“What did he do?” Alyna asked.

“He sent me abroad because he claimed that I was making a fool of myself and causing a scandal,” Lord Dorrington answered. “By that time it was a question of pride! I would not admit, even to myself, that Clarice was not the right woman for me.”

“So you went abroad?”

“I obeyed my father and first I went to Italy. I learnt there something rather extraordinary.”

“What was that?” Alyna asked.

“I took lessons from the most famous swordsman in Europe, a man who was a champion in his own right, who was the teacher of all the gay young blades who congregated in Rome.”

Lord Dorrington paused for a moment.

“Do go on,” Alyna begged, fascinated by what he was telling her.

“Signor Antonio Decredi told me and this may sound conceited, Alyna, but this is what he said, that in every century a swordsman is born who is undefeatable.”

“And that is – you.”

“So the Signore believed and he was so serious in his contention that he persuaded me that I must never fight unless it was right and just that my opponent should be exterminated.”

“You mean that he had no chance?” Alyna asked.

“I mean just that,” Lord Dorrington replied. “For it is, as you must know, unsporting and ungentlemanly to accept a challenge when the result is a certainty.”

“So what – did you do?” Alyna asked.

“I travelled round the world learning to have such a complete control over myself that I should never be inveigled into fighting a duel unless I considered the man I fought had forfeited his right to live.”

“Is that why you practised Yoga?”

“Of course,” he answered. “It gave me a mental and spiritual control and it made me see the world in a new and very different light.”

“I am beginning to – understand you now,” Alyna whispered.

“Oh, my darling,” he said, “we have so much to tell each other, so much to learn and I have so much to teach you. Especially about love.”

His hands were touching her body and he would have kissed her mouth, but Alyna put her fingers to his lips.

“Finish your story,” she pleaded.

“There is not much more to tell,” he replied. “I came back to England older and much wiser. There was something I had learnt in France on my way to Italy that I realised was important.”

“What was that?” Alyna enquired.

“I was with a friend, a French aristocrat, who had been condemned to die at the guillotine. When I visited him in prison, he was engaged in choosing with the utmost care and attention to detail a new coat in which to travel through the streets to his death.

“‘Why should it matter?’ I asked him.

“He smiled as if my question was foolish.