Neither could tell afterwards how it happened. Emmy called the walls to witness that she did not throw herself into his arms, and Septimus's natural timidity precluded the possibility of his having seized her in his; but she stood for a long, throbbing time in his embrace, while he kissed her on the lips and gave all his heart into her keeping.
They sat down together on the fender seat.
"When a man does that," said Septimus, as if struck by a luminous idea, "I suppose he asks the girl to marry him."
"But we are married already," she cried joyously.
"Dear me," said Septimus, "so we are. I forgot. It's very puzzling, isn't it? I think, if you don't mind, I'll kiss you again."
CHAPTER XXIII
Zora went straight back to her hotel sitting-room. There, without taking off her hat or furs, she wrote a swift, long letter to Clem Sypher, and summoning the waiter, ordered him to post it at once. When he had gone she reflected for a few moments and sent off a telegram. After a further brief period of reflection she went down-stairs and rang up Sypher's office on the telephone.
The mere man would have tried the telephone first, then sent the telegram, and after that the explanatory letter. Woman has her own way of doing things.
Sypher was in. He would have finished for the day in about twenty minutes. Then he would come to her on the nearest approach to wings London locomotion provided.