alien tongues. 

Wherever he looked, some mockery of vain triumph met his eye: anenlargement of a snapshot photograph of the arrival of the first case ofthe Cure on the shores of Lake Tchad; photographs of the busy factory, nowworked by a dwindling staff; proofs of full-page advertisements in which"Sypher's Cure" and "Friend of Humanity" figured in large capitals; themodel of Edinburgh Castle, built by a grateful inmate of a lunatic asylumout of the red celluloid boxes of the Cure. 

He shuddered at all these symbols and images of false gods, and bowed hishead again on his arms. The abyss swallowed him. The waters closed over hishead. 

How long he remained like this he did not know. He had forbidden his door. The busy life of the office stood still. The dull roar of Moorgate Streetwas faintly heard, and now and then the windows vibrated faintly. Thesprawling, gilt, mid-Victorian clock on the mantelpiece had stopped. 

Presently an unusual rustle in the room caused him to raise his head with astart. Zora Middlemist stood before him. He sprang to his feet. 

"You? You?"

"They wouldn't let me in. I forced my way. I said I must see you. "

He stared at her, open-mouthed. A shivering thrill passed through him, such as shakes a man on the verge of a great discovery. 

"You, Zora? You have come to me at this moment?"

He looked so strange and staring, so haggard and disheveled, that she movedquickly to him and laid both her hands on his. 

"My dear friend, my dearest friend, is it as bad as that?"

A throb of pain underlay the commonplace words. The anguish on his facestirred the best and most womanly in her. She yearned to comfort him. Buthe drew a pace or two away, and held up both hands as if warding her off, and stared at her still, but with a new light in his clear eyes that drankin her beauty and the sorcery of her presence. 

"My God!" he cried, in a strained voice. "My God! What a fool I've been!"

He swerved as if he had received a blow and sank into his office chair, andturned his eyes from her to the ground, and sat stunned with joy and wonderand misery. He put out a hand blindly, and she took it, standing by hisside. He knew now what he wanted. He wanted her, the woman. He wanted hervoice in his ears, her kiss on his lips, her dear self in his arms. Hewanted her welcome as he entered his house, her heart, her soul, her mind, her body, everything that was hers. He loved her for herself, passionately, overwhelmingly, after the simple way of men. He had raised his eyes fromthe deeps of hell, and in a flash she was revealed to him--incarnateheaven. 

He felt the touch of her gloved hand on his, and it sent a thrill throughhis veins which almost hurt, as the newly coursing blood hurts the man thathas been revived from torpor. The mistiness that serves a strong man fortears clouded his sight. He had longed for her; she had come. From theirfirst meeting he had recognized, with the visionary's glimpse of thespiritual, that she was the woman of women appointed unto him for help andcomfort. But then the visionary had eclipsed the man. Destiny had naught todo with him but as the instrument for the universal spreading of the Cure. The Cure was his life. The woman appointed unto him was appointed unto theCure equally with himself. He had violently credited her with his insanefaith. He had craved her presence as a mystical influence that in some waywould paralyze the Jebusa Jones Dragon and give him supernatural strengthto fight. He had striven with all his power to keep her radiant like astar, while his own faith lay dying. 

He had been a fool. All the time it was the sheer woman that had held him, the sheer man. And yet had not destiny fulfilled itself with a splendidirony in sending her to him then, in that moment of his utter anguish, ofthe utter annihilation of the fantastic faith whereby he had lived foryears? From the first he had been right, though with a magnificent lunacy. It was she, in very truth, who had been destined to slay his dragon. It wasdead now, a vulgar, slimy monster, incapable of hurt, slain by thelightning flash of love, when his eyes met hers, a moment or two ago. In aconfused way he realized this. He repeated mechanically:

"What a fool I've been! What a fool I've been!"

"Why?" asked Zora, who did not understand. 

"Because--" he began, and then he stopped, finding no words. "I wonderwhether God sent you?"

"I'm afraid it was only Septimus, " she said with a smile. 

"Septimus?"

He was startled. What could Septimus have to do with her coming? He roseagain, and focusing his whirling senses on conventional things, wheeled anarmchair to the fire, and led her to it, and took his seat near her in hisoffice chair. 

"Forgive me, " he said, "but your coming seemed supernatural. I was dazed bythe wonderful sight of you. Perhaps it's not you, after all. I may be goingmad and have hallucinations. Tell me that it's really you. "

"It's me, in flesh and blood--you can touch for yourself--and my suddenappearance is the simplest thing in the world. "

"But I thought you were going to winter in Egypt?"

"So did I, until I reached Marseilles. This is how it was. "

She told him of the tail of the little china dog, and of her talk withSeptimus the night before. 

"So I came to you, " she concluded, "as soon as I decently could, thismorning. "

"And I owe you to Septimus, " he said. 

"Ah, I know! You ought to have owed me to yourself, " she cried, misunderstanding him. "If I had known things were so terrible with you Iwould have come. I would, really. But I was misled by your letters. Theywere so hopeful. Don't reproach me. "

"Reproach you! You who have given this crazy fellow so much! You who cometo me all sweetness and graciousness, with heaven in your eyes, afterhaving been dragged across Europe and made to sacrifice your winter ofsunshine, just for my sake! Ah, no! It's myself that I reproach. "

"For what?" she asked. 

"For being a fool, a crazy, blatant, self-centered fool My God!" heexclaimed, smiting the arm of his chair as a new view of things suddenlyoccurred to him. "How can you sit there--how have you suffered me these twoyears--without despising me? How is it that I haven't been the mock andbyword of Europe? I must have been!"

He rose and walked about the room in great agitation. 

"These things have all come crowding up together. One can't realizeeverything at once. 'Clem Sypher, Friend of Humanity!' How they must havejeered behind my back if they thought me sincere! How they must havedespised me if they thought me nothing but an advertising quack! ZoraMiddlemist, for heaven's sake tell me what you have thought of me. Whathave you taken me for--a madman or a charlatan?"

"It is you that must tell me what has happened, " said Zora earnestly. "Idon't know. Septimus gave me to understand that the Cure had failed. He'snever clear about anything in his own mind, and he's worse when he tries toexplain it to others. "

"Septimus, " said Sypher, "is one of the children of God. "

"But he's a little bit incoherent on earth, " she rejoined, with a smile. "What has really happened?"

Sypher drew a long breath and pulled himself up. 

"I'm on the verge of a collapse. The Cure hasn't paid for the last twoyears. I hoped against hope. I flung thousands and thousands into theconcern. The Jebusa Jones people and others out-advertised me, out-manoeuvered me at every turn. Now every bit of capital is gone, and Ican't raise any more. I must go under. "

Zora began, "I have a fairly large fortune--"

He checked her with a gesture, and looked at her clear and full. 

"God bless you, " he said. "My heart didn't lie to me at Monte Carlo when ittold me that you were a great-souled woman. Tell me. Have you ever believedin the Cure in the sense that I believed in it?"

Zora returned his gaze. Here was no rhodomontading. The man was grapplingwith realities. 

"No, " she replied simply. 

"Neither do I any longer, " said Sypher. "There is no difference between itand any quack ointment you can buy at the first chemist's shop. That iswhy, even if I saw a chance of putting the concern on its legs again, Icouldn't use your money. That is why I asked you, just now, what you havethought of me--a madman or a quack?"

"Doesn't the mere fact of my being here show you what I thought of you?"

"Forgive me, " he said. "It's wrong to ask you such questions. "

"It's worse than wrong. It's unnecessary. "

He passed his hands over his eyes, and sat down. 

"I've gone through a lot to-day. I'm not quite myself, so you must forgiveme if I say unnecessary things. God sent you to me this morning. Septimuswas His messenger. If you hadn't appeared just now I think I should havegone into black madness. "

"Tell me all about it, " she said softly. "All that you care to tell. I amyour nearest friend--I think. "

"And dearest. "

"And you are mine. You and Septimus. I've seen hundreds of people sinceI've been away, and some seem to have cared for me--but there's no onereally in my life but you two. "

Sypher thought: "And we both love you with all there is in us, and youdon't know it. " He also thought jealously: "Who are the people that havecared for you?"

He said: "No one?"

A smile parted her lips as she looked him frankly in the eyes and repeatedthe negative. He breathed a sigh of relief, for he had rememberedRattenden's prophecy of the big man whom she was seeking, of the love forthe big man, the gorgeous tropical sunshine in which all the splendor inher could develop. She had not found him. From the depths of his man'segotism he uttered a prayer of thanksgiving. 

"Tell me, " she said again. 

"Do you remember my letter from Paris in the summer?"

"Yes. You had a great scheme for the armies of the world. "

"That was the beginning, " said he, and then he told her all the grotesquestory to the end, from the episode of the blistered heel. He told herthings that he had never told himself; things that startled him when hefound them expressed in words. 

"In Russia, " said he, "every house has its sacred pictures, even thepoorest peasant's hut. They call them ikons. These, " waving to the walls, "were my ikons. What do you think of them?"

For the first time Zora became aware of the furniture and decoration of theroom. The cartoon, the advertisement proofs, the model of Edinburgh Castle, produced on her the same effect as the famous board in the garden at FentonCourt. Then, however, she could argue with him on the question of taste, and lay down laws as the arbiter of the elegancies of conduct. Now heviewed the sorry images with her own eyes, and he had gone through fire toattain this clearness of vision. What could be said? Zora the magnificentand self-reliant found not a word, though her heart was filled with pity. She was brought face to face with a ridiculous soul-tragedy, remote fromher poor little experience of life. It was no time to act the beneficentgoddess. She became self-conscious, fearful to speak lest she might strikea wrong note of sympathy. She wanted to give the man so much, and she couldgive him so little. 

