rday's _Petit Journal_. The
_femme de chambre_ and the dirty, indeterminate man in a green baize apron,
who went about raising casual dust with a great feather broom, at first
stowed the litter away daily, with jackdaw ingenuity of concealment, until
Septimus gave them five francs each to desist; whereupon they desisted with
alacrity, and the books became the stepping-stones aforesaid,
stepping-stones to higher things. His only concern was the impossibility of
repacking them when the time should come for him to leave the Hotel Godet,
and sometimes the more academic speculation as to what Zora would say
should some miracle of levitation transport her to the untidy chamber. He
could see her, radiant and commanding, dispelling chaos with the sweep of
her parasol.

There were few moments in the day when he did not crave her presence. It
had been warmth and sunshine and color to him for so long that now the sun
seemed to have disappeared from the sky, leaving the earth a chill
monochrome. Life was very difficult without her. She had even withdrawn
from him the love "in a sort of way" to which she had confessed. The
goddess was angry at the slight cast on her by his secret marriage. And she
was in California, a myriad of miles away. She could not have been more
remote had she been in Saturn. When Emmy asked him whether he did not long
for Wiggleswick and the studious calm of Nunsmere, he said, "No." And he
spoke truly; for wherein lay the advantage of one spot on the earth's
surface over another, if Zora were not the light thereof? But he kept his
reason in his heart. They rarely spoke of Zora.

Of the things that concerned Emmy herself so deeply, they never spoke at
all. Of her hopes and fears for the future he knew nothing. For all that
was said between them, Mordaunt Prince might have been the figure of a
dream that had vanished into the impenetrable mists of dreamland. To the
girl he was a ghastly memory which she strove to hide in the depths of her
soul. Septimus saw that she suffered, and went many quaint and irrelevant
ways to alleviate her misery. Sometimes they got on her nerves; more often
they made the good tears come. Once she was reading a tattered volume of
George Eliot which she had picked up during a stroll on the quays, and
calling him over to her side pointed out a sentence: "Dogs are the best
friends, they are always ready with their sympathy and they ask no
questions."

"That's like you," she said; "but