“And now you are very rich,” said Lady Wyndover, “and can have wine and fruit and new clothes as often as you like. I suppose you don’t really understand how rich you are?” she said, looking at Esmeralda curiously.
Esmeralda shook her head indifferently, and cut herself another huge slice of cake.
Lady Wyndover leaned back, and laughed softly, with a kind of comic despair.
“Oh, you are ridiculously, wickedly rich,” she said. “I don’t know how to make you understand. Well, see here, dear, there’s scarcely anything that you couldn’t afford to buy.”
“Yes; so Mr. Pinchook told me,” said Esmeralda, coolly; so coolly, that Lady Wyndover stared at her speechlessly for a moment.
“Don’t you feel dying to spend some of this money?” she said.
Esmeralda laughed.
“I don’t know. I have spent some. I bought some clothes at Melbourne. I had to, because I only brought one change with me, in front of the saddle.”
Lady Wyndover stared at her.
“Let us go and see them,” she said. “In front of the saddle? Do you mean to say that you carried all your clothes in a bundle? Oh! I shall never understand it! Let us go and see what you’ve bought.”