Trafford started slightly, then smiled; he thought she was jesting; that, girl-like, she wanted him to ask the question again. He stood silent, and looking at her. Beauty unadorned is all very well, but beauty attired in a Worth dress of soft black lace, with diamonds glistening in its hair, gives the unadorned article very long odds. Esmeralda was a vision of loveliness as she stood in the light of the window; that light which is so trying to imperfect features and faulty complexions, but which only serves to accentuate the charms of a loveliness like Esmeralda’s. It fell upon the bronze-gold hair and lighted it up until it shone softly; it fell upon her olive-pale face and touched it with a warm tint, rose on ivory; and it revealed the depth and the color of the wonderful eyes shaded by the long lashes.
Trafford’s heart leaped as he told himself that this marvel of Nature was his bride, his very own, and that she loved him!
His emotion kept him silent for nearly a minute, then he said, with a smile:
“This is the first time I have heard you plead guilty to unhappiness, Esmeralda. I am glad it was only in jest; you—”
“It was not in jest,” she said; “I am very unhappy.”
The smile died slowly from his face, leaving his eyes last, as he looked at her.
“I don’t understand,” he said, gravely but gently. “Do you feel lonely—dull? I suppose a girl—just taken from her friends, and entering on a new life—must feel it. But, dearest, you are with me, with your husband—”
“Yes,” she said, almost inaudibly. “That is it.”
He stood and gazed at her with a presentiment of coming ill; and he noticed, for the first time, that her lips were compressed and her brows drawn straight, as they always were when she was serious or troubled about anything.