for their own safe conduct, ought to obey the conventions which were made with that end in view; and Emmy was an ordinary young person.  She should marry; it would conduce to her moral welfare, and it would be an excellent thing for Septimus.  The marriage was therefore made in the unclouded heaven of Zora’s mind.  She shed all her graciousness over the young couple.  Never had Emmy felt herself enwrapped in more sisterly affection.  Never had Septimus dreamed of such tender solicitude.  Yet she sang Septimus’s praises to Emmy and Emmy’s praises to Septimus in so natural a manner that neither of the two was puzzled.

“It is the natural instinct that makes every woman a matchmaker.  She works blindly towards the baby.  If she cannot have one directly, she will have it vicariously.  The sourest of old maids is thus doomed to have a hand in the perpetuation of the race.”

Thus spake the Literary Man from London, discoursing generally—­out of earshot of the Vicar and his wife, to whom he was paying one of his periodical visits—­in a corner of their drawing-room.  Zora, conscious of matchmaking, declared him to be horrid and physiological.

“A woman is much more refined and delicate in her motives.”

“The highly civilized woman,” said Rattenden, “is delightfully refined in her table manners, and eats cucumber sandwiches in the most delicate way in the world; but she is obeying the same instinct that makes your lady cannibal thrust raw gobbets of missionary into her mouth with her fingers.”

“Your conversation is revolting,” said Zora.

“Because I speak the truth?  Truth is a Mokanna.”

“What on earth is that?” asked Zora.

The Literary man sighed.  “The Veiled Prophet of Khorasan, Lalla Rookh, Tom Moore.  Ichabod.”

“It sounds like a cypher cablegram,” said Zora flippantly.  “But go on.”

“I will.  Truth, I say, is a Mokanna.  So long as it’s decently covered with a silver veil, you all prostrate yourselves before it and pretend to worship it.  When anyone lifts the veil and reveals the revolting horror of it, you run away screaming, with your hands before your eyes.  Why do you want truth to be pretty?  Why can’t you look its ghastliness bravely in the face?  How can you expect to learn anything if you don’t?  How can you expect to form judgments on men and things?  How can you expect to get to the meaning of life on which you were so keen a year ago?”

“I want beauty, and not disgustfulness,” said Zora.

“Should it happen, for the sake of argument, that I wanted two dear friends to marry, it is only because I know how happy they would be together.  The ulterior motive you suggest is repulsive.”

“But it’s true,” said Rattenden.  “I wish I could talk to you more.  I could teach you a great deal.  At any rate I know that you’ll think about what I’ve said to-day.”

“I won’t,” she declared.

“You will,” said he.  And then he dropped a very buttery piece of buttered toast on the carpet and, picking it up, said “damn” under his breath; and then they both laughed, and Zora found him human.