Septimus Part 29

There was kindness, help, sympathy in the big man's voice, and Septimus, though the challenge caused him agonies of shyness, did not find it in his heart to resent Sypher's logic.

"I suppose every man whom she befriends must feel the same towards her.

Don't you?"

"I? I'm different. I've got a great work to carry through. I couldn't lie down for anybody to walk over me. My work would suffer--but in this mission of mine Zora Middlemist is intimately involved. I said it when I first saw her, and I said it just before she left for California. She is to stand by my side and help me. How, G.o.d knows." He laughed, seeing the bewildered face of Septimus, who had never heard of this transcendental connection of Zora with the spread of Sypher's Cure. "You seem to think I'm crazy. I'm not. I work everything on the most hard and fast common-sense lines. But when a voice inside you tells you a thing day and night, you must believe it."

Said Septimus: "If you had not met her, you wouldn't have met Hegisippe Cruchot, and so you wouldn't have got the idea of Army blisters."

Sypher clapped him on the shoulder and extolled him as a miracle of lucidity. He explained magniloquently. It was Zora's unseen influence working magnetically from the other side of the world that had led his footsteps towards the Hotel G.o.det on that particular afternoon. She had triumphantly vindicated her a.s.sertion that geographical location of her bodily presence could make no difference.

"I asked her to stay in England, you know," he remarked more simply, seeing that Septimus lagged behind him in his flight.

"What for?"

"Why, to help me. For what other reason?"

Septimus took off his hat and laid it on the chair vacated by Hegisippe, and ran his fingers reflectively up his hair. Sypher lit another cigar.

Their side of the little street was deep in shade, but on half the road and on the other side of the way the fierce afternoon sunlight blazed. The merchant of wine, who had been lounging in his dingy s.h.i.+rt-sleeves against the door-post, removed the gla.s.ses and wiped the table clear of the spilled tea. Sypher ordered two more bocks for the good of the house, while Septimus, still lost in thought, brought his hair to its highest pitch of Struwel Peterdom. Pa.s.sers-by turned round to look at them, for well-dressed Englishmen do not often sit outside a _Marchand des vins_, especially one with such hair. But pa.s.sers-by are polite in France and do not salute the unfamiliar with ribaldry.

"Well," said Sypher, at last.

"We've been speaking intimately," said Septimus. He paused, then proceeded with his usual diffidence. "I've never spoken intimately to a man before, and I don't quite know how to do it--it must be just like asking a woman to marry you--but don't you think you were selfish?"

"Selfish? How?"

"In asking Zora Middlemist to give up her trip to California, just for the sake of the Cure."

"It's worth the sacrifice," Sypher maintained.

"To you, yes; but it mayn't be so to her."

"But she believes in the thing as I do myself!" cried Sypher.

"Why should she, any more than I, or Hegisippe Cruchot? If she did, she would have stayed. It would have been her duty. You couldn't expect a woman like Zora Middlemist to fail in her duty, could you?"

Sypher rubbed his eyes, as if he saw things mistily. But they were quite clear. It was really Septimus Dix who sat opposite, concentrating his discursive mind on Sypher's Cure and implicitly denying Zora's faith. A simple-minded man in many respects, he would not have scorned to learn wisdom out of the mouths of babes and sucklings; but out of the mouth of Septimus what wisdom could possibly proceed? He laughed his suggestion away somewhat bl.u.s.teringly and launched out again on his panegyric of the Cure.

But his faith felt a quiver all through its structure, just as a great building does at the first faint shock of earthquake.

"What made you say that about Zora Middlemist?" he asked when he had finished.

"I don't know," replied Septimus. "It seemed to be right to say it. I know when I get things into my head there appears to be room for nothing else in the world. One takes things for granted. When I was a child my father took it for granted that I believed in predestination. I couldn't; but I did not dare tell him so. So I went about with a load of somebody else's faith on my shoulders. It became intolerable; and when my father found out he beat me. He had a bit of rope tied up with twine at the end for the purpose. I shouldn't like this to happen to Zora."

