And having relieved herself of this, Lady Beranger settles herself more comfortably, and begins to build castles in which Zai and Lord Delaval, Trixy and the fascinating Stubbs, and Baby with her elderly inamorato figure.
“That actor fellow showed his cards well last night,” she soliloquises. “He is after the Meredyth filthy lucre of course, so now there’s every chance of Zai catching Delaval. Trixy is thrown away on that dreadful cub, but after all, it doesn’t much matter who one marries. After a month or so, now-a-days, the women think twice as much of other people’s husbands as of their own. Baby will be all right in Archibald Hamilton’s keeping. That child really frightens me by her defiance of everything, and I shall be truly thankful to wash my hands of her before she goes to the furthest end of her tether. As for Gabrielle,” a frown puckers her ladyship’s patrician brow, “I wonder who she has got running in her head? I hope it is not Delaval; a neck to neck race between her and Zai would end in her winning by several lengths. Zai, though she is my own child, is the biggest little fool, with the primitive notions of the year One, and I can’t alter her, worse luck!”
CHAPTER III.
“FROGGY WOULD A WOOING GO.”
“Gold, gold, gold, gold,
Bright and yellow, hard and cold;
Molten, graven, hammered and roll’d,
Heavy to get, and light to hold,
Price of many a crime untold.”
“Poor Mr. Stubbs,” sneers Gabrielle.
“Poor Mr. Stubbs,” says Zai.
“Poor Mr. Stubbs,” laughs Baby.
And with very good reason.
It is his eighth visit.