“Yes,” she said, almost curtly.
At the sound of her voice, Lady Ada made an affected start and looked round.
“Oh—ah—we were going over some old favorites of Lord Trafford. What a pity it is that you don’t play, don’t care for music, Esmeralda!”
The color flashed into Esmeralda’s cheeks.
“Oh, but I do care for music,” she said; “I am very fond of it.” She looked round for Norman Druce. “Norman, go and sing something. Sing one of the songs you sung at Three Star.”
Norman hesitated and looked from her to Trafford and Lady Ada; then he went to the piano as he would have gone to the scaffold if Esmeralda had bidden him, and he sat down and played and sung one of the songs he sung in MacGrath’s saloon that night Esmeralda had listened outside; and Esmeralda, her face flushed, her eyes sparkling, stood beside him—bent over him, indeed—and beat time with her hand.
Trafford’s face grew troubled and cloudy, and Lady Ada from a little distance watched him.
“Bravo!” he exclaimed. “That was very good. Sing another, Norman.”
But, though the words were all right, there was a tone of constraint—was it also of suspicion?—in his voice, and Lady Ada’s eyes flashed, and she drew a quick, short breath.
The ground had been prepared and the seed was sown, and the devil’s harvest lay in the lap of the Future!