. Secure in her scorn and hatred of men she saw no harm
in her actions. Nor was there any, from the point of view of her young
egotism and inexperience. It scarcely occurred to her that Septimus was a
man. In some aspects he appealed to her instinctive motherhood like a
child. When she met him one day coming out of one of the shops in the
arcade, wearing a newly bought Homburg hat too small for him, she marched
him back with a delicious sense of responsibility and stood over him till
he was adequately fitted. In other aspects he was like a woman in whose shy
delicacy she could confide. She awoke also to a new realization--that of
power. Now, to use power with propriety needs wisdom, and the woman who is
wise at five-and-twenty cannot make out at sixty why she has remained an
old maid. The delightful way to use it is that of a babe when he first
discovers that a stick hits. That is the way that Zora, who was not wise,
used it over Septimus. For the first time in her life she owned a human
being. A former joy in the possession of a devoted dog who did tricks was
as nothing to this rapture. It was splendid. She owned him. Whenever she
had a desire for his company--which was often, as solitude at Monte Carlo
is more depressing than Zora had realized--she sent a page boy, in the true
quality of his name of _chasseur_, to hunt down the quarry and bring him
back. He would, therefore, be awakened at unearthly hours, at three o'clock
in the afternoon, for instance, when, as he said, all rational beings
should be asleep, it being their own unreason if they were not; or he would
be tracked down at ten in the morning to some obscure little cafe in the
town where he would be discovered eating ices and looking the worse for
wear in his clothes of the night before. As this meant delay in the
execution of her wishes, Zora prescribed habits less irregular. By means of
bribery of chambermaids and porters, and the sacrifice of food and sleep,
he contrived to find himself dressed in decent time in the mornings. He
would then patiently await her orders or call modestly for them at her
residence, like the butcher or the greengrocer.

"Why does your hair stand up on end, in that queer fashion?" she asked him
one day. The hat episode had led to a general regulation of his personal
appearance.

He pondered gravely over the conundrum for some time, and then replied that
he must have lost control over it. The command went forth that he should
vis