Victoria forgot her silks and looked up at her young friend.
"Why, Millie, what _has_ come to you lately? You're not at all as you used to be. You're always speaking contemptuously of people nowadays. And you're not looking well. You're tired, darling----"
"Oh, I'm all right," Millie moved impatiently away. "You know I hate that man. He's vulgar, coarse and selfish."
"You've no right to speak of my friends that way. . . . But I'm not going to be cross with you. No, I'm not. You're tired and not yourself. Dr. Brooker was saying so only yesterday."
"There's no reason for Dr. Brooker to interfere. When I want his advice I'll ask for it."
Victoria looked as suddenly distressed as a small child whose doll has been taken away.
"I can't make you out, Millie. There's something making you unhappy."
She looked up with a touching, anxious expression at the girl, whose face was dark with some stormy trouble that seemed only to bring out her loveliness the more, but was far indeed from the happy, careless child Victoria had once known.
Millie's face changed. She suddenly flung herself down at her friend's feet.
"Victoria, darling, I don't want you to marry that man. No, I don't, I don't indeed. He's a bad man, bad in every way. He only wants your money: he doesn't even pretend to want anything else. And when he's got that he'll treat you so badly that you'll be utterly wretched. You know yourself you will. Oh, don't marry him, don't, don't, don't!"
Victoria's face was a curious mixture of offended pride and tender affection.
"There, there, my Millie. Don't you worry. Whoever said I was going to marry him? At the same time it isn't quite true to say that he only cares for my money. I think he has a real liking for myself. You haven't heard all the things he's said. After all, I know him better than you do, Millie dear, and I'm older than you as well. Yes, and you're prejudiced. You never liked him from the first. He has his faults, of course, but so have we all. He's quite frank about it. He's told me his life hasn't been all that it should have been, but he's older now and wiser. He wants to settle down with some one whom he can really respect."
"Respect!" Millie broke out. "He doesn't respect any one. He's an adventurer. He says he is. Oh, don't you see how unhappy you'll be? You with your warm heart. He'll break it in half a day."