Orsino looked down to her averted face, and in the dim light he saw the blush at her mistake—too great a mistake in speech not to have come from a strong impulse within. Yet he could hardly believe that she had seen him go out that way alone, and had followed in the hope of finding him.
They sat down together, not far from the door opening upon the bridge. The colour had faded again from Vittoria's face, and she was pale. During some moments neither spoke, and the music of the quadrille irritated Orsino as he listened to it. Seeing that he was silent, Vittoria looked up sideways and met his eyes.
'It was really very warm in the ballroom,' she said, to say something.
'Yes,' he answered absently, his eyes fixed on hers. 'Yes—I daresay it was.'
Again there was a pause.
'What is the matter?' asked Vittoria at last, and her tone sank with each word.
'I am going away,' said Orsino, slowly, with fixed eyes.
She did not start nor show any surprise, but the colour began to leave her lips. The irritating quadrille went pounding on in the distance, through the hackneyed turns of the familiar figures, accompanied by the sound of many voices talking and of broken laughter now and then.
'You knew it?' asked Orsino. 'How?'
'No one told me; but I knew it—I guessed it.'