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 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.’”