Mrs. Alexander Fraser

“ The big drawing-room in Belgrave Square is very dull. From outside comes the rush of vehicles, and the June sunshine tries to peer through the closed jalousies that fine ladies love. The clock ticks rather obtrusively, but Trixy likes to hear it, for it tells of the flight of time; a prospect she has at heart at this moment, and a short silence falls upon as ill-assorted a pair as ever a longing for the world’s vanities has brought together. ”

“ It is easier for an Ethiopian to change his skin and a leopard his spots than for a worldling to alter his nature.
Lord Delaval does not acknowledge to himself even, with that utter self-delusion that comes so easily to most men—that there was something in poor Gabrielle’s feverish passion that appealed to him, gratified him, soothed him. He does not guess himself how deliciously sweet to his heart are the voice of flattery and the yield of worship. There are men and men.
To some, the self-abnegatory passion of women is no doubt distasteful, even repellant. ”

“ He and Miss Mirabelle (who looks to-night too old for her appellation of Baby) {135} make a pretty, lover-like tableau enough, as they sit close together in the embrasure of the window, ensconced in half shade, with the soft night, full of mystic stars, and the silent, fragrant flowers in the background.
Yet Lord Delaval’s face, when he raises it from whispering in Baby’s ear, wears anything but a lover-like expression. Stolid indifference is in his handsome eyes, and a cynical smile on his lips, but the moment Zai enters, he grows more animated, and rising, walks towards her. ”

“ He fixes his deep blue eyes on her with an expression of fervid admiration, and her lids fall beneath the passion of his glance, but she lifts them bravely, and meets his gaze full.
“You really look as if you thought I did not mean what I say!”
“And no more you do, ma belle,” he answers quietly. Outside the sun shines down furiously; the air is warm as an Indian summer. Up and down, up and down, the butterflies skim over the flowers, and a lazy rose-twig gives an inert tap on the window pane. Gabrielle does not reply. ”

“ Can you face me like a stock or a stone, and trample on my heart like this? Don’t you know that you gave me the right to love you—by your kisses, by the specious words that have fallen from your lips? And I believed in them! I believed that some day I should be your wife! Oh Delaval! if I have showed an undisciplined mind, a want of decorum, it is your fault. You are a man, I but a poor weak loving woman. You are the stronger, I but the weaker vessel. ”

“ As she sweeps along she has that supreme unconsciousness of manner which is never seen save in a woman who feels she is well dressed and able to defy the criticism of her own sex.
Gabrielle does not see Zai or Percy Rayne looking at her, for her eyes are mostly cast down on the fan she carries, neither does Lord Delaval, on whose arm she leans, observe them, for he is bending and speaking very low under the sweep of his long fair moustache, while his glance rests on the undeniably very handsome face near his shoulder. ”

“ Some women regret his love, some resign themselves to his fickle ways, but Gabrielle Beranger is not of the common herd. She is a law unto herself in all things. She can love well (in her fashion) and she can hate well, with her great black gleaming orbs, her white passion-tossed features, her tumultuous, unscrupulous spirit. She regrets{8} now, bitterly, but she does not dream of growing resigned.
“Tout vient a celui qui sait attendre,” she mutters to herself.
Lord Delaval has laid a burthen on her which she cannot bear. She has but one stimulus left in life, but one object. ”

“ Zai’s lids droop, and her lips twitch as if fully aware of her shortcomings. She is desperately in love, and has a simple nature in spite of Belgravia’s training, and she is much too loyal to dream of denying the existence of a love that is part and parcel of her nature. Her passion for Carl Conway is like the air of Heaven to her, invisible, intangible, but yet it encircles her soul, and is just the Alpha and Omega of everything. ”

“ Meanwhile the moon has grown fuller and rounder and yellower, and is right prodigal of its beams—and no wonder—for its tender glances, satiated as they must be with mortal beauty, have seldom fallen on a fairer thing than this girl who, Belgravian born and bred, has braved that autocrat of her class, the convenances, and with a long dark cloak thrown over her snowy ball-dress, and a large hat hiding the glory of her hair, has stolen out amidst the fresh cool foliage of the square, to talk to her lover. ”

