“Fiddlesticks! Mamma and lover being leagued, the odds are too much against you. You had better make up your mind to marry him; you will have to do so by-and-bye.”
Lord Delaval’s threat almost verbatim. Zai blanches with a sudden thrill of fear, and her heart gives a quick bound, but she says lightly:
“Nous verrons!”
“Nous verrons!” is the answer, and after a moment, Gabrielle goes on in studied accents: “I think it right to tell you, Zai, that I am resolved not to persuade you any more to marry Lord Delaval. I am a soldier of fortune, you know, and have to make my own way in the world; Lady Beranger deserves no tolerance from me, so I warn you, that I am going to try and serve myself, and if my interest clashes with anyone else’s I won’t yield an inch.”
“In other words, Gabrielle, you give me notice that you are going in for Lord Delaval, yourself! I am sure I wish you bon voyage in your undertaking. I hope you will find the result, if gained, a happy one.”
“I am not afraid, I never knew what fear was in my life. Cowardice in man or woman is the biggest crime in my eyes,” Gabrielle says with a dare-devil glance.
“But,” replies Zai, “why on earth should you consider it necessary to warn me of your project, I, who have no interest in the matter except to wish you happy?”
“Simply because I should wish the point made clear to you, so that you may not think me deceitful in the end. I owe the world—your world of Belgravia—nothing. But I have determined to take all I can gain from it by my woman’s wit.”
“Follow Trixy’s example, and sell yourself to the highest bidder you can find in my world, then!”
“No one has ever bid high enough for me,” Gabrielle cries bitterly, at the same time tossing her head with the proud air of a De Rohan. “Pariah, as I am, I have that which many of you Belgravians lack—the knowledge how to live. Mon Dieu! What a magnificent specimen of a grande dame I should make! Would that I were a peeress, and rich!”