“No, not to-night, Esmeralda,” he said. “I’ll go to Selvaine first; I’ll do the straight thing.”
“And if he says no?”
“Oh, then,” said Norman, ruefully, “I don’t know. I don’t suppose Lilias would marry me without his and the duke’s consent, and they’ll never give that.”
Esmeralda looked at him with a tenderness that had something pathetic in it.
“What a lucky thing it is for you, Norman, that I didn’t accept you that night by the river! No, I’m not laughing at you. I like you all the better for—for having cared for me once. One doesn’t get too many people to love one. And if you marry Lilias, I shall get a brother as well as a sister; so I feel I’m taking a hand this deal, as Varley would say.” She sighed as she spoke Varley’s name, and looked beyond Norman’s handsome head. “Yes, I’m going to take a hand in the game, and I think I hold the cards that will win it for you.”
“What do you mean?” he asked in a low voice.
She laid her hand on his shoulder.
“You go to Selvaine to-morrow,” she said, “and ask for Lilias, like a man, and tell him I sent you.”
Norman started and turned crimson.
“Esmeralda!” he exclaimed, scarce above his breath. “Do you mean that you offer me—”