“Oh! he?” said Lord Selvaine. “That is a nephew of mine. A very good fellow indeed.”
“A nephew of yours?” said Esmeralda, with surprise. It was the gentleman who had been riding with the lady whose horse she had pulled down.
“Let me introduce him to you,” said Lord Selvaine. “I hope—I think—you will like him. Most people do. I’ll get hold of him in a minute. Don’t you think he is rather good-looking? Please say yes, even if you don’t think so, for I am rather fond and proud of him.”
He did not wait for her answer, but went into the midst of the crowd, and presently returned, accompanied by his nephew. Esmeralda’s heart beat rather fast, and the color rose to her face. Would he recollect her? She hoped—though she did not know why—that he would not. Perhaps Lady Wyndover was right, and she ought not to have “interfered;” perhaps he had laughed at her, when he had ridden away out of sight with the fair girl who had treated her so contemptuously.
“Miss Chetwynde,” said Lord Selvaine, “let me introduce my nephew, Lord Trafford.”
[CHAPTER X.]
Esmeralda started, and her hand closed tightly over her fan. This gentleman, who had thanked her so fervently in the park, this nephew of Lord Selvaine’s, was the “Trafford” of whom Norman Druce had talked in his delirium, whose praises he had sung so enthusiastically! Would he recognize her? She raised her eyes to his almost apprehensively; but he, as he bowed, looked at her with grave, absent-minded eyes, and it seemed to Esmeralda as if he scarcely saw her.
“Miss Chetwynde is Lady Wyndover’s ward,” said Lord Selvaine. “She has only just arrived in England, and this is her first acquaintance with Vanity Fair. I ought to add that she is wise enough not to dance, and so is reveling in the easy joys of the mere spectator.”
With a little smile and bow he moved away, and left them alone. Lord Trafford leaned against the wall, and gazed gravely at the crowd, almost as if he had forgotten Esmeralda. She did not know that he was trying to remember where he had seen her before.