This ended the discussion. The landlord at his door-post drew them into talk about the heat, the emptiness of Paris and the happy lot of those who could go into villeggiatura in the country. The arrival of a perspiring cabman in a red waistcoat and glazed hat caused him to retire within and administer to the newcomer's needs.

"One of my reasons for looking you up," said Sypher, "was to make my apologies."

"Apologies?"

"Yes. Haven't you thought about the book on guns and wondered at not hearing from me?"

"No," said Septimus. "When I've invented a thing the interest has gone.

I've just invented a new sighting apparatus. I'll show you the model if you'll come to the hotel."

Sypher looked at his watch and excused himself on the ground of business engagements. Then he had to dine and start by the nine o'clock train.

"Anyhow," said he, "I'm ashamed at not having done anything with the guns.

I did show the proofs to a naval expert, but he made all sorts of criticisms which didn't help. Experts know everything that is known and don't want to know anything that isn't. So I laid it aside."

"It doesn't matter in the least," said Septimus eagerly, "and if you want to break the contract you sent me, I can pay you back the two hundred pounds." But Sypher a.s.sured him that he had never broken a contract in his life, and they shook hands and went their respective ways, Septimus to the _appartement_ in the Boulevard Raspail, and Sypher thoughtfully in the direction of the Luxembourg.

He was sorry, very sorry for Septimus Dix. His kindness of heart had not allowed him to tell the brutal truth about the guns. The naval expert had scoffed in the free manner of those who follow the sea and declared the great guns a mad inventor's dream. The Admiralty was overwhelmed with such things. The proofs were so much waste paper. Sypher had come prepared to break the news as gently as he could; but after all their talk it was not in his heart to do so. And the two hundred pounds--he regarded it as money given to a child to play with. He would never claim it. He was sorry, very sorry for Septimus. He looked back along the past year and saw the man's dog-like devotion to Zora Middlemist. But why did he marry Emmy, loving the sister as he did? Why live apart from her, having married her? And the child? It was all a mystery in which he did not see clear. He pitied the ineffectuality of Septimus with the kind yet half-contemptuous pity of the strong man with a fine nature. But as for his denial of Zora's faith, he laughed it away. Egotistical, yes. Zora had posed the same question as Septimus and he had answered it. But her faith in the Cure itself, his mission to spread it far and wide over the earth, and to save the nations from vulgar compet.i.tors who thought of nothing but sordid gain--that, he felt sure, remained unshaken.

Yet as he walked along, in the alien though familiar city, he was smitten, as with physical pain, by a craving for her presence, for the gleam of her eyes, for the greatness of sympathy and comprehension that inhabited her generous and beautiful frame. The need of her was imperious. He stopped at a cafe on the Boulevard Saint-Michel, called for the wherewithal to write, and like a poet in the fine frenzy of inspiration, poured out his soul to her over the heels of the armies of the world.

He had walked a great deal during the day. When he stepped out of the cab that evening at the Gare de Lyon, he felt an unfamiliar stinging in his heel. During the process of looking after his luggage and seeking his train he limped about the platform. When he undressed for the night in his sleeping compartment, he found that a ruck in his sock had caused a large blister. He regarded it with superst.i.tious eyes, and thought of the armies of the world. _In hoc signo vinces!_ The message had come from heaven.

He took a sample box of Sypher's Cure from his handbag, and, almost with reverence, anointed his heel.

