Rachel's heart made itself felt; but she was not afraid. Something was coming earlier than she had thought; she was chiefly curious to know what. Her first impulse was to have Mrs. Venables brought upstairs, and to invoke her aid in the arrangement of the table before that lady could open fire. Rachel disliked the great cold drawing-room, and felt that she must be at a disadvantage in any interview there. On the other hand, if this was a hostile visit, the visitor could not be treated with too much consideration. And so the servant was dismissed with word that her mistress would not be a moment; nor was Rachel very many. She glanced in a glass, but that was all; she might have been tidier, but not easily more animated, confident, and alert. She had reached the landing when she returned and collected all the cards which she had been trying to arrange; they made quite a pack; and Rachel laughed as she took them downstairs with her. Mrs. Venables sat in solitary stiffness on the highest chair she had been able to find; neither Sybil nor Vera was in attendance; a tableful of light literature was at her elbow, but Mrs. Venables sat with folded hands. "This is too good of you!" cried Rachel, greeting her in a manner redeemed from hypocrisy by a touch of irresistible irony. "You know my inexperience, and you have come to tell me things, have you not? You could not have come at a better time. How _do_ you fit in twenty-six people at one table? I wanted to have two at each end, and it can't be done!" Mrs. Venables suppressed a smile suggestive of some unconscious humor in these remarks, but sat more upright than ever in her chair, with a hard light in the bright brown eyes that stared serenely into Rachel's own. "I cannot say I came to offer you my assistance, Mrs. Steel. I only take liberties with very intimate friends." "Then I wonder what can have brought you!" And Rachel returned both the smile and the stare with irritating self-control. "I will tell you," said Mrs. Venables, weightily. "There is a certain thing being said of you, Mrs. Steel; and I wish to know from your own lips whether there is any truth in it or none." Rachel held up her hands as quick as thought. "My dear Mrs. Venables, you can't mean that you are bringing me a piece of unpleasant gossip on the very afternoon of my first dinner-party?" "It remains with you," said Mrs. Venables, changing color at this hit, "to say whether it is mere gossip or not. You must know, Mrs. Steel, though we were all quite charmed with your husband from the moment he came among us, we none of us had the least idea where he came from nor have we yet." "You are speaking for the neighborhood?" inquired Rachel, sweetly. "I am," said Mrs. Venables. "Town _and_ county," murmured Rachel. "And you mean that nobody in the district knew anything at all about my husband?" "Not a thing," said Mrs. Venables. "And yet you called on him; and yet you took pity on him, poor lonely bachelor that he was!"