Alexander Fraser - Daughters of Belgravia; vol 2 of 3

He came, he saw, he conquered; and Gabrielle fell down at once, helplessly and hopelessly, to worship him.

Gabrielle’s cheeks grow crimson and her eyes glitter with pleasure, that for a little while they two will be alone, with no stranger to intermeddle with their joy, as she watches Lord Delaval approach nearer and nearer and finally step over the sill of the casement.

There is always a peculiar directness, an odd sort of intimacy in his manner towards her, whenever they are thrown alone together, that produces at once a most unconventional effect.

Now, as he walks up towards the sofa where she sits, the orthodox smile of greeting is lacking on his handsome face, the ordinary hand-clasp is unoffered, and Gabrielle does not even attempt to rise from her nest of downy cushions, while her face droops away a little from his gaze.

There is just a softer gleam in the big black eyes, a quick, nervous pressure of the even white teeth on the full, red underlip, and these are the only signs that she recognises his presence on the scene.

But Lord Delaval – confident and complacent – requires no spoken welcome. He has come in not knowing who he may find in the room, but finding Gabrielle, is ready, faute de mieux , to make love to her in the underhand way that does not compromise a man, and passes away an hour.

Ever since Baby’s marriage to Archibald Hamilton had been hinted at by Lady Beranger, and he had suspected Zai’s weakness for the popular actor, he had insinuated a passion, if he had not one, for Gabrielle. It may be that her evident liking for him, and her undeniable personal attraction, had touched him; but – probably it was only a selfish gratification he is given to seeking.

“I am so glad to find you alone. I wanted to see you so much,” he says in a quiet outspoken fashion, that to a girl who hates what she terms the insincerity and shams of society is, in itself, fascinating.

“You wanted to see me, and you are glad to find me alone!” she repeats, then, to cover the nervousness his proximity always brings, she adds flippantly:

“Really, Lord Delaval, if Lady Beranger heard you she would drop at such a breach of the convenances .”

“Possibly,” he answers coolly, “but hang the convenances . Don’t you know that there are times in every fellow’s life when he comes into collision with the conventionalities, and either breaks them, or else risks being broken by keeping them? So long as I can run with my Juggurnauth, alias ‘Society,’ I am content, but I cannot throw myself before it and get mangled. Do you know I rather fancied I had a chance of finding you alone here, and so I determined to make chance a certainty?”

Gabrielle gives him a quick glance of surprise, while her heart throbs faster than it has ever done before in the six-and-twenty years she has lived.

Lord Delaval has often looked love at her – hinted at love, but he has never gone as far as this.

She has met him by appointment once or twice; still, nothing has been said to make her believe he really cared for her.

Now she reddens like a rose, and feels a nervous tremor run through her, and yet his manner is scarcely like a lover’s. There is, in fact, nothing in what he says that could not pass as the ordinary talk of Society, yet the conversation seems lifted out from an ordinary atmosphere. They two, Lord Delaval and herself, are alone, and he talks to her just as if they were disembodied spirits. There are men occasionally in this world who have the power of bringing a woman they approach into direct contact with their own natures. They have a special gift of penetration, and one feels that in whatever relation one meets them, it is sustained by one’s real self towards an equally real individuality on the other side.

Lord Delaval always makes Gabrielle feel this, and his intense manner adds to the feeling, but, with the supreme wilfulness of her nature, she refuses to yield to the magnetic influence he has over her without, at any rate, a struggle.

“You can have nothing to say to me , Lord Delaval, that all the world and the world’s wife cannot hear. Are you mistaking me by chance for Zai?” she asks, carelessly, but she has no control over her features, and the excitement of his presence lends them a flashing, bewildering beauty, that positively dazzles him — pro tem.!

He fixes his deep blue eyes on her with an expression of fervid admiration, and her lids fall beneath the passion of his glance, but she lifts them bravely, and meets his gaze full.

“You really look as if you thought I did not mean what I say!”

“And no more you do, ma belle ,” he answers quietly. Outside the sun shines down furiously; the air is warm as an Indian summer. Up and down, up and down, the butterflies skim over the flowers, and a lazy rose-twig gives an inert tap on the window pane. Gabrielle does not reply. She feels shy, and as shyness is foreign to her, it is not only an uncomfortable, but a painful sensation.

“You snubbed Aylmer last evening,” he says.

“Yes!” she answers laconically.

“But why? Did you forget how many good things he has to offer you? Most women would jump at such a match.”

“ Soit! but I don’t,” she answers indifferently.

“Of course not,” he tells her. “I know you better than you know yourself – no one will ever know you as well as I do – and, still more, Gabrielle, no one will ever love you as I love you! No, don’t start!”

For she rises from her seat, feelings of various kinds surge over her, and she clasps her fingers tightly together.

“Gabrielle, I have been longing to tell you this,” he goes on, in a concentrated voice, which has a deal of suppressed passion in it; “I see no reason for denying myself the expression of what is strong within me. I don’t want you to tell me that you love me, for I should hate to evoke from your sweet lips words that your heart doesn’t force through them, in spite of convenances ! I only want you to listen to me when, instead of dilating on the beauty of the weather, and so forth, I lay bare my heart to you.”

Gabrielle believes he is laughing at her, and the belief lashes her into fury.

“Please, Lord Delaval, reserve your amusement for some one else. I am not of sufficiently elevated position for you to waste your breath on. Do you forget that Lady Beranger looks on me as a sort of social pariah, and almost a gutter-girl!” she flares out scornfully, her lips trembling, and looking doubly tempting in their wrath.

Perhaps Lord Delaval, with his worship for pretty things, feels their increased attraction, for as his eyes fall on them, his manner grows really more impassioned. He moves closer to her side on the sofa, but she averts her head, and piques him by a feigned coldness.

“I can’t see your face, Gabrielle! And I want to see it while I talk to you,” he pleads quite tenderly.

The tone touches her, not because she credits its sincerity, but because she has never dreamed that he could ever speak to her thus.

“Gabrielle, do you believe in affinities?”

“I believe in sympathy,” she answers, wondering what he is going to say now.

“I am a firm believer in affinities, and don’t believe in the possibility of love existing between two persons devoid of affinity. Tell me, Gabrielle! do you follow me at all?”