Septimus

"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 over his pipe. He asked very little of the world, and oddly enough the world rewarded his modesty by giving him more than he asked for. To-day he had seen Sypher in a new mood, sympathetic, unegotistical, non-robustious, and he felt gratified at having won a man"s friendship. It was an addition to his few anchorages in life. Then, in a couple of hours he would sun himself in the smiles of his adored mistress, and listen to the prattle of his other friend, Emmy. Mrs. Oldrieve would be knitting by the lamp, and probably he would hold her wool, drop it, and be scolded as if he were a member of the family; all of which was a very gracious thing to the sensitive, lonely man, warming his heart and expanding his nature. It filled his head with dreams: of a woman dwelling by right in this house of his, and making the air fragrant by her presence. But as the woman--although he tried his utmost to prevent it and to conjure up the form of a totally different type--took the shape of Zora Middlemist, he discouraged such dreams as making more for mild unhappiness than for joy, and bent his thoughts to his guns and railway carriages and other world-upheaving inventions. The only thing that caused him any uneasiness was an overdraft at his bank due to cover which he had to pay on shares purchased for him by a circularizing bucket-shop keeper. It had seemed so simple to write Messrs. Shark & Co., or whatever alias the philanthropic financier a.s.sumed, a check for a couple of hundred pounds, and receive Messrs. Shark"s check for two thousand in a fortnight, that he had wondered why other people did not follow this easy road to fortune.

Perhaps they did, he reflected: that was how they managed to keep a large family of daughters and a motor car. But when the shark conveyed to him in unintelligible terms the fact that unless he wrote a check for two or three hundred pounds more his original stake would be lost, and when these also fell through the bottomless bucket of Messrs. Shark & Co. and his bankers called his attention to an overdrawn account, it began to dawn upon him that these were not the methods whereby a large family of daughters and a motor car were unprecariously maintained. The loss did not distress him to the point of sleeplessness; his ideas as to the value of money were as vague as his notions on the rearing of babies; but he was publishing his book at his own expense, and was concerned at not being in a position to pay the poor publisher immediately.

At Mrs. Oldrieve"s he found his previsions nearly all fulfilled. Zora, with a sofa-ful of railway time-tables and ocean-steamer handbooks, sought his counsel 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 to convey verbally to Wiggleswick, although he confessed that the only omelette that Wiggleswick had tried to make they had used for months afterwards as a kettle-holder; but Emmy did not prattle. She sat in a corner, listlessly turning over the leaves of a novel and taking an extraordinary lack of interest in the general conversation. The usual headache and neuralgia supplied her excuse. She looked pale, ill, and worried; and worry on a baby face is a lugubrious and pitiful spectacle.

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

"I"m so sorry you have a headache," said Septimus sympathetically. "Why don"t you go to bed?"

"I hate bed. I can"t sleep," she replied, with an impatient shake of the body. "You mustn"t mind me. I"m sorry I"m so rotten--ah! well then--such an uninspiring companion, if you like," she added, seeing that the word had jarred on him. Then she rose. "I suppose I bore you. I had better go, as you 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 h.e.l.l and the Devil and all his angels," said Emmy, "and I"d like to murder 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." She turned, 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 it up 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 a week, and now he writes to say he has gone to Naples on account of his health. You had better let me go, my good Septimus; if I stay here much longer 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 you understand? 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; but they"re awfully proud of it. Mother"s people date from before Noah, and they look down on the Oldrieves because they sprang up like mushrooms just after the Flood. Prince"s real name is Huzzle, and his father kept a boot shop. 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. They ought to know."

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

"Have you ever thought whether it wouldn"t be well to give him up?" said Septimus, in his hesitating way.

"I can"t, I can"t!" she cried. Then she burst into tears, and, afraid lest Zora should surprise her, left the room without another word.

On such occasions the most experienced man is helpless. He shrugs his shoulders, says "Whew!" and lights a cigarette. Septimus, with an infant"s knowledge of the ways of young women, felt terribly distressed by the tragedy of her tears. Something must be done to stop them. He might start at once for Naples, and, by the help of strong gendarmes whom he might suborn, bring back Mordaunt Prince presently to London. Then he remembered his overdrawn banking account, and sighfully gave up the idea. If only he were not bound to secrecy and could confide in Zora. This a sensitive honor forbade. What could he do? As the fire was getting low he mechanically put on a lump of coal with the pincers. When Zora returned with the atlas she found him rubbing them through his hair, and staring at vacancy.

"If I do go round the world," said Zora, a little while later, when they had settled on which side of South America Valparaiso was situated--and how many nice and clever people could tell you positively, offhand?--"if I go round 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 and smile.

"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 take care of her, it would be an excellent thing for you."

"She wouldn"t even trust me with her luggage," said Septimus, miles away from Zora"s meaning. "Would you?"

She laughed again. "I"m different. I should really have to look after the two 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 hand and touched his. The light of the lamp shone through her hair, turning it to luminous gold. Her arm was bare to the elbow, and the warm fragrance of her nearness overspread him. The touch thrilled him to the depths, and he flushed to his upstanding Struwel Peter hair. He tried to say something--he knew not what; but his throat was smitten with sudden dryness. It seemed to him 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 to tell her that his senses swam with the temptation of her touch and the rise and fall of her bosom, through the great love he had for her, and yet terror-stricken lest she might discover his secret, and punish his audacity according to the summary methods of Juno, Diana, and other offended G.o.ddesses whom mortals dared to love. It could only have been a few seconds, for he heard her voice in his ears, at first faint and then gathering distinctness, continuing in almost the same breath as her question.

"Would you? Do you know the greatest pleasure you could give me? It would be 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 and rose. He stood, too, mechanically.

"I think you"re the obtusest man I"ve ever met. Anyone else would have guessed long ago. Don"t you see, you dear, foolish thing"--she laid her hands on his shoulders and looked with agonizing deliciousness into his face--"don"t you see that you want a wife to save you from omelettes that you have to use as kettle-holders, and to give you a sense of responsibility? And don"t you see that Emmy, who is never happier than when--oh!" she broke off impatiently, "don"t you see?"

He had built for himself no card house of illusion, so it did not come toppling down with dismaying clatter. But all the same he felt as if her kind hands had turned death cold and were wringing his heart. He took them from his shoulders, and, not unpicturesquely, kissed her finger-tips. Then he 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 the fender.

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

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

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

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

His face a.s.sumed a look of horror. His G.o.ddess a fool? She laughed gaily.

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

It was an honorable amends, royally made. Zora had a magnificent style in doing such things: an indiscreet, venturesome, meddlesome princess she might be, if you will; somewhat unreserved, somewhat too conscious of her own Zoraesque sufficiency to possess the true womanly intuition and sympathy; but still a princess who had the grand manner in her scorn of trivialities. Septimus"s hand shook a little as he fitted the tail to the hollow bit of china dog-end. It was sweet to be loved, although it was bitter to be loved in a sort of way. Even a man like Septimus Dix has his feelings. He had to hide them.

"You make me very happy," he said. "Your caring so much for me as to wish me to marry your sister, I shall never forget it. You see, I"ve never thought of her in that way. I suppose I don"t think of women at all in that way," he went on, with a certain splendid mendacity. "It"s a case of cog-wheels instead of corpuscles. I"m just a heathen bit of machinery, with my 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.