Hitherto he had not had to suffer from the neglect of servants.  He was so delicate from his birth that his mother had been strongly advised to keep on the trained nurse till he was a year old.  But Mrs. Nevill Tyson knew better than that.  For some reason she had taken a dislike to her trained nurse; perhaps she was a little bit afraid of the professional severity which had so often held in check her fits of hysterical passion.  Aided by Mrs. Wilcox and her own intuitions, after rejecting a dozen candidates on the ground of youth and frivolity, she chose a woman with calm blue eyes and a manner that inspired confidence.  Swinny, engaged at an enormous salary, had absolute authority in the nursery.  And if it had been possible to entertain a doubt as to this excellent woman’s worth, the fact that she had kept the Tyson baby alive so long was sufficient testimonial to her capabilities.

But Swinny was in love—­in love with Pinker.  And to be in love with Pinker was to live in a perfect delirium of hopes and fears.  No sooner was Swinny delivered over to the ministers of love, who dealt with her after their will, than Baby too agonized and languished.  His food ceased to nourish him, his body wasted.  They bought a cow for his sole use and benefit, and guarded it like a sacred animal but to no purpose.  He drank of its milk and grew thinner than ever.  Strange furrows began to appear on his tiny face, with shadows and a transparent tinge like the blue of skim-milk.  As the pure air of Drayton did so little for him, Mrs. Nevill Tyson wondered how he would bear the change to London.

“Shall I take him, Nevill?” she asked.

“Take him if you like,” was the reply.  “But you might as well poison the little beast at home while you’re about it.”

So it was an understood thing that when Mr. and Mrs. Nevill Tyson settled in town, Baby was to be left behind at Thorneytoft for the good of his health.  It was his father’s proposal, and his mother agreed to it in silence.

Her indifference roused the severest comments in the household.  Mrs. Nevill Tyson was an unnatural mother.  From the day she weaned him, no one had ever seen her caress the child.  She handled him with a touch as light and fleeting as his own; her lips seemed to shrink from contact with his pure soft skin.  There could be no doubt of it, Mrs. Nevill Tyson’s behavior was that of a guilty woman—­guilty in will at any rate, if not in deed.

A shuddering whisper went through the house; it became a murmur, and the murmur became an articulate, unmistakable voice.  The servants were sitting in judgment on her.  Swinny spoke from the height of a lofty morality; Pinker, being a footman of the world, took a humorous, not to say cynical view, which pained Swinny.  Such a view could never have been taken by one whose affections were deeply engaged.

The conclusions arrived at in the servants’ hall soon received a remarkable confirmation.