The Tysons | Page 8

me any injustice now."
"No. He knew an awful lot about those stupid old Greeks and Romans and people, but I don't think he knew much about you. I expect he made it up to frighten mother. That reminds me, what do you think Miss Batchelor says about you? She told mother that it was a pity you hadn't any profession--every man ought to have a profession--keep you out of mischief. I wasn't going to have her talking like that about my husband--the impudent thing!--so I just stopped her yesterday in Moxon's shop and told her you had a profession. I led up to it so neatly, you can't think. I said you were going to be a barrister or a judge or something."
"A judge? That's rather a large order. But you know you mustn't tell stories, you little minx. Miss Batchelor's too clever to take all that in."
"Well, but it's true. You are going to be a barrister, and everybody knows that barristers grow into judges, if you feed them properly."
"But I haven't the remotest intention of being a barrister. How did you get hold of that notion?"
"Oh, I knew it all along. Papa said so."
"You must have been mistaken."
"Not a bit. I'll tell you exactly what he said. I heard him talking about it to mother in the library. I wasn't listening, you know. I--I heard your name, and I couldn't help it. He said he expected to see you figuring in the law courts some of these days--Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division."
Tyson rose, putting her down from his knee as if she had been a baby.
"I hope you didn't tell Miss Batchelor that?"
"Yes, I did though--rather!"
He smiled in spite of himself. "What did she do?"
"Oh, she just stared--over her shoulder; you know her way."
"Look here, Molly, you must not go about saying that sort of thing. People here don't understand it; they'll only think--"
"What?"
"Never mind what they'll think. The world is chock-full of wickedness, my child. But if half the people we meet are sinners, the other half are fools. I never knew any one yet who wasn't one or the other. So don't think about what they think, but mind what you say. See?"
"I'm sorry." She had come softly up to the window where he stood; and now she was rubbing his sleeve with one side of her face and smiling with the other.
He stroked her hair.
"All right. Don't do it again, that's all."
"I won't--if you'll only tell me one thing. Were you ever engaged to anybody but me?"
"No; I was never engaged to anybody but you."
"Then you were never in love with ten gentlemen at once like the Countess Pol--"
His answer was cut short by the entrance of Sir Peter Morley, followed by Captain Stanistreet.
CHAPTER IV
THE FIRST STONE
Tyson was much flattered by the rumor that Sir Peter Morley had pronounced his wife to be "the loveliest woman in Leicestershire"; for Lady Morley herself was a sufficiently splendid type, with her austere Puritan beauty. As for the rector, it was considered that his admiration of Mrs. Nevill Tyson somewhat stultified his utterances in the pulpit.
It is not always well for a woman when the judgment of the other sex reverses that of her own. It was not well for Mrs. Nevill Tyson to be told that she had fascinated Sir Peter Morley and spoiled the rector's sermons; it was not well for her to be worshipped (collectively) by the riff-raff that swarmed about Thorneytoft at Tyson's invitation; but any of these things were better than for her to be left, as she frequently was, to the unmixed society of Captain Stanistreet. He had a reputation. Tyson thought nothing of going up to town for the week-end and leaving Louis to entertain his wife in his absence. To do him justice, this neglect was at first merely a device by which he heightened the luxury of possession. In his own choice phrase, he "liked to give a mare a loose rein when he knew her paces." It was all right. He knew Molly, and if he did not, Stanistreet knew him. But these things were subtleties which Drayton Parva did not understand, and naturally enough it began to avoid the Tysons because of them.
Apparently Mrs. Nevill Tyson liked Stanistreet. She liked his humorous dark face and his courteous manners; above all, she liked that air of profound interest with which he listened to everything that she had to say; it made it easy for her to chatter to him as she chattered to nobody else, except (presumably) her husband. As for Stanistreet, try as he would (and he tried a great deal), he could not make Mrs. Nevill Tyson out. Day after day Mrs. Nevill Tyson, in amazing garments, sat and prattled to him in the dog-cart, while