climbed modestly into the front seat next to the chauffeur, and would not
be dislodged by Sypher's entreaties. He was just there, on guard, having no
place in the vigorous atmosphere of their personalities. He sat aloof,
smoking his pipe, and wondering whether he could invent a motor
perambulator which could run on rails round a small garden, fill the baby's
lungs with air, and save the British Army from the temptation of
nursery-maids. His sporadic discourse on the subject perplexed the
chauffeur.

It was a day of vivid glory. Rain had fallen heavily during the night,
laying the dust on the road and washing to gay freshness the leaves of
palms and gold-spotted orange trees and the purple bourgainvillea and other
flowers that rioted on wayside walls. All the deep, strong color of the
South was there, making things unreal: the gray mountains, fragile masses
against the solid cobalt of the sky. The Mediterranean met the horizon in a
blue so intense that the soul ached to see it. The heart of spring throbbed
in the deep bosom of summer. The air as they sped through it was like cool
spiced wine.

Zora listened to Clem Sypher's dithyrambics. The wine of the air had got
into his head. He spoke as she had heard no man speak before. The turns of
the road brought into sight view after magic view, causing her to catch her
breath: purple rock laughing in the sea, far-off townlets flashing white
against the mountain flank, gardens of paradise. Yet Clem Sypher sang of
his cure.

First it was a salve for all external ills that flesh is heir to. It spared
humanity its heritage of epidermatous suffering. It could not fail. He
reeled off the string of hideous diseases with a lyrical lilt. It was his
own discovery. An obscure chemist's assistant in Bury St. Edmunds, he had,