Septimus Part 14

On the top of her matchmaking and her reflections on Truth in the guise of the Veiled Prophet of Khorasan, came Clem Sypher to take possession of his new 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 everywhere also an implied admission of the almost invulnerable strength of his enemy.

"I'm physically tired," said he, on the first day of his arrival, spreading his large frame luxuriously among the cushions of Mrs. Oldrieve's chintz-covered Chesterfield. "I'm tired for the only time in my life. I wanted you," he added, with one of his quick, piercing looks. "It's a curious thing, but I've kept saying to myself for the last month, 'If I could only come into Zora Middlemist's presence and drink in some of her vitality, 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-less soda water." He drew a long breath. "My G.o.d! It's good to see you again.

You're the one creature on this earth who believes in the Cure as I do myself."

Zora glanced at him guiltily. Her enthusiasm for the Cure as a religion was tepid. In her heart she did not believe in it. She had tried it a few weeks before on the sore head of a village baby, with disastrous results; then the mother had called in the doctor, who wrote out a simple prescription which healed the child immediately. The only real evidence of its powers she had seen was on Septimus's brown boots. Humanity, however, forbade her to deny the faith with which Clem Sypher credited her; also a genuine feeling 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 accepting it as the one heaven-sent remedy, people will use any other puffed and advertised stuff. Chemists are even lukewarm. A grain of mustard seed of faith among them would save me thousands of pounds a year. Not that I want to roll in money, Mrs. Middlemist. I'm not an avaricious man. But a great business requires capital--and to spend money merely in flogging the invertebrate 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 s.p.a.ce," she said kindly. "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 what a 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 to make 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 the country. Will you come?"

"On one condition."

"And that?"

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

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

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

"I have a surprise for you," said Sypher. "It's a brilliant idea--have had it 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 an intimate nature, and as Mrs. Oldrieve preferred the simple graces of stereotyped conversation, the remainder of Sypher's visit was uneventful.

When he had taken his leave she remarked that he seemed to be a most superior person.

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

"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 or think such a thing I'll--I'll slap you. Mr. Sypher and I are friends. He hasn't the remotest idea of our being anything else. If he had, I would never 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 this manner."

"But, my dear," said Emmy, "it's you that are discussing him. I'm not. The only 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 so preposterous an idea have entered. Clem Sypher in love with her? If so, why not Septimus Dix? The thing thus reduced itself to an absurdity. She laughed to herself, half ashamed of having allowed Emmy to see that she took her child's foolishness seriously, and came down to dinner serene and indulgent.

CHAPTER VII

"Are you going to have your bath first, or your breakfast?" asked Wiggleswick, 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."