“It is not likely _you_ will lessen my burden!” she says sharply. “Everard Aylmer, who was my forlorn hope for you, told me he was off directly for a tour in India, so _he_ is not going to ask you.” “May be, but then you see, there are other fools beside Sir Everard Aylmer, in this world, Lady Beranger,” Gabrielle answers flippantly, as she saunters out of the room. “Hateful girl!” And having relieved herself of this, Lady Beranger settles herself more comfortably, and begins to build castles in which Zai and Lord Delaval, Trixy and the fascinating Stubbs, and Baby with her elderly _inamorato_ figure. “That actor fellow showed his cards well last night,” she soliloquises. “He is after the Meredyth filthy lucre of course, so now there’s every chance of Zai catching Delaval. Trixy is thrown away on that dreadful cub, but after all, it doesn’t much matter who one marries. After a month or so, now-a-days, the women think twice as much of other people’s husbands as of their own. Baby will be all right in Archibald Hamilton’s keeping. That child really frightens me by her defiance of everything, and I shall be truly thankful to wash my hands of her before she goes to the furthest end of her tether. As for Gabrielle,” a frown puckers her ladyship’s patrician brow, “I wonder who she has got running in her head? I _hope_ it is not Delaval; a neck to neck race between her and Zai would end in her winning by several lengths. Zai, though she is my own child, is the biggest little fool, with the primitive notions of the year One, and I _can’t_ alter her, worse luck!” CHAPTER III. “FROGGY WOULD A WOOING GO.” “Gold, gold, gold, gold, Bright and yellow, hard and cold; Molten, graven, hammered and roll’d, Heavy to get, and light to hold, Price of many a crime untold.” “Poor Mr. Stubbs,” sneers Gabrielle. “Poor Mr. Stubbs,” says Zai. “Poor Mr. Stubbs,” laughs Baby. And with very good reason. It is his eighth visit. Trixy has deserted her downy nest among her cerulean cushions, and sits bolt upright on a tall-backed chair. To-day is devoted by her to the personification of “Mary Anderson.” Her attire is of virgin white, not flowing in undulating waves of Indian muslin, or ornamented by tucks _à l’enfant_, but falling in severe satin-like folds round her beautifully moulded figure; her wealth of yellow hair is gathered at the back of her dainty head in a classical knot, traversed by a long gold arrow. She wears no bracelets or rings to mar the perfect whiteness of her arm and fingers, and while one hand toys lazily with a mother o’ pearl paper-knife, the other rests on a well-thumbed copy of “The Lady of Lyons.” Opposite her, but at a discreet distance, her Claude perches nervously on the edge of his chair; his face has acquired more flesh and blood with his increased importance as the _fiancé_ of the beautiful Miss Beranger, and his puffy cheeks glow like holly-berries under her glance.