"But suppose you lose your way, Madame Bolivard?"
"I shall find it, madame."
"But how will you ask for directions? You know you can't say 'Ecclefechan Mansions.'"
Madame Bolivard made a hopeless, spluttering sound as if she were blowing teeth out of her mouth, which in no wise resembled the name of the place wherein she dwelt. But Madame Bolivard, as has been remarked, was a brave femme; and allons donc! this was the least of the difficulties she had had to encounter during her life. Emmy bade her godspeed in her perils among the greengrocers.
She went blithely about her household tasks, and sang and cooed deliciously to the child lying in its bassinette. Every now and then she looked at the clock over the mantelpiece, wondering why Septimus had not come. Only in the depths of her heart—depths which humans in their every-day life dare not sound too frequently—did she confess how foolishly she longed for him. He was late. With Emmy, Septimus never broke an appointment. To insure his being at a certain place at a certain time to meet her he took the most ingenious and complicated precautions. Before now he had dressed overnight and gone to sleep in his clothes so as to be ready when the servant called him in the morning. Emmy, knowing this, after the way of women began to grow anxious. When, therefore, she opened the flat door to him she upbraided him with considerable tenderness.
"It was Clem Sypher," he explained, taking off his overcoat. "He sent for me. He wanted me badly. Why, I don't know. At least I do half know, but the other half I don't. He's a magnificent fellow."
A little later, after Septimus had inspected her morning's work in the flat, and the night's progress in the boy's tooth, and the pretty new blouse which she had put on in his honor, and the rose in her bosom taken from the bunch he had sent to greet her arrival in the flat the night before, and after he had heard of the valorous adventure of Madame Bolivard and of a message from Hégisippe Cruchot which she had forgotten to deliver overnight, and of an announcement from Zora to the effect that she would call at Ecclefechan Mansions soon after lunch, and of many things of infinite importance, Emmy asked him what Clem Sypher had been doing, and wherein lay the particular magnificence of character to which Septimus had alluded.
"He's awfully splendid," said Septimus. "He has given up a fortune for the sake of an idea. He also gave me an umbrella and his blessing. Emmy"—he looked at her in sudden alarm—"did I bring an umbrella with me?"
"You did, dear, and you put it in the stand; but what you've done with the blessing, I don't know."
"I've got it in my heart," said he. "He's a tremendous chap."