"Oh, yes. Will you be glad to see us?"
"Perhaps. I don't like Mr. Gartney; I've told you so a dozen times."
"Then will you be glad to see me?" demanded Otterburn, boldly.
Victoria looked at him mischievously, with a dangerous gleam in her dark eyes, then lowering her sunshade with a laugh, she turned abruptly away.
"I shall be glad when we arrive at the Villa Medici," she said, lightly; "I'm so hungry."
How on earth was a young man to make love to such a capricious girl?
[CHAPTER VII.]
LADY ERRINGTON'S LITTLE DINNER.
"An alien race beneath an alien sky,
Amid strange tongues, and faces strange alone,
Stout English hearts who for the moment try
To form a little England of their own."
After the constant sight of dark Italian faces, and the everlasting clatter of restless Italian tongues, the guests at the Villa Tagni found it pleasant to form part of an English circle once more, to eat an English dinner, to discuss English subjects and compare everything British to the disadvantage of all things Continental. So great a delight did these six people take in meeting one another at a hospitable dinner-table that one would have thought they had been for years exiled in the centre of Africa, and far removed from all civilizing influences. Heaven only knows there is no lack of English tourists on the Continent, but then to a great extent they preserve their insular stiffness towards one another; consequently when people meet in foreign parts, who have a slight acquaintance at home, they rush into one another's arms with tender affection, though they would mutually consider one another insufferable bores during the London season.