mercial company, but the possession of a man who has a house,
who lives in the very house you can see through the trees. 'What kind of a
man is he?' they ask. 'He must be a nice man to live in such a nice house.
I almost feel I know him. _I'll try his Cure_.' Don't you think it's a
colossal idea?"

He looked questioningly into three embarrassed faces. Emmy, in spite of her
own preoccupation, suppressed a giggle. There was a moment's silence, which
was broken by Septimus's mild voice:

"I think, by means of levers running down to the line and worked by the
trains as they passed, I could invent a machine for throwing little boxes
of samples from the board into the railway carriage windows."

Emmy burst out laughing. "Come and show me how you would do it."

She linked her arm in his and dragged him down to the line, where she spoke
with mirthful disrespect of Sypher's Cure. Meanwhile Zora said nothing to
Sypher.

"Don't you like it?" he asked at last, disconcerted.

"Do you want me to be the polite lady you've asked to lunch or your
friend?"

"My friend and my helper," said he.

"Then," she replied, touching his coat sleeve, "I must say that I don't
like it. I hate it. I think it's everything that is most abominable."

The board was one pride of his heart, and Zora was another. He looked at
them both alternately in a piteous, crestfallen way.

"But why?" he asked.

Zora's eyes filled with tears. She saw that her lack of appreciation had
hurt him to the heart. She was a generous woman, and did not convict him,
as she would have done another man, of blatant vulgarity. Yet she felt
preposterously pained. Why could not this great, single-minded creature,
with ideas as high as they were queer, perceive the board's rank
abomination?

"It's unworthy of you," she said bravely. "I want everyone to respect you
as I do. You see the Cure isn't everything. There's a man behind it."

"That's the object of the board," said Sypher. "To show the man."

"But it doesn't show the chivalrous gentleman that I think you are," she
replied quickly. "It gives the impression of some one quite different--a
horrid creature who would sell his self-respect for money. Oh, don't you
understand? It's as bad as walking through the streets with 'Sypher's Cure'
painted on your hat."

"What can I do about it?" he asked.

"Take it down at once," said Zora.

"But to exhibit the board was my sole reason for buying the place."

"I'm very sorr