Septimus | Page 4

to get away from it. You think you're going to be thrilled into passionate raptures by cathedrals and expensive restaurants and the set pieces of fashionable scenery. You're not. Your store of honey will consist of emotional experiences of a primitive order. If not, I know nothing at all about women."
"Do you know anything about them?" she asked sweetly.
"More than would be becoming of me to tell," he replied. "Anyhow," he added, "that doesn't matter. I've made my prophecy. You'll tell me afterwards, if I have the pleasure of seeing you again, whether it has come true."
"It won't come true," said Zora.
"We shall see," said the wise man.
She dashed, that afternoon, into her sister's tiny flat in Chelsea. Emily, taken by surprise, hastily stuffed to the bottom of her work-basket a man's silk tie which she was knitting, and then greeted Zora affectionately.
She was shorter, slimmer, paler than her sister: of a certain babyish prettiness. She had Mrs. Oldrieve's weak mouth and gentle ways.
"Why, Zora, who would have thought of seeing you? What are you doing in town?"
"Getting hats and frocks--a trousseau of freedom. I've left Nunsmere. I'm on my own."
Her eyes sparkled, her cheeks were flushed. She caught Emily to her bosom.
"Oh, darling! I'm so happy--a bird let out of a cage."
"An awful big bird," laughed Emily.
"Yes, let out of an awful small cage. I'm going to see the world, for the first time in my life. I'm going to get out of the cold and wet--going South--to Italy--Sicily--Egypt--anywhere."
"All by yourself?"
"There'll be Turner."
"Turner?"
"Ah, you don't know her. My new maid. But isn't it glorious? Why shouldn't you come with me, darling? Do. Come."
"And throw up my engagement? I couldn't. I should love it, but you don't know how hard engagements are to get."
"Never mind. I'll pay for everything."
But Emily shook her fluffy head. She had a good part, a few lines to speak and a bit of a song to sing in a successful musical comedy. She looked back on the two years' price she had paid for that little bit of a song. It was dearer to her than anything--save one thing--in life.
"I can't. Besides, don't you think a couple of girls fooling about alone look rather silly? It wouldn't really be very funny without a man."
Zora rose in protest. "The whole human race is man-mad! Even mother. I think everybody is detestable!"
The maid announced "Mr. Mordaunt Prince," and a handsome man with finely cut, dark features and black hair parted in the middle and brushed tightly back over the head, entered the room. Emmy presented him to Zora, who recognized him as the leading man at the theater where Emmy was playing. Zora exchanged a few polite commonplaces with the visitor and then took her leave. Emmy accompanied her to the front door of the flat.
"Isn't he charming?"
"That creature?" asked Zora.
Emmy laughed. "In your present mood you would find fault with an archangel. Good-bye, darling, and take care of yourself."
She bore no malice, having a kind heart and being foolishly happy. When she returned to the drawing-room the man took both her hands.
"Well, sweetheart?"
"My sister wanted to carry me off to Italy."
"What did you say?"
"Guess," said the girl, lifting starry eyes.
The man guessed, after the manner of men, and for a moment Emmy forgot Zora, who went her own way in pursuit of happiness, heedless of the wisdom of the wise and of the foolish.
CHAPTER II
For five months Zora wandered over the world--chiefly Italy--without an experience which might be called an adventure. When the Literary Man from London crossed her mind she laughed him to scorn for a prophetic popinjay. She had broken no man's heart, and her own was whole. The tribes of Crim Tartary had exhibited no signs of worry and had left her unmolested. She had furthermore taken rapturous delight in cathedrals, expensive restaurants, and the set pieces of fashionable scenery. Rattenden had not a prophetic leg to stand on.
Yet she longed for the unattainable--for the elusive something of which these felicities were but symbols. Now the wanderer with a haunting sense of the Beyond, but without the true vagabond's divine gift of piercing the veil, can only follow the obvious; and there are seasons when the obvious fails to satisfy. When such a mood overcame her mistress, Turner railed at the upsetting quality of foreign food, and presented bicarbonate of soda. She arrived by a different path at the unsatisfactory nature of the obvious. Sometimes, too, the pleasant acquaintances of travel were lacking, and loneliness upset the nice balance of Zora's nerves. Then, more than ever, did she pine for the Beyond.
Yet youth, receptivity, imagination kept her buoyant. Hope lured her on with renewed promises from city to city. At last, on her homeward journey, he whispered the magic name of Monte Carlo,