Lady Beranger and Gabrielle stand near the entrance of the ball-room, and beyond them Zai sees Carlton Conway, and on his arm, just emerging from the supper-room, Crystal Meredyth.
A faintness creeps over her and her hands grow chill as death, while her face blanches to the hue of a white rose.
It seems too hard, too hard! that he should flaunt his flagrant flirtation with this girl before her very eyes; but she is equal to the occasion. With her dainty head erect, her slender figure pulled up to its utmost height, she passes her mother and sister, Lord Delaval still at her side, and, as she nears her lover and her rival, she looks up, smiles in Lord Delaval’s face, and lays her hand on his arm.
“First some supper, and then ten waltzes at least,” she says in a bright ringing tone, “and _après cela, le deluge_.”
A little haughty bend to Carl--Carl, whom she is loving at this moment with every fibre of her being, and she is gone, while Lord Delaval shrugs his shoulders once more and presses the little, white-gloved hand to his side, and says to himself with a feeling of complacency:
“_Femme souvent varie--folle qui s’y fie!_”
“Love in a hut--with water and a crust Is, Love forgive us! Cinders--ashes--dust!”
A pretty little house, _parfaitement bien monté_, in Halfmoon Street. Plenty of marqueterie and rococo about, heaps of china monstrosities, heaps of nude statuary and glowing pictures, and shoals of devices in the shape of soft armchairs and cushions and sofas, to contribute to the well-being of man.
Altogether a charming little _ménage_, of which the presiding deity is Miss Fitzallan, leading lady at the Bagatelle Theatre.
They have been playing “Hearts _versus_ Diamonds” at the theatre to-night, a comedy in three long acts, with a lot of emotional acting, which, when it goes on week after week, is, to say the least, a trifle fatiguing.
The Prince and Princess, accompanied by a party of foreign royalties, have been amongst the audience, and have been demonstrative in their approval. Altogether the evening has been exciting, and the actors are glad when it is over, and each one can drop down from his stilts of artificial feeling to the level of real life.
Miss Fitzallan is tired too; her _rôle_ has been the most arduous of all, perhaps, save that of the _jeune amoureux_, who has had to play the handsome but rejected lover, with a passion he can simulate better than he can feel. So the leading lady sinks back into her luxurious little light blue brougham, with an enormous sensation of relief, and is driven quickly to her bijou house, where a small but exquisite supper is laid out.
