No, for the life of him Stanistreet did not know.  His doubt was absurd, for it implied that Mrs. Nevill Tyson practiced the art of symbolism, and he could hardly suppose her to be so well acquainted with the resources of language.  On the other hand, he could not conceive how, after living more than half a year with Tyson, she had preserved her formidable naivete.

At dinner that evening she still further obscured the question by boasting that she had saved Captain Stanistreet’s life.  Stanistreet protested.

“Nonsense,” said she; “you know perfectly well that you’d have upset the whole show if you’d been left to yourself.”

Tyson stared at his wife.  “Do you mean to say that he let you drive?”

“Let me?  Not he!  He couldn’t help it.”  Her white throat shook with derisive laughter.  “I took the reins; or, if you like, I kicked over the traces.  I always told you I’d do it some day.”

Tyson pushed his chair back from the table and scowled meditatively.  Mrs. Nevill Tyson was smiling softly to herself as she played with the water in her finger-glass.  Presently she rose and shook the drops from her fingertips, like one washing her hands of a light matter.  Stanistreet got up and opened the door for her, standing very straight and militant and grim; and as she passed through she looked back at him and laughed again.

“I can see,” said Tyson, as Stanistreet took his seat again, “you’ve been letting that wife of mine make more or less of a fool of herself.  If you had no consideration for her neck or your own, you might have thought of my son and heir.”

“Oh,” said Stanistreet, a little vaguely, for he was startled, “I kept a good lookout.”

“Not much use in that,” said Tyson.

Stanistreet battled with his doubt.  Tyson had furnished him with a key to his wife’s moods.  Moreover, a simpler explanation had occurred to him.  Mrs. Nevill Tyson was fond of driving; she had been forbidden to drive, therefore she drove; she had never driven any animal in her life before, and, notwithstanding her inexperience, she had accomplished the dangerous feat without injury to anybody.  Hence no doubt her laughter and her triumph.

But this again was symbolism.  He determined to sleep on it.

CHAPTER V

THE NIGHT WATCH

Like all delightful things, Mrs. Nevill Tyson’s laughter was short-lived.  When Tyson went up to bed that night between twelve and one, he found his wife sitting by her bedroom fire in the half-darkness.  Evidently contemplation had overtaken her in the act of undressing, for her hair was still untouched, her silk bodice lay beside her on the floor where she had let it fall, and she sat robed in her long dressing-gown.  He came up to her, holding his candle so that the light fell full on her face; it looked strange and pale against the vivid scarlet of her gown.  Her