"I'm dying to help you, " she said, rather piteously. "But how can I?"

"Zora, " he said huskily. 

She glanced up at him and he held her eyes with his, and she saw how shecould help him. 

"No, don't--don't. I can't bear it. "

She rose and turned away. "Don't let us change things. They were so sweetbefore. They were so strange--your wanting me as a sort of priestess--Iused to laugh--but I loved it all the time. "

"That's why I said I've been a fool, Zora. "

The bell of the telephone connected with his manager's office rangjarringly. He seized the transmitter in anger. 

"How dare you ring me up when I gave orders I was to be undisturbed? Idon't care who wants to see me. I'll see nobody. "

He threw down the transmitter. "I'm very sorry, " he began. Then he stopped. The commonplace summons from the outer world brought with dismayingsuddenness to his mind the practical affairs of life. He was a ruined man. The thought staggered him. How could he say to Zora Middlemist: "I am abeggar. I want to marry you"?

She came to him with both hands outstretched, her instinctive gesture whenher heart went out, and used his Christian name for the first time. 

"Clem, let us be friends--good friends--true, dear friends, but don't spoilit all for me. "

When a woman, infinitely desired, pleads like that with glorious eyes, andher fragrance and her dearness are within arm's length, a man has but tocatch her to him and silence her pleadings with a man's strength, and carryher off in triumph. It has been the way of man with woman since the worldbegan, and Sypher knew it by his man's instinct. It was a temptation suchas he had never dreamed was in the world. He passed through a flaming, blazing torment of battle. 

"Forget what I have said, Zora. We'll be friends, if you so wish it. "

He pressed her hands and turned away. Zora felt that she had gained anempty victory. 

"I ought to be going, " she said. 

"Not yet. Let us sit down and talk like friends. It's many weary monthssince I have seen you. "

She remained a little longer and they talked quietly of many things. Onbidding her good-by he said half playfully:

"I've often wondered why you have taken up with a fellow like me. "

"I suppose it's because you're a big man, " said Zora. 

CHAPTER XX

Septimus walked back to his club after his dinner with Zora, blessing hisstars for two reasons: first, because a gracious providence had restoredhim to favor in his goddess's sight, and, secondly, because he had escapedwithout telling her of the sundered lives of Emmy and himself. By the timehe went to bed, however, having pondered for some hours over theinterdependent relations between Zora, Sypher, Emmy, and himself, he hadentangled his mind into a condition of intricate complication. He longed tocontinue to sun himself in the presence of his divinity. But being amarried man (no matter how nominally), too much sunning appearedreprehensible. He had also arranged for the sunning of Clem Sypher, and wasaware of the indelicacy of two going through this delicious process at thesame time. He also dreaded the possible incredulity of Zora when he shouldurge the ferociousness of his domestic demeanor as the reason for hisliving apart from his wife. The consequence was that after a sleeplessnight he bolted like a rabbit to his burrow at Nunsmere. At any rate, themission of the dog's tail was accomplished. 

His bolt took place on Friday. On Saturday morning he was awakened byWiggleswick. 

The latter's attire was not that of the perfect valet. He wore an old, colored shirt open at the throat, a pair of trousers hitched up to hisshoulder blades by means of a pair of red braces, and a pair of dilapidatedcarpet slippers. 

"Here's a letter. "

"Oh, post it, " said Septimus sleepily. 

"You haven't written it. The missus has written it. It has a French stampand the Paris postmark. You'd better read it. "

He put it on his master's pillow, and went to the window to admire theview. Septimus aroused, read the letter. It was from Emmy. It ran:

 "DEAREST SEPTIMUS:

 "I can't stand this loneliness in Paris any longer. I can't, I can't. If you were here and I could see you even once a week, I shouldn't mind. But to go on day after day indefinitely without a comforting word from you is more than I can bear. You say the flat is ready. I am coming over at once with baby and Madame Bolivard, who swears she will never leave me. How she is going to get on in London without a word of English, I don't know. I don't mind if I meet Zora. Perhaps it will be better for you that I should. And I think it will be quite safe for me now. Don't hate me and think me horrid and selfish, my dear Septimus, but I do want you. I do. I do. Thanks for the toy train. Baby enjoys the paint on the carriages so much; but Madame Bolivard says it isn't good for him. Dear, if I thought you wouldn't forgive me for being such a worry, I wouldn't worry you. 

 "Your always grateful "EMMY. "

Septimus lit the half-smoked pipe of the night before that lay on thecoverlet, and becoming aware of Wiggleswick, disturbed his contemplation ofnature by asking him if he had ever been married. 

"What?" asked Wiggleswick in the unmodulated tone of the deaf. 

"Have you ever been married, Wiggleswick?"

"Heaps of times, " said the old man. 

"Dear me, " said Septimus. "Did you commit bigamy?"

"Bigamy? No. I buried 'em all honorable. "

"That, " said Septimus, "was very kind of you. "

"It was out of gratitude. "

"For their goodness?"

"No. For being delivered from 'em. I had a lot of experience before Icould learn the blessedness of a single life. "

Septimus sighed. "Yet it must be very nice to have a wife, Wiggleswick. "

"But ain't yer got one?" bawled the disreputable body-servant. 

"Of course, of course, " said Septimus hurriedly. "I was thinking of thepeople who hadn't. "

Wiggleswick approached his master's bedside, with a mysteriouslyconfidential air. 

"Don't you think we're all cosy and comfortable here, sir?"

"Yes, " said Septimus dubiously. 

"Well, I for one have nothing to complain of. The vittles is good, and onesleeps warm, and one has one's beer and 'baccy regular. What more does aman want? Not women. Women's a regrettable hincident. "

"Aren't you cold standing there in your shirt sleeves, Wiggleswick?" askedSeptimus, in his hesitating way. 

Wiggleswick ignored the delicacy of the suggestion. 

"Cold? No. If I was cold, I'd precious soon make myself warm. Which I wishto remark, Mr. Dix, that now you've parted with the missus pro tem. , don'tyou think it's more cosy and comfortable? I don't say but if she came hereI'd do my best willingly. I know my duty. But, sir, a woman, what with herdusting and cleaning, and washing of herself in hot water, and puttingflowers in mugs do upset things terrible. I've been married oftener thanyou. I know 'em. Don't you think we get on better, the two of us, as weare?"

"We get on very nicely, " said Septimus politely, "but I'm afraid you'llhave to do some cleaning and dusting to-day. I'm awfully sorry to troubleyou. Mrs. Middlemist has returned to England, and may be down thisafternoon. "

A look of dismay came over Wiggleswick's crafty, weather-beaten face. 

"Well, I'm jiggered. I'm just jiggered, " said he. 

"I'm delighted to hear it, " murmured Septimus. "Bring me my shaving-water. "

"Are you going to get up?" asked Wiggleswick in a tone of disgustedincredulity. 

"Yes. "

"Then you'll be wanting breakfast. "

"Oh, no, " said Septimus, with the wan smile that sometimes flickered overhis features, "afternoon tea will do--with some bacon and eggs and things. "

The old man went out grumbling, and Septimus turned to his letter. It wasvery kind of Emmy, he thought, to write to him so affectionately. 

He spent the mild, autumn morning on the common consulting the ducks in thepond, and seeking inspiration from the lame donkey, his state of mind beingstill complicated. The more he reflected on Emmy's letter and onWiggleswick's views on women the less did he agree with Wiggleswick. Hemissed Emmy, who had treated him very tenderly since their talk in themoonlight at Hottetôt-sur-Mer; and he missed the boy who, in the later daysin Paris, after her return, had conceived an infantile infatuation for him, and would cease crying or go to sleep peacefully if only he could gather aclump of Septimus's hair in his tiny fingers. He missed a thousand gossamertrifles--each one so imperceptible, all added together so significant. Hewas not in the least cosy and comfortable with his old villain of aserving-man. 

Thus he looked forward, in his twilight way, to Emmy's coming. He wouldlive, perhaps, sometimes in Nunsmere and sometimes in London. Quite lately, on visiting his bankers, in order to make arrangements for the disposal ofhis income, he was surprised to find how rich he was; and the manager, anastoundingly well-informed person, explained that a commercial concern inwhich he held many shares had reached such a pitch of prosperity as totreble his dividends. He went away with the vague notion that commercialcompanies were models of altruistic generosity. The main point, however, made clear by the exceptionally intelligent manager, being that he wasricher by several hundreds a year, he began to dream of a more resplendentresidence for Emmy and the boy than the little flat in Chelsea. He hadobserved that there were very nice houses in Berkeley Square. He wonderedhow much a year they were, with rates and taxes. For himself, he couldperch in any attic close by. He resolved to discuss Berkeley Square withEmmy as soon as she arrived. William Octavius Oldrieve Dix, Member ofParliament, ought to start life in proper surroundings. 

Clem Sypher, down for the week-end at Penton Court, burst in upon himduring the afternoon. He came with exciting news. The high official in theOrdnance Department of the War Office had written to him that morning tothe effect that he was so greatly impressed by the new quick-firing gunthat he proposed to experiment forthwith, and desired to be put intocommunication with the inventor. 

"That's very nice, " said Septimus, "but shall I have to go and see him?"

"Of course, " cried Sypher. "You'll have to interview boards and gunnersand engineers, and superintend experiments. You'll be a person oftremendous importance. "

"Oh, dear!" said Septimus, "I couldn't. I couldn't, really. "

He was panic-stricken at the notion. 

"You'll have to, " laughed Sypher. 

