Esmeralda looked before her, musingly.
“He was tall and dark, with a slight mustache, and very dark eyes—a very handsome man. He was civil enough, and thanked me all he knew. I think he was a bit ashamed of her.”
“I don’t recognize them from your description, and I hope they are no one we know; and I do trust that if they are, they won’t know you again.”
Esmeralda laughed and stared.
“Well, I don’t know that I did anything to be ashamed of,” she said. “At home we should be quite obliged to any one for saving us from a spill. I suppose it’s different here. Well, I’ll learn in time to stand by and see people break their necks, without moving an eyelid.”
“At home! At home! My dear child, don’t speak of that dreadful place as if it were your home! This is your home, and— But there—never mind. I wonder who they were?”
“I don’t know—and I don’t care!” said Esmeralda, with fine indifference. “May I have some more pudding?”
The butler, who looked as if he were deaf through all this, served her; but she was fated not to eat it, for Barker came in with “The boxes have come from Cerise’s, my lady,” and Lady Wyndover, with a little cry of satisfaction, immediately rose.
“Unpack them at once, Barker!” she said. “Come upstairs, Esmeralda; come this moment.”
Esmeralda glanced regretfully at the pudding, but obeyed, and followed her ladyship upstairs. Three large boxes were in the dressing-room, and Barker and her ladyship’s own maid were hastily unpacking them. In a few minutes the whole place was littered with costumes, and Lady Wyndover was flitting from one to the other in a state of excitement.