CHAPTER XXVI.

They went into the drawing-room. Lilias was seated in a low chair by the window, looking at the magnificent view. Lilias was at a piece of fancy-work which she sometimes affected; Lady Ada was at the piano, scarcely playing, but touching a note here and there, too softly to be a nuisance. Norman looked at each of them, then round the room, with a feeling of indefinable disquietude. Something seemed to be in the air.

Esmeralda was gazing over the wide-stretching lawn far away into the distance, where the clouds were tinged with a copper hue from the glow of the setting sun. The gayety she had displayed during dinner had left her when she went into the drawing-room with the other women. Ada had tried to talk to her; but Esmeralda, though she had spoken without evincing any animosity, had, so to speak, kept her at arm’s-length, and Ada had gone to the piano to wait for Trafford’s entrance. Lilias had taken up her work, because she thought Esmeralda was tired and would like to be quiet. The duke went to his accustomed chair. Lord Selvaine took up a “Quarterly Review,” which he had not the least intention of reading. Trafford went and sat beside Lilias and asked after[206] the people and things at Belfayre. Norman wandered about the room, in an aimless, restless kind of fashion for a minute or two, glancing wistfully now and again at the quiet figure by the window; then, as if he were drawn toward her, he went up to her.

She started slightly at his approach and looked up at him. She had been thinking of the dark cloud over her life; of the husband who was divided from her; of Lady Ada, the woman he loved; and the sight of Norman, with his bronzed and handsome face and lithe figure, recalled Three Star Camp to her, the wild woods, the keen mountain air, and all that past in which she had been so free from care and so ignorantly happy.

A smile stole over her face; it was like a smile of welcome, and he smiled in response.

Not for a moment did he forget that she was Traff’s wife. He tried to efface the memory of his love, the night by the silver stream below the camp; but she would always be Esmeralda to him, the girl he had loved, the woman for whom he would at any moment gladly lay down his life.

“You didn’t stay long,” he said.

“No,” she said; “we all wanted to come in here.”

“Did you really?” said Esmeralda. “I often wonder why you should want to come into the drawing-room. It must seem so dull to you, and you are always so merry after we leave you. We can hear you laughing. I suppose you are telling funny stories?”

“We didn’t to-night,” said Norman. “The conversation was rather limited to one subject.”

“I wonder what that was?” she said, with a smile.

“Well, it was about you,” he said. “It isn’t fair to tell tales out of school, but I suppose a bride expects to be talked about; and the duke was very great. Selvaine says that you have bewitched him.”

Esmeralda sighed slightly.

“I am very fond of him,” she said.

“And he returns the compliment tenfold,” remarked Norman. “You are to have your portrait painted by Millais—but perhaps I ought to have left Trafford to tell you that.”

“Why?” she asked.

Norman looked rather surprised.

“Oh, because he’d like to. It is a husband’s privilege to bring all good news to his wife.”

“Oh, yes, yes,” she assented, gravely.

Something in her tone struck him, as the expression in her[207] eyes had done. What was it? He glanced toward Trafford and then at her.

“This room seems hot,” he said.

“It is hot,” she assented, drawing a quick breath.

“Let us come outside,” he said; “I’ll get you a shawl or something.”

“No, no,” she said; “it will be quite warm out there. I hate being smothered up.”

He noticed the novel impatience in her manner. They went on to the terrace and along the winding path through the lawn. They were silent for a little while. Norman was troubled by something that he thought he ought to say, and wondering whether, after all, he had better not leave it unsaid. At last he said, speaking in a low and embarrassed manner:

“I haven’t seen you since the wedding. I—I wanted to tell you how sorry I’ve been that I rushed myself upon you that morning.”

Esmeralda looked at him, and then straight before her, but said nothing.

“I could have knocked my head off, and Trafford’s too,” he blundered on. “Of course it was a shock to you, seeing me all in a moment and without a word of warning.”

“I was startled,” said Esmeralda in a low voice.

“Of course you were,” he said, eagerly; “and—and so was I. I’d only come back to England the night before, and I didn’t know that you had changed your name—I mean, that you were Miss Chetwynde, the millionairess.”

“Don’t call me that,” said Esmeralda.

Norman wondered why she objected; but said, hastily:

“I beg your pardon. Since I left Three Star Camp, of course, I hadn’t heard of you. How should I?”

“How should you?” she repeated, absently.

“And I wanted to tell you, Esmeralda—I may call you Esmeralda, may I not?”

“Oh, yes,” said Esmeralda; “you may call me what you like. We are cousins, or something of that sort, are we not?”

“Thank you—yes. I wanted to say—I wanted to ask you to forgive me for—for what happened that night. It was presumptuous of me, and—and you were right to be angry and offended,” he added, humbly and penitently.

A faint color had risen to Esmeralda’s eyes.

“I was not angry—offended,” she said in a low voice.