Septimus clutched at straws. "I'm afraid I shall be too busy. Emmy's comingto London--and there's the boy's education. You see, he has to go toCambridge. Look here, " he added, a brilliant idea occurring to him, "I'mfearfully rich; I don't want any more money. I'll sell you the thingoutright for the two hundred pounds you advanced me, and then I shan't haveanything more to do with it. "

"I think before you make any proposals of the kind you ought to consultMrs. Dix, " said Sypher with a laugh. 

"Or Zora. "

"Or Zora, " said Sypher. "She came down by the same train as I did. I toldher the good news. She was delighted. "

He did not inform Septimus that, for all her delight, Zora had beensomewhat sceptical. She loved Septimus, she admitted, but his effectualityin any sphere of human endeavor was unimaginable. Could anything good comeout of Nazareth?

About half an hour later the goddess herself arrived, shown in byWiggleswick, who had been snatching the pipe of the over-driven by thefront-gate. She looked flushed, resolute, indignant, and, on seeing Sypher, she paused for a second on the threshold. Then she entered. Sypher took uphis hat and stick. 

"No, no. You had better stay. You may help us. I suppose you know allabout it. "

Septimus's heart sank. He knew what "it" meant. 

"Yes, Sypher knows. I told him. "

"But why didn't you tell me, dear Septimus, instead of letting me hear ofit from mother and Cousin Jane? I don't think it was loyal to me. "

"I forgot, " said Septimus in desperation. "You see, I sometimes remember itand sometimes forget it. I'm not used to getting married. Wiggleswick hasbeen married several times. He was giving me a lot of advice this morning. "

"Anyhow, it's true?" asked Zora, disregarding Wiggleswick. 

"Oh, yes! You see, my ungovernable temper--"

"Your what?"

It was no use. On receiving the announcement she looked just as he hadexpected her to look. He tried to stammer out his catalogue of infamies, but failed. She burst out laughing, and Sypher, who knew all and wasanxiously wondering how to save the situation, laughed too. 

"My poor, dear Septimus, " she said kindly, "I don't believe a word of it. The woman who couldn't get on with you must be a virago. I don't carewhether she's my own sister or not, she is treating you abominably. "

"But, indeed she's not, " pleaded poor Septimus. "We're the best of friends. I really want to live like this. I do. I can't live without Wiggleswick. See how cosy and comfortable he makes me. "

Zora looked round, and the cosiness and comfort made her gasp. Cobwebs hungfrom the old oak beams across the ceiling; a day or two's ashes defiled thegrate; the windows were splashed with mud and rain. There were nocurtains. Her finger drawn along the green baize table-cloth revealed thedust. A pair of silver candlesticks on the mantelpiece were stained aniridescent brown. The mirror was fly-blown. In the corner of the room atray held the remains of the last meal, and a plate containing broken foodhad overflowed onto a neighboring chair. An odd, uncleaned boot lay, like afrowsy, drunken visitor, on the floor. The springs of the armchair on whichshe sat were broken. 

"It's not fit for a pig to live in, " she declared. "It's a crime to leaveyou to that worthless old scoundrel. I'll talk to him before I go. He won'tlike it. And then I'll write to Emmy. If that has no effect, I'll go overto Paris and bring her to her senses. "

She had arrived royally indignant, having had a pitched battle with CousinJane, who took Emmy's side and alluded to Septimus in terms of witheringcontempt. Now she was furiously angry. The two men looked at her withwistful adoration, for when Zora was furious in a good cause she was verybeautiful. And the adoration in each man's heart was intensified by theconsciousness of the pathetic futility of her noble rage. It was for herown sake that the situation had arisen over which she made such a pother, and she was gloriously unconscious of it. Sypher could not speak lest heshould betray his knowledge of Septimus's secret, and Septimus could onlymurmur incoherent ineffectualities concerning the perfection of Emmy, theworthlessness of himself, and the diamond soul that lodged in Wiggleswick'sforbidding body. Zora would not listen to unreason. It was Emmy's duty tosave her husband from the dust and ashes of his present cosiness, if shecould do nothing else for him; and she, Zora, in her magnificence, wasgoing to see that Emmy's duty was performed. Instead of writing she wouldstart the next morning for Paris. It would be well if Septimus couldaccompany her. 

"Mrs. Dix is coming to London, I believe, " said Sypher. 

Zora looked inquiringly at Septimus, who explained dis cursively. Zorarenounced Paris. She would wait for Emmy. For the time being the incidentwas closed. Septimus, in his hospitality, offered tea. 

"I'll get it for you, " said Zora. "It will be a good opportunity to speaksweetly to Wiggleswick. "

She swept out of the room; the two men lit cigarettes and smoked for awhile in silence. At last Sypher asked:

"What made you send her the tail of the little dog?"

Septimus reddened, and ran two of the fingers of the hand holding thecigarette up his hair, and spilled half an inch of ash on his head. 

"I broke the dog, you see, " he explained luminously, "I knocked it off themantelpiece. I'm always doing it. When Emmy has a decent house I'll inventsomething to keep dogs and things on mantelpieces. "

Sypher said: "Do you know you've done me one of those services which oneman rarely does for another. I'll never forget it to my dying day. Bybringing her to me you've saved my reason. You've made me a differentbeing. I'm Clem Sypher--but, by God you're the Friend of Humanity. "

Septimus looked at him with the terrified expression of a mediævalwrongdoer, writhing under an ecclesiastical curse. He made abject apology. 

"It was the only thing I could do, " said he. 

"Of course it was. And that's why you did it. I never dreamed when youtold me to wait until I saw her before going mad or breaking my heart thatyou meant to send for her. It has set me in front of a new universe. "

He rose and stretched his large limbs and smiled confidently at the worldout of his clear blue eyes. Two little words of Zora had inspired him withthe old self-reliance and sense of predestination to great things. Out ofher own mouth had come the words which, when they had come out ofRattenden's, had made his heart sink in despair. She had called him a "bigman. " Like many big men, he was superstitious. He believed Rattenden'sprophetic utterance concerning Zora. He was, indeed, set in front of a newuniverse, and Septimus had done it by means of the tail of a little chinadog. 

As he was stretching himself, Wiggleswick shambled in, with the fear ofZora written on his wrinkled brow, and removed the tray and the plate ofbroken victuals. What had passed between them neither he nor Zora wouldafterwards relate; but Wiggleswick spent the whole of that night and thefollowing days in unremitting industry, so that the house became spick andspan as his own well-remembered prison cells. There also was a light oftriumph in Zora's eyes when she entered a few moments afterwards with thetea-tray, which caused Sypher to smile and a wicked feeling of content toenter Septimus's mild bosom. 

"I think it was high time I came home, " she remarked, pouring out the tea. 

The two men supported the proposition. The western hemisphere, where shehad tarried so long, could get on very well by itself. In the meantime theold eastern hemisphere had been going to pieces. They had a gay littlemeal. Now that Zora had settled Wiggleswick, arranged her plan of campaignagainst Emmy, and established very agreeable and subtle relations betweenSypher and herself, she could afford to shed all her charm and gaiety andgraciousness on her subjects. She was infinitely glad to be with themagain. Nunsmere had unaccountably expanded; she breathed freely and nolonger knocked her head against beams in bedroom ceilings. 

She rallied Septimus on his new gun. 

"He's afraid of it, " said Sypher. 

"What! Afraid of its going off?" she laughed. 

"Oh, no, " said Septimus. "I've heard lots of them go off. "

"When?" asked Zora. 

Septimus reddened, and for once was at a loss for one of the curiouslyevasive answers in which his timidity took refuge. He fidgeted in hischair. Zora repeated her jesting question. "Was it when they were firingroyal salutes in St. James's Park?"

"No, " said Septimus. 

His back being against the fading light she could not perceive thediscomfiture on his face. She longed to elicit some fantastic irrelevance. 

"Well, where was it? Why this mystery?"

"I'll tell you two, " said Septimus. "I've never told you before. In fact, I've never told any one--not even Wiggleswick. I don't like to think of it. It hurts. You may have wondered how I ever got any practical acquaintancewith gunnery. I once held a commission in the Militia Garrison Artillery. That's how I came to love guns. "

"By why should that pain you, my dear Septimus?" asked Zora. 

"They said I was incompetent, " he murmured, brokenly, "and took away mycommission. The colonel said I was a disgrace to the service. "

Clem Sypher smote the arm of his chair and started up in his wrath. 

"By heavens! I'll make the blundering idiot eat his words. I'll ram themdown his throat with the cleaner of the new gun. I'll make you the biggestornament the service ever possessed. I'll devote my existence to it! TheDix gun shall wipe humanity off the face of the earth!"

"I don't want it to do that, " said Septimus, meekly. 

Zora begged his forgiveness very sweetly for her indiscretion, and havingcomforted him with glowing prophecies of fame and domestic happiness, wenthome with a full heart. She loved Sypher for his generous outburst. She wasdeeply touched by Septimus's tragic story, but having a sense of humor shecould not repress a smile at the thought of Septimus in uniform, handling abattery of artillery. 

CHAPTER XXI

Cousin Jane was for packing her boxes and departing, but Zora bade herremain until her own plans were settled. As soon as Emmy arrived she wouldhave to go to London and play fairy godmother, a proceeding which mighttake up considerable time. Mrs. Oldrieve commended her beneficentintention, and besought her to bring the irreligiously wedded pair to theVicar, and have them wedded in a respectable, Anglican way. She was firmlyconvinced that if this were done, nothing more could possibly be heard ofseparate lives. Zora promised to do her best, but Cousin Jane continued tosniff. It would be far better, she declared, to shut the man up in an idiotasylum and bring Emmy to Nunsmere, where the child could have a decentupbringing. Zora dissented loftily, but declined to be led into aprofitless argument. 

