ady Aspenick drew nearer to Octon, one of the grooms whistled. Octon
gave way--a little. Apparently the groom--whether Lady Aspenick spoke to
him or not I could not see--thought that there was not yet room enough,
for he whistled again, waving his hand impatiently. Octon edged a little
more to the side of the road and then stood still, apparently waiting
for them to pass. He was by no means at the side of the road--neither
was he now in the middle; perhaps he was a third of the way across; and,
so far as I could judge, there was room for them to pass--and a
sufficient margin, at any rate for a steady team. Now the groom
shouted--a loud "Hi!" or some such word--in a peremptory way. I heard
Octon's reply plainly. "There's plenty of room, I tell you." Lady
Aspenick had her whip in her hand--ready, no doubt, to give her restless
leader a flick to make him mind his manners as they went by. While this
happened, I had begun to walk on again slowly, meaning to speak to Octon
when the lady had passed. I was about fifteen yards away--and the tandem
was just approaching where Octon stood. Just as she came up to him, Lady
Aspenick loosed the long lash of her whip; it flew out and I looked to
see a jump from the leader, who was dancing and capering in a very
restive way. But unless she took great care--or Octon moved a bit----

The next instant, while the idea was still incomplete in my mind, the
end of the lash caught him full on the face. He jumped back with a shout
of rage. The leader gave a wild plunge toward the other side of the
road; the cart swayed and rocked. The grooms leaped down and ran as hard
as they could to the leader's head. Octon sprang forward, caught hold of
the whip, wrenched it from Lady Aspenick's hand, almost pulling her out
of her seat, broke it in the middle across his knee, and flung the
fragments down on the road. I ran up hastily.

"You did that on purpose," he said, his voice shaking with rage. There
was a red streak across his face from the cheek bone to the chin.

She was pale, but she looked at him calmly through her eyeglasses.

"Nonsense," she answered, "but if I had, it would have been only your
deserts. Why didn't you give me room?"

"There was plenty of room if you knew how to drive; and, if you wanted
more, you could have asked for it civilly."

"You must have seen I had a young horse." She turned to me. "Give me my
whip, please, Mr. Austin. You saw what happened? I'll ask my husband to
co