“But really I only came out for a whiff of fresh air; the house oppresses me. But there never is a bit of freedom at home, my mother never leaves me alone.”
“Perhaps she has right on her side, just now. You are tanning your skin in this broiling sun, and looking ill from the heat.”
“What can it signify how I look?” Zai cries contemptuously.
“Only that Lord Delaval was deploring this morning how white and thin you were looking. He even hinted that you had gone off a little, although you have had only one season in London.”
“Lord Delaval! Gabrielle. Pray, what right has he to indulge in personal remarks about me, and how much can his opinion affect me, do you think?”
Gabrielle colours angrily.
“As for that, Lord Delaval is not isolated in the place he holds in your estimation. What is anybody’s opinion to you, you silly love-sick child, except one individual, and he is what Lady Beranger calls, a ‘detrimental,’ and the object of her unmitigated dislike.”
“If you have only come out to vex me, Gabrielle, I think you had much better have stayed indoors and entertained Lord Delaval with more of those songs. Mamma calls them positively indecent; she says they are simply a ‘declaration’ under cover of music, and that thoroughbred girls should be ashamed to sing them.
“I heard you singing to Lord Delaval this morning, Gabrielle,
‘Ah! je t’adore mon âme:
Ah! je te donne—tout! tout!
Et toi?—veux tu etre infame
Ah! veux tu me rendre—fou?’