And that last year when he let himself go altogether--there again

his origin told. He had flung himself into dissipation in the spirit

of dissent. His passions were the passions of Demos, violent and

revolutionary. Tyson the Baptist minister had despised the world,

vituperated the flesh, stamped on it and stifled it under his decent

broadcloth. If it had any rights he denied them. Therefore in the person

of his son they reasserted their claim; and young Tyson paid it honorably

and conscientiously to the full. In a year's time he knew enough of the

world and the lust of it to satisfy the corrupt affections of generations

of Baptist ministers, with the result that his university career was

suddenly, mysteriously cut short. He had made too many experiments with

life.

After that his life had been all experiments, most of them failures. But

they served to separate him forever from his place and his people, from

all the hateful humiliating past. He could still say that he owed

everything to himself.

Then his uncle's death gave him the means of realizing his supreme

ambition. By that time he had forgotten that he ever had an uncle. His

family had effaced itself. Backed by an estate and a good income, there

was no reason why its last surviving member should not be a conspicuous

social success. Well, it seemed that he was a conspicuous social failure.

He owed that to Stanistreet, curse him! curse him! His brain still

reeled, and he roused himself with difficulty from his retrospective

dream. When he spoke again it was with the conscious incisiveness of a

drunken man trying hard to control his speech.

"Would you mind telling me who you've told this story to? Lady Morley,

for one. My wife," he raised his voice in his excitement, "my wife, I

suppose, for another?"

Stanistreet had every reason for not wanting to quarrel with Tyson. He

liked a country house that he could run down to when he chose; he liked

a good mount; he liked a faultless billiard-table; and oddly enough, with

all his faults he liked Nevill Tyson. And he had a stronger motive now.

Consciously or unconsciously he felt that his friendship for Tyson was a

safeguard. A safeguard against--he hardly knew what. But the idea of Mrs.

Nevill Tyson was like fire to his dry mood. His brain flared up all in a

moment, though his tongue spoke coolly enough.

"I swear I never did anything of the sort. I haven't seen your wife

for ages--till to-night. We don't correspond. If we did"--he stopped

suddenly--"if I did that sort of thing at all Mrs. Tyson is the very last

person--"

"Oblige me by keeping her name out of it."

Tyson's voice carried far, through the door and across the passage,

penetrating to Pinker in his pantry.




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