“Oh, here you are, Esmeralda! I have been looking for you everywhere. How do you do, Lord Selvaine?”
“I am the guilty one, dear Lady Wyndover,” he murmured in his low, clear voice. “I obtained possession of your treasure on false pretenses, and have been doing my best to make her forget that I promised to take her to you. I restore her now, with tears, but with the hope that you will not take her from me altogether.”
Lady Wyndover smiled on him.
“You don’t deserve that I should,” she said. “Oh! I have left my fan on Lady Blankyre’s chair—” She broke off.
He took the hint at once, and went after it, and Lady Wyndover sat down beside Esmeralda.
“Are you only lucky, or are you really very clever, my dear?” she whispered, with a smile. “But I suppose that you don’t know that you have succeeded in interesting the most—most exclusive and ‘difficult’ man in the room! Why, he must have been sitting with you for half an hour!”
“Why shouldn’t he?” inquired Esmeralda. “He doesn’t dance, and he seems to like talking. He has been telling me who some of the people are. Who is he?”
“He is—Lord Selvaine!” said Lady Wyndover. “The best known man in London. It would take me ages to explain to you what he is! But you can understand this, that there isn’t a girl here who wouldn’t give her ears to have him sit and talk to her for half an hour as he has been talking to you.”
“But why?” said Esmeralda. “Is he a very great lord, very rich? What?”
Lady Wyndover looked round helplessly. It was, as she had said, so difficult to explain. “Well, he’s the brother of a duke,” she said; “but it isn’t that. He’s—he’s the fashion, and always will be. He’s terribly clever, and knows everything. Even Mr. Elmbourne asks his advice; and his own family—well, he ‘runs it.’ You know what I mean, dear.”