[CHAPTER XXVII.]
Esmeralda went to her room that night with her head throbbing and her heart aching. The sight of Trafford bending over Lady Ada at the piano had almost driven her mad; it had made her quite desperate, and the laughter and applause with which she had encouraged Norman had something of recklessness in it. She did not acknowledge to herself that she had meant to play him against Lady Ada; to show Trafford that, if he did not love his wife, there was some one else who did, but she knew the effect she had produced, and the remembrance of Lady Ada’s smile of comprehension stung her as she tore off her jewels. The sight of them filled her with loathing. They were so magnificent that every one who saw them upon her must be reminded of the fact that she was the rich Miss Chetwynde. Perhaps everybody knew that Trafford had married her for her money, and was laughing at her contemptuously in their sleeves.
As for Norman, he went to bed very well content with himself. He had said what he wanted to say to Esmeralda, and put things square between them, as he phrased it, and everything was now very jolly and pleasant. It had been all fancy, that idea of his that she might be unhappy—just fancy. Never for a moment did it occur to him to desire to flirt with Esmeralda; he was incapable of such disloyalty to his friend and hero Trafford. Esmeralda’s behavior at the piano, her laughter and reckless gravity, did not convey any sinister significance to him; it was just her way to laugh and let her eyes sparkle like her diamonds when she was happy; and no doubt the songs he had sung had reminded her of Three Star.
If he could have seen and understood the smile which gleamed in Lady Ada’s cold eyes as she undressed that night, he would not have felt quite so serene and self-satisfied. It is said that there is a good deal of the serpent in every woman, but Lady Ada was all serpent as she stood before the glass looking at her “faultily faultless” face, and recalling the scene at the piano and Trafford’s frown. If she could only separate Trafford from the girl he had married! She had no plan deftly formed as yet, but—well, she would wait and watch. Meanwhile, things promised well.
The neighbors flocked to call upon Lady Trafford, and dinner-parties were arranged in her special honor, and it was agreed on all sides that she bore herself remarkably well. The men raved about her beauty quite as much as, if not more than they had done, before her marriage, and the women wondered at the coolness and aplomb with which the young girl, who was a “mere nobody” before her marriage, took her place in the ranks of the nobility. Only one or two of the elder ones noticed something strange in her expression, something vaguely and indefinitely puzzling in her manner. They all agreed that matrimony had not lightened Trafford’s gravity, and that he was rather more absent-minded and reserved than ever, excepting when his wife was speaking or any attention was due to her from him.
“He is evidently devoted to her,” remarked Lady Chesterleigh, after the Belfayres had departed. “I never saw a man more hopelessly in love.”
“And no wonder,” retorted her husband, with a yawn. “She’s the most beautiful young woman I have ever seen, present company excepted, my dear, and his marriage has pulled Belfayre out of the mire and set it on its legs again. Devoted! I should think so! He has reason, as the French say.”
No one suspected the truth, that husband and wife were divided by that gulf which had so suddenly opened between them on their wedding-night.
Outwardly it was a very happy party at Belfayre. Norman, for one, was enjoying himself amazingly. Esmeralda had promised to treat him as her “special” friend; she had dispelled, by her gayety, the idea that she was unhappy, and his light heart rose buoyantly. He was a general favorite at Belfayre, and even the duke liked to hear him talk, and forgave him the slang which Norman had always to explain and translate into ordinary English for his grace’s enlightenment. It was very amusing to see them together; the old man the picture of courtly preciseness, the young one full of fin de siècle gayety and careless, easy irresponsibility.