"All I ask of you, my dear Jane, " said she, "is to take care of mother alittle longer while I do what I consider my duty. "

She did not inform Cousin Jane that a certain freedom of movements was alsorendered desirable by what she considered her duty to Clem Sypher. CousinJane lacked the finer threads of apprehension, and her comments might havebeen crude. When Zora announced her intention to Sypher of leading amigratory existence between London and Nunsmere for the sakes of Emmy andhimself, he burst into a panegyric on her angelic nature. Her presencewould irradiate these last dark days of disaster, for the time was quicklyapproaching when the Bermondsey factory would be closed down, and Sypher'sCure would fade away from the knowledge of men. 

"Have you thought of the future--of what you are going to do?" she asked. 

"No, " said he, "but I have faith in my destiny. "

Zora felt this to be magnificent, but scarcely practical. 

"You'll be without resources?"

"I never realized how full empty pockets could be, " he declared. 

They were walking across the common, Sypher having lunched at "The Nook. "Presently they came across Septimus sitting by the pond. He rose andgreeted them. He wore an overcoat buttoned up to the throat and a clothcap. Zora's quick eyes noted an absence of detail in his attire. 

"Why, you're not dressed! Oh, you do want a wife to look after you. "

"I've only just got up, " he explained, "and Wiggleswick wanted to do out mybedroom, so I hadn't time to find my studs. I was thinking all night, yousee, and one can't think and sleep at the same time. "

"A new invention?" laughed Zora. 

"No. The old ones. I was trying to count them up. I've taken out aboutfifty patents, and there are heaps of things half worked out which might bevaluable. Now I was thinking that if I made them all over to Sypher hemight get in some practical fellow to set them right, and start companiesand things to work them, and so make a lot of money. "

He took off his cap and ran his hand up his hair. "There's also the newgun. I do wish you'd have that, too, " he added, anxiously. "In fact, itwas our talk yesterday that put the other idea into my head. "

Sypher clapped him on the shoulder and called him his dear, generousfellow. But how could he accept?

"They're not all rot, " said Septimus pleadingly. "There's a patentcorkscrew which works beautifully. Wiggleswick always uses it. "

Sypher laughed. "Well, I'll tell you what we can do. We can get a syndicatetogether to run the Dix inventions, and pay you royalties on sales. "

"That seems a very good idea, " said Zora judicially. 

But Septimus looked dissatisfied. "I wanted to give them to Sypher, " saidhe. 

Zora reminded him laughingly that he would have to provide for the futuremember of Parliament's election expenses. The royalties would come inhandy. She could not take Septimus's inventions seriously. But Sypher spokeof them later in his enthusiastic way. 

"Who knows? There may be things hidden among his models and specificationsof enormous commercial value. Lots of his inventions are crazy, but someare bound to be practical. This field gun, for instance. The genius whocould have hit on that is capable of inventing anything. Why shouldn't Idevote my life to spreading the Dix inventions over the earth? It's acolossal idea. Not one invention, but fifty--from a corkscrew to a machinegun. It's better than Sypher's Cure, isn't it?"

She glanced swiftly at him to see whether the last words were spoken inbitterness. They were not. His face beamed as it had beamed in the dayswhen he had rhapsodied over the vision of an earth, one scab, to be healedby Sypher's Cure. 

"Say you think it's better, " he urged. 

"Yes. It's better, " she assented. "But it's chimerical. "

"So are all the dreams ever dreamed by man. I shouldn't like to pass mylife without dreams, Zora. I could give up tobacco and alcohol and cleancollars and servants, and everything you could think of--but not dreams. Without them the earth is just a sort of backyard of a place. "

"And with them?" said Zora. 

"An infinite garden. "

"I'm afraid you'll be disillusioned over poor Septimus, " she said, "but Ishouldn't like you to take up anything you didn't believe in. What would bequite honest in another man wouldn't be honest in you. "

"That means, " said Sypher, "you wouldn't like to see me going on dealing inquack medicines?"

Zora flushed red. 

"It was at the back of my mind, " she confessed. "But I did put my thoughtsinto the form of a compliment. "

"Zora, " said he, "if I fell below what I want to appear in your eyes, Ishould lose the dearest dream of all. "

In the evening came Septimus to Penton Court to discuss the new scheme withSypher. Wiggleswick, with the fear of Zora heavy upon him, had laid out hismaster's dinner suit, and Septimus had meekly put it on. He had also dinedin a Christian fashion, for the old villain could cook a plain dinnercreditably when he chose. Septimus proclaimed the regeneration of his bodyservant as one of the innumerable debts he owed to Zora. 

"Why do you repay them to me?" asked Sypher. 

Then he rose, laughed into the distressed face, and put both his hands onSeptimus's shoulders. 

"No, don't try to answer. I know more about you than you can possiblyconceive, and to me you're transparency itself. But you see that I can'taccept your patents, don't you?"

"I shall never do anything with them. "

"Have you tried?"

"No. "

"Then I will. It will be a partnership between my business knowledge andenergy and your brains. That will be right and honorable for the two ofus. "

Septimus yielded. "If both you and Zora think so, it must be" he said. Butin his heart he was disappointed. 

 * * * * *

A few days afterwards Shuttleworth came into Sypher's office, with anexpression of cheerfulness on his dismal countenance. 

"Can I have a few moments with you, sir?"

Sypher bade him be seated. Since his defection to the enemy, Shuttleworthhad avoided his chief as much as possible, the excess of sorrow over angerin the latter's demeanor toward him being hard to bear. He had slunk about, not daring to meet his eyes. This morning, however, he reeked of consciousvirtue. 

"I have a proposal to put before you, with which I think you'll bepleased, " said he. 

"I'm glad to hear it, " said Sypher. 

"I'm proud to say, " continued Shuttleworth, "that it was my suggestion, andthat I've carried it through. I was anxious to show you that I wasn'tungrateful for all your past kindnesses, and my leaving you was not asdisloyal as you may have thought. "

"I never accused you of disloyalty, " said Sypher. "You had your wife andchildren. You did the only thing possible. "

"You take a load off my mind, " said Shuttleworth. 

He drew a long breath, as though relieved from an intolerable burden. 

"What is your proposal?" asked Sypher. 

"I am authorized by the Jebusa Jones Company to approach you with regard toa most advantageous arrangement for both parties. It's your presentintention to close down the factory and shut up this office as soon asthings can be wound up. "

"That's my intention, " said Sypher. 

"You'll come out of it solvent, with just a thousand pounds or so in yourpocket. The Cure will disappear from the face of the earth. "

"Quite so, " said Sypher. He leaned back in his chair, and held an ivorypaper-knife in both hands. 

"But wouldn't that be an enormous pity?" said Shuttleworth. "The Cure isknown far and wide. Economically financed, and put, more or less, out ofreach of competition it can still be a most valuable property. Now, itoccurred to me that there was no reason why the Jebusa Jones Company couldnot run Sypher's Cure side by side with the Cuticle Remedy. They agree withme. They are willing to come to terms, whereby they will take over thewhole concern as it stands, with your name, of course, and advertisementsand trade-marks, and pay you a percentage of the profits. "

Sypher made no reply. The ivory paper-knife snapped, and he laid the piecesabsently on his desk. 

"The advantage to you is obvious, " remarked Shuttleworth, who was beginningto grow uneasy before the sphinx-like attitude of his chief. 

"Quite obvious, " said Sypher. Then, after a pause: "Do they propose to askme to manage the Sypher Cure branch?"

The irony was lost on Shuttleworth. 

"No--well--not exactly--" he stammered. 

Sypher laughed grimly, and checked further explanations. 

"That was a joke, Shuttleworth. Haven't you noticed that my jokes arealways rather subtle? No, of course you are to manage the Cure. "

"I know nothing about that, sir, " said Shuttleworth hastily. 

Sypher rose and walked about the room, saying nothing, and his managerfollowed him anxiously with his eyes. Presently he paused before thecartoon of the famous poster. 

"This would be taken over with the rest?"

"I suppose so. It's valuable--part of the good-will. "

"And the model of Edinburgh Castle--and the autograph testimonials, and the'Clem Sypher. Friend of Humanity'?"

"The model isn't much use. Of course, you could keep that as a curiosity--"

"In the middle of my drawing-room table, " said Sypher, ironically. 

Shuttleworth smiled, guessing that the remark was humorous. 

"Well, " he said, "that's as you please. But the name and title naturallyare the essence of the matter. "

"I see, " said Sypher. "'Clem Sypher, Friend of Humanity, ' is the essence ofthe matter. "

"With the secret recipe, of course. "

"Of course, " said Sypher, absently. He paced the room once or twice, thenhalted in front of Shuttleworth, looked at him fixedly for a second or twoout of his clear eyes and resumed his walk; which was disconcerting forShuttleworth, who wiped his spectacles. 

"Do you think we might now go into some details with regard to terms?"

"No, " said Sypher, stopping short of the fireplace, "I don't. I've got toagree to the principle first. "

"But, surely, there's no difficulty about that!" cried Shuttleworth, risingin consternation. "I can see no earthly reason--"

"I don't suppose you can, " said Sypher. "When do you want an answer?"

"As soon as possible. "

"Come to me in an hour's time and I'll give it you. "

Shuttleworth retired. Sypher sat at his desk, his chin in his hand, andstruggled with his soul, which, as all the world knows, is the mostuncomfortable thing a man has to harbor in his bosom. After a few minuteshe rang up a number on the telephone. 

"Are you the Shaftesbury Club? Is Mr. Septimus Dix in?"

He knew that Septimus was staying at the club, as he had come to town tomeet Emmy, who had arrived the evening before from Paris. 

