Esmeralda was getting almost tired of being surprised, and she looked at the appointments of the room, the table, with its snowy damask and glass and silver, amidst which the hot-house flowers seemed to be growing; at the two footmen, who moved to and fro noiselessly, and had handed the dishes as if they were automatons, with a kind of dull wonder.

“I thought it would be nice to be alone to-night,” said Lady Wyndover. “I hope you won’t find it dull, dear.”

Esmeralda laughed, as she thought of the solitude of Australia, and the hours she had spent in the hut with only Mother Melinda, asleep in a corner, for company.

Lady Wyndover ate a dinner that would have scarcely satisfied a healthy sparrow; but Esmeralda, upon whose appetite the cake had produced no effect, partook of everything that was offered to her, and Lady Wyndover leaned back and watched her, with a smile of wonder and envy. What the butler and footmen thought can be imagined; their faces, of course, showed nothing.

When the meal, which appeared to Esmeralda to be interminable, at last came to a close, Lady Wyndover took her back to the drawing-room.

“Choose the most comfortable chair, dear,” she said, as she reclined on a lounge. “I forgot to ask if you played or sung.”

“The piano, do you mean?” said Esmeralda. “No, I can’t. There was a piano in the Eldorado, and one or two of the men used to play; but there was no one to teach me.”

“The Eldorado? That was the school, I suppose. What a funny name for it!”

“The school?” said Esmeralda. “No, there isn’t any school. It was Dan MacGrath’s drinking saloon.”

Lady Wyndover half closed her eyes. It was really too dreadful.

“I used to sing sometimes,” Esmeralda continued. “I[63] thought I could sing until”—she had nearly said, “until I heard The Rosebud,” but she checked herself. Somehow, she felt reluctant to mention him to Lady Wyndover.

“Perhaps you’d better take lessons,” said her ladyship, looking at her thoughtfully. “You are not too old. One quite forgets that you are so young; you are so tall and—and grown-uppish.”

“I don’t think any one could teach me,” said Esmeralda, calmly. “I shouldn’t have the patience. The Penman used to say that the only way to keep me sitting quiet would be to tie me down, hands and feet; and that wouldn’t do for learning the piano, would it?” and she laughed.

Lady Wyndover didn’t ask who and what “The Penman” was; she was almost exhausted by the series of shocks she had endured already.

“I saw that there was a habit among your things, and you said you rode from somewhere, with your luggage on your back, or was it on the saddle? You can ride, at any rate!”

“Yes, I can ride and shoot and swim—and that’s about all,” said Esmeralda. “Can you play the piano? I should like to hear you, if you’re not tired,” she added, glancing at her ladyship’s half-closed eyes and indolent attitude.

Lady Wyndover went to the piano, and played softly, and Esmeralda listened with her great eyes fixed dreamily on the player. Lady Wyndover, happening to look at her, was struck by their beauty, and the grace of the lithe form, which seemed to be listening, too, in its every limb, and she stopped suddenly, and went over to the chair beside her, and, taking Esmeralda’s hand, said, in almost awe-struck tones:

“My dear, do you know that you have a very great future before you?”

Esmeralda was still listening to the music, though it had ceased, and she started slightly as she looked round.

“Yes,” said Lady Wyndover, “you have the world before you. It will be at your feet—all society at your feet—before many weeks, days, have passed.”

“I don’t know what you mean,” said Esmeralda, with her brows drawn together.

Lady Wyndover patted her hand, and hesitated a moment, then she laughed softly.

“I might as well tell you now as leave you to find it out for yourself,” she said. “You must learn it, sooner or later—sooner!—and it isn’t fair to let you go into the midst of the battle unarmed. My dear child, you are not only one of the richest women in England, perhaps in the world, but—but”—she[64] bit her lip softly; it was harder than she thought, this enlightening of the uncultivated girl—“but—well, you are not bad-looking; in fact, you are—” She paused, silenced by the grave, innocent eyes. “Well, you will have all the men making themselves idiots about you, and wanting to marry you.”

The color rose slowly to Esmeralda’s face.

“You are going to be the sensation of the season,” continued Lady Wyndover, “and,” with a little rueful laugh, “I have got a nice time before me, I can see! You will be a good girl, and do as I tell you, won’t you, dear? And you will tell me everything, will you not? You see, you are so—so young, and so—so fresh; and some of the men, who ought not to do so, will make love to you—the men you ought not to marry always do—and we shall have to be very careful! For, now I have seen you, I have set my heart upon your doing really great things, and—and— Do you understand me, dear?”

“I don’t know,” said Esmeralda, with a puzzled air. “Why should the men want to marry me? And what does it matter? I’m not obliged to marry any of them.”

Lady Wyndover laughed as if she were pleased.

“That is delightful! You couldn’t have said anything better!” she exclaimed in her low, thin voice. “That is exactly it! My dear child, you can marry whomsoever you please. Don’t forget that! Remember it always—always! With your face and fortune you can take the very best of them! Oh! I wonder how long Cerise will be?”

Esmeralda, as she lay drowsily falling asleep that night, felt as if she had exchanged places with some one else, and as if the girl of Three Star Camp had been, not herself, but some one of whom she had only heard or read; and the strange feeling grew more vivid as the days passed and the new life unfolded itself.

Lady Wyndover was far too clever a woman of the world to let her ward, the great Chetwynde heiress, be seen until she was properly clothed, and she kept herself and Esmeralda carefully secluded while Madame Cerise was at work. She would not even let Esmeralda ride in the park, though she begged to be allowed to do so, and Lady Wyndover was bound to admit that the habit could defy criticism.

“No, dear,” she said to the puzzled Esmeralda, “you must keep out of sight until Cerise is ready. If you were to be seen in the Row, people would insist upon knowing you—and the season is just commencing, and there are plenty of people[65] up already—and I don’t want you to appear until you can do so to the fullest advantage. You must be content, for a few days, with a ride in the brougham—you couldn’t keep the window-shades up, I suppose?—and with my society alone. Oh! yes, you can walk before breakfast, in the park; no one is up until after twelve; but you must take Thomas or Barker.”

“Why?” demanded Esmeralda, amazedly.

“To take care of you, my dear.”

Esmeralda laughed.

“Barker might take me to take care of her,” she said; “and I don’t think Thomas, for all he’s tall as a lamp-post, would be much use in a row. He looks as if he’d break off if he bent too suddenly. Besides, there never is any row, is there? It always looks so quiet when we drive through. And those policemen&md............