“I beg your pardon, mamma!” she murmurs at last, with an effort. “When one is insulted, one does not stop to think _who_ offers the insult. Perhaps this may excuse my having forgotten myself, but--” her voice waxes louder and her sweet mouth looks stronger--“if you think taunts or innuendos will estrange me from Carl, you are mistaken. I trust in him too entirely to believe he will ever think badly of me. I believe he loves me as much as I love him,” and Zai, having delivered herself of this, picks up her hat and leaves the room. “Good gracious!” cries Trixy. “I could not have believed Zai was so brazen. Fancy her flaunting her love for that Conway before us all!” “Zai is frank as daylight,” Gabrielle says, taking up the cudgels for her favourite sister. “That is more to be admired than those who perhaps have the same low tastes, but hide them under grand sentiments. I have seen you walk out of the room, as red as a turkey cock with anger, when Carl Conway has been talking to Zai!” An unpleasant silence falls on the party after this, and Gabrielle stares at her stepmother, who, in spite of her annoyance looks like a Sphinx, and wishes herself an Œdipus, for to her a dissection of character is a fascinating study. But the _bien conservè_ face before her has on its Richelieu waxen mask, and piques her by its impassiveness. After a moment Lady Beranger sinks down into her chair again, pours out a second cup of tea, and butters a sixth piece of toast, then murmurs wearily: “It would be impossible to say how much I have to bear with Zai. She is impressionable and wanting in pride! and she always forgets she is a Beranger. Just to think how wickedly she is in love with that Conway, that actor, whose good looks might captivate some women--but hardly a woman in _our_ class. I told Lord Beranger a dozen times last season that it was the height of folly to have a play actor running loose about the house, but with the usual short-sightedness and obstinacy of men, he pooh-poohed me--and this is the result! There are plenty of detrimentals about, but they don’t all get their living by ranting and raving on the stage, for the benefit of the mob! And besides, the creature hasn’t a sou but his weekly salary, and spends so much on his gloves and gardenias that I am sure he has not saved a shilling to his name!” “It’s no good saying anything now. Zai is quite gone on Carl Conway. She is so queer too, she has even a heart, you know,” Gabrielle says with a short laugh. “She is going to marry her actor, and nobody else. I would not mind betting----” “Gabrielle!” cries Lady Beranger in a horror-struck voice, shutting up her ears with the points of her fore-fingers. “I beg your pardon, my lady! I know ‘betting’ is an awful word in your opinion; I ought not to have said it. What I ought to have said was that Zai was such frightful spoons----” “Gabrielle!” interrupts the severe voice again.