Ever since she could toddle Zai has held her own. No one in the world is better able to paddle her own canoe than this beautiful little daughter of Belgravia, and from sheer feelings of pique, she is positively satisfied with the companion on whose arm she wanders through the flowery walks of Elm Lodge. There are plenty of other couples doing the same thing, so there is nothing against the convenances. And Zai knows that her mother is at this moment revelling in dreams of Lord Delaval for a son-in-law.
“Let her revel if she likes,” Zai says to herself. “I shall marry Carl all the same.”
And even while she soliloquises thus, she teems with coquetry; but it is a coquettishness that is perfectly subordinate to good taste, and her instincts are all those which come from gentle breeding.
There is in her none of the making of what we call a fast young lady. When time has fully opened the flower, it will be of a higher order than any of those gaudy blossoms. Only nineteen, she shows a grace and subtlety, and a savoir faire that astonishes Lord Delaval, and then, though beauty is only skin deep, Zai is so very beautiful. After all, this must be set down as her chief attraction.
There is a bewildering charm about her little face that words cannot describe—a deliciousness about her soft colouring, and her great, grey eyes are brimful of a liquid provoking light, as they look up at her cavalier and tell him, in mute but powerful language, that he finds favour in their sight, although it must be confessed it is for “this night only.” Her cheeks are still flushed, and smiles play on her pretty mouth, and, like all women, this bit of a girl is surely a born actress, for the man of the world, wary as he deems himself, and skilled in all the wiles of the sex, really believes that he has done her injustice in crediting her with a grande passion for “that actor fellow,” and is satisfied that, like Julius Cæsar, he has conquered.
Presently the flowery paths are deserted as the sweet strains of “Dreamland” fall on them. Zai shivers a little as she remembers that to these she valsed last with Carl—Carl, who is so monopolised with Crystal Meredyth that he has evidently forgotten the existence of any other woman.
Pique and jealousy drive her to lingering on in these dim-lit grounds. Pique and jealousy make her little hand cling closer to Lord Delaval’s arm, and her manner and voice softer to him; but the convenances must be considered. She is too much Belgravian to forget them. So she says:
“Had we not better think of going back to the ball-room?”
“Why should we?” Lord Delaval murmurs softly.
Enchanted with his companion, he has no inclination to return to the beauties of whom he is sick and tired.