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.
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