looked in his face. Her own wore an expression that had not been there
an hour ago. Something new had come to life in it. So conscious were
they both of something abnormal, overmastering, between them that there
did not seem anything strange in the fact that for a moment, after the
first greeting, they stood without thinking of any of the commonplaces
of intercourse. Then Pateley, more accustomed to overlay the realities
of life by the conventional outside, recovered himself and said in an
ordinary tone, looking round him--

"What a delightful oasis! What charming quarters you are in here!"

"Yes, we like them very much," said Rachel, recovering herself; and they
went towards the little table and sat down.

"No tea for me, thank you," said Pateley. "I have just been made to
drink a liquid distantly resembling it at the bazaar."

"At the bazaar?" said Rachel. "It was German tea, I suppose?"

"I imagine so. It has been well said," said Pateley, "that no nation has
yet been known great enough to produce two equally good forms of
national beverage. We have good tea, but our coffee is abominable: the
Germans have good coffee, but their tea is poison. The Spaniards, I
believe, have good chocolate, but that I have to take on hearsay. I have
never been to Spain. I mean to go some day, though."

"Do you?" Rachel said, dimly hearing his flow of words while she made up
her mind what her own were to be. She had had so little time to form her
plan of action, to piece together all that she had been hearing during
the afternoon, that it was not yet clear to her that from the
circumstances of the case Pateley must necessarily be concerned in it;
and at the moment she began to speak she simply looked upon him as some
one who knew Rendel in London, who had known her father and mother, who
had a general air of bluff and hearty serviceability, and had presented
himself at a moment when she had no one else to turn to.

"Mr. Pateley," she said, and at the sudden ring of resolution in her
tone Pateley's face changed and his smiling flow of chatter about
nothing came to a pause. "There is something I want very much to ask you
about," she went on, "something I want your help in."

"I am at your orders," said Pateley, with a smile and bow that concealed
his surprise.

"It is something that matters very, very much," Rachel went on.
"Something you could find out for me."

Pateley said nothing.

"I don't know if you know," she went on h