Gabrielle hearkens with a contemptuous smile, but she reddens hotly as Lady Beranger chimes in with:
“Of all things, flippancy is the most unlady-like. Gabrielle, your flippancy jars on my nerves horribly, to say nothing of its being indicative of low birth and breeding. Old Stubbs, whom you are pleased to make a butt of, is one of our biggest millionaires, and a most eligible acquaintance.”
“Old Stubbs’ father was a butcher,” Gabrielle breaks in defiantly.
“Mr. Stubbs is a self-made man,” Lady Beranger says quietly, casting a scornful glance at her stepdaughter. “I admire self-made men immensely, and I hope Trixy knows better than to be guilty of such rudeness as going out.”
A frown puckers the odalisque’s fair brow.
“I prefer going out shopping, mamma, to staying at home to talk to such an ugly man,” she says wilfully.
“Fiddlesticks! Trixy. Recollect he is Hymen’s ambassador, that he is wrapped up in bank notes, and that beauty’s only skin deep,” Gabrielle tells her, with a laugh.
“If you think Mr. Stubbs so charming, mamma, you know you can have his society all to yourself.”
“I shall certainly make a point of being present,” Lady Beranger answers, without a ruffle on her tutored face. “You ought to know me well enough, Trixy, to be aware that I should never risk such a breach of the convenances as to allow a daughter of mine to receive, alone, any man, were he king or kaiser, who was not her acknowledged suitor.”
“Who is not an acknowledged suitor?” cries Baby, bouncing into the room after her usual fashion. Her hat has fallen off to the back of her head, her eyes dance with mischief, and her cheeks are flushed like damask roses, but her muslin dress is tossed and tumbled, and not improved by the muddy paws of a miserable half-bred Persian kitten which she holds in her arms.