“I think that’s for me to ask,” laughed Rachel, standing up to him with a nerve that surprised herself.  “I didn’t know that you began so early!”

A decanter and a glass were among the things upon the tray.

“And I didn’t know it of you,” he retorted.  “Why are you up?”

Rachel told him the simple truth in simple fashion.  His tone of voice did not hurt her; there was no opposite extreme of tenderness to call to mind for the contrast which inflicts the wound.  On the other hand, there was a certain satisfaction in having for once ruffled that smooth mien and smoother tongue; it was one of her rare glimpses of the real man, but as usual it was a glimpse and nothing more.

“I must apologize,” said Steel, with an artificiality which was seldom so transparent; “my only excuse is that you startled me out of my temper and my manners.  And I was upset to begin with.  I have a poor fellow in rather a bad way in the boathouse.”

“Not one of the gardeners, I hope?” queried Rachel; but her kind anxiety subsided in a moment, for his dark eyes were measuring her, his dark mind meditating a lie; and now she knew him well enough to read him thus far in his turn.

“No,” replied Steel, deciding visibly against the lie; “no, not one of our men, or anybody else belonging to these parts; but some unlucky tramp, whom I imagine some of our neighbors would have given into custody forthwith.  I found him asleep on the lawn; of course he had no business upon the premises; but he’s so far gone that I’m taking him something to pull him together before I turn him off.”

“I should have said,” remarked Rachel, thoughtfully, “that tea or coffee would have been better for him than spirits.”

Steel smiled indulgently across the tray.

“Most ladies would say the same,” he replied, “but very few men.”

“And why didn’t you bring him into the house,” pursued Rachel, looking her husband very candidly in the face, “instead of taking him all that way to the lake, and giving yourself so much more trouble than was necessary?”

The smile broadened upon Steel’s thin lips, perhaps because it had entirely vanished from his glittering eyes.

“That,” said he, “is a question you would scarcely ask if you had seen the poor creature for yourself.  I don’t intend you to see him; he is a rather saddening spectacle, and one of a type for which one can do absolutely nothing permanent.  And now, if you are quite satisfied, I shall proceed, with your permission, to get rid of him in my own way.”

It was seldom indeed that Steel descended to a display of sarcasm at his wife’s expense, though few people who came much in contact with him escaped an occasional flick from a tongue that could be as bitter as it was habitually smooth.  His last words were therefore as remarkable as his first; both were exceptions to a rule; and though Rachel moved away without replying, feeling that there was indeed no more to be said, she could not but dwell upon the matter in her mind.  Satisfied she certainly was not; and yet there was so much mystery between them, so many instinctive reservations upon either side, that very little circumstance of the kind could not carry an ulterior significance, but many must be due to mere force of habit.