Mr. Dix was in. He was just finishing breakfast, and would come to thetelephone. Sypher waited, with his ear to the receiver. 

"Is that you, Septimus? It's Clem Sypher speaking. I want you to come toMoorgate Street at once. It's a matter of immediate urgency. Get into ahansom and tell the man to drive like the devil. Thanks. "

He resumed his position and sat motionless until, about half an hourlater, Septimus, very much scared, was shown into the room. 

"I felt sure you were in. I felt sure you would come. There's a destinyabout all this business, and I seem to have a peep into it. I am going tomake myself the damnedest fool of all created beings--the very damnedest. "

Septimus murmured that he was sorry to hear it. 

"I hoped you might be glad, " said Sypher. 

"It depends upon the kind of fool you're going to make of yourself, " criedSeptimus, a ray of wonderful lucidity flashing across his mind. "There's acouplet of Tennyson's--I don't read poetry, you know, " he broke offapologetically, "except a little Persian. I'm a hard, scientific person, all machinery. My father used to throw poetry books into the fire if hecaught me with one, but my mother used to read to me now and then--oh, yes!--Tennyson. It goes: '_They called me in the public squares, The foolthat wears a crown of thorn_. ' That's the best kind of a fool to be. " Hesuddenly looked round. "Dear me; I've left my umbrella in the cab. That'sthe worst kind of a fool to be. "

He smiled wanly, dropped his bowler hat on the floor, and eventually satdown. 

"I want to tell you something, " said Sypher, standing on the hearthrug withhis hands on his hips. "I've just had an offer from the Jebusa JonesCompany. "

Septimus listened intently while he told the story, wondering greatly whyhe, of all unbusinesslike, unpractical people--in spite of his friendshipwith Sypher--should be summoned so urgently to hear it. If he had suspectedthat in reality he was playing the part of an animated conscience, he wouldhave shriveled up through fright and confusion. 

Said Sypher: "If I accept this offer I shall have a fair income for therest of my days. I can go where I like, and do what I like. Not a soul cancall my commercial honesty in question. No business man, in his senses, would refuse it. If I decline, I start the world again with empty pockets. What shall I do? Tell me. "

"I?" said Septimus, with his usual gesture of diffidence. "I'm such a sillyass in such things. "

"Never mind, " said Sypher. "I'll do just what you would do. "

Septimus reflected, and said, hesitatingly:

"I think I should do what Zora would like. She doesn't mind empty pockets. "

Sypher dashed his hand across his forehead, and broke into a loud cry. 

"I knew you would say that. I brought you here to say it! Thank God! I loveher, Septimus. I love her with every fiber in me. If I had sold my name tothese people I should have sold my honor. I should have sold my birthrightfor a mess of pottage. I couldn't have looked her in the face again. Whether she will marry me or not has nothing to do with it. It would havehad nothing to do with it in your case. You would have been the best kindof fool and so shall I. "

He swung about the room greatly excited, his ebullient nature finding inwords relief from past tension. He laughed aloud, proclaimed his love forZora, shook his somewhat bewildered friend by the hand, and informed himthat he, Septimus, alone of mortals, was responsible for the greatdecision. And while Septimus wondered what the deuce he meant, he rang thebell and summoned Shuttleworth. 

The dismal manager entered the room. On seeing Sypher's cheery face, hisown brightened. 

"I've thought the matter over, Shuttleworth. "

"And you've decided--"

"To refuse the offer, absolutely. "

The manager gasped. "But, Mr. Sypher, have you reflected--"

"My good Shuttleworth, " said Sypher, "in all the years we've workedtogether have you ever known me to say I've made up my mind when Ihaven't?"

Shuttleworth marched out of the room and banged the door, and went forth todeclare to the world his opinion of Clem Sypher. He had always been halfcrazy; now he had gone stick, stark, staring, raving, biting mad. And thoseto whom he told the tale agreed with him. 

But Sypher laughed his great laugh. 

"Poor Shuttleworth! He has worked hard to bring off this deal. I'm sorryfor him. But one can't serve God and Mammon. "

Septimus rose and took his hat. "I think it awfully wonderful of you, " hesaid. "I really do. I should like to talk to you about it--but I must goand see Emmy. She came last night. "

Sypher inquired politely after her health, also that of her baby. 

"He's taking such a deuce of a time to grow up, " said Septimus. "Otherwisehe's well. He's got a tooth. I've been wondering why no dentist has everinvented a set of false teeth for babies. "

"Then your turn would come, " laughed Sypher, "for you would have to inventthem a cast-iron inside. "

Before Septimus went, Sypher thrust a gold-headed umbrella into his hands. 

"It's pouring with rain, and you'll wade about and get wet through. I makea rule never to lend umbrellas, so I give you this from a grateful heart. God bless you. "

CHAPTER XXII

The little flat in Chelsea, cleaned, swept and garnished by the wife of theporter of the Mansions, received Emmy, her babe, Madame Bolivard andmultitudinous luggage. All the pretty fripperies and frivolities had beenfreshened and refurbished since their desecration at alien hands, and theplace looked cheery and homelike; but Emmy found it surprisingly small, andwas amazed to discover the prodigious space taken up by the baby. When shedrew Septimus's attention to this phenomenon he accounted for it by sayingthat it was because he had such a very big name, which was an excellentthing in that it would enable him to occupy a great deal of room in theuniverse when he grew up. 

She busied herself all the morning about the flat, happier than she hadbeen for a whole year. Her days of Hagardom were over. The menacing shadowof the finger of scorn pointing at her from every airt of heaven haddisappeared. A clear sky welcomed her as she came back to take up anacknowledged position in the world. The sense of release from anintolerable ban outweighed the bitterness of old associations. She was athome, in London, among dear familiar things and faces. She was almosthappy. 

When Madame Bolivard appeared with bonnet and basket undismayedly preparedto market for lunch and dinner, she laughed like a schoolgirl, and made herrepeat the list of English words she had taught her in view of thiscontingency. She could say "cabbage, " "sugar, " "lettuce, " and ask for allsorts of things. 

"But suppose you lose your way, Madame Bolivard?"

"I shall find it, madame. "

"But how will you ask for directions? You know you can't say 'EcclefechanMansions. '"

Madame Bolivard made a hopeless, spluttering sound as if she were blowingteeth out of her mouth, which in no wise resembled the name of the placewherein she dwelt. But Madame Bolivard, as has been remarked, was a _bravefemme_; and _allons donc!_ this was the least of the difficulties she hadhad to encounter during her life. Emmy bade her godspeed in her perilsamong the greengrocers. 

She went blithely about her household tasks, and sang and cooed deliciouslyto the child lying in its bassinette. Every now and then she looked at theclock over the mantelpiece, wondering why Septimus had not come. Only inthe depths of her heart--depths which humans in their every-day life darenot sound too frequently--did she confess how foolishly she longed for him. He was late. With Emmy, Septimus never broke an appointment. To insure hisbeing at a certain place at a certain time to meet her he took the mostingenious and complicated precautions. Before now he had dressed overnightand gone to sleep in his clothes so as to be ready when the servant calledhim in the morning. Emmy, knowing this, after the way of women began togrow anxious. When, therefore, she opened the flat door to him sheupbraided him with considerable tenderness. 

"It was Clem Sypher, " he explained, taking off his overcoat. "He sent forme. He wanted me badly. Why, I don't know. At least I do half know, but theother half I don't. He's a magnificent fellow. "

A little later, after Septimus had inspected her morning's work in theflat, and the night's progress in the boy's tooth, and the pretty newblouse which she had put on in his honor, and the rose in her bosom takenfrom the bunch he had sent to greet her arrival in the flat the nightbefore, and after he had heard of the valorous adventure of Madame Bolivardand of a message from Hégisippe Cruchot which she had forgotten to deliverovernight, and of an announcement from Zora to the effect that she wouldcall at Ecclefechan Mansions soon after lunch, and of many things ofinfinite importance, Emmy asked him what Clem Sypher had been doing, andwherein lay the particular magnificence of character to which Septimus hadalluded. 

"He's awfully splendid, " said Septimus. "He has given up a fortune for thesake of an idea. He also gave me an umbrella and his blessing. Emmy"--helooked at her in sudden alarm--"did I bring an umbrella with me?"

"You did, dear, and you put it in the stand; but what you've done with theblessing, I don't know. "

"I've got it in my heart, " said he. "He's a tremendous chap. "

Emmy's curiosity was excited. She sat on the fender seat and bent forward, her hands on her knees, in a pretty girlish attitude and fixed herforget-me-not eyes on him. 

"Tell me all about it. "

He obeyed and expounded Sypher's quixotism in his roundabout fashion. Heconcluded by showing her how it had been done for Zora's sake. 

Emmy made a little gesture of impatience. 

"Zora!" she exclaimed jealously. "It's always Zora. To see how you men goon, one would think there was no other woman in the world. Every one doescrazy things for her, and she looks on calmly and never does a hand's turnfor anybody. Clem Sypher's a jolly sight too good for her. "

Septimus looked pained at the disparagement of his goddess. Emmy sprang toher feet and put her finger-tips on his shoulders. 

"Forgive me, dear. Women are cats--I've often told you--and love to scratcheven those they're fond of. Sometimes the more they love them the harderthey scratch. But I won't scratch you any more. Indeed I won't. "

The sound of the latch-key was heard in the front door. 

"There's Madame Bolivard, " she cried. "I must see what miracle of loavesand fishes she has performed. Do mind baby till I come back. "

She danced out of the room, and Septimus sat on a straight-backed chairbeside the bassinette. The baby--he was a rather delicate childconsiderably undergrown for his age, but a placid, uncomplaining littlemortal--looked at Septimus out of his blue and white china eyes andcontorted his india-rubber features into a muddle indicative of pleasure, and Septimus smiled cordially at the baby. 

