“And no more you do, ma belle,” he answers quietly. Outside the sun shines down furiously; the air is warm as an Indian summer. Up and down, up and down, the butterflies skim over the flowers, and a lazy rose-twig gives an inert tap on the window pane. Gabrielle does not reply. She feels shy, and as shyness is foreign to her, it is not only an uncomfortable, but a painful sensation.
“You snubbed Aylmer last evening,” he says.
“Yes!” she answers laconically.
“But why? Did you forget how many good things he has to offer you? Most women would jump at such a match.”
“Soit! but I don’t,” she answers indifferently.
“Of course not,” he tells her. “I know you better than you know yourself—no one will ever know you as well as I do—and, still more, Gabrielle, no one will ever love you as I love you! No, don’t start!”
For she rises from her seat, feelings of various kinds surge over her, and she clasps her fingers tightly together.
“Gabrielle, I have been longing to tell you this,” he goes on, in a concentrated voice, which has a deal of suppressed passion in it; “I see no reason for denying myself the expression of what is strong within me. I don’t want you to tell me that you love me, for I should hate to evoke from your sweet lips words that your heart doesn’t force through them, in spite of convenances! I only want you to listen to me when, instead of dilating on the beauty of the weather, and so forth, I lay bare my heart to you.”
Gabrielle believes he is laughing at her, and the belief lashes her into fury.
“Please, Lord Delaval, reserve your amusement for some one else. I am not of sufficiently elevated position for you to waste your breath on. Do you forget that Lady Beranger looks on me as a sort of social pariah, and almost a gutter-girl!” she flares out scornfully, her lips trembling, and looking doubly tempting in their wrath.