Mrs. Nevill Tyson did not take the furniture very seriously. For quite

three days after her arrival she was content to sit in that very

respectable drawing-room, waiting for the callers who never came. She

could not have taken the callers very seriously either (what did Mrs.

Nevill Tyson take seriously, I should like to know?), or else, surely she

would have had some little regard for appearances; she would never have

risked being caught at four o'clock in the afternoon sitting on Tyson's

knee, doing all sorts of absurd things to his face. First, she stroked

his hair straight down over his forehead, which had a singularly

brutalizing effect, so that she was obliged to push it back again and

make it all neat with one of the little tortoise-shell combs that kept

her own curls in order. Then she lifted up his mustache till the lip

curled in a dreadful mechanical smile, showing a slightly crooked,

slightly prominent tooth.

"Oh, what an ugly tooth!" said Mrs. Nevill Tyson; and she let the lip

fall again like a curtain. "How could I marry a man with a tooth like

that! Do you know, poor papa used to say you were just like

Phorc--Phorc--something with a fork in it."

"Phorcyas?"

"Yes. How clever you are! Who was Phorc-y-as?" Mrs. Nevill Tyson made a

face over the word.

"It's another name for Mephistopheles." (Tyson knew his Goethe better

than his classics.) "And Mephistopheles is another name for--the devil! Oh!" She took the

tips of his ears with the tips of her fingers and held his head straight

while she stared into his eyes. "Look me straight in the face now. No

blinking. Are you the devil, I wonder?" She put her head on one side as

if she were considering him judicially from an entirely new point of

view. "I wonder why papa didn't like you?"

"He didn't think me good enough for his little girl, and he was quite

right there."

"He didn't mind so much when I got engaged to Willie Payne. He said we

were admirably suited to each other. That was because Willie was a fool.

Oh--I forgot you didn't know!"

"Ah, I know now. And how many more, Mrs. Molly?"

"No more--only you. And Willie doesn't count. It was ages ago, when I was

at school. Look here." She pushed back the ruffles of her sleeve and

showed him a little livid mark running across the back of her hand. "Did

I ever tell you what that meant? It means that they shoved Willie's

letters into the big fireplace--with the tongs--and that I stuck

my hand between the bars and pulled them out."

"I say--you must have been rather gone on Willie, you know."

"No. I didn't like him much. But I loved his letters." Mrs. Nevill

Tyson looked at the tips of her little shoes, and Mr. Nevill Tyson looked

at her.




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