Esmeralda went to her room that night with her head throbbing and her heart aching. The sight of Trafford bending over Lady Ada at the piano had almost driven her mad; it had made her quite desperate, and the laughter and applause with which she had encouraged Norman had something of[213] recklessness in it. She did not acknowledge to herself that she had meant to play him against Lady Ada; to show Trafford that, if he did not love his wife, there was some one else who did, but she knew the effect she had produced, and the remembrance of Lady Ada’s smile of comprehension stung her as she tore off her jewels. The sight of them filled her with loathing. They were so magnificent that every one who saw them upon her must be reminded of the fact that she was the rich Miss Chetwynde. Perhaps everybody knew that Trafford had married her for her money, and was laughing at her contemptuously in their sleeves.

As for Norman, he went to bed very well content with himself. He had said what he wanted to say to Esmeralda, and put things square between them, as he phrased it, and everything was now very jolly and pleasant. It had been all fancy, that idea of his that she might be unhappy—just fancy. Never for a moment did it occur to him to desire to flirt with Esmeralda; he was incapable of such disloyalty to his friend and hero Trafford. Esmeralda’s behavior at the piano, her laughter and reckless gravity, did not convey any sinister significance to him; it was just her way to laugh and let her eyes sparkle like her diamonds when she was happy; and no doubt the songs he had sung had reminded her of Three Star.

If he could have seen and understood the smile which gleamed in Lady Ada’s cold eyes as she undressed that night, he would not have felt quite so serene and self-satisfied. It is said that there is a good deal of the serpent in every woman, but Lady Ada was all serpent as she stood before the glass looking at her “faultily faultless” face, and recalling the scene at the piano and Trafford’s frown. If she could only separate Trafford from the girl he had married! She had no plan deftly formed as yet, but—well, she would wait and watch. Meanwhile, things promised well.

The neighbors flocked to call upon Lady Trafford, and dinner-parties were arranged in her special honor, and it was agreed on all sides that she bore herself remarkably well. The men raved about her beauty quite as much as, if not more than they had done, before her marriage, and the women wondered at the coolness and aplomb with which the young girl, who was a “mere nobody” before her marriage, took her place in the ranks of the nobility. Only one or two of the elder ones noticed something strange in her expression, something vaguely and indefinitely puzzling in her manner. They all agreed that matrimony had not lightened Trafford’s gravity, and that he was rather more absent-minded and[214] reserved than ever, excepting when his wife was speaking or any attention was due to her from him.

“He is evidently devoted to her,” remarked Lady Chesterleigh, after the Belfayres had departed. “I never saw a man more hopelessly in love.”

“And no wonder,” retorted her husband, with a yawn. “She’s the most beautiful young woman I have ever seen, present company excepted, my dear, and his marriage has pulled Belfayre out of the mire and set it on its legs again. Devoted! I should think so! He has reason, as the French say.”

No one suspected the truth, that husband and wife were divided by that gulf which had so suddenly opened between them on their wedding-night.

Outwardly it was a very happy party at Belfayre. Norman, for one, was enjoying himself amazingly. Esmeralda had promised to treat him as her “special” friend; she had dispelled, by her gayety, the idea that she was unhappy, and his light heart rose buoyantly. He was a general favorite at Belfayre, and even the duke liked to hear him talk, and forgave him the slang which Norman had always to explain and translate into ordinary English for his grace’s enlightenment. It was very amusing to see them together; the old man the picture of courtly preciseness, the young one full of fin de siècle gayety and careless, easy irresponsibility.

“Not a bad run, you know, sir,” he would remark, in the midst of a description of a race—the duke was always pleased to hear of the great events of the outer world into which he so seldom entered. “Soup Ladle ought to have won; all the pencilers had the spondulacs upon her; but she ran wild and all over the shop—”

At this point his grace would look puzzled, and, with a smile, remarked gently:

“Forgive me, my dear Norman, but I’m afraid I do not quite understand. I fear that you will think that I am growing stupid. Who are the ‘pencilers,’ and what are ‘spondulacs?’ and—I think you said that the horse with the ridiculous name ran into a shop. Is there any shop near the course? I do not remember it.”

Then Norman would laugh and look guiltily at Lilias, who often sat in the garden with them and listened with intense amusement; and she would smile and shake her head as much as to say that she would not help him.

“I beg your pardon, sir,” Norman would explain, with a suppressed groan. “Quite forgot I wasn’t talking to one of[215] the other Johnnies—I mean, fellows. The book-makers are called pencilers—they book their bets with metallic pencils, you know; and spondulacs is money, and when I say that Soup Ladle ran all over the shop, I mean that she was all over the course.”

“Ah, yes, I see,” the duke would say. “Quite so. It was very stupid of me; but—my dear Norman, I am quite out of the world, and am ignorant of its jargon.”

“That’s all right, sir,” Norman would say, encouragingly; and start off again, with a nod of self-satisfaction to Lilias and a whispered “Got off that time; shall catch it some day, though; and serve me right.”

