Turner came up, attended by a porter with the hand baggage.
"Are you going on to Nunsmere to-night, ma'am?"
"Why should you?" asked Septimus.
"I had intended to do so. But if mother is quite well, and Emmy and the baby are in Paris, and you yourself are here, I don't quite see the necessity."
"It would be much nicer if you remained in London," said he.
"Very well," said Zora, "we shall. We can put up at the Grosvenor Hotel here for the night. Where are you staying?"
Septimus murmured the name of his sedate club, where his dissolute morning appearance was still remembered against him.
"Go and change and come back and dine with me in an hour's time."
He obeyed the command with his usual meekness, and Zora followed the porter through the subway to the hotel.
"We haven't dined together like this," she said, unfolding her napkin an hour afterwards, "since Monte Carlo. Then it was hopelessly unconventional. Now we can dine in the strictest propriety. Do you understand that you're my brother-in-law?"