Mrs. Alexander Fraser

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ She is thinking of him now under the arching elms. Athwart their fluttering leaves she can see his blond aristocratic face, and she longs to be back to hear his voice, the languid accents of which are harmony to her ears.
“Shall I go in now and say you prefer dreaming away the hours here to cotelettes soubise and cold chicken?” she asks, breaking in rather sharply on the long silence which has fallen, and during which she sees plainly enough that poor little love-sick Zai has entirely forgotten her proximity even. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I call a riding-master quite as good, if not better, than an actor,” Trixy retorts coolly, though Carl Conway is as much in her head as in Zai’s heart.
“Gentlemen and officers have been forced through adverse circumstances to earn their bread by teaching riding, at least one hears of such cases. Of course it is not likely for me to have run across them,” she adds with supreme arrogance and a little curl of her pretty lip.
“And you think anyone following the profession of an actor, from sheer love of his art, cannot be a gentleman? ”

“ Lord Beranger is tall and thin. His hair is so fair that the silver threads thickly intersecting it are hardly visible. His eyes are blue—the very light blue that denotes either insincerity or imbecility—his smile is too bland to be genuine, his talk is measured to match his gait, and he lives the artificial life of so many of his brotherhood, to whom the opinion of “the world” is everything. ”

“ This is the man that Baby had once cared for in her wilful, childish way, and with whom she still loves to coquet, and this is the man that Gabrielle Beranger worships with all the fire and energy of her fierce, unsatisfied nature, while he only thinks of himself and his own interests. To him, women are but instruments to reach a wished-for goal, or toys to amuse and be broken—foolish fluttering butterflies on whom he looks with a good deal of contempt,{134} and whom he carelessly crushes in his grasp. ”

“ An instinct, the artistic instinct, that seems to be born with some women, to whom art itself is quite a dead letter, serves to guide this daughter of Belgravia aright, and being cast for Sabrina to-night, in sea-green silk and misty lace, and coral and seaweed, and all the other concomitants that Gabrielle had yclept shell-fish—and Fanchette les petites bêtes—she keeps clear of blue back-ground. Effect is a grand thing in her estimation, and it is the apparent study of her existence to attain it. ”

“ Carl Conway answers{16} impetuously, for the moonbeams are falling full on her face, deepening the lustre of the sweet grey eyes, dancing and quivering on the wealth of fair hair and making her seem if possible doubly desirable in his eyes. “If they won’t let us have our way quietly and comfortably, of course we must run away. Shall we let them part us for ever? Could you bear it, my Zai? Could you know that for the rest of our natural existence (and we may both live to a hundred) that we shall never see each other, speak to one another, kiss each other again, and live?” ”

“ Zai faces her with a bright flush on her cheek, and a flash in her soft grey eyes.
“I Lady Delaval! Gabrielle, you must be mad to hint such a thing. Am I a child or a doll to be handed over to a man I would rather die than marry—if he were one of the Royalties and three times better looking than he is! Lord Delaval is an insipid dandy, with a weak face and—and just the opposite of what I admire!” ”

“ Afternoon tea is quite an institution at Sandilands, and at half-past four Lady Beranger settles down to a substantial meal of cake and muffins and bread and butter, while the olive branches look on in silent wonderment, and ask themselves if a love of the fleshpots comes hand in hand with riper years. ”

“ She is a woman on a large scale, with a fulness of form which promises to develop into unromantic fat; but, supper finished, as she stands in a long, trailing white silk, with brilliants sparkling on her hair and neck, and ears and arms, there is really so much grace about her careless attitude, so much of imperial dignity about her, that it is impossible to stop and analyse her defects when her claims to admiration are so evident. ”

“ He is not a man to waste his feelings on an unappreciative being. Crystal Meredyth likes him—he knows it, and she{196} has money, lots of bank stock, and horses and diamonds—according to Lord Delaval—at her back, but somehow, Crystal, with all her prettiness, her innocent china-blue eyes, and her naïve conversation, has not caught his fancy, and as he lies here, he is making up his mind to throw Zai’s sweet image to the four winds, and to immolate himself and his handsome face and figure on the altar of Moloch. ”

