“Hargreaves is such fun, Gabrielle! He came to look at Toots’ tootsey-wootseys, and made love to me instead,” she whispers.
“What a tomboy you are, Baby,” Lady Beranger says sharply. “Lord Delaval will be in to tea presently, so run off and change your dress. You look like a maid-of-all-work, with your fringe all uncurled and your soiled hands, and don’t bring that horrid kitten here again.”
“I hate Lord Delaval!” Baby cries frankly. “He is not half so handsome or so nice as—as—shoals of men I know.”
“Not so nice as Hargreaves, the village veterinary,” Gabrielle breaks in maliciously, vexed at her idol being run down.
“Hargreaves! What can Baby know of his niceness?” Lady Beranger questions, in her severest tone.
“Nothing mamma; it is only Gabrielle’s spite because she thinks Lord Delaval such a paragon!”
Lady Beranger passes her eye over Gabrielle, icily.
“I do not think it is of importance to us what you think of Lord Delaval, Gabrielle, so long as your sentiments in no way clash with mine on the subject. Did you ask Zai to come in?”
“I am here, mamma, do you want me?” Zai says, walking quietly into the bosom of her family, and thinking what a very uncomfortable place it is.
The balmy breeze stirring the elm tops has not wooed her in vain—for her cheeks look like blush roses and her hair seems to have caught in its meshes every glint of sunlight that fell on it.