ptimus felt criminally
insignificant. His voice was of too low a pitch to make itself carry when
these two spoke in their full tones. He shrank into his shell. Had he not
realized, in his sensitive way, that without him as a watchdog--ineffectual
spaniel that he was--Zora would not accept Clem Sypher's invitation, he
would have excused himself from the drive. He differentiated, not
conceitedly, between Clem Sypher and himself. She had driven alone with him
on her first night at Monte Carlo. But then she had carried him off between
her finger and thumb, so to speak, as the Brobdingnagian ladies carried off
Gulliver. He knew that he did not count as a danger in the eyes of
high-spirited young women. A man like Sypher did. He knew that Zora would
not have driven alone with Sypher any more than with the wretch of the evil
eyes. He did not analyze this out himself, as his habit of mind was too
vague and dreamy. But he knew it instinctively, as a dog knows whom he can
trust with his mistress and whom he cannot. So when Sypher and Zora, with
a great bustle of life, were discussing seating arrangements in the car, he
climbed modestly into the front seat next to the chauffeur, and would not
be dislodged by Sypher's entreaties. He was just there, on guard, having no
place in the vigorous atmosphere of their personalities. He sat aloof,
smoking his pipe, and wondering whether he could invent a motor
perambulator which could run on rails round a small garden, fill the baby's
lungs with air, and save the British Army from the temptation of
nursery-maids. His sporadic discourse on the subject perplexed the
chauffeur.

It was a day of vivid glory. Rain had fallen heavily during the night,
laying the dust on the road and washing to gay freshness the leaves of
palms and gold-spotted orange trees and the purple bourgainvillea and other
flowers that rioted on wayside walls. All the deep, strong color of the
South was there, making things unreal: the gray mountains, fragile masses
against the solid cobalt of the sky. The Mediterranean met the horizon in a
blue so intense that the soul ached to see it. The heart of spring throbbed
in the deep bosom of summer. The air as they sped through it was like cool
spiced wine.

Zora listened to Clem Sypher's dithyrambics. The wine of the air had got
into his head. He spoke as she had heard no man speak before. The turns of
the road brought into sight view after magic view, causing her to catch her
b