“Weren’t you?” he said, gratefully. “I thought you were—you left me without a word.”

“I— But what does it matter?” she broke off, with a[208] kind of weary impatience. “It is all so long ago, it is as if it had never happened. Why do you talk of it, and bring back the past?”

She spoke almost fiercely, and Norman was filled with remorse.

“You’re quite right,” he said. “I’m an idiot to go back to it. I beg your pardon. As you say, what does it matter? You are married now, and to the best fellow in the world. There’s no one like Trafford—no one—and you are sure to be happy.”

“Yes,” she said, quietly, “I am sure to be happy.” Then she laughed. “Is any one in the wide world quite happy? I doubt it. Are you?”

Norman started.

“Oh, I don’t know,” he said. “But why did you say that? You spoke as if—oh! it’s stupid of me, of course,” he laughed apologetically—“as if you weren’t quite happy.”

“That would be so very ridiculous and impossible, wouldn’t it?” she said, with a mirthless smile.

“Well, I think it would,” he said, candidly. “With Trafford for a husband and everybody loving you”—he colored and stammered as a man does when he speaks of love.

“And being a countess and having plenty of money,” continued Esmeralda, with a hard laugh, “I could not be anything but happy, could I? Why, all the women envy me, as Lady Wyndover says, and what more could I want?”

He looked at her with a troubled frown on his face.

“I don’t know whether you are chaffing me or not; I suppose you are,” he said.

“What does it matter?” she said, with the same weary impatience.

“It matters a great deal to me,” he retorted, his face flushing then growing pale. “I’ve tried to forget—forget Three Star, and I mean to: don’t be angry, but hear me out,” for she had made as if to interrupt him. “But—but though you wouldn’t listen to me—and you were quite right—and as you are Traff’s wife, I should like you to let me be your friend. Oh, Lord! that sounds tame and feeble! Look here, Esmeralda, what I mean is that I should like to be your special friend, some one you could come to if you were in trouble, some one to fetch and carry for you—you know what I mean. I’d go to the end of the world for you, not only because you’re Traff’s wife, but—but because”—he turned his head away. Esmeralda fancied that there might be tears in his eyes—“because of—of that night by the stream at Three Star.”

[209]

She looked straight before her. She felt that, had she not been Traff’s wife, he would have loved her still, and the thought fell upon her love-thirsty heart with a strange and dangerous sense of comfort.

“I know what you mean, Norman,” she said in a very low voice, “and I’m very grateful to you. If ever I am in any trouble that you can help me in, I will come to you.”

“That’s a promise,” he said, eagerly. “Not that you are ever likely to be,” he added, almost in a tone of regret.

She smiled gravely.

“One never can tell,” she said. “But I will promise; yes, and—and, Norman, you shall be the friend you want to be to me, because—because of that night we will both forget after this.”

She put out her hand to him impulsively, and he took it, held it for a moment in his firm grasp, then bent over and kissed it.

Trafford sat beside Lilias for a time, and all her talk was about Esmeralda—how beautiful she was, how exquisitely the dress suited her, of how happy Trafford must be. It was almost unendurable for him, but he made the proper responses, and smiled, and tried to look happy. Then he went to the piano where Ada was still softly touching the keys. He had thought it bad taste of her to come to Belfayre, and, as if she had discerned his thought, her first words, spoken in too low a voice to be heard by the others, were:

“Trafford, do not be angry. I could not help coming. I had told Lilias I was not going anywhere before she asked me.”

He smiled gravely.

“Why should you not come?” he said, ignoring the reason.

She drew a long breath.

“If you are not angry I do not mind. You can not think that I wanted to come? Have you been well?” she broke off to ask, looking at him intently.

“Quite well,” he responded. “Why do you ask?”

“I thought you were looking thinner and—and, well, not as you usually look.”

“I am quite well,” he said, with barely concealed impatience; and he proceeded to ask after Lady Grange and Lady Wyndover, and mutual friends. His manner, just pleasantly friendly, stung her. It would have been more endurable if he had been harsh or angry. Never treat a woman you have once loved with indifference; she will bear anything but that.[210] “I knew when my husband ceased to swear at me that he had ceased to love me!” says the heroine of one of the modern emotional comedies; and she speaks truly.

But Lady Ada laid the blame on Esmeralda, and as she looked up at Trafford, with the love-light in her eyes, her heart burned with hate of the woman who had come between them. At that moment there was nothing she would not have done to wreck Esmeralda’s happiness, to separate husband and wife. She did not know how widely they were already separated.

While they were talking, the duke got up to retire to his room.

“Where is Esmeralda?” he asked, peering round the vast room.

“She is in the garden; she went out with Norman some time since,” said Lilias. “I will call her.”

“No, no!” he said at once. “Do not disturb her. It is a beautiful night and she may be enjoying the air. Say ‘Good-night’ for me.”

