‘This was a few minutes later. I was bicycling with dear Lady Rodfitten. She seemed really to like me. She had come out and accosted me heartily on the terrace, asking me, because of my sticking-plaster, with whom I had fought a duel since yesterday. I did not tell her with whom, and she had already branched off on the subject of duelling in general. She regretted the extinction of duelling in England, and gave cogent reasons for her regret. Then she asked me what my next book was to be. I confided that I was writing a sort of sequel--“Ariel Returns to Mayfair.” She shook her head, said with her usual soundness that sequels were very dangerous things, and asked me to tell her “briefly” the lines along which I was working. I did so. She pointed out two or three weak points in my scheme. She said she could judge better if I would let her see my manuscript. She asked me to come and lunch with her next Friday--“just our two selves”--at Rodfitten House, and to bring my manuscript with me. Need I say that I walked on air? ‘“And now,” she said strenuously, “let us take a turn on our bicycles.” By this time there were a dozen riders on the terrace, all of them smiling with pride and rapture. We mounted and rode along together. The terrace ran round two sides of the house, and before we came to the end of it these words had provisionally marshalled themselves in my mind: TO ELEANOR COUNTESS OF RODFITTEN THIS BOOK WHICH OWES ALL TO HER WISE COUNSEL AND UNWEARYING SUPERVISION IS GRATEFULLY DEDICATED BY HER FRIEND THE AUTHOR ‘Smiled to masonically by the passing bicyclists, and smiling masonically to them in return, I began to feel that the rest of my visit would run smooth, if only-- ‘“Let’s go a little faster. Let’s race!” said Lady Rodfitten; and we did so--“just our two selves.” I was on the side nearer to the balustrade, and it was on that side that Braxton suddenly appeared from nowhere, solid-looking as a rock, his arms akimbo, less than three yards ahead of me, so that I swerved involuntarily, sharply, striking broadside the front wheel of Lady Rodfitten and collapsing with her, and with a crash of machinery, to the ground.