“ Ever since she could toddle Zai has held her own. No one in the world is better able to paddle her own canoe than this beautiful little daughter of Belgravia, and from sheer feelings of pique, she is positively satisfied with the companion on whose arm she wanders through the flowery walks of Elm Lodge. There are plenty of other couples doing the same thing, so there is nothing against the convenances. And Zai knows that her mother is at this moment revelling in dreams of Lord Delaval for a son-in-law. ”

“ How seldom beauty is so! but she is very imposing to look on, and she is exceptionally thoroughbred in appearance. A woman in fact who bears upon her the unmistakable cachet of blue blood.
She has of course faults, and the gravest of them is love of money. It is the dream of her life that her lovely bouquet of daughters shall marry “fortunes,” and her cross at present consists in the bitter{78} knowledge that both Trixy and Zai are in love, and in love with a pauper.
A pauper, for Trixy is, in her way—a very different way to her sisters’—as much in love with Carl Conway as Zai is. ”

“ You know it would kill us to part. Oh, Zai, you cannot surely be hesitating, you cannot be thinking of letting aught come between us two! You must feel that death would be better than separation!”
“Yes!” she whispers, and now, under the moonbeams, he sees a lovely pink colour steal over her face, and the sweetest, tenderest lovelight fill her big grey eyes. “Death would be a thousand times better, I could not live without you, Carl! ”

“ There is in her none of the making of what we call a fast young lady. When time has fully opened the flower, it will be of a higher order than any of those gaudy blossoms. Only nineteen, she shows a grace and subtlety, and a savoir faire that astonishes Lord Delaval, and then, though beauty is only skin deep, Zai is so very beautiful. ”

“ If Trixy’s beauty is in consequence marred just a little bit in the world by a soupçon of self-consciousness, it is not a matter of marvel. A Belgravian damsel can scarcely, with all the bonne volonté imaginable, personate Lalla Rookh, Idalian Aphrodite, Mary Anderson, the three Graces, a whole sisterhood of Muses, and herself to boot, without some one suffering in the transmogrification, and that some one is naturally—herself. ”

“ Conway to be as open as the day, to have no narrowness in his heart, no pettiness in his soul. He could no more shackle himself with the opinion of “society” than he could stoop to do a mean thing. In fact I know he has such a true gentleman-like nature, that if he were reduced to a blacksmith’s calling he would be a gentleman in the estimation of all those whose judgment is worth having.” ”

“ Another silence falls on them after this outburst, then Gabrielle looks round and yawns.{69}
“How I hate the country,” she avers, “it is full of dismal sounds; the cattle do nothing but moan, the sheep wail, ah! ah! ah! and nature is one unceasing coronach. I wonder how many days it is Lady Beranger’s will that we shall dabble in puddles, and look down empty roads. Do come along, Zai, your respected parent will kill me by the lightning of her eye if I go in without you. Just throw C. C. to the four winds, and come and make yourself agreeable to the menkind indoors.” ”

“ Altogether Carlton Conway, “jeune amoureux” at the Bagatelle Theatre, is very much worth looking at, and is just the sort a romantic girl falls down before in abject adoration.
“We must take our lives into our own hands, Zai,” he says very passionately, marking how sweet his love looks under the soft moonbeams. “We must run away, my child!”
One arm is round her slim waist, her cheek, lovelier and whiter and purer than a white rose, is against his breast, her small snowflake of a hand lies restfully in his strong clasp.
Zaidie Beranger starts.{15}
“Run away, Carl?” she asks in an awed voice. ”

“ Lord Beranger mutters to himself, half aloud. “Poor Trixy!” Then he remembers his wife’s admonition, and goes on blandly: “Stubbs isn’t a bad sort, Zai; a little too much flesh, and a little, too little, breeding; but we can’t have everything, child, and money makes the mare to go.”
“I hate money,” Zai answers in a low voice. “I would not marry Mr. Stubbs if he were ten times richer.” ”