Lilias ought to have been shocked at the young man’s slang and general levity, but, strange to say, she was not. Your very quiet and exquisitely mannered women are always attracted by the wild and rough-and-ready way of the other sex. It is the law of natural selection.

She liked to listen to Norman’s stories, and his laugh—frequent and not seldom rather loud—did not jar upon her; and Norman, half unconsciously, got into the habit of going about with her and talking to her. Though she insisted that Esmeralda should be the “mistress” at Belfayre, and always consulted her upon all important matters connected with the huge household, Lilias still, in reality, “ran” the place, and she often found Norman at her elbow at busy moments. He wanted her to go for a walk, or a ride, or to play tennis with him; and when she declared that she was busy with the housekeeper, or arranging the menu for a lunch or dinner, he, after a slight remonstrance, dropped into a chair beside her, and, as she put it, “hindered” her terribly.

“You’ve made me put down the wrong soup and leave out one of the entrées,” she would say. “Can’t you find something to amuse yourself with for half an hour?”

“I’d scorn to amuse myself when I can be helping you,” he would retort. “If it were not for my assistance you would break down under the weight of your duties. Now, when you’ve muddled that bill of fare as much as you want to, hand it over to me and I’ll set it straight for you, and without extra charge. And look here; I wish you’d tell the butler to tell the second footman—I think his name is Grooms—not to spill the melted butter down my coat when he is laughing at my jokes. I’m a poor young man, and have only one dress-coat in the world, and Grooms ought to have more human sympathy. Oh! come on, and let the housekeeper finish that[216] thing; she’ll do it far better than you can. I’ve got the balls and your racket.”

“Why don’t you ask Esmeralda or Ada to play with you?” Lilias would ask.

“Esmeralda has got a headache, and is sitting with the duke in the west arbor, and Lady Ada has gone for a ride with Traff and Selvaine.”

“And so you come to me because there is no one else?” Lilias would say, with affected indignation.

“Exactly—that’s it,” would be the cool response. “So come on.” And in the end he would have his way, and, protesting that he was a nuisance, Lilias would put on her tennis-shoes, which he had in his pocket, and they would go off together, and Esmeralda would hear Lilias’s soft ripple and his clear laugh where she sat beside the duke.

The old man seemed to grow fonder of her every day, and Esmeralda’s affection for him was almost piteous. He was the only person in the Belfayre group who did not think of her money—who had not abetted her marriage to Trafford with mercenary views. They were very much together; he seldom went into the grounds without her, and very often she went to his own sitting-room and read to him. Sometimes they would sit for half an hour without talking, and his grace would glance at her occasionally or take her hand and pat it. If her unhappiness dawned upon his dimmed perceptions, he never spoke of it; but once or twice he had looked at her curiously. His pride in her was extraordinary, and on the morning of the great dinner-party at the Court, he actually asked her what she was going to wear.

Esmeralda laughed softly, then stifled a sigh.

“I don’t know,” she said; “Barker generally settles it. It does not matter. But it is very kind of you to ask, duke.”

They were sitting by the open window of his room. Lilias was with the housekeeper, Norman lounging at the door and “hindering,” as Lilias declared, and Trafford and Ada were walking up and down the terrace. Esmeralda could see them from where she sat. Trafford was pacing slowly, with his head bent and his hands behind him; Ada gliding gracefully by his side, and now and again looking up at him with the expression on her face which always set Esmeralda’s heart beating.

How much longer could she endure the sight of them together?

“I take an interest in everything concerning you, my dear,” said the duke. “I have not had a daughter until[217] now, and my interest has been accumulating, you see. It is to be a large party, is it not?”

“Yes,” said Esmeralda, absently, “I think so. Yes, it is,” she added, turning her eyes from the two persons below. “We have asked everybody.”

“That is right,” he said, approvingly. “Belfayre has been quiet too long; it is only fitting that we should be hospitable, and on a large scale. I hope I shall be well enough to be at dinner. In any case, I shall come into the drawing-room afterward, if only to see you, my dear. By the way, you know that I have given instructions to the surveyors to begin the Bay plans?”

The famous watering-place scheme had dropped out of sight lately, and Esmeralda had almost forgotten it. She started as the duke referred to it. She understood. It was her money that was to work the miracle.

She laughed with a touch of bitterness, for which she was sorry a moment afterward. After all, it was the best use the money could be put to; it would amuse and gratify this old man who loved her for herself and not her millions.

“I am very glad,” she said.

“Yes,” he went on, “I tell them they must be as quick as possible. I should like something tangible accomplished before I pass away. I want them to build the pier or the esplanade, and I hope that you will lay the foundation stone, or whatever it may be. I should like to see you inaugurate this scheme, my dear, to have it associated with you. You always thought well of it, did you not? I have fancied that the others—even Trafford and Selvaine—were rather lukewarm about it, until these last few days and since your marriage.”

Esmeralda understood. It had only been since her marriage t............