He went up to the carriages, opened a door, shut it hastily, and turned away, with the frigid bow with which Telfer, in common with every other Briton, can say, "Go to the devil," as plainly as if he spoke.
"By Jove!" said I, "what's that eccentric move? Did you see the Medusa in that carriage, or a baby?"
"Something quite as bad," said he, curtly. "I saw the Tressillian and her aunt. For Heaven's sake, let's get away from them. I'd rather have a special train, if it cost me a fortune, than travel with that girl, boxed up for four hours in the same compartment with such a little intrigante."
"Calm your mind, old fellow; if she's aiming at your governor she won't hit you. She can't be your wife and your mother-in-law both," laughed Fred Walsham, a good-natured little chap in the Carabiniers, a friend of Von Edenburgh, who was coming with us.
"I'll see her shot before she's either," said Telfer, fiercely stroking his moustache.
"Hush! the deuce! hold your tongue," said Walsham, giving him a push. For past us, so close that the curling plumes in her hat touched the Major's shoulder, floated the "little intrigante" in question, who'd come out of her carriage to see where a pug of hers was put. She'd heard all we said, confound it, for her head was up, her color bright, and she looked at Telfer proudly and disdainfully, with her dark eyes flashing. Telfer returned it to the full as haughtily, for he never shirked the consequences of his own actions ('pon my life, they looked like a great stag and a little greyhound challenging each other), and Violet swept away across the platform.
"You've made an enemy for life, Telfer," said Walsham, as we whisked along.
"So much the better, if I'm a rock ahead to warn her off a marriage with the governor," rejoined the Major, smoking, as he always did, under the officials' very noses. "I hope I sha'n't come across her again. If the Tressillian and I meet, we shall be about as amicable as a rat and a beagle. Take a weed, Fred. I do it on principle to resist unjust regulations. Why shouldn't we take a pipe if we like? A man whose olfactory nerves are so badly organized as to dislike Cavendish is too great a muff to be considered."
As ill luck would have it, when we crossed to Dover, who should cross, too, but the Tressillian and her party—aunt, cousins, maid, courier, and pug. Telfer wouldn't see them, but got on the poop, as far away as ever he could from the spot where Violet sat nursing her dog and reading a novel, provokingly calm and comfortable to the envious eyes of all the malades around her.
"Good Heavens!" said he, "was anything ever so provoking? Just because that girl's my particular aversion, she must haunt me like this. If she'd been anybody I wanted to meet, I should never have caught a glimpse of her. For mercy's sake, Vane, if you see a black hat and white feather anywhere again, tell me, and we'll change the route immediately."