In another instant we were receiving the greetings and apologies of the gentlemen.

If Mr.Steele had expected that his employer's wife would offer him her hand, he was disappointed.
"I am happy to welcome one who has proved so useful to my husband," she remarked with cool though careful courtesy as we all sat down at the table; and, without waiting for an answer, she proceeded to pour the coffee with a proud grace which gave no hint of the extreme feeling by which I had seen her moved the night before.
Had I known her better I might have found something extremely unnatural in her manner and the very evident restraint she put upon herself through the whole meal; but not having any acquaintance with her ordinary bearing under conditions purely social, I was thrown out of my calculations by the cold ease with which she presided at her end of the table, and the set smile with which she greeted all remarks, whether volunteered by her husband or by his respectful but affable secretary.

I noticed, however, that she ate little.
Nixon, whom I dared not watch, did not serve with his usual precision,--this I perceived from the surprised look cast at him by Mayor Packard on at least two occasions.

Though to the ordinary eye a commonplace meal, it had elements of tragedy in it which made the least movement on the part of those engaged in it of real moment to me.

I was about to leave the table unenlightened, however, when Mrs.Packard rose and, drawing a letter from under the tray before which she sat, let her glances pass from one gentleman to the other with a look of decided inquiry.