Trafford came forward and rang the bell for the valet, and gave his arm to his father to the door. Then he went to the window and looked out. Two figures could be seen on the lawn in the gloaming. They were Esmeralda’s and Norman’s. He had eyes for Esmeralda’s only, and he gazed at her wistfully, with the wistfulness of a man who loves without hope. How graceful she was! Her lithe figure in its marvelous dress seemed symbolic of youth itself; youth and beauty.

“There they are,” said a voice at his elbow, and Lady Ada came up beside him.

He nodded.

“They are wise. It is cool out there,” he said; but he did not offer to go and join them.

Ada’s keen eyes watched the two figures, their faces turned to each other as if the owners were deeply engrossed in conversation.

“How interested they look,” she said. “It must be nice for Esmeralda to meet with such an old friend.”

“An old friend?” Trafford repeated.

Lady Ada glanced at him out of the corners of her eyes.

“They are old friends, are they not?” she said. “They met at that place in Australia where she was brought up. What is its name? Three Star. Don’t you remember?”

“Yes, I remember,” he said.

“How handsome Lord Norman has grown!” she said, after a silence. “That boyish way of his is very taking. He has[211] been making quite a number of conquests since he came back; some of the women declare that he is irresistible.”

“He is a good fellow,” said Trafford, absently. He was looking at Esmeralda and thinking of her, not Norman.

“Oh, very,” she assented. “I wonder what they are talking about?—old times, I imagine— Ah!” she broke off suddenly with the exclamation, and Trafford started.

They had both seen Esmeralda extend her hand to Norman, and the kiss which he had bestowed upon it.

Trafford had started, but he was ashamed of his movement of surprise. Why should not Norman kiss Esmeralda’s hand, if he wanted to do so, and if Esmeralda’s did not object. It was Lady Ada’s exclamation which indued the episode with importance.

“Let us go,” she said in a low voice. “They would not like us to watch them.”

“Why not?” he asked, almost roughly.

She did not reply, but looked at him with a tender, almost pitying significance, and glided—Lady Ada was famous for her walk—to the piano. Half mechanically he followed her. If she had not started and remarked upon the kissing of Esmeralda’s hand, he would have thought nothing of it. Now that she had done so, the action assumed larger proportions.

She touched the keys with deft fingers.

“What shall I play to you?” she asked. “Grieg or Chopin? Grieg. I remember your tastes, you see.”

She played with the skill of a well-taught amateur, and the room was flooded with exquisite melody.

“You must not be angry with her, Trafford,” she murmured through the music. “You will make yourself unhappy if you are. Remember, they are old friends.”

“I am not angry,” he said, with a smile; but there was a frown on his brow.

“That is right,” she sung rather than spoke. “They meant nothing—oh, I am sure of that; though, do you remember how startled she was when she saw Lord Norman on the morning of the wedding?”

“I remember—yes,” he said. “But was she startled?”

“Yes, yes; quite so,” said Lady Ada. “I never saw any one so overwhelmed. Do you like this thing of Grieg’s, or shall I play a Chopin now?”

He did not answer. He was going back to the morning of the wedding, to Esmeralda’s embarrassment at sight of Norman.

“Get me the book of Chopin, will you?” asked Lady Ada.

[212]

He got the volume and placed it on the music-stand, and bent over her to turn the leaves.

As he did so, Esmeralda, followed by Norman, entered the room by the window. She saw the two at the piano. Trafford bending over the player, and the color rose to her face, then left it ivory pale. She stood quite still, looking at them.

“Have you had a nice walk, dear?” asked Lilias, folding up her embroidery.

Esmeralda nodded.

“Yes,” she said, almost curtly.

At the sound of her voice, Lady Ada made an affected start and looked round.

“Oh—ah—we were going over some old favorites of Lord Trafford. What a pity it is that you don’t play, don’t care for music, Esmeralda!”

The color flashed into Esmeralda’s cheeks.

“Oh, but I do care for music,” she said; “I am very fond of it.” She looked round for Norman Druce. “Norman, go and sing something. Sing one of the songs you sung at Three Star.”

Norman hesitated and looked from her to Trafford and Lady Ada; then he went to the piano as he would have gone to the scaffold if Esmeralda had bidden him, and he sat down and played and sung one of the songs he sung in MacGrath’s saloon that night Esmeralda had listened outside; and Esmeralda, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling, stood beside him—bent over him, indeed—and beat time with her hand.

Trafford’s face grew troubled and cloudy, and Lady Ada from a little distance watched him.

“Bravo!” he exclaimed. “That was very good. Sing another, Norman.”

But, though the words were all right, there was a tone of constraint—was it also of suspicion?—in his voice, and Lady Ada’s eyes flashed, and she drew a quick, short breath.

The ground had been prepared and the seed was sown, and the devil’s harvest lay in the lap of the Future!