Said Septimus: "If you had not met her, you wouldn't have met Hegisippe
Cruchot, and so you wouldn't have got the idea of Army blisters."

Sypher clapped him on the shoulder and extolled him as a miracle of
lucidity. He explained magniloquently. It was Zora's unseen influence
working magnetically from the other side of the world that had led his
footsteps towards the Hotel Godet on that particular afternoon. She had
triumphantly vindicated her assertion that geographical location of her
bodily presence could make no difference.

"I asked her to stay in England, you know," he remarked more simply, seeing
that 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 Hegisippe,
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 and
on the other side of the way the fierce afternoon sunlight blazed. The
merchant of wine, who had been lounging in his dingy shirt-sleeves against
the door-post, removed the glasses and wiped the table clear of the spilled
tea. Sypher ordered two more bocks for the good of the house, while
Septimus, still lost in thought, brought his hair to its highest pitch of
Struwel Peterdom. Passers-by turned round to look at them, for well-dressed
Englishmen do not often sit outside a _Marchand des vins_, especially one
with such hair. But passers-by are polite in France and do not salute the
unfamiliar with ribaldry.

"Well," said Sypher, at last.

"We've been speaking intimately," said Septimus. He paused, then proceeded
with 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 to
marry you--but don't you think you were selfish?"

"Selfish? How?"

"In asking Zora Middlemist to give up her trip to California, just for the
sake 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 Hegisippe Cruchot? If she did, she
would have stayed. It would have been her duty. You couldn't expect a woman
like Zora Middlemist to fail in her duty, could you?"

Sypher rubbed his eyes, as if he saw things mistily. But they were quite
clear. It was really Septimus Dix who sat oppo