“It would be the very thing for her,” said he.

“And for you too, Septimus,” she remarked, with a quizzical glance and smile.

“It’s always good for me to be where you are.”

“I was thinking of Emmy and not of myself,” she laughed.  “If you could take care of her, it would be an excellent thing for you.”

“She wouldn’t even trust me with her luggage,” said Septimus, miles away from Zora’s meaning.  “Would you?”

She laughed again.  “I’m different.  I should really have to look after the two of you.  But you could pretend to be taking care of Emmy.”

“I would do anything that gave you pleasure.”

“Would you?” she asked.

They were sitting by the table—­the atlas between them.  She moved her hand and touched his.  The light of the lamp shone through her hair, turning it to luminous gold.  Her arm was bare to the elbow, and the warm fragrance of her nearness overspread him.  The touch thrilled him to the depths, and he flushed to his upstanding Struwel Peter hair.  He tried to say something—­he knew not what; but his throat was smitten with sudden dryness.  It seemed to him that he had sat there, for the best part of an hour, tongue-tied, looking stupidly at the confluence of the blue veins on her arm, longing to tell her that his senses swam with the temptation of her touch and the rise and fall of her bosom, through the great love he had for her, and yet terror-stricken lest she might discover his secret, and punish his audacity according to the summary methods of Juno, Diana, and other offended goddesses whom mortals dared to love.  It could only have been a few seconds, for he heard her voice in his ears, at first faint and then gathering distinctness, continuing in almost the same breath as her question.

“Would you?  Do you know the greatest pleasure you could give me?  It would be to become my brother—­my real brother.”

He turned bewildered eyes upon her.

“Your brother?”

She laughed, half impatiently, half gaily, gave his hand a final tap and rose.  He stood, too, mechanically.

“I think you’re the obtusest man I’ve ever met.  Anyone else would have guessed long ago.  Don’t you see, you dear, foolish thing”—­she laid her hands on his shoulders and looked with agonizing deliciousness into his face—­“don’t you see that you want a wife to save you from omelettes that you have to use as kettle-holders, and to give you a sense of responsibility?  And don’t you see that Emmy, who is never happier than when—­oh!” she broke off impatiently, “don’t you see?”

He had built for himself no card house of illusion, so it did not come toppling down with dismaying clatter.  But all the same he felt as if her kind hands had turned death cold and were wringing his heart.  He took them from his shoulders, and, not unpicturesquely, kissed her finger-tips.  Then he dropped them and walked to the fire and, with his back to the room, leaned on the mantelpiece.  A little china dog fell with a crash into the fender.