The Steels dined alone, as usual, or as much alone as a man and his wife with a butler and two footmen are permitted to be at their meals. Steel was at his best after these jaunts2 of his to Northborough and the club. He would come home with the latest news from that centre of the universe, the latest gossip which had gone the rounds on 'Change and at lunch, the newest stories of Mr. Venables and his friends, which were invariably reproduced for Rachel's benefit with that slight but unmistakable local accent of which these gentry3 were themselves all unconscious. Steel had a wicked wit, and Rachel as a rule a sufficiently4 appreciative5 smile, but this was to-night either lacking altogether or of an unconvincing character. Rachel could never pretend, and her first spontaneous remark was when her glass filled up with froth.
"It has been such a wretched day," explained Steel, "that I ordered it medicinally. I am afraid it must have been perishing here, as it was in the town. This is to restore your circulation."
"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 vein7; 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 frankly8 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 bosom9 rose and fell, white as the ornate mantelpiece of Carrara marble which gleamed behind her.
"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 sipped13 his coffee; even then there was no end to it in his eyes.
"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 Christian16 name for once in a way? I did so, however, without thinking, and because I really do most humbly17 beg your pardon for an injustice18 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, impulsively19, after having made up her mind to ignore these compliments, "then I think you might at least be candid20 with me!"
"And am I not?" he cried. "Have I denied that the portrait you saw is indeed the portrait of Alexander Minchin? And yet how easy that would have been! It was taken long before you knew him; he must have altered considerably21 after that. Or I might have known him under another name. But no, I tell you honestly that your first husband was a very dear friend of mine, more years ago than I care to reckon. Did you hear me?" he added, with one of his sudden changes of tone and manner. "A very dear friend, I said, for that he undoubtedly22 was; but was I going to ask you to marry a very dear friend of the man who deteriorated23 so terribly, and who treated you so ill?"
Delivered in the most natural manner imaginable, with the quiet confidence of which this man was full, and followed by a smile of conscious yet not unkindly triumph, this argument, like most that fell from his lips upon her ears, was invested with a value out of all proportion to its real worth; and Steel clinched24 it with one of those homely25 saws which are not disdained26 by makers27 of speeches the wide world over.
"Could you really think," he added, with one of his rarest and most winning smiles, "that I should be such a fool as to invite you to step out of the frying-pan into the fire?"
Rachel felt for a moment that she would like to say it was exactly what she had done; but even in that moment she perceived that such a statement would have been very far from the truth. And her nature was large enough to refrain from the momentary28 gratification of a bitter repartee29. But he was too clever for her; that she did feel, whatever else he might be; and her only chance was to return to the plain questions with which she had started, demanding answers as plain. Rachel led up to them, however, with one or two of which she already knew the answer, thus preparing for her spring in quite the Old Bailey manner, which she had mastered subconsciously30 at her trial, and which for once was to profit a prisoner at the bar.
"Yet you don't any longer deny that you have been to Australia?"
"It is useless. I lived there for years."
"And you admit that you knew Alexander quite well out there?"
"Most intimately, in the Riverina, some fifteen or twenty years ago; he was on my station as almost everything a gentleman could be, up to overseer; and by that time he was half a son to me, and half a younger brother."
"But no relation, as a matter of fact?"
"None whatever, but my very familiar friend, as I have already told you."
"Then why in the world," Rachel almost thundered, "could you not tell me so in the beginning?"
"That is a question I have already answered."
"Then I have another. Why so often and so systematically31 pretend that you never were in Australia at all?"
The two answers, so like each other in verbal form, were utterly33 dissimilar in the manner of their utterance34. Suddenly, and for the first time in all her knowledge of him, his cynical35 aplomb36 had fallen from the man like a garment. One moment he was brazening past deceit with a smiling face; the next, he was in earnest, even he, and that mocking voice vibrated with deep feeling.
"I should have thought all the more of you for being an Australian," continued Rachel, vaguely37 touched at the change in him, "I who am proud of being one myself. What harm could it have done, my knowing that?"
"You are not the only one from whom I have hidden it," said Steel, still in a low and altered voice.
"Yet you brought home all those keepsakes of the bush?"
"But I thought better of them, and have never even unpacked38 them all, as you must have seen for yourself."
"Yet your mysterious visitor of the other day—"
"Another Australian, of course; indeed, another man who worked upon my own run."
"And he knows why you don't want it known over here?"
"He does," said Steel, with grim brevity.
Rachel moved forward and pressed his hand impulsively. To her surprise the pressure was returned. That instant their hands fell apart.
"I beg your pardon in my turn," she said. "I can only promise you that I will never again reopen that wound—whatever it may be—and I won't even try to guess. I undertook not to try to probe your past, and I will keep my undertaking39 in the main; but where it impinges upon my own past I simply cannot! You say you were my first husband's close friend," added Rachel, looking her second husband more squarely than ever in the eyes. "Was that what brought you to my trial for his murder?"
He returned her look.
"It was."
"Was that what made you wish to marry me yourself?"
No answer, but his assurance coming back, as he stood looking at her under beetling40 eyebrows41, over black arms folded across a snowy shirt. It was the wrong moment for the old Adam's return, for Rachel had reached the point upon which she most passionately42 desired enlightenment.
