Alexander Fraser - Daughters of Belgravia; vol 2 of 3

“Allow me to congratulate you, Zai,” Gabrielle says with a sneer.

Zai leans against the casement, idly toying with a spray of deep red roses she has just plucked from the trails that cover the wall hard by. She is very pale, and dark shadows underline her pretty eyes, and her thoughts are evidently far away, for she starts visibly as Gabrielle’s voice falls on her ear.

“Congratulate me, and what for?” she answers rather bitterly.

Congratulations indeed! when her poor heart is so sore, her spirit so wounded by Carlton Conway’s apparent defection last night.

“On your conquest of Lord Delaval,” Gabrielle flashes out. “What a horrid little hypocrite you are, Zai! To think of how you spoke of him only yesterday morning and how you flung yourself at his head last night!”

“I don’t understand,” Zai murmurs, but her cheeks are quite flushed now and her grey eyes droop, for she remembers perfectly how, to pique Carl, she had flirted, as folks might think, with Lord Delaval.

“Zai! Zai! I thought you never told lies, and now you stand there in broad daylight uttering a monstrous falsehood.”

Upon this, Zai bursts into an uncontrolable passion of tears, and flinging herself on the sofa presses down her face on the cushions.

Gabrielle attempts neither soothing nor scolding. To her such emotion is a display of childishness for which her hard nature has no sympathy. She rests calm and unmoved in her chair, languidly inhaling Eau de Cologne and occasionally sprinkling herself with a fragrant shower while she waits for the tears to subside.

“It seems very foolish spoiling your eyes by crying, Zai,” she remarks at last contemptuously, when her not too great a stock of patience is, like the widow’s cruse of oil, exhausted. “Of course I don’t deny that Lord Delaval flirted with you as much as ever you could wish, and I suppose if you are engaged to him, it does not much matter if you did afficher yourself with him so shamefully.”

“Gabrielle, you know I would sooner die than engage myself to that man!” Zai exclaims impetuously, dashing away her tears and sitting bolt upright.

“Child, you must surely be joking,” answers Gabrielle, with a well-feigned accent of surprise, and with a quick uplifting in a curve of her dark brows.

Gabrielle is a rare actress by nature, and her vocation in life is the stage assuredly.

“Do you mean to tell me then that you are not engaged to him? If so you are certainly most indiscreet. All I know is, that if I descend to afficher myself before society with anyone, I shall take some man I like, and not one I was always professing to detest!”

“I do detest Lord Delaval!” cries Zai, in as shrill a tone as her bird-like voice can take. “I don’t profess to detest him, but I detest him with all my heart and soul, and you know it.”

“How on earth should I know it?” Gabrielle says sarcastically. “In fact I quite differ with you on this point; you may possibly fancy that you dislike him, but actions always speak so much louder than words that I am certainly sceptical.”

“And pray what action of mine has shown any liking for him?” persists Zai, her eyes blazing angrily.

“Did your proceedings last night show any dislike? Instead of staying in the ball-room with the rest of the world, you prefer to remain outside. It was desperately dangerous and sentimental work that, Zai – only the Chinese lanterns and Lord Delaval’s handsome eyes to keep you company, while you hung on his arm, and probably arrived at the conclusion that Lord Delaval is not worse looking than most of his sex!”

“Don’t!”

There is quite a ring of pain in Zai’s voice, and she gives a little shudder. The whole situation these last words bring so vividly before her is one she hates to realise, for she knows few would be charitable enough, and certainly not Carl, to give her credit for real dislike to such a rare-visaged Lothario as Lord Delaval, whose eyes, though their expression at times is hard and chilly as marble, can, when he desires, have an undeniable fascination in their sapphire depths, the bare outline of whose face is simply superb, and who looks what he is, an aristocrat all over.

The passionate looks Carlton Conway had given her have been her guiding star, and she believes that she would unhesitatingly follow their light into the deadly Styx itself, so it can be imagined how her very soul revolts as Gabrielle insinuates that she flung herself at Lord Delaval’s head.

“Oh, Gabrielle, do you really doubt in your heart I would give anything I possess never to see Lord Delaval again and to be all right with Carl?”

“I don’t care about going into possibilities,” Gabrielle replies pettishly, “I prefer restraining myself to simple facts.”

“Perhaps you will be less sceptical of my feelings if I explain a little about last night, Gabrielle,” Zai murmurs deprecatingly. “You see I heard what Sir Everard said to you about Carl riding with Crystal Meredyth and looking ‘awful spoons.’ How those vulgar horrid words cut me through and through, Gabrielle! Then when we arrived, the first thing I saw was Carl waltzing with her, and – and – as if he really enjoyed it! I could not bear the sight of that, so when Lord Delaval proposed to go and see the illuminated grounds, I was thankful to go. After we had been out a little while I was anxious to come in, but he told me that Carl was engaged to Crystal – that he was obliged to marry some one who was rich, Gabrielle,” and Zai flings herself down at her sister’s feet and lifts up great pitiful eyes. “Instead of bullying me you ought to feel for me! I am heart-broken!”

“Heart-broken! You silly child, hearts are tough things and don’t break so easily, I don’t believe Carl Conway is going to marry that girl, but if he is, you must know he is a deceitful interested creature not worth thinking of. Well, what did you say to Lord Delaval in return for his information?”

“I only insisted on going round the garden by myself. I wanted to be alone with my wretchedness, and I wanted to call up courage to meet Carl face to face without betraying all I felt.”

“Well?”

“Lord Delaval would not let me go alone, but I swear I forgot his existence even!”

Gabrielle gives a short unpleasant laugh at this.

“It is true, Heaven knows. We returned and were just going into the house when you and Sir Everard spoke about us – we were not a stone’s throw from you, and of course every word you said fell out clear and distinct. I confess I was surprised at all I heard, as you know you did not speak the truth. However we won’t discuss that point now. What I did hear made me resolve on an explanation with Lord Delaval at once. So I just told him frankly that I did not care for him and would never marry him!”

“In other words, you were amiable enough to reject him before he had the trouble of offering himself,” Gabrielle says with a mocking smile.

“He had told me before that he loved me passionately, Gabrielle!” Zai murmurs with a hot deprecatory blush.

Her delicacy of character would not have let her reveal this except in defence of the seemingly fast conduct that has called down Gabrielle’s sneers. And Gabrielle is well punished for her sneers – for this revelation of Zai’s drives the colour from her cheek, and makes her writhe with jealousy.

“Very probably he did,” she answers sharply. “Lord Delaval is a would-be monopoliser of women’s hearts, and passionate love-making is one of the tricks of his trade. I don’t believe there was a bit of genuine sentiment in all he said.”