“It seems very foolish spoiling your eyes by crying, Zai,” she remarks at last contemptuously, when her not too great a stock of patience is, like the widow’s cruse of oil, exhausted. “Of course I don’t deny that Lord Delaval flirted with you as much as ever you could wish, and I suppose if you are engaged to him, it does not much matter if you did afficher yourself with him so shamefully.”
“Gabrielle, you know I would sooner die than engage myself to that man!” Zai exclaims impetuously, dashing away her tears and sitting bolt upright.
“Child, you must surely be joking,” answers Gabrielle, with a well-feigned accent of surprise, and with a quick uplifting in a curve of her dark brows.
Gabrielle is a rare actress by nature, and her vocation in life is the stage assuredly.
“Do you mean to tell me then that you are not engaged to him? If so you are certainly most indiscreet. All I know is, that if I descend to afficher myself before society with anyone, I shall take some man I like, and not one I was always professing to detest!”
“I do detest Lord Delaval!” cries Zai, in as shrill a tone as her bird-like voice can take. “I don’t profess to detest him, but I detest him with all my heart and soul, and you know it.”
“How on earth should I know it?” Gabrielle says sarcastically. “In fact I quite differ with you on this point; you may possibly fancy that you dislike him, but actions always speak so much louder than words that I am certainly sceptical.”
“And pray what action of mine has shown any liking for him?” persists Zai, her eyes blazing angrily.
“Did your proceedings last night show any dislike? Instead of staying in the ball-room with the rest of the world, you prefer to remain outside. It was desperately dangerous and sentimental work that, Zai—only the Chinese lanterns and Lord Delaval’s handsome eyes to keep you company, while you hung on his arm, and probably arrived at the conclusion that Lord Delaval is not worse looking than most of his sex!”
“Don’t!”