manicured, even his cigarette came from the dealer whose wares were the caprice of the moment.  That his complexion was pallid and that underneath his eyes were faint blue lines, which were certainly not the hall-marks of robust health, disturbed him not at all.  These things were correct.  Health was by no means a desideratum in the set to which he was striving to belong.  He looked through his eyeglass at his brother and groaned.

“Really, Andrew,” he said calmly, but with an undernote of anger trembling in his tone, “I am surprised to see you like this!  You might, I think, have had a little more consideration.  Can’t you realize what a sight you are, and what a mess you’re making!”

Andrew took off his cap and shook it, so that a little shower of salt water splashed on to the polished floor.

“Never mind, Cecil,” he said good-humouredly.  “You’ve all the deportment that’s necessary in this family.  And salt water doesn’t stain.  These boards have been washed with it many a time.”

The young man’s face lost none of his irritation.

“But what on earth have you been doing?” he exclaimed.  “Where have you been to get in a state like that?”

Andrew’s face was suddenly overcast.  It did not please him to think of those last few hours.

“I had to go out to bring a mad woman home,” he said.  “Kate Caynsard was out in her catboat a day like this.  It was suicide if I hadn’t reached her in time.”

“You—­did reach her in time?” the young man asked quickly.

Andrew turned to face the questioner, and the eyes of the brothers met.  Again the differences between them seemed to be suddenly and marvellously accentuated.  Andrew’s cheeks, bronzed and hardened with a life spent wholly out of doors, were glistening still with the salt water which dripped down from his hair and hung in sparkling globules from his beard.  Cecil was paler than ever; there was something almost furtive in that swift insistent look.  Perhaps he recognized something of what was in the other’s mind.  At any rate the good-nature left his manner—­his tone took to itself a sterner note.

“I came back,” he said grimly.  “I should not have come back alone.  She was hard to save, too,” he added, after a moment’s pause.

“She is mad,” Cecil muttered.  “A queer lot, all the Caynsards.”

“She is as sane as you or I,” his brother answered.  “She does rash things, and she chooses to treat her life as though it were a matter of no consequence.  She took a fifty to one chance at the bar, and she nearly lost.  But, by heaven, you should have seen her bring my little boat down the creek, with the tide swelling, and a squall right down on the top of us.  It was magnificent.  Cecil!”

“Well?”

“Why does Kate Caynsard treat her life as though it were of less value than the mackerel she lowers her line for?  Do you know?”

The younger man dropped his eyeglass and shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.