Part 18 (1/2)
They happened to be in the hall. At the farther end Septimus caught sight of a fluffy Persian kitten playing with a bit of paper, and guided by one of his queer intuitions he went and picked it up and laid its baby softness against the girl's cheek. Her mood changed magically.
”Oh, the darling!” she cried, and kissed its tiny, wet nose.
She was quite polite to Sypher during luncheon, and laughed when he told her that he called the kitten Jebusa Jones. She asked why.
”Because,” said he, showing his hand covered with scratches, ”she produces on the human epidermis the same effect as his poisonous cuticle remedy.”
Whereupon Emmy decided that the man who could let a kitten scratch his hand in that fas.h.i.+on had elements of good in his nature.
”Now for the surprise,” said Sypher, when Septimus and he joined the ladies after lunch. ”Come.”
They followed him outside, through the French windows of the drawing-room.
”Other people,” said he, ”want houses with lawns reaching down to the side of the river or the Menai Straits or Windermere. I'm the only person, I think, who has ever sought for a lawn running down to a main line of railway.”
”That's why this house was untenanted so long,” said Zora.
A row of trees separated the small garden from the lawn in question. When they pa.s.sed through this screen, the lawn and the line of railway and the dreamy, undulating Surrey country came into view. Also an enormous board.
Why hadn't he taken it down, Zora asked.
”That's the surprise!” exclaimed Sypher eagerly. ”Come round to the front.”
He led the way, striding some yards ahead. Presently he turned and struck a dramatic att.i.tude, as a man might do who had built himself a new wonder house. And then on three astonished pairs of eyes burst the following inscription in gigantic capitals which he who flew by in an express train could read:
SYPHER'S CURE!
Clem Sypher. Friend of Humanity!
I LIVE HERE!
”Isn't that great?” he cried. ”I've had it in my mind for years. It's the personal note that's so valuable. This brings the whole pa.s.sing world into personal contact with me. It shows that Sypher's Cure isn't a quack thing run by a commercial 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 embarra.s.sed 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 pa.s.sed, 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.