up sharply. "A man coming _here_? What for?" she interrupted,
breathlessly.

"Sent to help me about this oil-boring business, my dear."

He had lighted his pipe, and was smoking placidly, taking long whiffs
between his words.

"Well?" impatiently questioned his wife, fixing her bright eyes on his
face.

"Well--that's all, my dear."

She checked an exclamation. "But don't you know anything about him--his
name? where he comes from? what he is like?" She was leaning forward
against the table, her needle, with a long end of yellow silk drawn
half-way through her work, held in her upraised hand, her whole attitude
one of quivering excitement and expectancy.

The man took his pipe from his mouth deliberately, with a look of slow
wonder.

"Why, Kathie, you seem quite anxious. I didn't know you'd be so
interested, my dear. Well,"--another long pull at his pipe,--"his name's
Brook--_Brookfield_, I think." He paused again. "This pipe doesn't draw
well a bit; there's something wrong with it, I shouldn't wonder," he
added, taking it out and examining the bowl as though struck with the
brilliance of the idea.

The woman opposite put down her work and clinched her hands under the
table.

"Go on, John," she said, presently, in a tense, vibrating voice; "his
name is Brookfield. Well, where does he come from?"

"Straight from home, my dear, I believe." He fumbled in his pocket, and
after some time extricated a pencil, with which he began to poke
the tobacco in the bowl in an ineffectual aimless fashion, becoming
completely engrossed in the occupation apparently. There was another
long pause. The woman went on working, or feigning to work, for her
hands were trembling a good deal.

After some moments she raised her head again. "John, will you mind
attending to me one moment, and answering these questions as quickly as
you can?" The emphasis on the last word was so faint as to be almost as
imperceptible as the touch of exasperated contempt which she could not
absolutely banish from her tone.

Her husband, looking up, met her clear bright gaze, and reddened like a
school-boy.

"Whereabouts '_from home_' does he come?" she asked, in a studiedly
gentle fashion.

"Well, from London, I think," he replied, almost briskly for him, though
he stammered and tripped over the words. "He's a university chap; I used
to hear he was clever; I don't know about that, I'm sure; he used to
chaff me, I remember, but--"

"Chaff _you_? Yo