“I was right!” she said. “I knew that if you got her down to Belfayre you would succeed. Did you find it difficult?”
The question jarred upon him.
“Do not let us go into details,” he said.
She was silent for a moment, then she looked across the room at Esmeralda, who was dancing with one of her many admirers.
“How happy she looks!” she said. “She is positively radiant!” Her lips curled with something like a sneer. “A shop-girl could not look more elated; it is as if she were saying aloud, ‘I am to be the Duchess of Belfayre!’”
Trafford’s brows came down.
“You do her an injustice, Ada,” he said. “She sets no value on the title or the position. No one could think less of it than she does.”
She laughed scornfully.
“How blind men are! Do you think that, with all her innocence, she is ignorant of the worth of a dukedom? No girl out of her teens can be. But I beg your pardon; I would not dispel the delusion.”
“What delusion?” he asked.