"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."
"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 ivory
rule on the portion of the complicated diagram of machinery which he had
been measuring off, and soon became absorbed in his task. It was four
o'clock in the afternoon. He had but lately risen, and sat in pyjamas and
dressing-gown over his drawing. A bundle of proofs and a jam-pot containing
a dissipated looking rosebud lay on that space of the table not occupied by
the double-elephant sheet of paper. By his side was a manuscript covered
with calculations to which he referred or added from time to time. A bleak
November light came in through the window, and Septimus's chair was on the
right-hand side of the table. It was characteristic of him to sit
unnecessarily in his own light.
Presently a more than normal darkening of the room caused him to look at
the 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 respond
to the invitation was his head and shoulders.
"Is it good morning, good afternoon, or good night?" he asked, surveying
Septimus'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 immediately
followed by a loud report.
"What the devil's that?" asked Sypher, startled.
"That," said Septimus mildly, "is an invention. I pull the rope and a
pistol 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 a
haddock?"
"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 anything
you like."
He put his hand again on the bell-pull. A hasty exclamation from Sypher
checked his impulse.
"I say, don't do that again. If you'll open the front door for me," he
added, "I may be able to get inside."
A moment or two later Sypher was admitted, by the orthodox avenues, into
the 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't
had a hand in it."
As Septimus's imagination was entirely scientific he could furnish no
solution to the problem. He drew a chair to the fire and bade his guest sit
down, 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, but
declined the chair for the moment.
"You don't mind my looking you up? I told you yesterday I would do it, but
you're such a curious creature there's no knowing at what hour you can
receive visitors. Mrs. Middlemist told me you were generally in to lunch at
half-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," replied
Septimus. "You see, the idea is that every compartment should consist of an
outer shell and an inner case in which passengers sit. The roof is like a
lid. When there's a collision this series of levers is set in motion, and
at once the inner case is lifted through the roof and the people are out of
the direct concussion. I haven't quite worked it out yet," he added,
passing his hand through his hair. "You see, the same thing might happen
when they're just coupling some more carriages on to a train at rest, which
would be irritating to the passengers."
"Very," said Sypher, drily. "It would also come rather expensive, wouldn't
it?"
"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 the
Milky Way before you were born. You were destined for a more enlightened
planet. If they won't pay thirteen pence halfpenny for Sypher's Cure, how
can you expect them to pay millions for your inventions? That Cure--but I'm
not 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 swift
glances at Septimus.
"It's my book on guns."
"Can I look?"
"Certainly."
Sypher straightened out the bundle--it was in page-proof--and read the
title:
"A Theoretical Treatise on the Construction of Guns of Large Caliber. By
Septimus 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, and
while Septimus ate his morning meal Sypher smoked and talked and looked
through the pages of the Treatise. The lamps lit and the curtains drawn,
the room had a cosier appearance than by day. Sypher stretched himself
comfortably before the fire.
"I'm not in the way, am I?"
"Good heavens, no!" said Septimus. "I was just thinking how pleasant it
was. I've not had a man inside my rooms since I was up at Cambridge--and
then 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, he
is doubly welcome," he explained. "Besides," he added, after a drink of
coffee, "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 much
the Friend of Humanity in the bulk that I've somehow been careless as to
the individual."
"Have a drink," said Septimus, filling his after-breakfast pipe.
The pistol shot brought Wiggleswick, who, in his turn, brought whiskey and
soda, and the two friends finished the afternoon in great amity. Before
taking his departure Sypher asked whether he might read through the proofs
of the gun book at home.
"I think I know enough of machinery and mathematics to understand what
you're driving at, and I should like to examine these guns of yours. You
think 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 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 assumed, 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 Hell 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
goddesses 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 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, 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.
"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 any
distance--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 his
first sleep, he was awakened through a sudden dream of battle by a series
of revolver shots. Wondering whether Wiggleswick had gone mad or was
attempting an elaborate and painful mode of suicide, he leaped out of bed
and rushed to the landing.
"What's the matter?"
"Hello! You're up at last!" cried Clem Sypher, appearing at the bottom of
the stairs, sprucely attired for the city, and wearing a flower in the
buttonhole of his overcoat. "I've had to break open the front door in order
to get in at all, and then I tried shooting the bell for your valet. Can I
come 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 I
disturbed you, but I couldn't wait. I'm off to the office and heaven knows
when 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 to
Septimus's body, vaguely outlined beneath the clothes. In the gray November
light--Zora's carefully chosen curtains and blinds had not been
drawn--Sypher, pink and shiny, his silk hat (which he wore) a resplendent
miracle of valetry, looked an urban yet roseate personification of Dawn. He
seemed as eager as Septimus was supine.
"I've sat up half the night over this thing," said he, "and I really
believe 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 what
you're doing? Here you've worked out a scheme that may revolutionize naval
gunnery, 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 a
yawn.
"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 room
from 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 you
I'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 the
specification?"
"Really? Do you think they would give me a couple of hundred pounds?" asked
Septimus, thinking vaguely of Mordaunt Prince in Naples and his overdrawn
banking 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 I
haven't a head for business."
"I'm afraid you haven't," grinned Sypher, leaning over the footrail of the
bed. "Next time you speculate come to me first for advice. Let me be your
agent 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 got
to 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 the
guns 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 the
thing on your behalf. My solicitors will send you a document full of
verbiage which you had better send off to your solicitor to look through
before you sign it. It will be all right. I'm going to take the proofs. Of
course this stops publishing," he remarked, looking round from the
dressing-table where he was writing the check.
Septimus assented and took the check wonderingly, remarking that he didn't
in the least know what it was for.
"For the privilege of making your fortune. Good-by," said he. "Don't get
up."
"Good night," said Septimus, and the door having closed behind Clem Sypher,
he thrust the check beneath the bedclothes, curled himself up and went to
sleep like a dormouse.