Perhaps Lord Delaval, with his worship for pretty things, feels their increased attraction, for as his eyes fall on them, his manner grows really more impassioned. He moves closer to her side on the sofa, but she averts her head, and piques him by a feigned coldness.
“I can’t see your face, Gabrielle! And I want to see it while I talk to you,” he pleads quite tenderly.
The tone touches her, not because she credits its sincerity, but because she has never dreamed that he could ever speak to her thus.
“Gabrielle, do you believe in affinities?”
“I believe in sympathy,” she answers, wondering what he is going to say now.
“I am a firm believer in affinities, and don’t believe in the possibility of love existing between two persons devoid of affinity. Tell me, Gabrielle! do you follow me at all?”
She makes a slight gesture of assent, but she doesn’t in the slightest comprehend what he is driving at. No matter, he is close besides her. If she likes, she can touch him, and this is enough to put this impassioned child of Eve into a fever of delight.
“I don’t believe that anyone can give another anything that does not belong to that other. He may withhold it to a certain degree, but it must be given in the end. Perfect love is when one meets someone to whom one can give all, and from whom one desires all.”
“Imperfect affinities are all that most people in our world know of love, and, Gabrielle, Belgravia is horribly ignorant, do you know? Being so, they call a part of such and such a thing the whole, and demand allegiance of one’s whole nature to a feeling that belongs to, and feeds but a small part of it! Now, Gabrielle—my beautiful, tempting Gabrielle! you and I have this in common, that we hate sham, and never pretend to fine sentimental feelings unless we possess them. Isn’t it true?”
Lord Delaval bends over her till his face nearly touches hers, and he smiles conceitedly as he notices how rosy red the cheek near him grows by his proximity.