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Page 10
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 Tyson followed the hounds; yet for
the life of him he could not tell whether she was really very infantile
or only very deep. You see she was Tyson's wife. It must be said she gave
him every opportunity for clearing his ideas on the subject, and if he
did not know, other people might be allowed to make mistakes. And when he
came to stay at Thorneytoft for weeks at a time, familiarity with the
little creature's moods only complicated the problem.
It was about the middle of February, and Stanistreet had been down
for a fortnight's hunting, when, in the morning of his last day, Tyson
announced his intention of going up to town with him to-morrow. He might
be away for three weeks or a month altogether; it depended upon whether
he enjoyed himself sufficiently.
Stanistreet, who was looking at Mrs. Nevill Tyson at the time, saw the
smile and the color die out of her face; her beauty seemed to suffer a
shade, a momentary eclipse. She began to drink tea (they were at
breakfast) with an air of abstraction too precipitate to be quite
convincing.
"Moll," said Tyson, "if you're going to this meet, you'd better run
upstairs and put your things on."
"I don't want to go to any meets."
"Why not?"
"Because--I--I don't like to see other women riding."
"Bless her little heart!" (Tyson was particularly affectionate this
morning) "she's never had a bridle in her ridiculous hands, and she talks
about 'other women riding.'"
"Because I want to ride, and you won't let me, and I'm jealous."
"Well, if you mayn't ride with me, you may drive with Stanistreet."
"_I_ may drive Captain Stanistreet?"
"Certainly not; Captain Stanistreet may drive you."
"We'll see about that," said Mrs. Nevill Tyson as she left the room.
She soon reappeared, enchantingly pretty again in her laces and furs.
It was a glorious morning, the first thin white frost after a long thaw.
The meet was in front of the Cross-Roads Inn, about a mile out of Drayton
Parva. It was neutral ground, where Farmer Ashby could hold his own with
Sir Peter any day, and speech was unfettered. Somebody remarked that Mrs.
Nevill Tyson looked uncommonly happy in the dog-cart; while Tyson spoke
to nobody and nobody spoke to him. Poor devil! he hadn't at all a pretty
look on that queer bleached face of his. And all the time he kept
twisting his horse's head round in a melancholy sort of way, and backing
into things and out of them, fit to make you swear.
She must have noticed something. They were trotting along, Stanistreet
driving, by a road that ran side by side with the fields scoured by the
hunt, and Tyson could always be seen going recklessly and alone. He could
ride, he could ride! His worst enemy never doubted that.
"It's very odd," said she, "but the people here don't seem to like Nevill
one bit. I suppose they've never seen anything quite like him before."
"I very much doubt if they have."
"_I_ think they're afraid of him. Mother is, I know; she blinks when she
talks to him."
"Does she blink when she talks to me?"
"Of course not--you're different."
"I am not her son-in-law, certainly."
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