“There are some pretty drives about here,” he said. “The ponies are here, and I have told them to send some horses. You will like to ride.”
“Yes,” she said, looking at the plate.
The maid brought in some dessert and a plain glass jug of claret, and Esmeralda rose.
“I shall not be long,” he said. “One cigarette only.”
He opened the door for her, and would have touched her—on the hand or the arm, or perhaps the shoulder—but she kept away from him with a kind of reserve.
She went into the tiny drawing-room and paced up and down. The words she had heard in the anteroom at Grosvenor Square rang in her ears. How could any man—he least of all—be so false—so treacherous! He pretended to love her, whereas he had married her only for her wretched money! How handsome he was! How musical his voice! And he loved not her, but Lady Ada. Oh, God! what should she do?
Trafford smoked his cigarette and sipped his claret, and as he smoked, his past slipped still further away from him and his future beamed more roseate.
He flung the end of the cigarette into the fire-place and went into the drawing-room.
On his way through the hall he paused a moment to bend over the bowl of roses; they reminded him of Esmeralda. She was just as fresh, as sweet, as pure.