Yes, she was paler; and—and what did that look in her eyes mean? She had not looked so at Three Star; she had not looked so when she came into the room at Lady Wyndover’s to be introduced to him. It could not mean that she was—unhappy!
[CHAPTER XXVI.]
They went into the drawing-room. Lilias was seated in a low chair by the window, looking at the magnificent view. Lilias was at a piece of fancy-work which she sometimes affected; Lady Ada was at the piano, scarcely playing, but touching a note here and there, too softly to be a nuisance. Norman looked at each of them, then round the room, with a feeling of indefinable disquietude. Something seemed to be in the air.
Esmeralda was gazing over the wide-stretching lawn far away into the distance, where the clouds were tinged with a copper hue from the glow of the setting sun. The gayety she had displayed during dinner had left her when she went into the drawing-room with the other women. Ada had tried to talk to her; but Esmeralda, though she had spoken without evincing any animosity, had, so to speak, kept her at arm’s-length, and Ada had gone to the piano to wait for Trafford’s entrance. Lilias had taken up her work, because she thought Esmeralda was tired and would like to be quiet. The duke went to his accustomed chair. Lord Selvaine took up a “Quarterly Review,” which he had not the least intention of reading. Trafford went and sat beside Lilias and asked after the people and things at Belfayre. Norman wandered about the room, in an aimless, restless kind of fashion for a minute or two, glancing wistfully now and again at the quiet figure by the window; then, as if he were drawn toward her, he went up to her.
She started slightly at his approach and looked up at him. She had been thinking of the dark cloud over her life; of the husband who was divided from her; of Lady Ada, the woman he loved; and the sight of Norman, with his bronzed and handsome face and lithe figure, recalled Three Star Camp to her, the wild woods, the keen mountain air, and all that past in which she had been so free from care and so ignorantly happy.
A smile stole over her face; it was like a smile of welcome, and he smiled in response.
Not for a moment did he forget that she was Traff’s wife. He tried to efface the memory of his love, the night by the silver stream below the camp; but she would always be Esmeralda to him, the girl he had loved, the woman for whom he would at any moment gladly lay down his life.
“You didn’t stay long,” he said.
“No,” she said; “we all wanted to come in here.”