"Yes." She leaned back; the excitement faded from her face, and she
sighed. The sigh was so light that it scarcely troubled the frosty air,
but it made Stanistreet look at her again. How adorably pretty she was
in all her moods!
Perhaps she was conscious of the look, for she rattled on again more
incoherently than before. "I'm talking a great deal of nonsense; I always
do when I get the chance. You can't talk nonsense to mother; she wouldn't
understand it. She'd think it was sense. And, you see, I'm interested in
my husband. I suppose it's the proper thing to take an interest in your
husband. If you won't take an interest in your husband, what will you
take an interest in? It's natural--not to say primitive. Do you know, he
says I'm the most primitive person he ever came across. Should you say
I was primitive? Don't answer that. I don't think he'd like me to talk
about him quite so much. He thinks I never know where to draw the line.
But I never see any lines to draw, and if I did, I wouldn't know how to
draw them."
Stanistreet smiled grimly. He was wondering whether she was
"primitive."
"Just look at Scarum's ears! Don't tease her. She doesn't like it. Dear
thing! She's delicious to kiss--she's got such a soft nose. But she'll
bolt as soon as look at you, and she's awfully hard to hold." Her fingers
were twitching with the desire to hold Scarum.
"I think I can manage her."
"You see, somehow or the other I like talking to you. You may be a
sinner, but I don't think you are a fool; and I've a sort of a notion
that you understand."
He was silent. So many women had thought he understood.
"I wonder--do you understand!"
The eyes that Mrs. Nevill Tyson turned on Stanistreet were not
search-lights; they were wells of darkness, unsearchable, unfathomable.
Something in Stanistreet, equally inscrutable, something that was himself
and not himself, answered very low to that vague appeal.
"Yes, I understand."
He had turned towards her, smiling darkly, and all her face flashed back
a happy smile.
Surely, oh surely, Mrs. Nevill Tyson was the soul of indiscretion; for at
that moment Miss Batchelor, trotting past with Lady Morley, looked from
them to her companion and smiled too.
That smile was the first stone.
Miss Batchelor acknowledged them with a curt little nod, and Mrs.
Nevill Tyson's face became instantly overclouded. Louis leaned a little
nearer and said in a husky, uneven voice, "Surely you don't mind that
impertinent woman?"
"Not a bit," said Mrs. Nevill Tyson. "She's got a villainous seat."
"Then what are you thinking about?"
"I'm thinking what horrid hard lines it is that they won't let me hunt.
All the time I might have been flying across country with Nevill, instead
of--"