"William Octavius Oldrieve Dix, " he murmured--an apostrophe which causedthe future statesman a paroxysm of amusement--"I am exceedingly glad to seeyou. I hope you like London. We're great friends, aren't we? And when yougrow up, we're going to be greater. I don't want you to have anything to dowith machinery. It stops your heart beating and makes you cold andunsympathetic and prevents women from loving you. You mustn't inventthings. That's why I am going to make you a Member of Parliament--aConservative member. "

William Octavius, who had been listening attentively, suddenly chuckled, as if he had seen a joke. Septimus's gaze conveyed sedate reproof. 

"When you laugh you show such a deuce of a lot of gum--like Wiggleswick, "said he. 

The baby made no reply. The conversation languished. Septimus bent down toexamine the tooth, and the baby clutched a tiny fistful of upstanding hairas a reaper clutches a handful of wheat. Septimus smiled and kissed thelittle crinkled, bubbly lips and fell into a reverie. William Octavius wentfast asleep. 

When Emmy returned she caught an appealing glance from Septimus and rescuedhim, a new Absalom. 

"You dear thing, " she cried, "why didn't you do it yourself?"

"I was afraid of waking him. It's dangerous to wake babies suddenly. No, itisn't babies; it's somnambulists. But he may be one, you see, and as hecan't walk we can't tell. I wonder whether I could invent an apparatus forpreventing somnambulists from doing themselves damage. "

Emmy laughed. "You can invent nothing so wonderful as Madame Bolivard, " shecried gaily. "She is contemptuous of the dangers of English marketing. 'Thepeople understood me at once, ' she said. She evidently has a poor opinionof them. "

Septimus stayed to lunch, a pleasant meal which made them bless HégisippeCruchot for introducing them to the aunt who could cook. So far did theirgratitude go that Septimus remarked that it would only be decent to add"Hégisippe" to the baby's names. But Emmy observed that he should havethought of that before; the boy had already been christened; it was toolate. They drank the Zouave's health instead in some fearful and wonderfulred wine which Madame Bolivard had procured from heaven knows whatpurveyor of dangerous chemicals. They thought it excellent. 

"I wonder, " said Emmy, "whether you know what this means to me. "

"It's home, " replied Septimus, with an approving glance around the littledining-room. "You must get me a flat just like this. "

"Close by?"

"If it's too close I might come here too often. "

"Do you think that possible?" she said, with as much wistfulness as shedare allow herself. "Besides, you have a right. "

Septimus explained that as a Master of Arts of the University of Cambridgehe had a right to play marbles on the Senate House steps, a privilegedenied by statute to persons _in statu pupillari_, but that he would belocked up as a lunatic if he insisted on exercising it. 

After a pause Emmy looked at him, and said with sudden tragicality:

"I'm not a horrible, hateful worry to you, Septimus?"

"Lord, no, " said Septimus. 

"You don't wish you had never set eyes on me?"

"My dear girl!" said Septimus. 

"And you wouldn't rather go on living quietly at Nunsmere and not botherabout me any more? Do tell me the truth. "

Septimus's hand went to his hair. He was unversed in the ways of women. 

"I thought all that was settled long ago, " he said. "I'm such a uselesscreature. You give me something to think about, and the boy, and hiseducation, and his teeth. And he'll have whooping cough and measles andbreeches and things, and it will be frightfully interesting. "

Emmy, elbow on table and chin in hand, smiled at him with a touch ofaudacity in her forget-me-not eyes. 

"I believe you're more interested in the boy than you are in me. "

Septimus reddened and stammered, unable, as usual, to express his feelings. He kept to the question of interest. 

"It's so different, " said he. "I look on the boy as a kind of invention. "

She persisted. "And what am I?"

He had one of his luminous inspirations. 

"You, " said he, "are a discovery. "

Emmy laughed. "I do believe you like me a little bit, after all. "

"You've got such beautiful finger-nails, " said he. 

Madame Bolivard brought in the coffee. Septimus in the act of lifting thecup from tray to table let it fall through his nervous fingers, and thecoffee streamed over the dainty table-cloth. Madame Bolivard appealedfervently to the Deity, but Emmy smiled proudly as if the spilling ofcoffee was a rare social accomplishment. 

Soon after this Septimus went to his club with orders to return for tea, leaving Emmy to prepare for her meeting with Zora. He had offered to bepresent at this first interview so as to give her his support, andcorroborate whatever statement as to his turpitudes she might care to makein explanation of their decision to live apart. But Emmy preferred to fighther battle single-handed. Alone he had saved the situation by his veryvagueness. In conjunction with herself there was no knowing what he mightdo, for she had resolved to exonerate him from all blame and to attributeto her own infirmities of disposition this calamitous result of theirmarriage. 

Now that the hour of meeting approached she grew nervous. Unlike Zora, shehad not inherited her father's fearlessness and joy of battle. The touch ofadventurous spirit which she had received from him had been her undoing, asit had led her into temptation which the gentle, weak character derivedfrom her mother had been powerless to resist. All her life she had beenafraid of Zora, subdued by her splendid vitality, humbled before her moregenerous accomplishment. And now she was to fight for her honor and herchild's and at the same time for the tender chivalry of the odd, belovedcreature that was her husband. She armed herself with woman's weapons, andput on a brave face, though her heart thumped like some devilish machine, racking her mercilessly. 

The bell rang. She bent over the boy asleep in the bassinette and gave amother's touch or two to the tiny coverlet. She heard the flat door openand Zora's rich voice inquire for Mrs. Dix. Then Zora, splendid, deepbosomed, glowing with color, bringing with her a perfume of furs andviolets, sailed into the room and took her into her arms. Emmy felt fluffyand insignificant. 

"How well you're looking, dear. I declare you are prettier than ever. You've filled out. I didn't come the first thing this morning as I wantedto, because I knew you would find everything topsy-turvy in the flat. Septimus is a dear, but I haven't much faith in his domestic capabilities. "

"The flat was in perfect order, " said Emmy. "Even that bunch of roses in ajar. "

"Did he remember to put in the water?"

Zora laughed, meaning to be kind and generous, to make it evident to Emmythat she had not come as a violent partisan of Septimus, and to lay apleasant, familiar foundation for the discussion in prospect. But Emmyresented the note of disparagement. 

"Of course he did, " she said shortly. 

Zora flew to the bassinette and glowed womanlike over the baby. A beautifulchild, one to be proud of indeed. Why hadn't Emmy dear proclaimed hisuniqueness in the world of infants? From the references in her letters hemight have been the ordinary baby of every cradle. 

"Oh, you ought to be such a happy woman!" she cried, taking off her fursand throwing them over the back of a chair. "Such a happy woman!"

An involuntary sigh shook her. The first words had been intended to conveya gentle reproof; nature had compelled the reiteration on her own account. 

"I'm happy enough, " said Emmy. 

"I wish you could say that with more conviction, dear. 'Happy enough'generally means 'pretty miserable. ' Why should you be miserable?"

"I'm not. I have more happiness than I deserve. I don't deserve much. "

Zora put her arm round her sister's waist. 

"Never mind, dear. We'll try to make you happier. "

Emmy submitted to the caress for a while and then freed herself gently. Shedid not reply. Not all the trying of Zora and all the Ladies Bountiful ofChristendom could give her her heart's desire. Besides, Zora, with herlarge air of smiling _dea ex machina_ was hopelessly out of tone with hermood. She picked up the furs. 

"How lovely. They're new. Where did you get them?"

The talk turned on ordinary topics. They had not met for a year, and theyspoke of trivial happenings. Emmy touched lightly on her life in Paris. They exchanged information as to their respective journeys. Emmy had had agood crossing the day before, but Madame Bolivard, who had faced thehitherto unknown perils of the deep with unflinching courage, had beendreadfully seasick. The boy had slept most of the time. Awake he had beenas good as gold. 

"He's the sweetest tempered child under the sun. "

"Like his father, " said Zora, "who is both sweet tempered and a child. "

The words were a dagger in Emmy's heart. She turned away swiftly lest Zorashould see the pain in her eyes. The intensity of the agony had beenunforeseen. 

"I hope the little mite has a spice of the devil from our side of thefamily, " added Zora, "or it will go hard with him. That's what's wrong withpoor Septimus. "

Emmy turned with a flash. "There's nothing wrong with Septimus. I wouldn'tchange him for any man in the world. "

Zora raised surprised eyebrows and made the obvious retort:

"Then, my dear, why on earth don't you live with him?"

Emmy shrugged her shoulders, and looked out of the window. There was ablock of flats over the way, and a young woman at a window immediatelyopposite was also looking out. This irritated her. She resented beingstared at by a young woman in a flat. She left the window and sat on thesofa. 

"Don't you think, Zora, you might let Septimus and myself arrange things aswe think best? I assure you we are quite capable of looking afterourselves. We meet in the friendliest way possible, but we have decided tooccupy separate houses. It's a matter that concerns ourselves entirely. "

Zora was prepared for this attitude, which she had resolved not tocountenance. She had come, in all her bravery, to bring Emmy to her senses. Emmy should be brought. She left the bassinette and sat down near hersister and smiled indulgently. 

"My dearest child, if you were so-called 'advanced people' and held allsorts of outrageous views, I might understand you. But you are two veryordinary folk with no views at all. You never had any in your life, and ifSeptimus had one he would be so terribly afraid of it that he would chainit up. I'm quite certain you married without any idea save that of stickingtogether. Now, why haven't you?"

