Part 38 (1/2)
One day Dasent came on her alone, and burst out wrathfully:
”Why are you treating me like this?”
”Like what?”
”You are making a fool of me. I'm not going to stand it.”
Then she realized that when the average man does not get what he wants exactly when he wants it he loses his temper. She soothed him according to the better instincts of her s.e.x, but resolved to play no more with elementary young Britons. One-eyed geologists were safer companions. The former pitched their hearts into her lap; the latter, like Pawkins, the geologist of the Pacific slope, gave her boxes of fossils. She preferred the fossils. You could do what you liked with them: throw them overboard when the donor was not looking, or leave them behind in a railway carriage, or take them home and present them to the vicar who collected b.u.t.terflies, beetles, ammonites, and tobacco stoppers. But an odd a.s.sortment of hearts to a woman who does not want them is really a confounded nuisance. Zora was very much relieved when Dasent, after eating an enormous breakfast, bade her a tragic farewell at Gibraltar.
It was a cloudless afternoon when she steamed into Ma.r.s.eilles. The barren rock islands on the east rose blue-gray from a blue sea. To the west lay the Isles of Frioul and the island of the Chateau d'If, with its prison lying grim and long on the crest; in front the busy port, the white n.o.ble city crowned by the church of Notre Dame de la Garde standing sentinel against the clear sky.
Zora stood on the crowded deck watching the scene, touched as she always was by natural beauty, but sad at heart. Ma.r.s.eilles, within four-and-twenty hours of London, meant home. Although she intended to continue her wanderings to Naples and Alexandria, she felt that she had come to the end of her journey. It had been as profitless as the last. Pawkins, by her side, pointed out the geological feature of the rocks. She listened vaguely, and wondered whether she was to bring him home tied to her chariot as she had brought Septimus Dix and Clem Sypher. The thought of Sypher drew her heart to Ma.r.s.eilles.
”I wish I were landing here like you, and going straight home,” she said, interrupting the flow of scientific information. ”I've already been to Naples, and I shall find nothing I want at Alexandria.”
”Geologically, it's not very interesting,” said Pawkins. ”I'm afraid prehistoric antiquity doesn't make my pulses beat faster.”
”That's the advantage of it.”
”One might just as well be a fossil oneself.”
”Much better,” said Pawkins, who had read Schopenhauer.
”You are not exhilarating to a depressed woman,” said Zora with a laugh.
”I am sorry,” he replied stiffly. ”I was trying to entertain you.”
He regarded her severely out of his one eye and edged away, as if he repented having wasted his time over so futile an organism as a woman. But her feminine magnetism drew him back.
”I'm rather glad you are going on to Alexandria,” he remarked in a tone of displeasure, and before she could reply he marched off to look after his luggage.
Zora's eyes followed him until he disappeared, then she shrugged her shoulders. Apparently one-eyed geologists were as unsafe as elementary young Britons and opulent senators. She felt unfairly treated by Providence. It was maddening to realize herself as of no use in the universe except to attract the attention of the opposite s.e.x. She clenched her hands in impotent anger. There was no mission on earth which she could fulfil. She thought enviously of Cousin Jane.
The steamer entered the harbor; the pa.s.sengers for Ma.r.s.eilles landed, and the mail was brought aboard. There was only one letter for Mrs. Middlemist.
It bore the Nunsmere postmark. She opened it and found the tail of the little china dog.
She looked at it for a moment wonderingly as it lay absurdly curled in the palm of her hand, and then she burst into tears. The thing was so grotesquely trivial. It meant so much. It was a sign and a token falling, as it were, from the sky into the midst of her despairing mood, rebuking her, summoning her, declaring an unknown mission which she was bound to execute. It lay in her hand like a bit of destiny, inexorable, unquestionable, silently compelling her forthwith to the human soul that stood in great need of her. Fate had granted the wish she had expressed to the one-eyed geologist. She landed at Ma.r.s.eilles, and sped homeward by the night train, her heart torn with anxiety for Septimus.
All night long the rhythmic clatter of the train shaped itself into the burden of her words to him: ”If ever you want me badly, send me the tail, and I'll come to you from any distance.” She had spoken then half jestingly, all tenderly. That evening she had loved him ”in a sort of way,”
and now that he had sent for her, the love returned. The vivid experiences of the past months which had blinded her to the quieter light of home faded away into darkness. Septimus in urgent need, Emmy and Clem Sypher filled her thoughts. She felt thankful that Sypher, strong and self-reliant, was there to be her ally, should her course with Septimus be difficult. Between them they could surely rescue the ineffectual being from whatever dangers a.s.sailed him. But what could they be? The question racked her. Did it concern Emmy? A child, she knew, had just been born. A chill fear crept on her lest some tragedy had occurred through Septimus's folly. From him any outrageous senselessness might be expected, and Emmy herself was scarcely less irresponsible than her babe. She reproached herself for having suggested his marriage with Emmy. Perhaps in his vacant way he had acted entirely on her prompting. The marriage was wrong. Two helpless children should never have taken on themselves the graver duties of life toward each other and, future generations.
If it were a case in which a man's aid were necessary, there stood Sypher, a great pillar of comfort. Unconsciously she compared him with the man with whom she had come in contact during her travels--and she had met many of great charm and strength and knowledge. For some strange reason which she could not a.n.a.lyze, he towered above them all, though in each separate quality of character others whom she could name surpa.s.sed him far. She knew his faults, and in her lofty way smiled at them. Her character as G.o.ddess or guardian angel or fairy patroness of the Cure she had a.s.sumed with the graciousness of a grown-up lady playing charades at a children's party. His occasional lapses from the traditions of her cla.s.s jarred on her fine susceptibilities. Yet there, in spite of all, he stood rooted in her life, a fact, a puzzle, a pride and a consolation. The other men paled into unimportant ghosts before him, and strayed shadowy through the limbo of her mind. Till now she had not realized it. Septimus, however, had always dwelt in her heart like a stray dog whom she had rescued from vagrancy. He did not count as a man. Sypher did. Thus during the long, tedious hours of the journey home the two were curiously mingled in her anxious conjectures, and she had no doubt that Sypher and herself, the strong and masterful, would come to the deliverance of the weak.
Septimus, who had received a telegram from Ma.r.s.eilles, waited for her train at Victoria. In order to insure being in time he had arrived a couple of hours too soon, and patiently wandered about the station. Now and then he stopped before the engines of trains at rest, fascinated, as he always was, by perfect mechanism. A driver, dismounting from the cab, and seeing him lost in admiration of the engine, pa.s.sed him a civil word, to which Septimus, always courteous, replied. They talked further.
”I see you're an engineer, sir,” said the driver, who found himself in conversation with an appreciative expert.
”My father was,” said Septimus. ”But I could never get up in time for my examinations. Examinations seem so silly. Why should you tell a set of men what they know already?”