The wedding should take place in October, she decided.
And two days after John Derringham had arrived in London at his old rooms in Duke Street, she wrote and suggested this plan to him--and then the first preliminary crossing of swords between them happened.

He answered that he would come and join her later, but until the session was over he could not leave town, and he begged her to go and stay with Prince Brunemetz, or do anything else which would amuse her.

He was still upon crutches, he said, and not fitted to be a cavalier to any lady.
She shut her mouth with a snap, and, sitting down, wrote a long letter to Mr.Hanbury-Green, with whom she kept up a brisk correspondence.

Very well, then! she would go to Brudenstein; she would not martyrize herself by being with a man on crutches! So half of her August passed in a most agreeable manner, and towards the end of the month she summoned her _fiance_ to Florence.

He could walk with a stick now--and to meet her there and go on to Venice and out to the Lido would be quite delightful, and could not hurt him.