“Helwise asked me to call for her,” she announced--“explained” implies a certain courtesy very aggressively absent. “We’re going over to throw cards at Watters. You’ve no objection to my shoving this in here, have you? I hate my machine standing about in the sun.” Lanty said he was only too pleased, and watched dispassionately while she scraped the doorpost with her off-pedal, and a valuable oak chest with the front mud-guard. Then he took it from her and put it in a corner, inviting her to come in and wait, but she refused. “No, thanks. I’ll hang about till she’s ready. Hope she won’t be long. We arranged to go early, so as to skip kitchen tea. Is it true, do you know? By the way, Helwise said something about driving. Hope it isn’t a closed shanty, anyway! I can’t stick them, myself. I told her she’d much better cycle. Do her a lot more good than stuffing along in an old ’bus.” “It’s too hot for cycling.” Lanty tried not to look annoyed. “You’ll hardly find it stuffy in the dog-cart, I think. I prefer my aunt to drive. She’s so energetic, I’m afraid of her knocking up.” In reality, he had shrunk from the mental image of Helwise in flickering spots pounding through blazing motor-dust to call at Watters. He had no feeling for Dandy except irritation and misunderstanding, but it would have hurt his pride that she should see his only female relative sliding off a bicycle at her front door. He had even gone to the unprecedented length of suggesting costume, and Helwise, with a conscience shrieking subscription-lists, had consented to oblige. Miss Knewstubb, of course, was at liberty to please herself, as far as he was concerned, and her tastes were certainly plain. She could not be much older than Dandy, he reflected, looking back over years of acquaintance, but she gave no impression of appealing youth. She bullied you at bridge, hammered you at golf, while at tennis she picked you up by the scruff of your neck, shook you, and slammed you down again. These, however, were her amusements. Her main business in life was farming Wild Duck Hall, the pretty farm over the hill, and very successfully she did it. He admitted that, even while resenting her aggressive self-satisfaction, her pistol-shot conversation and general hardness of appearance.