“I thought you were looking thinner and—and, well, not as you usually look.”
“I am quite well,” he said, with barely concealed impatience; and he proceeded to ask after Lady Grange and Lady Wyndover, and mutual friends. His manner, just pleasantly friendly, stung her. It would have been more endurable if he had been harsh or angry. Never treat a woman you have once loved with indifference; she will bear anything but that. “I knew when my husband ceased to swear at me that he had ceased to love me!” says the heroine of one of the modern emotional comedies; and she speaks truly.
But Lady Ada laid the blame on Esmeralda, and as she looked up at Trafford, with the love-light in her eyes, her heart burned with hate of the woman who had come between them. At that moment there was nothing she would not have done to wreck Esmeralda’s happiness, to separate husband and wife. She did not know how widely they were already separated.
While they were talking, the duke got up to retire to his room.
“Where is Esmeralda?” he asked, peering round the vast room.
“She is in the garden; she went out with Norman some time since,” said Lilias. “I will call her.”
“No, no!” he said at once. “Do not disturb her. It is a beautiful night and she may be enjoying the air. Say ‘Good-night’ for me.”
Trafford came forward and rang the bell for the valet, and gave his arm to his father to the door. Then he went to the window and looked out. Two figures could be seen on the lawn in the gloaming. They were Esmeralda’s and Norman’s. He had eyes for Esmeralda’s only, and he gazed at her wistfully, with the wistfulness of a man who loves without hope. How graceful she was! Her lithe figure in its marvelous dress seemed symbolic of youth itself; youth and beauty.
“There they are,” said a voice at his elbow, and Lady Ada came up beside him.
He nodded.