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 cursed for the hundredth time the fool that had bound him captive at the chariot wheels of beauty. That is to say, he cursed the fool he had been to trust himself in the automobile of that Brydges woman. The Brydges woman was pretty, rich, and charming; omniscience was her pose. She knew everything: consequently she knew how to drive a motor-car. She learned the lesson of her own incompetence at the price of a broken ankle and a complete suit of bruises. Selborne paid for his trusting folly with a broken collar-bone and a deep cut on his arm. That was why he could not go to Portsmouth to see the last of his young brother when he left home for the wars.

This was why he cursed. The curse was mild—it was indeed less a curse than an invocation.