"I want to know," she cried, "and I insist on knowing, what first put it into your head or your heart to marry me—all but convicted—"
Steel held up his hand, glancing in apprehension43 towards the door.
"I have told you so often," he said, "and your glass tells you whenever you look into it. I sat within a few feet of you for the inside of a week!"
"But that is not true," she told him quietly; "trust a woman to know, if it were."
In the white glare of the electric light he seemed for once to change color slightly.
"If you will not accept my word," he answered, "there is no more to be said."
And he switched off a bunch of the lights that had beaten too fiercely upon him; but it only looked as if he was about to end the interview.
"You have admitted so many untruths in the last half hour," pursued Rachel, in a thrilling voice, "that you ought not to be hurt if I suspect you of another. Come! Can you look me in the face and tell me that you married me for love? No, you turn away—because you cannot! Then will you, in God's name, tell me why you did marry me?"
And she followed him with clasped hands, her beautiful eyes filled with tears, her white throat quivering with sobs44, until suddenly he turned upon her as though in self-defence.
"No, I will not!" he cried. "Since the answer I have given you, and the obvious answer, is not good enough for you, the best thing you can do is to find out for yourself."
A truculent45 look came into Rachel's eyes, as they rested upon the smooth face so unusually agitated46 beneath the smooth silvery hair.
"I will!" she answered through her teeth. "I shall take you at your word, and find out for myself I will!"
And she swept past him out of the room.
"I will!" she answered through her teeth—and she swept past him out of the room.
"I will!" she answered through her teeth—and she swept past him out of the room.
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1
decided
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| adj.决定了的，坚决的；明显的，明确的 | |
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2
jaunts
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| n.游览( jaunt的名词复数 ) | |
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3
gentry
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| n.绅士阶级，上层阶级 | |
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4
sufficiently
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| adv.足够地，充分地 | |
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5
appreciative
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| adj.有鉴赏力的，有眼力的；感激的 | |
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6
champagne
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| n.香槟酒；微黄色 | |
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7
vein
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| n.血管，静脉；叶脉，纹理；情绪；vt.使成脉络 | |
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8
frankly
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| adv.坦白地，直率地；坦率地说 | |
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9
bosom
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| n.胸，胸部；胸怀；内心；adj.亲密的 | |
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10
omission
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| n.省略，删节；遗漏或省略的事物，冗长 | |
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11
passionate
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| adj.热情的，热烈的，激昂的，易动情的，易怒的，性情暴躁的 | |
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12
discredit
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| vt.使不可置信；n.丧失信义；不信，怀疑 | |
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13
sipped
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| v.小口喝，呷，抿( sip的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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14
undone
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| a.未做完的，未完成的 | |
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15
poking
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| n. 刺，戳，袋 vt. 拨开，刺，戳 vi. 戳，刺，捅，搜索，伸出，行动散慢 | |
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16
Christian
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| adj.基督教徒的；n.基督教徒 | |
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17
humbly
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| adv. 恭顺地，谦卑地 | |
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18
injustice
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| n.非正义，不公正，不公平，侵犯（别人的）权利 | |
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19
impulsively
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| adv.冲动地 | |
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candid
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| adj.公正的，正直的；坦率的 | |
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21
considerably
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| adv.极大地；相当大地；在很大程度上 | |
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22
undoubtedly
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| adv.确实地，无疑地 | |
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23
deteriorated
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| 恶化，变坏( deteriorate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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24
clinched
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| v.（尤指两人）互相紧紧抱[扭]住( clinch的过去式和过去分词 )；解决（争端、交易），达成（协议） | |
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25
homely
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| adj.家常的，简朴的；不漂亮的 | |
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26
disdained
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| 鄙视( disdain的过去式和过去分词 )； 不屑于做，不愿意做 | |
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27
makers
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| n.制造者，制造商（maker的复数形式） | |
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28
momentary
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| adj.片刻的，瞬息的；短暂的 | |
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29
repartee
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| n.机敏的应答 | |
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30
subconsciously
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| ad.下意识地，潜意识地 | |
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31
systematically
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| adv.有系统地 | |
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32
implore
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| vt.乞求，恳求，哀求 | |
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33
utterly
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| adv.完全地，绝对地 | |
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34
utterance
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| n.用言语表达，话语，言语 | |
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35
cynical
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| adj.(对人性或动机)怀疑的，不信世道向善的 | |
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36
aplomb
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| n.沉着，镇静 | |
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37
vaguely
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| adv.含糊地，暖昧地 | |
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38
unpacked
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| v.从（包裹等）中取出（所装的东西），打开行李取出( unpack的过去式和过去分词 )；拆包；解除…的负担；吐露（心事等） | |
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39
undertaking
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| n.保证，许诺，事业 | |
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40
beetling
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| adj.突出的，悬垂的v.快速移动( beetle的现在分词 ) | |
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41
eyebrows
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| 眉毛( eyebrow的名词复数 ) | |
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42
passionately
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| ad.热烈地，激烈地 | |
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43
apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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44
sobs
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| 啜泣（声），呜咽（声）( sob的名词复数 ) | |
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45
truculent
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| adj.野蛮的，粗野的 | |
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46
agitated
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| adj.被鼓动的，不安的 | |
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