'Girl?' Lee interrupted him scathingly. 'You're that kind of man, are you?'

'What kind of man?'

'The kind who calls a woman a girl because it's an easy way of putting her down. It's a pity you didn't let this woman drive. We wouldn't be in this mess.'

His eyes glinted. 'Do you really want me to enlarge on the subject of women drivers?'

'No, thank you. You're probably as biased against us on that subject as you are about everything else.'

She had the satisfaction of seeing him bereft of speech. 'Me?' he managed to say at last. 'Me-biased against women?'

'Yes, you. Just because you're in the wrong, your reaction is to turn and bully a woman.'

Phoebe's reaction to this was disconcerting. She laughed until Lee thought she would never stop. Her companion appeared to be choking on his own emotions.

'Look,' he managed at last, 'this young lady-will you please hush?' This was directed at Phoebe, whose mirth was reducing her to a state of collapse.

'Ignore him,' Lee told Phoebe. 'I'm glad you can find it funny. If I were you I'd run for my life. Someone who looks like you doesn't have to put up with a man whose ideas come out of the ark.' She turned her attention back to her foe. 'This is the twentieth century, in case you hadn't heard.'

'Twentieth century be blowed!' the man exploded. 'Some things never change, and one of them is the way women drive. You were daydreaming back there, that's why you didn't see me earlier. If there's one kind of driver I dread more than any other it's some fluffy-headed little thing who-'

'Fluffy-headed little-?'

'Madam, it isn't me that belongs to an outdated species, but you-the little woman with nothing better to occupy her mind than her clothes and her hair-do. The one thing you've never thought of is what goes on under the bonnet of a car.'