Caterina snatched away her hand and said indignantly, ’Leave me to myself, Captain Wybrow!  I do not disturb you.’

’Caterina, why will you be so violent—­so unjust to me?  It is for you that I feel anxious.  Miss Assher has already noticed how strange your behaviour is both to her and me, and it puts me into a very difficult position.  What can I say to her?’

‘Say?’ Caterina burst forth with intense bitterness, rising, and moving towards the door; ’say that I am a poor silly girl, and have fallen in love with you, and am jealous of her; but that you have never had any feeling but pity for me—­you have never behaved with anything more than friendliness to me.  Tell her that, and she will think all the better of you.’

Tina uttered this as the bitterest sarcasm her ideas would furnish her with, not having the faintest suspicion that the sarcasm derived any of its bitterness from truth.  Underneath all her sense of wrong, which was rather instinctive than reflective—­underneath all the madness of her jealousy, and her ungovernable impulses of resentment and vindictiveness—­underneath all this scorching passion there were still left some hidden crystal dews of trust, of self-reproof, of belief that Anthony was trying to do the right.  Love had not all gone to feed the fires of hatred.  Tina still trusted that Anthony felt more for her than he seemed to feel; she was still far from suspecting him of a wrong which a woman resents even more than inconstancy.  And she threw out this taunt simply as the most intense expression she could find for the anger of the moment.

As she stood nearly in the middle of the room, her little body trembling under the shock of passions too strong for it, her very lips pale, and her eyes gleaming, the door opened, and Miss Assher appeared, tall, blooming, and splendid, in her walking costume.  As she entered, her face wore the smile appropriate to the exits and entrances of a young lady who feels that her presence is an interesting fact; but the next moment she looked at Caterina with grave surprise, and then threw a glance of angry suspicion at Captain Wybrow, who wore an air of weariness and vexation.

’Perhaps you are too much engaged to walk out, Captain Wybrow?  I will go alone.’

‘No, no, I am coming,’ he answered, hurrying towards her, and leading her out of the room; leaving poor Caterina to feel all the reaction of shame and self-reproach after her outburst of passion.

Chapter 12

’Pray, what is likely to be the next scene in the drama between you and Miss Sarti?’ said Miss Assher to Captain Wybrow as soon as they were out on the gravel.  ’It would be agreeable to have some idea of what is coming.’

Captain Wybrow was silent.  He felt out of humour, wearied, annoyed.  There come moments when one almost determines never again to oppose anything but dead silence to an angry woman.  ‘Now then, confound it,’ he said to himself, ‘I’m going to be battered on the other flank.’  He looked resolutely at the horizon, with something more like a frown on his face than Beatrice had ever seen there.