n full payment for everything. You want me to go away
happy, don't you?"

"My dear," she said, with a little catch in her voice, "if there was
anything in the world I could do to make you happy, short of throwing baby
to a tiger, I would do it."

Septimus took off his cap and brought his hair to its normal
perpendicularity. 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 bed
isn't made at six o'clock in the evening, and my house is a cross between a
pigsty and an ironmonger's shop, nobody minds. It is only Septimus Dix's
extraordinary habits. But if the woman who is my wife in the eyes of the
world--"

"Yes, yes, I see," she said hurriedly. "I hadn't looked at it in that
light."

"The boy is going to Cambridge," he murmured. "Then I should like him to go
into Parliament. There are deuced clever fellows in Parliament. I met one
in Venice two or three years ago. He knew an awful lot of things. We spent
an evening together on the Grand Canal and he talked all the time most
interestingly on the drainage system of Barrow-in-Furness. I wonder how
fellows get to know about drains."

Emmy said: "Would it make you happy?"

From her tone he gathered that she referred to the subject of contention
between 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 just
now."

There was a long silence and then Emmy remarked that it was a heavenly
night.

CHAPTER XVI

In the course of time Sypher returned to London to fight a losing battle
against the Powers of Darkness and derive whatever inspiration he could
from Zora's letters. He also called dutifully at "The Nook" during his
week-end visits to Penton Court, where he found restfulness in the
atmosphere of lavender. Mrs. Oldrieve continued to regard him as a most
superior person. Cousin Jane, as became a gentlewoman of breeding, received
him with courtesy--but a courtesy marked by that shade of reserve which is
due from a lady of quality to the grandfatherless. If she had not striven
against the unregeneracy of mortal flesh she would have disapproved of him
offhand 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 whi