Why Lord Delaval has made love to her, really not caring for her, is not difficult to tell. He adores beauty, and Gabrielle has plenty of it; her other attraction to him has been her intense contrast to the other women of the London world, with whom his flirtations have been as numerous as stars in a southern sky. With her big black gipsy eyes, her demonstrative manner, her _bizarre_ words and ways, and with the very vehemence and intensity of the passion that has repelled him even while it attracted him, his erratic fancy has been caught, but never enchained. He rather dislikes her now; and, after this, what breath can fill and re-inspire a dead fancy? “Lord Delaval, is it true that you are going to marry Zai?” she asks for the third time, in a quiet hushed voice, that yet teems with a keen concentrated scorn that she means to cut like a whipcord, and from which he recoils angrily, for he is a thorough Epicurean in his liking for pleasantness, and a mental tussle disturbs his equanimity. “It is quite true!” he says, rather haughtily, but when he sees her turn whiter than before, and her mouth quiver with pain, he relents. “I should have told you before, but Zai wished it kept quiet!” “She did, did she? She knew she has acted a treacherous, deceitful part. Good Heavens! what are you marrying her for?” “Because I love her!” he answers coolly, “and because she loves me!” “Loves you--you! Why all London knows of her love for Carlton Conway!” He shrinks a little from this, and the colour mounts hotly to his face, but soon recedes again, leaving him quite pallid. “All London knows a good deal that does not exist!” “_Il n’y’a pas de fumée sans feu_,” she says sneeringly. “Zai is too good, too pure, to deceive any man,” he answers quietly, but the remark about Carl rankles in his mind. “You don’t understand your sister, Miss Beranger, or you would not depreciate your own judgment of human nature by believing her capable of deceit, or falsity, or evil of any kind! If all women were like her the world would be a paradise!” “Fools’ paradise!” she cries contemptuously. “I certainly never gave _you_ credit for being hoodwinked by a few babyish ways and innocent smiles! a man of _your_ mind!” she goes on frankly--a frankness which is the very essence of consummate flattery--but he is not to be taken in. “Thanks for the pretty compliment! it would turn my head if I was younger, coming from such fresh scarlet lips,” he replies with a Jesuitical smile; “but I am getting quite old, and as hard as adamant; not even _your_ approbation can make my mind rise to the height of folly which would discover flaws in angels or paint a lily black.” “I really think you have begun to hate me!” she says passionately, with tears welling up in her eyes; “Have you?”