A few minutes later they were again in the cab jogging wearily across
London to Southampton Row; and the little empty drawing-room with all its
vanities looked somewhat ghostly, lit as it was by the day and by the
frivolously shaded electric light which they had forgotten to switch off.




CHAPTER X


When Septimus had seen Emmy admitted to the Ravenswood Hotel, he stood on
the gloomy pavement outside wondering what he should do. Then it occurred
to him that he belonged to a club--a grave, decorous place where the gay
pop of a champagne cork had been known to produce a scandalized silence in
the luncheon-room, and where serious-minded members congregated to scowl at
one another's unworthiness from behind newspapers. A hansom conveyed him
thither. In the hall he struggled over two telegrams which had caused him
most complicated thought during his drive. The problem was to ease Zora's
mind and to obtain a change of raiment without disclosing the whereabouts
of either Emmy or himself. This he had found no easy matter, diplomacy
being the art of speaking the truth with intent to deceive, and so finely
separated from sheer lying as to cause grave distress to Septimus's candid
soul. At last, after much wasting of telegraph forms, he decided on the
following:

To Zora: "Emmy safe in London. So am I. Don't worry. Devotedly, Septimus."

To Wiggleswick: "Bring clothes and railway carriage diagrams secretly to
Club."