"How dare he treat me in such a way!" she said wrathfully, referring to the absent Otterburn. "Because I do not choose to marry him, he need not slight me so openly before his friend. Ah! that wretched Mr. Gartney, how detestable he is. Always sneering and supercilious. I should like to kill him, and he knows it."
There was no doubt that the triumph was now with Gartney, and all through her own fault. She had refused offers before, but the makers of them had always taken their defeat meekly and continued to haunt her steps. Otterburn, however, had treated her as no man had ever treated her before, and when she grew calmer, with the whimsical inconsequence of a woman, she actually began to admire his independence.
"He's a man at all events," she said, drying her tears, "and I'm glad he's got a mind of his own. If I do meet him again I'll make him propose again, in spite of his temper, and then I'll pay him out for going off like this."
It was truly a bad look-out for Otterburn if she remained in the same mind, but then the chances were that his promptitude of action, having secured her admiration, would end up by making her love him, and when they met again it was doubtful who would come off victor.
Eustace, on his side was very much gratified by the conversation he had had with Victoria, and after bidding farewell to Mr. and Mrs. Trubbles, went to bed in quite a good temper.
Next morning he left Cemobbio and started for Milan.
On arriving he found Otterburn at the station, looking tired and haggard, but this was due to want of sleep and not to dissipation, as Eustace charitably surmised. The young man was in a fearfully bad temper, and although he was burning to question Eustace about Victoria, yet his own sense of dignity would not allow him. So during their journey to Venice, he sat in sulky silence, reading a book and inwardly raging at the fickleness, ingratitude and caprices of womankind.
Since they had last occupied a railway carriage together, a change had certainly come over both of them, and instead of friendly talk, they sat in dour silence, each regarding the other as an insufferable nuisance.
The cynical French proverb anent women was, without doubt, very applicable to them both in the present case, and it might have been some gratification to Victoria's wounded pride to know that she had effectually estranged these two quondam friends. The bond of sympathy formerly existing between them had entirely vanished, and though each was burning to make a confidant of the other, yet neither would make the first advance, so both sat grimly silent, each cursing his luck in having the other for a companion.
Otterburn did not venture to speak to Eustace about his rejection by Victoria, as he was afraid of being laughed at by the cynic, and Eustace held his tongue concerning his passion for his cousin's wife, as he thought, and with good reason, that Otterburn would consider it dishonourable. It was the quick coupled with the dead, and they both felt it, so when they reached Venice, although they put up together at Danieli's, by tacit consent they saw as little of one another as possible.