CHAPTER XIV

Clem Sypher slept the sleep of the warrior preparing for battle. When he awoke at Lyons he had all the sensations of a wounded Achilles. His heel smarted and tingled and ached, and every time he turned over determined on a continuation of slumber, his foot seemed to occupy the whole width of the berth. He reanointed himself and settled down again. But wakefulness had gripped him. He pulled up the blinds of the compartment and let the dawn stream in, and, lying on his back, gave himself up to the plans of his new campaign. The more he thought out the scheme the simpler it became. He had made it his business to know personages of high influence in every capital in Europe. Much of his success had already been gained that way. The methods of introduction had concerned him but little. For social purposes they could have been employed only by a pus.h.i.+ng upstart; but in the furtherance of a divine mission the apostle does not bind his inspired feet with the shackles of ordinary convention. Sypher rushed in, therefore, where the pachyderms of Park Lane would have feared to tread. Just as the fanatical evangelist has no compunction in putting to an entire stranger embarra.s.sing questions as to his possession of the Peace of G.o.d, so had Sypher no scruple in approaching any foreigner of distinguished mien in an hotel lounge and converting him to the religion of Sypher's Cure. In most cosmopolitan resorts his burly figure and pink face were well known.

Newspapers paragraphed his arrival and departure. People pointed him out to one another in promenades. Distinguished personages to whom he had casually introduced himself introduced him to other distinguished personages. When he threw off the apostle and became the man, his simple directness and charm of manner caused him to be accepted pleasurably for his own sake. Had he chosen to take advantage of his opportunities he might have consorted with very grand folks indeed; at a price, be it said, which his pride refused to pay. But he had no social ambitions. The grand folks therefore respected him and held out a cordial hand as he pa.s.sed by. That very train was carrying to Switzerland a Russian Grand Duke who had greeted him with a large smile and a "_Ah! ce bon Sypher!_" on the platform of the Gare de Lyon, and had presented him as the Friend of Humanity to the Grand d.u.c.h.ess.

To Sypher, lying on his back and dreaming of the days when through him the forced marches of weary troops would become light-hearted strolls along the road, the jealously guarded portals of the War Offices of the world presented no terrors. He ticked off the countries in his mind until he came to Turkey. Whom did he know in Turkey? He had once given a certain Musurus Bey a light for his cigarette in the atrium of the Casino at Monte Carlo; but that could scarcely be called an introduction. No matter; his star was now in the ascendant. The Lord would surely provide a Turk for him in Geneva. He s.h.i.+fted his position in the berth, and a twinge of pain pa.s.sed through his foot, hurting horribly.

When he rose to dress, he found some difficulty in putting on his boot. On leaving the train at Geneva he could scarcely walk. In his room at the hotel he anointed his heel again with the Cure, and, glad to rest, sat by the window looking at the blue lake and Mont Blanc white-capped in the quivering distance, his leg supported on a chair. Then his traveler, who had arranged to meet him by appointment, was shown into the room. They were to lunch together. To ease his foot Sypher put on an evening slipper and hobbled downstairs.

The traveler told a depressing tale. Jebusa Jones had got in everywhere and was underselling the Cure. A new German skin remedy had insidiously crept on to the market. Wholesale houses wanted impossible discounts, and retail chemists could not be inveigled into placing any but the most insignificant orders. He gave dismaying details, terribly anxious all the while lest his chief should attribute to his incompetence the growing unpopularity of the Cure. But to his amazement Sypher listened smilingly to his story of disaster, and ordered a bottle of champagne.

"All that is nothing!" he cried. "A flea bite in the ocean. It will right itself as the public realize how they are being taken in by these American and German impostors. The Cure can't fail. And let me tell you, Dennymede, my son, the Cure is going to flourish as it has never flourished before.

I've got a scheme that will take your breath away."

The glow of inspiration in Sypher's blue eyes and the triumph written on his resolute face brought the features of the worried traveler for the first time into an expression of normal satisfaction with the world.

"I will stagger you to your commercial depths, my boy," Sypher continued.

"Have a drink first before I tell you."

He raised his champagne gla.s.s. "To Sypher's Cure!" They drank the toast solemnly.

And then Sypher unfolded to his awe-stricken subordinate the scheme for deblistering the heels of the armies of the world. Dennymede, fired by his enthusiasm, again lifted his br.i.m.m.i.n.g gla.s.s.

"By G.o.d, sir, you are a conqueror, an Alexander, a Hannibal, a Napoleon!

There's a colossal fortune in it."

"And it will give me enough money," said Sypher, "to advertise Jebusa Jones and the others off the face of the earth."