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“I must go,” she said, “but I have enjoyed myself so much. You are an ideal host: thank you a thousand times. Perhaps we shall meet again some day, if you return to the world. Do you know, we’ve been talking and wrangling for hours and hours and never even thought of wondering what each other’s names are—I think we’ve paid each other a very magnificent compliment, don’t you?”

He smiled and said: “My name is Maurice Brent.”

“Mine is Diana Redmayne. If it sounds like somebody in the Family Herald, I can’t help it.” He had wheeled the bicycle into the road, and she had put on hat and gloves and stood ready to mount before she said: “If you come back to the world I shall almost certainly meet you. We seem to know the same people; I’ve heard your name many times.”

“From whom?” said he.

“Among others,” said she, with her foot on the pedal, “from my cousin Camilla. Good-bye.”

And he was left to stare down the road after the swift flying figure.

Then he went back into the lonely little