I assumed the airs of a woman of the world. 'Why, certainly, my dear,' I answered, as if I always expected to find bicycles showered upon me. 'It's a mutual arrangement. Benefits him; benefits you. Reciprocity is the groundwork of business. _He_ gets the advertisement; _you_ get the amusement. It's a form of handbill. Like the ladies who exhibit their back hair, don't you know, in that window in Regent Street.' Thus inexpensively mounted, we scoured the country together, up the steepest hills between Stanzstadt and Meiringen. We had lots of nibbles. One lady in particular often stopped to look on and admire the Manitou. She was a nice-looking widow of forty-five, very fresh and round-faced; a Mrs. Evelegh, we soon found out, who owned a charming _chalet_ on the hills above Lungern. She spoke to us more than once: 'What a perfect dear of a machine!' she cried. 'I wonder if I dare try it!' 'Can you cycle?' I asked. 'I could once,' she answered. 'I was awfully fond of it. But Dr. Fortescue-Langley won't let me any longer.' 'Try it!' I said dismounting. She got up and rode. 'Oh, isn't it just lovely!' she cried ecstatically. 'Buy one!' I put in. 'They're as smooth as silk; they cost only twenty pounds; and, on every machine I sell, I get five pounds commission.' 'I should love to,' she answered; 'but Dr. Fortescue-Langley----' 'Who is he?' I asked. 'I don't believe in drug-drenchers.' She looked quite shocked. 'Oh, he's not that kind, you know,' she put in, breathlessly. 'He's the celebrated esoteric faith-healer. He won't let me move far away from Lungern, though I'm longing to be off to England again for the summer. My boy's at Portsmouth.' 'Then, why don't you disobey him?' Her face was a study. 'I daren't,' she answered in an awe-struck voice. 'He comes here every summer; and he does me _so_ much good, you know. He diagnoses my inner self. He treats me psychically. When my inner self goes wrong, my bangle turns dusky.' She held up her right hand with an Indian silver bangle on it; and sure enough, it was tarnished with a very thin black deposit. 'My soul is ailing now,' she said in a comically serious voice. 'But it is seldom so in Switzerland. The moment I land in England the bangle turns black and remains black till I get back to Lucerne again.' When she had gone, I said to Elsie, 'That _is_ odd about the bangle. State of health might affect it, I suppose. Though it looks to me like a surface deposit of sulphide.' I knew nothing of chemistry, I admit; but I had sometimes messed about in the laboratory at college with some of the other girls; and I remembered now that sulphide of silver was a blackish-looking body, like the film on the bangle. However, at the time I thought no more about it. [Illustration: SHE INVITED ELSIE AND MYSELF TO STOP WITH HER.]