“ Meanwhile, Zai has no wish ungratified, no desire unsatisfied. To her the world contains but one man, and this is—her husband. Now and then she remembers the existence of Carlton Conway, but only with wonder filling her that she ever could have exalted him into a creature to adore, when he is so different—personally, mentally, in every way—to Delaval. She is flung, as it were, on her husband entirely for all the pleasure, enjoyment, and amusement of life. Gabrielle is drowned; Baby is dead; her father and mother, left to themselves, live in the London world and for the London world. ”

“ The September sun shines down hot and glary, but under its broiling rays Zai shivers. Her heart is cold, her hands are cold, and it seems to her that life altogether is awfully cold. Still in this moment she makes up her mind.
“All right, Trixy!” she cries, in ringing accents, just as if she was as blithe as the sunbeams and the birds; “the same day shall make us both—wives—on two conditions. One is that you will not tell Gabrielle{205} a word about our little arrangements until I give you permission. ”

“ Do you care for Delaval the least bit in the world?” he asks earnestly, longing for her to deny the existence of any liking for his rival, to protest the enormous height and depth and width of her love for himself.
“Not yet—but,” Zai adds slowly and meditatively, “if I marry him I shall do my best to care for him, and even if I didn’t—what of it? Do people in our world deem it necessary to care for the man or the woman whom they marry?” ”

“ So Zai gives herself up to this delicious pastime, and, strangely enough, Carl does not appear as central figure. Possibly her earnest prayers for oblivion of him and his falsity have been answered; anyway it is a blond face with deep blue eyes and hair that shines up like gold under the sunbeams, that her mind’s eye sees, while her broad white lids are closed.
“Dreaming, my sweet! Is it of me?”
Some one bends over her. Some one’s hand drops softly on her shoulder, and when she looks up, some one’s handsome face is very close to her own. ”

“ Zai’s head droops so that he cannot see her eyes, so he puts his hand under her chin and lifts up her face, and as he gazes down at it he thinks that God never made so beautiful a thing as she who has been made for him. The red lips quiver, her sweet eyes tell him such a wondrous tale of love, that he forgets everything but himself and her. ”

“ Only last night you flirted horribly with Zai. Before, it was in Baby’s ear you whispered your soft nothings. It was Baby’s hand I have seen you furtively clasp. I know therefore that the love you profess for me is all stuff and nonsense! that playing with women’s feelings is delicious food for your vanity. But why you should pick me out, why I should be a butt for you, I am sure I can’t guess! I don’t care to believe that because I am what Lady Beranger thinks me, that you want to insult me! ”

“ She is a Bohemian all over, she has belonged to the Bedouins of civilisation from her youth up, and has run rampant through a labyrinth of low life, and the tastes that go hand in hand with it, but on the principle that all things are good for something, Gabrielle’s hardness and self-reliance, united to acuteness, have served her during her career when a nobler but weaker nature might have sunk beyond redemption. ”

“ As her sweet warm breath sweeps past him, he feels the sensuous delirium of a dream, he is intoxicated by the power of her beauty; and she, hard and cold as she really is, deadly in her revenge, cruel in her greed of love, relentless in her hate, her heart yearns to him with quite a real feeling, a feeling which, though wicked and worthless in itself, yet ennobles her to a certain extent, for it makes her feel her own utter unworthiness. ”

“ Society hasn’t much romance in its composition. Society does not know, and would not credit that Zai Beranger wanders by day and night, blind to external influences, with a buckler girded on her heart on which is written ‘Carlton Conway.’ And{12} if Belgravia cannot comprehend such high-flown sentiment, is it strange that I, born and bred amongst the canaille, with unlimited faith in the practical and matter-of-fact, and with a contempt for the foolish and the sickly romance of women, cannot help doubting and blaming you? ”