“Would not red be—be rather a staring color, my dear—all red?” he said, mildly.
Esmeralda laughed.
“That was only slang, like Norman’s. I mean, that we shall have a great fuss and jollification.”
“Yes, yes,” he assented, nodding. “It shall be done, my dear; anything that will give you pleasure and amuse you.”
Esmeralda left him presently, nodding his head and talking softly to himself, and went to her own room. The prospect of that night’s dinner irritated and annoyed her. The great crowd would come to stare at her and whisper about her wealth and her “luck” in marrying a marquis, and she would have to go about among them and talk and smile—smile though her heart was breaking. She moved about the room restlessly for a time, then went into the garden, carefully avoiding crossing the terrace where Trafford and Ada were talking, and suddenly came upon Norman lying full length in the shade of a bay-tree. A tennis racket was by his side, and a straw hat tilted over his eyes. He heard her step, and sprung to his feet with a sigh of relief.
“Some one to talk to at last,” he said.
Esmeralda smiled.
“Thanks!” she said. “Where is Lilias. I thought you were playing tennis.”
“So did I,” he said, ruefully; “but it always appears we are not. Somebody comes and fetches her away in the middle of every game. It’s this confounded dinner-party to-night. I wonder why people give dinners? Everybody hates them and avoids them when they can. There is more envy, hatred, and uncharitableness bred at a dinner-party than by anything else on earth. Take my case, for instance. Here am I, an able-bodied young man, simply dying to amuse myself—and some one else—and yet I am deserted and neglected, and driven to smoking all the morning, just because there is a dinner-party.”