Later on, at dinner, come Miss Beranger’s excuses.
“Gabrielle is not very well, and cannot come down,” Lady Beranger remarks indifferently, going on with her potage à la Reine, and Lord Delaval makes a tolerable meal—drinks a little more than usual, but not too much (wine bibbing is not one of his faults), laughs and talks a little nervously, and even is slightly distrait, while Zai sings in her fresh sweet soprano a bit of Swinburne, set to pathetic music—
“If I could but know after all,
I might cease to hunger and ache,
Though your heart were ever so small,
If it were not a stone or a snake.”
He seems to look past her dainty chesnut-crowned head, as he listens to these words, at Gabrielle—Gabrielle, with her wild wet eyes, her white passion-tossed features, her clinging arms and bitter reproach.
All night long, through his sleep, they come back to him, and will not be thrust away.
Once more, at breakfast, the empty chair faces him, and in spite of himself he says to his hostess, “I hope Miss Beranger is better to-day?”
“Yes! I think so,” Lady Beranger answers; “at any rate, well enough to travel. Gabrielle went off by the early train to Southampton, I believe, didn’t she, Trixy?”
“I think so, mamma; at least, Fanchette told me. She has gone, but she never said good-bye.”
“Ah! just like her,” Lady Beranger observes, carelessly. “Gabrielle is so queer, so bizarre, you know.” And she takes another help of fillet de sole, and gives no further thought to her stepdaughter.