Though they had cut them dead lately, it must be confessed that some

people found Drayton Parva a very dull place without Mr. and Mrs. Nevill

Tyson. They heard about them sometimes from Sir Peter, who was now in

Parliament; and from Miss Batchelor, after her flying visits to the

Morleys' house in town. Stanistreet, by the way, had his headquarters

somewhere in London; and in London Mrs. Nevill Tyson revived. She had

begun all over again. She had got new clothes, new servants, and a new

drawing-room. An absurd little drawing-room it was, too--all white paint,

muslin draperies, and frivolous gim-crack furniture. A place, said Miss

Batchelor, that it would have been dangerous to smoke a cigarette in. And

if you would believe it, she had hung up Tyson's sword over the couch in

the dining-room, as a memorial of his deeds in the Soudan. So ridiculous,

when everybody knew that he was nothing but a sort of volunteer (Miss

Batchelor had had a brother in "the Service").

Having furnished her drawing-room, and hung up her husband's sword, Mrs.

Nevill Tyson seems to have done nothing noteworthy, but to have sat down

and waited for events.

She had not long to wait. By the end of the season she was alone in the

flat. He had left her. She had no clue to his whereabouts; but, other

people believed him to be living in another flat--not alone.

Drayton Parva was alive again with the scandal. Miss Batchelor, as became

the intelligence of Drayton Parva, alone kept calm. She went about saying

that she was not at all surprised to hear it. Miss Batchelor never was

surprised at anything. She refused to take a part, to commit herself

to a definite opinion. Human nature is a mixed matter, and in these

cases there are generally faults on both sides. Mrs. Nevill Tyson had

been--certainly--very--indiscreet. It was indiscreet of her to go on

living in that flat all by herself. Did Miss Batchelor think there was

anything in that report about Captain Stanistreet? Well, if there wasn't

something in it you would have thought she would have come back to

Thorneytoft; her staying in town looked bad under the circumstances.

Poor Mrs. Nevill Tyson, every circumstance made a link in a chain of

evidence whose ends were nowhere.

And, indeed, she was not left very long to herself.

But though Stanistreet was always hanging about Ridgmount Gardens, he was

no nearer solving the problem that had perplexed him. And yet his views

of women had undergone a change; he was not the same man who had

discussed Molly Wilcox in the billiard-room at Thorneytoft three years

ago. One thing he noticed which was new. Mrs. Nevill Tyson was not

literary; but whenever he called now he always found her sitting with

some book in her hand, which she instantly hid behind the cushions of her

chair. Stanistreet unearthed three of these volumes one day. They were

"Barrack-Room Ballads," "With Gordon in the Soudan," "India: What it can

Teach Us"--a work, if you please, on Vedic philosophy, annotated in

pencil by Tyson. Now Stanistreet had brought "Barrack-Room Ballads"

into the house; Stanistreet had been with Gordon, in the Soudan;

Stanistreet--no, Stanistreet had not been in India; but he might have

been. He was immensely amused at the idea of Mrs. Nevill Tyson

cultivating her mind. Poor little soul, how bored she must have been!




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