“I want an end to this intolerable situation,” my visitor averred.
“Intolerable to whom?” I inquired.
“To me, to Duncan, and to you, if you are the right sort of woman,” was Lady Alicia’s retort. And still again I was impressed by the colossal egoism of the woman confronting me, the woman ready to ride rough-shod over the world, for all her sparkling veneer of civilization, as long, as she might reach her own selfish ends.
“Since you mention Duncan, I’d like to ask if you’re speaking now as his cousin, or as his mistress?”
Lady Alicia’s stare locked with mine. She was making a sacrificial effort, I could see, to remain calm.
“I’m speaking as some one who is slightly interested in his happiness, and his future,” was her coldly intoned reply.
“And has my husband acknowledged that his happiness and his future remain in your hands?” I asked.
“I should hate to see him waste his life in a hole like this,” said Lady Alicia, not quite answering my question.
“Have you brought any great improvement to it?” I parried. Yet even as I spoke I stood impressed by the thought that it was, after all, more than primitive. It was paleolithic, two prehistoric she-things in combat for their cave-man.
“That is not what I came here to discuss,” she replied, with a tug at one of her gauntlets.