“Which Mr. Conway’s noble presence ought to make her.”
“Which it won’t make her. If I thought you would not call me spiteful—Delaval—I would tell you what I think!”
“Tell away—child.”
“Well, mamma said he was a cad, and though I don’t quite know the exact meaning of the word, I am afraid he is something of the sort!”
CHAPTER IV.
LA BLONDE AUX YEUX NOIR.
“Your lithe hands draw me—your face burns through me,
I am swift to follow you, keen to see,
But love lacks might to redeem or undo me,
As I have been—I shall surely be.”
So, while all London talks of Trixy’s elopement with Carlton Conway, Lord Delaval carries his wife off to Paris, and, in sumptuous apartments at the Bristol, little Lord Vernon makes his appearance on the arena of life.
Zai adores her first-born to absurd adoration, but she has not the very faintest idea how to take care of him, or the smallest conception what to do with him.
She loves to hear, as well as to know, that God has given her a living child, and little Vernon does not disappoint her, for he screams away the first weeks with a pertinacity which is fortunately rather rare.
He seems to have not only the germ of a lachrymose disposition, but is in actual fright at the new world in which he finds himself.