“You have seen the Post to-day?” she says, carelessly.
“Yes, Mamma, and I am so glad to see Mr. Conway is going to be married; Crystal Meredyth is very nice, and awfully rich, you know.”
Lady Beranger turns round slowly and fixes her keen searching eyes on her daughter.
But Zai has not been born and bred in Belgravia for nothing.
Not a lash quivers—not a change of colour comes—under the scrutiny.
“I always said Carlton Conway was a cad!” her ladyship observes coldly; “and I am very glad you have found it out too.”
“But I haven’t, Mamma, not the least in the world. I think quite as well of Mr. Conway as ever.”
Zai’s self-possession amazes and almost annoys Lady Beranger. She is positively out-Heroding Herod! But she only says, in a cold, hard voice:
“Think as well of him as you like, Zai, so long as you keep it to yourself. His sort of people are all very nice in their proper places, but I have never advocated their being in Society. There is the individual in question!”
Zai looks eagerly round, and her cheeks glow crimson and then wax pale, and she bites her lips to stay their trembling, as the Meredyths’ high Barouche with stepping roans dashes by, having for its freight only Miss Meredyth and her fiancé! (Mrs. Meredyth, not so scrupulous as Lady Beranger about the bienséances, thinks there is no harm in an engaged couple being seen alone in the Park.)