old dresser at the theater. I must have a woman, you see. So you had better
go away."

Septimus walked up and down the room deep in thought. A spinster-looking
lady in a cheap blouse and skirt, an inmate of the caravanserai, put her
head through the door and, with a disapproving sniff at the occupants,
retired. At length Septimus broke the silence:

"You said last night that you believed God sent me to you. I believe so
too. So I'm not going to leave you."

"But what can you do?" asked Emmy, ending the sentence on a hysterical note
which brought tears and a fit of sobbing. She buried her head in her arms
on the sofa-end, and her young shoulders shook convulsively. She was an odd
mixture of bravado and baby helplessness. To leave her to fight her
terrible battle with the aid only of a theater dresser was an
impossibility. Septimus looked at her with mournful eyes, hating his
futility. Of what use was he to any God-created being? Another man, strong
and capable, any vital, deep-chested fellow that was passing along
Southampton Row at that moment, would have known how to take her cares on
his broad shoulders and ordain, with kind imperiousness, a course of
action. But he--he could only clutch his fingers nervously and shuffle with
his feet, which of itself must irritate a woman with nerves on edge. He
could do nothing. He could suggest nothing save that he should follow her
about like a sympathetic spaniel. It was maddening. He walked to the window
and looked out into the unexhilarating street, all that was man in him in
revolt against his ineffectuality.

Suddenly came the flash of inspiration, swift, illuminating, such as
happened sometimes when the idea of a world-upsetting invention burst upon