ten thousand Braxtons would not
have prevented THEM from sleeping soundly by night and grazing steadily
by day. Perhaps their stolidity infected me a little. Or perhaps what
braced me was the great quantity of strong tea that I consumed. Anyhow
I had begun to feel that if Braxton came in now I shouldn't blench nor
falter.

'Well, I wasn't put to the test. Plenty of people drifted in, but
Braxton wasn't one of them. Lady Rodfitten--no, she didn't drift, she
marched, in; and presently, at an adjacent table, she was drawing a
comparison, in clarion tones, between Jean and Edouard de Reszke. It
seemed to me that her own voice had much in common with Edouard's. Even
more was it akin to a military band. I found myself beating time to it
with my foot. Decidedly, my spirits had risen. I was in a mood to face
and outface anything. When I rose from the table and made my way to the
door, I walked with something of a swing--to the tune of Lady Rodfitten.

'My buoyancy didn't last long, though. There was no swing in my walk
when, a little later, I passed out on to the spectacular terrace. I had
seen my enemy again, and had beaten a furious retreat. No doubt I should
see him yet again soon--here, perhaps, on this terrace. Two of the
guests were bicycling slowly up and down the long paven expanse, both of
them smiling with pride in the new delicious form of locomotion. There
was a great array of bicycles propped neatly along the balustrade. I
recognised my own among them. I wondered whether Braxton had projected
from Clifford's Inn an image of his own bicycle. He may have done so;
but I've no evidence that he did. I myself was bicycling when next I saw
him; but he, I remember, was on foot.

'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 ou