"I make Septimus miserable. I can't help it. Sooner than make him unhappy Iinsist upon this arrangement. There!"

"Then I think you are very wicked and heartless and selfish, " said Zora. 

"I am, " said Emmy defiantly. 

"Your duty is to make him happy. It would take so little to do that. Youought to give him a comfortable home and teach him to realize hisresponsibilities toward the child. "

Again the stab. Emmy's nerve began to give way. For the first time came thewild notion of facing Zora with the whole disastrous story. She dismissedit as crazy. 

"I tell you things can't be altered. "

"But why? I can't imagine you so monstrous. Give me your confidence, darling. "

"There's nothing to give. "

"I'm sure I could put things right for you at once if I knew what waswrong. If it's anything to do with Septimus, " she added in her unwisdom andwith a charming proprietary smile, "why, I can make him do whatever Ilike. "

"Even if we had quarreled, " cried Emmy, losing control of her prudence, "doyou suppose I would let _you_ bring him back to me?"

"But why not?"

"Have you been so blind all this time as not to see?"

Emmy knew her words were vain and dangerous, but the attitude of hersister, calm and confident, assuming her air of gracious patronage, irritated her beyond endurance. Zora's smile deepened into indulgentlaughter. 

"My dearest Emmy, you don't mean to say that it's jealousy of me? But it'stoo ridiculous. Do you suppose I've ever thought of Septimus in that way?"

"You've thought of him just as you used to think of the bob-tailed sheepdog we had when we were children. "

"Well, dear, you were never jealous of my attachment to Bobbie or Bobbie'sdevotion to me, " said Zora, smilingly logical. "Come, dear, I knew therewas only some silly nonsense at the bottom of this. Look. I'll resign everyright I have in poor Septimus. "

Emmy rose. "If you call him 'poor Septimus' and speak of him in that tone, you'll drive me mad. It's you that are wicked and heartless and selfish. "

"I?" cried Zora, aghast. 

"Yes, you. You accept the love and adoration of the noblest gentleman thatGod ever put into the world, and you treat him and talk of him as if hewere a creature of no account. If you were worthy of being loved by him, Ishouldn't he jealous. But you're not. You've been so wrapped up in your ownmagnificence that you've not even condescended to notice that he loved you. And even now, when I tell you, you laugh, as if it were preposterous that'poor Septimus' could ever dare to love you. You drive me mad. "

Zora drew herself up angrily. To make allowances for a silly girl'sjealousy was one thing; it was another to be accused in this vehementfashion. Conscious of her innocence, she said:

"Your attack on me is entirely unjustifiable, Emmy. I have done nothing. "

"That's why, " retorted Emmy quickly. "You've done nothing. Men aresacrificing their lives and fortunes for you, and you do nothing. "

"Lives and fortunes? What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say, " cried Emmy desperately. "Septimus has done everythingshort of laying down his life for you, and that he would have done ifnecessary, and you haven't even taken the trouble to see the soul in theman that was capable of it. And now that something has happened which youcan't help seeing you come in your grand way to put it all to rights in aminute. You think I've turned him out because he's a good-natured worrylike Bobbie, the bob-tailed sheep dog, and you say, 'Poor fellow, see howpitifully he's wagging his tail. It's cruel of you not to let him in. 'That's the way you look at Septimus, and I can't stand it and I won't. Ilove him as I never dreamed a woman could love a man. I could tear myselfinto little pieces for him bit by bit. And I can't get him. He's as farremoved from me as the stars in heaven. You could never understand. I prayevery night to God to forgive me, and to work a miracle and bring him tome. But miracles don't happen. He'll never come to me. He can't come to me. While you have been patronizing him, patting him on the head, playing LadyBountiful to him--as you are doing to the other man who has given up afortune this very morning just because he loves you--while you've beendoing this and despising him--yes, you know you do in your heart, for asimple, good-natured, half-witted creature who amuses himself with crazyinventions, he has done a thing to save you from pain and shame andsorrow--you, not me--because he loved you. And now I love him. I would giveall I have in life for the miracle to happen. But it can't. Don't youunderstand? It can't!"

She stood panting in front of Zora, a passionate woman obeying elementallaws; and when passionate women obey elemental laws they are reckless inspeech and overwhelming in assertion and denunciation. Emmy was the firstwhom Zora had encountered. She was bewildered by the storm of words, andcould only say, rather stupidly:

"Why can't it?"

Emmy thew two or three short breaths. The notion had come again. Thetemptation was irresistible. Zora should know, having brought it onherself. She opened the door. 

"Madame Bolivard!" she cried. And when the Frenchwoman appeared she pointedto the bassinette. 

"Take baby into the bedroom. It will be better for him there. "

"_Bien, madame_, " said Madame Bolivard, taking up the child. And when thedoor had closed behind her Emmy pointed to it and said:

"That's why. "

Zora started forward, horror stricken. 

"Emmy, what do you mean?"

"I'll tell you. I couldn't with him in the room. I should always fancy thathe had heard me, and I want him to respect and love his mother. "

"Emmy!" cried Zora. "Emmy! What are you saying? Your son not respectyou--if he knew--do you mean. .. ?"

"Yes, " said Emmy, "I do--Septimus went through the marriage ceremony withme and gave us his name. That's why we are living apart. Now you know. "

"My God!" said Zora. 

"Do you remember the last night I was at Nunsmere?"

"Yes. You fainted. "

"I had seen the announcement of the man's marriage in the newspaper. "

She told her story briefly and defiantly, asking for no sympathy, proclaiming it all _ad majorem Septimi gloriam_. Zora sat looking at herparalyzed with helplessness, like one who, having gone lightly forth toshoot rabbits, suddenly comes upon a lion. 

"Why didn't you tell me--at the time--before?"

"Did you ever encourage me to give you my confidence? You patted me on thehead, too, and never concerned yourself about my affairs. I was afraid ofyou--deadly afraid of you. It sounds rather silly now, doesn't it? But Iwas. "

Zora made no protest against the accusation. She sat quite still, her eyesfixed on the foot of the bassinette, adjusting her soul to new andstartling conceptions. She said in a whisper:

"My God, what a fool I've been!"

The words lingered a haunting echo in her ears. They were mockinglyfamiliar. Where had she heard them recently? Suddenly she remembered. Sheraised her head and glanced at Emmy in anything but a proud way. 

"You said something just now about Clem Sypher having sacrificed a fortunefor me. What was it? I had better hear everything. "

Emmy sat on the fender stool, as she had done when Septimus had told herthe story, and repeated it for Zora's benefit. 

"You say he sent for Septimus this morning?" said Zora in a low voice. "Doyou think he knows--about you two?"

"It is possible that he guesses, " replied Emmy, to whom Hégisippe Cruchot'sindiscretion had been reported. "Septimus has not told him. "

"I ask, " said Zora, "because, since my return, he has seemed to look onSeptimus as a sort of inspired creature. I begin to see things I never sawbefore. "

There was silence. Emmy gripped the mantelpiece and, head on arm, lookedinto the fire. Zora sat lost in her expanding vision. Presently Emmy saidwithout turning round:

"You mustn't turn away from me now--for Septimus's sake. He loves the boyas if he were his own. Whatever wrong I've done I've suffered for it. OnceI was a frivolous, unbalanced, unprincipled little fool. I'm a womannow--and a good woman, thanks to him. To live in the same atmosphere asthat exquisite delicacy of soul is enough to make one good. No other man onearth could have done what he has done and in the way he has done it. Ican't help loving him. I can't help eating my heart out for him. That's mypunishment. "

This time the succeeding silence was broken by a half-checked sob. Emmystarted round, and beheld Zora crying silently to herself among the sofacushions. Emmy was amazed. Zora, the magnificent, had broken down, and wasweeping like any silly fool of a girl. It was real crying; not the sheddingof the tears of sensibility which often stood in her generous eyes. Emmymoved gently across the room--she was a soft-hearted, affectionatewoman--and knelt by the sofa. 

"Zora, dear. "

Zora, with an immense longing for love, caught her sister in her arms, andthe two women wept very happily together. It was thus that Septimus, returning for tea, as he was bidden, found them some while afterwards. 

Zora rose, her lashes still wet, and whipped up her furs. 

"But you're not going?"

"Yes. I'll leave you two together. I'll do what I can. Septimus--" Shecaught him by the arm and drew him a step or two towards the door. "Emmyhas told me everything. Oh, you needn't look frightened, dear. I'm notgoing to thank you--" Her voice broke on the laugh. "I should only make afool of myself. Some other time. I only want to say, don't you think youwould be more--more cosy and comfortable if you let her take care of youaltogether? She's breaking her heart for love of you, Septimus, and shewould make you happy. "

She rushed out of the room, and before the pair could recover from theirconfusion they heard the flat door slam behind her. 

Emmy looked at Septimus with a great scare in her blue eyes. She saidsomething about taking no notice of what Zora said. 

"But is it true?" he asked. 

She said with her back against the wall:

"Do you think it very amazing that I should care for you?"

Septimus ran his hands vehemently up his hair till it reached the climax ofStruwel Peterdom. The most wonderful thing in his life had happened. Awoman loved him. It upset all his preconceived notions of his place in theuniverse. 

"Yes, I do, " he answered. "It makes my head spin round. " He found himselfclose to her. "Do you mean that you love me"--his voice grew tremulous--"asif I were an ordinary man?"

"No, " she cried, with a half laugh. "Of course I don't. How could I love anordinary man as I love you?"

Neither could tell afterwards how it happened. Emmy called the walls towitness that she did not throw herself into his arms, and Septimus'snatural timidity precluded the possibility of his having seized her in his;but she stood for a long, throbbing time in his embrace, while he kissedher on the lips and gave all his heart into her keeping. 

