unmoved as a stock-fish.

Thus it fell out that Septimus heard of Mordaunt Prince, whose constant
appearance in Emmy's London circle of friends Zora had viewed with
plentiful lack of interest. He was a paragon of men. He acted like a
Salvini and sang like an angel. He had been far too clever to take his
degree at Oxford. He had just bought a thousand-guinea motor car,
and--Septimus was not to whisper a word of it to Zora--she had recently
been on a three-days' excursion with him. Mordaunt Prince said this and
Mordaunt Prince said that. Mordaunt paid three guineas a pair for his brown
boots. He had lately divorced his wife, an unspeakable creature only too
anxious for freedom. Mordaunt came to see her every day in London, and
every day during their absence they corresponded. Her existence was wrapped
up in Mordaunt Prince. She traveled about with a suit-case (or so it
appeared to Septimus) full of his photographs. He had been the leading man
at the theater where she had her last engagement, and had fallen madly,
devotedly, passionately in love with her. As soon as the divorce was made
absolute they would be married. She had quarreled with her best friend, who
had tried to make mischief between them with a view to securing Mordaunt
for herself. Had Septimus ever heard of such a cat? Septimus hadn't.

He was greatly interested in as much of the story as he could follow--Emmy
was somewhat discursive--and as his interjectory remarks were unprovocative
of argument, he constituted himself a good listener. Besides, romance had
never come his way. It was new to him, even Emmy's commonplace little
romance, like a field of roses to a town-bred child, and it seemed sweet
and gracious, a thing to dream about. His own distant worship of Zora did
not strike him as romantic. It was a part of himself, like the hallowed
memory of his mother and the conception of his devastating guns. Had he
been more worldly-wise he would have seen possible danger in Emmy's