have ever visited in our lives, and the last one
that either of us has the least curiosity to see."

And he took his seat among them with a smile.

CHAPTER XIII

THE AUSTRALIAN ROOM

It was that discomfort to man, that cruelty to beast, that outrage by
unnatural Nature upon all her children--a bitter summer's day. The wind
was in the east; great swollen clouds wallowed across the sky, now
without a drop, now breaking into capricious showers of stinging rain;
and a very occasional burst of sunlight served only to emphasize the
evil by reminding one of the season it really was, or should have been,
even if it did not entice one to the wetting which was the sure reward
of a walk abroad. The Delverton air was strong and bracing enough, but
the patron wind of the district bit to the bone through garments never
intended for winter wear.

On such a day there could be few more undesirable abodes than
Normanthorpe House, with its marble floors, its high ceilings, and its
general scheme of Italian coolness and discomfort. It was a Tuesday,
when Mr. Steel usually amused himself by going on 'Change in
Northborough and lunching there at the Delverton Club. Rachel was thus
not only physically chilled and depressed, but thrown upon her own
society at its worst; and she missed that of her husband more than she
was aware.

Once she had been a bright and energetic person with plenty of resources
within herself; now she had singularly few. She was distraught and
uneasy in her mind, could settle less and less to her singing or a book,
and was the victim of an increasing restlessness of mind and limb.
Others did not see it; she had self-control; but repression was no cure.
And for all this there were reasons enough; but the fear of
identification by the neighbors as the notorious Mrs. Minchin was no
longer one of them.

No; it was her own life, root and branch, that had grown into the
upas-tree which was poisoning existence for Rachel Steel. She was being
punished for her second marriage as she had been punished for her first,
only more deservedly, and with more subtle stripes. Each day brought a
dozen tokens of the anomalous position which she had accepted in the
madness of an hour of utter recklessness and desperation. Rachel was not
mistress in her own house, nor did she feel for a moment that it was her
own house at all. Everything was done for her; a skilled housekeeper
settled the smallest details; and that these wer