"Is there going to be speech-making?" I asked.
"How absurd!" she answered. "But of course there will be a discussion."
"Who else will be present?" I asked.
"No one," she said.
I was never so puzzled in my life.
"It really seems rather odd," said I, "that we should meet alone at the cross-roads. And it seems so romantic too. At five o'clock, you said? I always think that is such a sentimental hour."
A bewildered look now crept into the Vicar's wife's face.
"Are you joking or serious?" she said. "Perhaps I have not made myself clear. I am simply asking if you could kindly meet the Countess of Aire in place of the Vicar."
"And I say I shall be charmed," I repeated; "and I think the prospect is most alluring, and I shall endeavour to do the occasion all honour. I shall put on my best mustard-coloured suit and my new green Tyrolean hat—the one with the feather in it."
"I don't see why you should, simply to meet the Countess of Aire."