He was just asking a porter at frantic grapple with the hand baggage of a large family whether he had seen a tall and extraordinarily beautiful lady in the train, when she came up to him with outstretched hands and beaming eyes.  He took the hands and looked long at her, unable to speak.  Never had she appeared to him more beautiful, more gracious.  The royal waves of her hair beneath a fur traveling-toque invested her with queenliness.  The full youth of her figure not hidden by a fur jacket brought to him the generous woman.  A bunch of violets at her bosom suggested the fragrant essence of her.

“Oh, it’s good to see you, Septimus.  It’s good!” she cried.  “The sight of you makes me feel as if nothing mattered in the world except the people one cares for.  How are you?”

“I’m very well indeed,” said Septimus.  “Full of inventions.”

She laughed and guided him up the platform through the cross-traffic of porters carrying luggage from train to cabs.

“Is mother all right?” she asked anxiously.

“Oh, yes,” said Septimus.

“And Emmy and the baby?”

“Remarkably well.  Emmy has had him christened.  I wanted him to be called after you.  Zoroaster was the only man’s name I could think of, but she did not like it, and so she called it Octavius after me.  Also Oldrieve after the family, and William.”

“Why William?”

“After Pitt,” said Septimus in the tone of a man who gives the obvious answer.

She halted for a moment, perplexed.

“Pitt?”

“Yes; the great statesman.  He’s going to be a member of Parliament, you know.”

“Oh,” said Zora, moving slowly on.

“His mother says it’s after the lame donkey on the common.  We used to call it William.  He hasn’t changed a bit since you left.”

“So the baby’s full name is—­” said Zora, ignoring the donkey.

“William Octavius Oldrieve Dix.  It’s so helpful to a child to have a good name.”

“I long to see him,” said Zora.

“He’s in Paris just now.”

“Paris?” she echoed.

“Oh, he’s not by himself, you know,” Septimus hastened to reassure her, lest she might think that the babe was alone among the temptations and dissipations of the gay city.  “His mother’s there, too.”

She shook him by the coat-sleeve.

“What an exasperating thing you are!  Why didn’t you tell me?  I could have broken my journey or at least asked them to meet me at the Gare du Nord.  But why aren’t they in England?”

“I didn’t bring them with me.”

She laughed again at his tone, suspecting nothing.

“You speak as if you had accidentally left them behind, like umbrellas.  Did you?”

Turner came up, attended by a porter with the hand baggage.

“Are you going on to Nunsmere to-night, ma’am?”

“Why should you?” asked Septimus.

“I had intended to do so.  But if mother is quite well, and Emmy and the baby are in Paris, and you yourself are here, I don’t quite see the necessity.”