Andrew turned to face the questioner, and the eyes of the brothers met. Again the differences between them seemed to be suddenly and marvellously accentuated. Andrew's cheeks, bronzed and hardened with a life spent wholly out of doors, were glistening still with the salt water which dripped down from his hair and hung in sparkling globules from his beard. Cecil was paler than ever; there was something almost furtive in that swift insistent look. Perhaps he recognized something of what was in the other's mind. At any rate the good-nature left his manner--his tone took to itself a sterner note. "I came back," he said grimly. "I should not have come back alone. She was hard to save, too," he added, after a moment's pause. "She is mad," Cecil muttered. "A queer lot, all the Caynsards." "She is as sane as you or I," his brother answered. "She does rash things, and she chooses to treat her life as though it were a matter of no consequence. She took a fifty to one chance at the bar, and she nearly lost. But, by heaven, you should have seen her bring my little boat down the creek, with the tide swelling, and a squall right down on the top of us. It was magnificent. Cecil!" "Well?" "Why does Kate Caynsard treat her life as though it were of less value than the mackerel she lowers her line for? Do you know?" The younger man dropped his eyeglass and shrugged his shoulders contemptuously. "Since when," he demanded, "have I shown any inclination to play the village Lothario? Thick ankles and robust health have never appealed to me--I prefer the sicklier graces of civilization." "Kate Caynsard," Andrew said thoughtfully, "is not of the villagers. She leads their life, but her birth is better on her father's side, at any rate, than our own." "If I might be allowed to make the suggestion," Cecil said, regarding his brother with supercilious distaste, "don't you think it would be just as well to change your clothes before our guests arrive?" "Why should I?" Andrea asked calmly. "They are not my friends. I scarcely know even their names. I entertain them at your request. Why should I be ashamed of my oilskins? They are in accord with the life I live here. I make no pretence, you see, Cecil," he added, with a faintly amused smile, "at being an ornamental member of Society." His brother regarded him with something very much like disgust. "No!" he said sarcastically. "No one could accuse you of that." Something in his tone seemed to suggest to Andrew a new idea. He looked down at the clothes he wore beneath his oilskins--the clothes almost of a working man. He glanced for a moment at his hands, hardened and blistered with the actual toil which he loved--and he looked his brother straight in the face. "Cecil," he said, "I believe you're ashamed of me."