Let her, Zai thinks; she has never felt so much distaste to accepting Lord Delaval’s offer as she does at this moment, when her heart is so sore and her spirit so humiliated.
“I won’t cry any more!” she exclaims, feigning to be indifferent, but in reality anxious to change the subject. “I must look well before the Royalties to-night, you know! The Prince was very nice to me at Caryllon House, and said I was the belle of the room! What are you going to wear, Gabrielle?”
“Black lace—and you, I suppose, are going to wear sackcloth and ashes!”
“No I am not!” Zai answers lightly. “Mamma coaxed Swaebe out of another six months’ credit, and so Trixy and Baby and I have loves of pale blue faille and white illusion, and water lilies trailing all over us. I want to look beautiful to-night for a reason.
“What reason?” Gabrielle asks, suspiciously.
“Only because—— But no; it’s a secret for the present.” And Zai, running out hastily, rushes up to her bedroom, and, double locking her door, cries to her heart’s content.
They are about the last tears dedicated to the memory of Carlton Conway; but, by-and-by, she bathes her eyes in cold water and smoothes her hair, and putting on her hat, goes out into the Square. But the Square is associated in her mind indelibly with that evening when she stole out from Lady Beranger’s ball to meet her faithless lover, and rising hastily from the bench, she walks home again.
“Go and lie down, Zai, and rest yourself; you look like a ghost!” Lady Beranger says harshly, meeting her on the stairs. “Or better still, put on your white chip hat with the pink roses, and come with me to the Park. The air will beautify you, perhaps.”
And Zai—who has learned by this time that Lady Beranger’s suggestions are really fiats—goes up and adorns herself, and is quite bewitching in the chip and roses by the time the Victoria is at the door.
Lady Beranger leans back, a trifle pale, and with the soupçon of a frown on her brow, and the carriage is just at Hyde Park Gate before she volunteers a remark.