beside his machine and riding on the rims, and between the two expedients arrived at last both very hot and rather late. But he thought he must be very late; for he neither met, followed, nor was followed by any vehicle whatsoever in the drive; and the door did not open before Langholm rang, as it does when they are still waiting for one. Then the house seemed strangely silent when the door did open, and the footman wore a curious expression as he ushered the late comer into an empty drawing-room. Langholm was now almost convinced that he had made some absurd mistake, and the impression was not removed by the entry of Steel with his napkin in one hand.
"I've mistaken the night!" exclaimed the perspiring author.
"Not a bit of it," replied Steel; "only we thought you weren't coming at all."
"Am I really so late as all that?"
And Langholm began to wish he had mistaken the night.
"No," said Steel, "only a very few minutes, and the sin is ours entirely. But we thought you were staying away, like everybody else."
"Like—everybody—else?"
"My dear fellow," said Steel, smiling on the other's bewilderment, "I humbly apologize for having classed you for an instant with the rank and file of our delightful neighbors; for the fact is that all but two have made their excuses at the last moment. The telegrams will delight you, one of these days!"
"There was none from me," declared Langholm, as he began to perceive what had happened.
"There was not; and my wife was quite confident that you would come; so the fault is altogether mine. Langholm, you were almost at her heels when she was introduced to the old judge yesterday?"
"I was."
"Have you guessed who she was—before she married me—or has anybody told you?"
"I have guessed."
Steel stood silent for an instant, his eyes resting in calm scrutiny upon the other, his mouth as firm and fixed, his face fresh as a young man's, his hair like spun silver in the electric light. Langholm looked upon the man who was looking upon him, and he could not hate him as he would.
"And do you still desire to dine with us?" inquired his host at last.
"I don't want to be in the way," faltered Langholm, "on a painful—"
"Oh, never mind that!" cried Steel. "Are you quite sure you don't want to cut our acquaintance?"
"You know I don't," said Langholm, bluntly.
"Then come in, pray, and take us as we are."
"One moment, Steel! All this is inconceivable; do you mean to say that your guests have thrown you over on account of—of—"
"My wife having been a certain Mrs. Minchin before she changed her name to Steel! Yes, every one of them, except our vicar and his wife, who are real good friends."
"I am another," said Langholm through his big mustache.
"The very servants are giving notice, one by one!"
"I am her servant, too!" muttered Langholm, as Steel stood aside to let him pass out first; but this time it was through his teeth, though from his heart, and the words were only audible to himself.
Chapter XIX
Rachel's Champion
The immediate ordeal proved less trying than Langholm was prepared to find it. His vivid imagination had pictured the long table, laid for six-and-twenty, with four persons huddled at one end; but the telegrams had come in time to have the table reduced to its normal size, and Langholm found a place set for him between Mrs. Woodgate and Mrs. Steel. He was only embarrassed when Rachel rose and looked him in the eyes before holding out her hand.
"Have you heard?" she asked him, in a voice as cold as her marble face, but similarly redeemed and animated by its delicate and distant scorn.
"Yes," answered Langholm, sadly; "yes, I have heard."
"And yet—"
He interrupted her in another tone.
"I know what you are going to say! I give you warning, Mrs. Steel, I won't listen to it. No 'and yets' for me; remember the belief I had, long before I knew anything at all! It ought not to be a whit stronger for what I guessed yesterday for myself, and what your husband has this minute confirmed. Yet it is, if possible, ten thousand times stronger and more sure!"
"I do remember," said Rachel, slowly; "and, in my turn, I believe what you say."
But her face did not alter as she took his hand; her own was so cold that he looked at her in alarm; and the whole woman seemed turned to stone. Yet the dinner went on without further hitch; it might have been the very smallest and homeliest affair, to which only these guests had been invited. Indeed, the menu had been reduced, like the table, by the unerring tact of Rachel's husband, so that there was no undue memorial to the missing one-and-twenty, and the whole ordeal was curtailed.
There was, on the other hand, no blinking what had happened, no pretence of ignoring the one subject which was in everybody's thoughts. Thus Mrs. Woodgate exclaimed aloud, what she was thinking to herself, that she would never speak to Mrs. Venables again in all her life, and her husband told her across the table that she had better not. Rachel thereupon put in her word, to the effect that the Woodgates would cut themselves off from everybody if they made enemies of all who disbelieved in her, and she could not allow them to do anything of the kind. Steel, again, speculated upon the probable behavior of the Uniackes and the Invernesses, neither of these distinguished families having been invited to the dinner, for obvious reasons arising from their still recent return to the country. There was no effort to ignore the absorbing topic before the butler and his satellites, but the line was drawn in the right place, excluding as it did any reference to the rout of Mrs. Venables, and indeed all details whatsoever.
The butler, however, and in a less degree the footman, presented a rather interesting study during the course of this momentous meal, had the professional observer present been only a little less concerned for his hostess. The butler was a pompous but capable creature, whom Steel had engaged when he bought the place. Though speedily reduced to a more respectful servitude than he was accustomed to, the man had long since ceased to complain of his situation, which carried with it the highest wages and all arbitrary powers over his subordinates. On the steps, at her deferred departure, Mrs. Venables had screamed the secret of his mistress's identity into the butler's ear. The butler had risen with dignity to the occasion, and, after a brief interview, resigned on the spot with all his men. The mild interest was in the present behavior of these gentry, which was a rich blend of dignity and depression, and betrayed a growing doubt as to whether the sinking ship, that they had been so eager to abandon, was really sinking after all.
Certainly the master's manner could not have been very different at the head of his table as originally laid. It was not festive, it was neither unnaturally jocular nor showy in any way, but it was delightfully confident and serene. And the mistress was as calm in her way, though for once hers was the colder way, and it was the opinion of the pantry that she felt more than she showed; without a doubt Mrs. Woodgate had more work to restrain, now
