One of the most extraordinary parts of Gartney's delusion concerning his chance of success with Lady Errington lay in the fact that his present reasoning was diametrically opposed to the views he held when first meeting Lady Errington. He then asserted that she would never care for her husband, but when she became a mother would lavish all her love on the child. This view of Alizon's character was a correct one, as Eustace in his innermost heart well knew, but he wilfully deceived himself in thinking that now she had obtained her heart's desire she would give it up for the sake of a man whom she had hardly seen. Eustace, however, had been so uniformly triumphant with the female sex, that the idea of failing with Alizon never entered his mind, and he thought that if he laid siege to Lady Errington, in a dexterous fashion, she would give up everything--husband, child, name, and home--in order to gratify his selfish desire. When he came to England after his many months' absence in Arabia, Gartney had determined not to see Lady Errington, feeling that he loved her, or rather her idolized memory, so much, that he would not be able to suppress his passion, and thus behave dishonourably towards his cousin Guy by running away with his wife. Aunt Jelly, however, by telling him of the estrangement between the pair had banished this honourable hesitation from his heart, as he felt himself forced by Fate to see the woman he loved face to face. It was a very convenient excuse with which to quiet his conscience for this wrong-doing, and having settled in his own selfish mind that Fate was too strong for him, he determined to estrange husband and wife still further, so that he would have less trouble in overcoming Lady Errington's scruples to his dishonourable proposals. This idea which he held had been singularly strengthened by the remark of Aunt Jelly, when she said that Guy in his present state would be the prey of the first clever woman that came along. Eustace therefore determined to introduce Guy to some clever woman who would entangle him in her net, and the woman he had fixed upon in his own mind for this vile purpose was--Mrs. Veilsturm. It was curious that he should have fixed on this special woman to do this, seeing that he was ignorant of Mrs. Veilsturm's grudge against Lady Errington, and did not know how eagerly she would seize this opportunity of revenging herself on the woman who had slighted her so scathingly. He merely chose Mrs. Veilsturm because she was beautiful, clever, and unscrupulous, so a hint to her would be quite sufficient to induce her to fascinate Guy by all the means in her power. Eustace Gartney was by no means a thoroughly bad man. Indeed, he had very good qualities, although they were, to a great extent, neutralized by his indomitable selfishness, and therefore he suffered several qualms of conscience over the dishonourable scheme he had in hand.