My visitor, I saw, was Lady Alicia; and I beheld my broken wash-tub under the front axle of her motor-car.
I went out to her, with indignation still in my eye, but she paid no attention to either that or the tub itself. She was quite pale, in fact, as she stepped down from her driving-seat, glanced at her buckskin gauntlets, and then looked up at me.
“There’s something we may as well face, and face at once,” she said, with less of a drawl than usual.
I waited, without speaking, wondering if she was referring to the tub. But I could feel my heart contract, like a leg-muscle with a cramp in it. And we stood there, face to face, under the flat prairie sunlight, ridiculously like two cockerels silently estimating each other’s intentions.
“I’m in love with your husband,” Lady Alicia suddenly announced, with a bell-like note of challenge in her voice. “And I’d rather like to know what you’re going to do about it.”
I was able to laugh a little, though the sound of it seemed foolish in my own startled ears.
“That’s rather a coincidence, isn’t it?” I blithely admitted. “For so am I.”
I could see the Scotch-granite look that came into the thick-lashed tourmaline eyes. And they’d be lovely eyes, I had to admit, if they were only a little softer.
“That’s unfortunate,” was her ladyship’s curt retort.
“It’s more than unfortunate,” I agreed, “it’s extremely awkward.”