Zai’s grey eyes blaze, her little mouth quivers with excess of anger and indignation.
“By introducing that episode of Evelyn Ashley I conclude you mean to insinuate, Trixy, that her disgraceful affair is a parallel to what you think are my feelings for Carl?”
“Certainly. I call a riding-master quite as good, if not better, than an actor,” Trixy retorts coolly, though Carl Conway is as much in her head as in Zai’s heart.
“Gentlemen and officers have been forced through adverse circumstances to earn their bread by teaching riding, at least one hears of such cases. Of course it is not likely for me to have run across them,” she adds with supreme arrogance and a little curl of her pretty lip.
“And you think anyone following the profession of an actor, from sheer love of his art, cannot be a gentleman? Not even if by birth he is one—and in fact related to the best blood in England?” Zai demands, quite haughtily, with a glitter in her glance which rather awes Trixy, who, like all bullies, is not very courageous when it comes to a stand-up fight.
But before Zai has a reply, Lady Beranger steps in with her low imperious voice:
“I am shocked at you both. Can it be possible that daughters of mine, girls supposed to be well-bred, should discuss such subjects, and throw yourselves into the violence of washerwomen, proving yourselves no better than the canaille in question. Zai, I see it is useless to try and reason with you. However, as I am your mother I am entitled to obedience, and I order you to abstain in the future from the society of Mr. Conway, so that, however much folly you may be guilty of, others will not be able to comment upon it.”
No answer, but Zai’s lids droop, and from beneath them big tears roll slowly down her cheeks, and her mouth quivers like a flogged child’s.
“What a poor weak thing she is,” Gabrielle thinks. “Why doesn’t she hold her own, and set that mother of hers at defiance?”
But Zai does not care for defiance. Even in Belgravia she has been taught to honour her father and her mother, and her natural instincts are all for good.