Emmy should be brought. She left the ba.s.sinette and sat down near her sister and smiled indulgently.

"My dearest child, if you were so-called 'advanced people' and held all sorts of outrageous views, I might understand you. But you are two very ordinary folk with no views at all. You never had any in your life, and if Septimus had one he would be so terribly afraid of it that he would chain it up. I'm quite certain you married without any idea save that of sticking together. Now, why haven't you?"

"I make Septimus miserable. I can't help it. Sooner than make him unhappy I insist upon this arrangement. There!"

"Then I think you are very wicked and heartless and selfish," said Zora.

"I am," said Emmy defiantly.

"Your duty is to make him happy. It would take so little to do that. You ought to give him a comfortable home and teach him to realize his responsibilities toward the child."

Again the stab. Emmy's nerve began to give way. For the first time came the wild notion of facing Zora with the whole disastrous story. She dismissed it as crazy.

"I tell you things can't be altered."

"But why? I can't imagine you so monstrous. Give me your confidence, darling."

"There's nothing to give."

"I'm sure I could put things right for you at once if I knew what was wrong. If it's anything to do with Septimus," she added in her unwisdom and with a charming proprietary smile, "why, I can make him do whatever I like."

"Even if we had quarreled," cried Emmy, losing control of her prudence, "do you suppose I would let _you_ bring him back to me?"

"But why not?"

"Have you been so blind all this time as not to see?"

Emmy knew her words were vain and dangerous, but the att.i.tude of her sister, calm and confident, a.s.suming her air of gracious patronage, irritated her beyond endurance. Zora's smile deepened into indulgent laughter.

"My dearest Emmy, you don't mean to say that it's jealousy of me? But it's too ridiculous. Do you suppose I've ever thought of Septimus in that way?"

"You've thought of him just as you used to think of the bob-tailed sheep dog we had when we were children."

"Well, dear, you were never jealous of my attachment to Bobbie or Bobbie's devotion to me," said Zora, smilingly logical. "Come, dear, I knew there was only some silly nonsense at the bottom of this. Look. I'll resign every right I have in poor Septimus."

Emmy rose. "If you call him 'poor Septimus' and speak of him in that tone, you'll drive me mad. It's you that are wicked and heartless and selfish."

"I?" cried Zora, aghast.

"Yes, you. You accept the love and adoration of the n.o.blest gentleman that G.o.d ever put into the world, and you treat him and talk of him as if he were a creature of no account. If you were worthy of being loved by him, I shouldn't he jealous. But you're not. You've been so wrapped up in your own magnificence that you've not even condescended to notice that he loved you.

And even now, when I tell you, you laugh, as if it were preposterous that 'poor Septimus' could ever dare to love you. You drive me mad."

Zora drew herself up angrily. To make allowances for a silly girl's jealousy was one thing; it was another to be accused in this vehement fashion. Conscious of her innocence, she said:

"Your attack on me is entirely unjustifiable, Emmy. I have done nothing."

"That's why," retorted Emmy quickly. "You've done nothing. Men are sacrificing their lives and fortunes for you, and you do nothing."

"Lives and fortunes? What do you mean?"

"I mean what I say," cried Emmy desperately. "Septimus has done everything short of laying down his life for you, and that he would have done if necessary, and you haven't even taken the trouble to see the soul in the man that was capable of it. And now that something has happened which you can't help seeing you come in your grand way to put it all to rights in a minute. You think I've turned him out because he's a good-natured worry like Bobbie, the bob-tailed sheep dog, and you say, 'Poor fellow, see how pitifully he's wagging his tail. It's cruel of you not to let him in.'

That's the way you look at Septimus, and I can't stand it and I won't. I love him as I never dreamed a woman could love a man. I could tear myself into little pieces for him bit by bit. And I can't get him. He's as far removed from me as the stars in heaven. You could never understand. I pray every night to G.o.d to forgive me, and to work a miracle and bring him to me. But miracles don't happen. He'll never come to me. He can't come to me.

While you have been patronizing him, patting him on the head, playing Lady Bountiful to him--as you are doing to the other man who has given up a fortune this very morning just because he loves you--while you've been doing this and despising him--yes, you know you do in your heart, for a simple, good-natured, half-witted creature who amuses himself with crazy inventions, he has done a thing to save you from pain and shame and sorrow--you, not me--because he loved you. And now I love him. I would give all I have in life for the miracle to happen. But it can't. Don't you understand? It can't!"

She stood panting in front of Zora, a pa.s.sionate woman obeying elemental laws; and when pa.s.sionate women obey elemental laws they are reckless in speech and overwhelming in a.s.sertion and denunciation. Emmy was the first whom Zora had encountered. She was bewildered by the storm of words, and could only say, rather stupidly:

"Why can't it?"

Emmy thew two or three short breaths. The notion had come again. The temptation was irresistible. Zora should know, having brought it on herself. She opened the door.

"Madame Bolivard!" she cried. And when the Frenchwoman appeared she pointed to the ba.s.sinette.

"Take baby into the bedroom. It will be better for him there."

"_Bien, madame_," said Madame Bolivard, taking up the child. And when the door had closed behind her Emmy pointed to it and said:

"That's why."

Zora started forward, horror stricken.

"Emmy, what do you mean?"

"I'll tell you. I couldn't with him in the room. I should always fancy that he had heard me, and I want him to respect and love his mother."

"Emmy!" cried Zora. "Emmy! What are you saying? Your son not respect you--if he knew--do you mean...?"

"Yes," said Emmy, "I do--Septimus went through the marriage ceremony with me and gave us his name. That's why we are living apart. Now you know."

"My G.o.d!" said Zora.

"Do you remember the last night I was at Nunsmere?"

"Yes. You fainted."

"I had seen the announcement of the man's marriage in the newspaper."

She told her story briefly and defiantly, asking for no sympathy, proclaiming it all _ad majorem Septimi gloriam_. Zora sat looking at her paralyzed with helplessness, like one who, having gone lightly forth to shoot rabbits, suddenly comes upon a lion.

"Why didn't you tell me--at the time--before?"

"Did you ever encourage me to give you my confidence? You patted me on the head, too, and never concerned yourself about my affairs. I was afraid of you--deadly afraid of you. It sounds rather silly now, doesn't it? But I was."

Zora made no protest against the accusation. She sat quite still, her eyes fixed on the foot of the ba.s.sinette, adjusting her soul to new and startling conceptions. She said in a whisper:

"My G.o.d, what a fool I've been!"

The words lingered a haunting echo in her ears. They were mockingly familiar. Where had she heard them recently? Suddenly she remembered. She raised her head and glanced at Emmy in anything but a proud way.

"You said something just now about Clem Sypher having sacrificed a fortune for me. What was it? I had better hear everything."