They sat down together on the fender seat. 

"When a man does that, " said Septimus, as if struck by a luminous idea, "Isuppose he asks the girl to marry him. "

"But we are married already, " she cried joyously. 

"Dear me, " said Septimus, "so we are. I forgot. It's very puzzling, isn'tit? I think, if you don't mind, I'll kiss you again. "

CHAPTER XXIII

Zora went straight back to her hotel sitting-room. There, without takingoff her hat or furs, she wrote a swift, long letter to Clem Sypher, andsummoning the waiter, ordered him to post it at once. When he had gone shereflected for a few moments and sent off a telegram. After a further briefperiod of reflection she went down-stairs and rang up Sypher's office onthe telephone. 

The mere man would have tried the telephone first, then sent the telegram, and after that the explanatory letter. Woman has her own way of doingthings. 

Sypher was in. He would have finished for the day in about twenty minutes. Then he would come to her on the nearest approach to wings Londonlocomotion provided. 

"Remember, it's something most particular that I want to see you about, "said Zora. "Good-by. "

She rang off, and went up-stairs again, removed the traces of tears fromher face and changed her dress. For a few moments she regarded her outwardsemblance somewhat anxiously in the glass, unconscious of a new coquetry. Then she sat down before the sitting-room fire and looked at the inner ZoraMiddlemist. 

There was never woman, since the world began, more cast down from her highestate. Not a shred of magnificence remained. She saw herself as the mostuseless, vaporing and purblind of mortals. She had gone forth from thedespised Nunsmere, where nothing ever happened, to travel the world over insearch of realities, and had returned to find that Nunsmere had all thetime been the center of the realities that most deeply concerned her life. While she had been talking others had been living. The three beings whomshe had honored with her royal and somewhat condescending affection had alldone great things, passed through flames and issued thence purified withlove in their hearts. Emmy, Septimus, Sypher, all in their respective ways, had grappled with essentials. She alone had done nothing--she the strong, the sane, the capable, the magnificent. She had been a tinsel failure. Sofar out of touch had she been with the real warm things of life whichmattered that she had not even gained her sister's confidence. Had she doneso from her girlhood up, the miserable tragedy might not have happened. Shehad failed in a sister's elementary duty. 

As a six weeks' wife, what had she done save shiver with a splendiddisgust? Another woman would have fought and perhaps have conquered. Shehad made no attempt, and the poor wretch dead, she had trumpeted abroad hercrude opinion of the sex to which he belonged. At every turn she had seenit refuted. For many months she had known it to be vain and false; andNature, who with all her faults is at least not a liar, had spoken over andover again. She had raised a fine storm of argument, but Nature hadlaughed. So had the Literary Man from London. She had a salutary vision ofherself as the common geck and gull of the queerly assorted pair. Sherecognized that in order to work out any problem of life one must acceptlife's postulates and axioms. Even her mother, from whose gentle lips sherarely expected to hear wisdom, had said: "I don't see how you're going to'live, ' dear, without a man to take care of you. " Her mother was right, Nature was right, Rattenden was right. She, Zora Middlemist, had beenhopelessly wrong. 

 * * * * *

When Sypher arrived she welcomed him with an unaccustomed heart-beat. Themasterful grip of his hands as they held hers gave her a new throb ofpleasure. She glanced into his eyes and saw there the steady love of astrong, clean soul. She glanced away and hung her head, feeling unworthy. 

"What's this most particular thing you have to say to me?" he asked, with asmile. 

"I can't tell it to you like this. Let us sit down. Draw up that chair tothe fire. "

When they were seated, she said:

"I want first to ask you a question or two. Do you know why Septimusmarried my sister? Be quite frank, for I know everything. "

"Yes, " he said gravely, "I knew. I found it out in one or two odd ways. Septimus hasn't the faintest idea. "

Zora picked up an illustrated weekly from the floor and used it as ascreen, ostensibly from the fire, really from Sypher. 

"Why did you refuse the Jebusa Jones offer this morning?"

"What would you have thought of me if I had accepted? But Septimusshouldn't have told you. "

"He didn't. He told Emmy, who told me. You did it for my sake?"

"Everything I do is for your sake. You know that well enough. "

"Why did you send for Septimus?"

"Why are you putting me through this interrogatory?" he laughed. 

"You will learn soon, " said Zora. "I want to get everything clear in mymind. I've had a great shock. I feel as if I had been beaten all over. Forthe first time I recognize the truth of the proverb about a woman, a dog, and a walnut tree. Why did you send for Septimus?"

Sypher leaned back in his chair, and as the illustrated paper prevented himfrom seeing Zora's face, he looked reflectively at the fire. 

"I've always told you that I am superstitious. Septimus seems to be giftedwith an unconscious sense of right in an infinitely higher degree than anyman I have ever known. His dealings with Emmy showed it. His sending foryou to help me showed it. He has shown it in a thousand ways. If it hadn'tbeen for him and his influence on my mind I don't think I should have cometo that decision. When I had come to it, I just wanted him. Why, I can'ttell you. "

"I suppose you knew that he was in love with me?" said Zora in the sameeven tone. 

"Yes, " said Sypher. "That's why he married your sister. "

"Do you know why--in the depths of his heart--he sent me the tail of thelittle dog?"

"He knew somehow that it was right. I believe it was. I tell you I'msuperstitious. But in what absolute way it was right I can't imagine. "

"I can, " said Zora. "He knew that my place was by your side. He knew that Icared for you more than for any man alive. " She paused. Then she saiddeliberately: "He knew that I loved you all the time. "

Sypher plucked the illustrated paper from her hand and cast it across theroom, and, bending over the arm of his chair, seized her wrist. 

"Zora, do you mean that?"

She nodded, fluttered a glance at him, and put out her free hand to claim afew moments' grace. 

"I left you to look for a mission in life. I've come back and found it atthe place I started from. It's a big mission, for it means being a mate toa big man. But if you will let me try, I'll do my best. "

Sypher thrust away the protecting hand. 

"You can talk afterwards, " he said. 

Thus did Zora come to the knowledge of things real. When the gates wereopened, she walked in with a tread not wanting in magnificence. She madethe great surrender, which is woman's greatest victory, very proudly, veryhumbly, very deliciously. She had her greatnesses. 

She freed herself, flushed and trembling, throbbing with a strangehappiness that caught her breath. This time she believed Nature, andlaughed with her in her heart in close companionship. She was mere womanafter all, with no mission in life but the accomplishment of her womanhood, and she gloried in the knowledge. This was exceedingly good for her. Sypherregarded her with shining eyes as if she had been an immortal vestingherself in human clay for divine love of him; and this was exceedingly goodfor Sypher. After much hyperbole they descended to kindly commonplace. 

"But I don't see now, " he cried, "how I can ask you to marry me. I don'teven know how I'm to earn my living. "

"There are Septimus's inventions. Have you lost your faith in them?"

He cried with sudden enthusiasm, as who should say, if an Immortal hasfaith in them, then indeed must they be divine:

"Do you believe in them now?"

"Utterly. I've grown superstitious, too. Wherever we turn there isSeptimus. He has raised Emmy from hell to heaven. He has brought us twotogether. He is our guardian angel. He'll never fail us. Oh, Clem, thankheaven, " she exclaimed fervently, "I've got something to believe in atlast. "

 * * * * *

Meanwhile the guardian angel, entirely unconscious of apotheosis, sat inthe little flat in Chelsea blissfully eating crumpets over which Emmy hadspread the preposterous amount of butter which proceeds from an overflowingheart. She knelt on the hearth rug watching him adoringly as if he were ahierophant eating sacramental wafer. They talked of the future. Hementioned the nice houses he had seen in Berkeley Square. 

"Berkeley Square would be very charming, " said Emmy, "but it would meancarriages and motor-cars and powdered footmen and Ascot and balls anddinner parties and presentations at Court. You would be just in yourelement, wouldn't you, dear?"

She laughed and laid her happy head on his knee. 

"No, dear. If we want to have a fling together, you and I, in London, letus keep on this flat as a _pied-à-terre_. But let us live at Nunsmere. Thehouse is quite big enough, and if it isn't you can always add on a bit atthe cost of a month's rent in Berkeley Square. Wouldn't you prefer to liveat Nunsmere?"

"You and the boy and my workshop are all I want in the world, " said he. 

"And not Wiggleswick?"

One of his rare smiles passed across his face. 

"I think Wiggleswick will be upset. "

Emmy laughed again. "What a funny household it will be--Wiggleswick andMadame Bolivard! It will be lovely!"

Septimus reflected for an anxious moment. "Do you know, dear, " he saiddiffidently, "I've dreamed of something all my life--I mean ever since Ileft home. It has always seemed somehow beyond my reach. I wonder whetherit can come true now. So many wonderful things have happened to me thatperhaps this, too--"

"What is it, dear?" she asked, very softly. 

"I seem to be so marked off from other men; but I've dreamed all my life ofhaving in my house a neat, proper, real parlor maid in a pretty white capand apron. Do you think it can be managed?"

With her head on his knee she said in a queer voice:

"Yes, I think it can. "

He touched her cheek and suddenly drew his hand away. 

"Why, you're crying! What a selfish brute I am! Of course we won't have herif she would be in your way. "

Emmy lifted her face to him. 

"Oh, you dear, beautiful, silly Septimus, " she said, "don't you understand?Isn't it just like you? You give every one else the earth, and in returnyou ask for a parlor maid. "

"Well, you see, " he said in a tone of distressed apology, "she would comein so handy. I could teach her to mind the guns. "

"You dear!" cried Emmy. 

THE END