She is sweet to-night, clouds of snowy tulle float round her lovely little figure, and she wears no ornament but one magnificent poinsettia that droops over her left shoulder. Her golden hair, her great innocent blue eyes, her exquisite flower of a mouth, are all bewitching in their way, and so a man seems to think, who lounges carelessly over the back of her chair, partially concealed by the velvet hangings, but who raises his face when Lord Beranger and Zai enter, disclosing the features of Lord Delaval. Lord Delaval is--as Gabrielle has said--superbly handsome. He is tall and his figure is slender, almost to fragility, though not without certain signs of muscular strength, that a pugilist’s eye would recognise at once. There is quite an elegance about his figure, a _je ne sais quoi_ of thoroughbred style that renders Eric, Lord Delaval, a marked man in any assemblage, and his undeniably picturesque face does him right good service as an excellent passport wherever he goes. A very handsome face it is, and a fatally fascinating one for those women to whom it appeals, with its Saxon beauty of fair, almost colourless, skin, faultless features, hair almost tawny in hue, straight eyebrows, cleanly pencilled, and deep blue eyes of eminent softness, and yet a softness that no one would mistake for gentleness. In spite of his fairness, no one could call him effeminate--on the contrary, men looking at him feel at once that he is not to be trifled with, and that his keen, fearless, determined physiognomy, indicates a nature ready to meet any emergency, and not likely to quail before any obstacle. Not always, nor altogether, a pleasant face, by any means, but one with an attractive force about it that it is impossible to deny, and sometimes very difficult to resist. 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, and whom he carelessly crushes in his grasp. Clever and self-sufficient, feminine brains are beneath his notice, feminine minds unworthy of deciphering. So many beautiful women have laid the treasures of their heart at his feet that he has learnt to look on a “woman’s heart” as easy of access, and not especially valuable in possession; still, Lord Delaval likes to win them in a quiet, subtle way, if it is only for the feline gratification of playing with and torturing them by turns, till he is sick of them and throws them aside. He is only a type of most of his sex, after all, especially the portion of his sex who wear the purple, feed on clover, and grow enervated in luxury.