“My circulation is all right,” answered Rachel, too honest even to smile upon the man with whom she was going to war.  “I felt cold all the morning, but I have been warm enough since the afternoon.”

And that was very true, for excitement had made her blood run hot in every vein; nor had Rachel often been more handsome, or less lovely, than she was to-night, with her firm lip and her brooding eye.

“There was another reason for the champagne,” resumed her husband, very frankly for him, when at last they had the drawing-room to themselves.  “I am in disgrace with you, I believe, and I want to hear from you what I have done.”

“It is what you have not done,” returned Rachel, as she stood imperiously before the lighted fire; and her bosom rose and fell, white as the ornate mantelpiece of Carrara marble which gleamed behind her.

“And what, may I ask, is my latest sin of omission?”

Rachel rushed to the point with a passionate directness that did her no discredit.

“Why have you pretended all these months that you never were in Australia in your life?  Why did you never tell me that you knew Alexander Minchin out there?”

And she held her breath against the worst that he could do, being well prepared for him to lose first his color and then the temper which he had never lost since she had known him; to fly into a fury, to curse her up hill and down dale—­in a word, to behave as her first husband had done more than once, but this one never.  What Rachel did not anticipate was a smile that cloaked not a single particle of surprise, and the little cocksure bow that accompanied the smile.

“So you have found it out,” said Steel, and his smile only ended as he sipped his coffee; even then there was no end to it in his eyes.

“This afternoon,” said Rachel, disconcerted but not undone.

“By poking your nose into places which you would not think of approaching in my presence?”

“By the merest accident in the world!”

And Rachel described the accident, truth flashing from her eyes; in an instant her husband’s face changed, the smile went out, but it was no frown that came in its stead.

“I beg your pardon, Rachel,” said he, earnestly.  “I suppose,” he added, “that a man may call his wife by her Christian name for once in a way?  I did so, however, without thinking, and because I really do most humbly beg your pardon for an injustice which I have done you for some hours in my own mind.  I came home between three and four, and I heard you were in my study.  You were not, but that book was out; and then, of course, I knew where you were.  My hand was on the knob, but I drew it back.  I wondered if you would have the pluck to do the tackling!  And I apologize again,” Steel concluded, “for I knew you quite well enough to have also known that at least there was no question about your courage.”

“Then,” said Rachel, impulsively, after having made up her mind to ignore these compliments, “then I think you might at least be candid with me!”