Sypher ordered two more bocks for the good of the house, while Septimus, still lost in thought, brought his hair to its highest pitch of Struwel Peterdom.

Passers-by turned round to look at them, for well-dressed Englishmen do not often sit outside a _Marchand des vins_, especially one with such hair.

But passers-by are polite in France and do not salute the unfamiliar with ribaldry.
"Well," said Sypher, at last.
"We've been speaking intimately," said Septimus.

He paused, then proceeded with his usual diffidence.

"I've never spoken intimately to a man before, and I don't quite know how to do it--it must be just like asking a woman to marry you--but don't you think you were selfish ?" "Selfish?
How ?" "In asking Zora Middlemist to give up her trip to California, just for the sake of the Cure." "It's worth the sacrifice," Sypher maintained.
"To you, yes; but it mayn't be so to her." "But she believes in the thing as I do myself!" cried Sypher.
"Why should she, any more than I, or Hegisippe Cruchot?
If she did, she would have stayed.