She says it all hastily, impetuously, taking up the cudgels for the man she adores with all her heart, a sweet pink flush on her face, fervour shining out of her grey eyes. Lord Delaval stares at her hard, with a sudden hot red spot on his usually pale cheek, and with a kindling glance, but his voice is languid and cold enough. “Let us have the reverse picture,” he whispers in a mocking voice. “No occasion, it is not an interesting topic,” she answers carelessly. “Of course it is not! You have made me understand, perhaps too often, the opinion you have of _me_, the atrocious number of faults you endow me with. I should be a thousand times blacker than the traditional blackness of the Devil, if I were all you think,” he says rather bitterly. His tone vexes her, and the colour deepens while her eyes glow, and just at this moment Gabrielle enters, and takes in the whole situation. As she crosses the long room towards them, Lord Delaval puts his head down low, and almost hisses out his words. “You make me _hate_ Conway. I see he is the bar to every hope I have in life.” Then he walks away, and in another moment is whispering into Baby’s ear while she laughs and coquets to her heart’s content. “You should always talk to Lord Delaval if you wish to look well, Zai,” Gabrielle says angrily. “It is wonderful the colour he has evoked on your cheeks, and the light in your eyes.” CHAPTER V. CROSS PURPOSES. “Though matches are all made in Heaven, they say, Yet Hymen, who mischief oft hatches, Sometimes deals with the house t’other side of the way, And there they make lucifer matches.” “I saw Conway riding with Crystal Meredyth this afternoon, looking awfully spooney.” This is what Zai overhears Sir Everard Aylmer say in his inane drawl to Gabrielle, in the carriage, on the way to Elm Lodge. A lump of ice seems to settle down on her heart, and two small, very cold, hands clasp one another under her white cloak; but she is a daughter of Belgravia, and to a certain extent true to her colours; so when she walks into Mrs. Meredyth’s not over-spacious, but unpleasantly crowded room, her face shows no emotion, and the only effect of Everard Aylmer’s words, is a lovely pink flush, that makes Carlton Conway’s affianced wife tenfold more attractive. And it is fortunate that, young as she is, her breeding has taught her self-control; for the first thing her grey eyes fall on is her lover and Crystal Meredyth floating round the room, and very much enjoying their valse, to all appearances. So Zai turns away from that which is dearest to her in the world, and turns towards Lord Delaval, who, either by chance or on purpose, stands at her side. As Zai looks up in the peer’s face, she acknowledges, for the first time, that he is certainly a handsome man. And, indeed, there cannot be two opinions on this score. He is as handsome as the Apollo Belvedere--a fact of which he is quite as well aware as his neighbours.