A big, rather cunning-looking girl, healthy and young.
"Mamma wanted to send the two children up to me this week," she said, as she paused near Esmé. "I said it was absurd, in the season. They can slip up in July before we shut up the house. Doris wants to see a dentist, mamma says; they are so expensive up here. I have discouraged her; the man at home is much cheaper."
Already anxious to keep her prize money to herself. Not to share it with her sisters. Later, when they grew up, she would give them a chance, not now. Already a grande dame, spending only where it pleased her.
Wealth everywhere, and with Esmé this new discontent.
The table next to theirs was half smothered in orchids. The American millionaire was giving a luncheon party. A duchess honoured him, a slender, dark little lady, shrugging mental shoulders at the ostentation. Lady Lila Gore, heavily beautiful, was one of the party. The sallow master of millions devoured her with his shrewd, sunken eyes. This splendid pink-and-white piece of true English beauty made his own thin, vivacious wife nothing to him.
He had bought Mrs Markly a rope of pearls that she might shine at the Court, but he was prepared to pay ten times their price for a smile from the big blonde Englishwoman, who knew it, and considered the question.
The quails were tasteless to Esmé. She could not eat. The fear returned as she felt a distaste for her food, as she refused the ice which she had specially ordered.
She grew restless, tired of Jimmie Helmsley's caressing manner, of the undercurrent of meaning in his voice.
"I shall see you to-morrow at Luke's," he said. "You are looking pale, fair lady. What is it? Can I help? You know I'd do anything for you."
"I've not been well," she said irritably. "We're so far out. The flat's so poky and stuffy. Oh! I shall be all right in a day or two."