The Tysons eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 189 pages of information about The Tysons.

The Tysons eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 189 pages of information about The Tysons.

From where Stanistreet sat Mrs. Nevill Tyson’s face was a profil perdu; but he could hear her breath fluttering in her throat like a bird.

“Didn’t I see you two at the ‘Criterion’ last night?” said Tyson.  “What did you think of ‘Rosemary,’ Molly?”

“I—­I thought it was very good.”

“From a purely literary point of view, eh?  As you sat with your back to the stage your judgment was not biased by such vulgar accessories as scenery and acting.  No doubt that is the way to enjoy a play.  What are your engagements for to-night?”

“Mine?  I have none, Nevill.”

“Ah—­well, then, you might tell them to get my room ready for me.  Don’t go, Stanistreet.”

He had come home to stay.

CHAPTER XV

CONFLAGRATION

To see his wife casually in a crowd, and to fall desperately in love with her for the second time, was a unique experience even in Tyson’s life.  But it had its danger.  He had never been jealous before; now a feeling very like jealousy had been roused by seeing her with Stanistreet.  He had followed her to the “Criterion”; he had hurried out before the end of the piece, and hung about Ridgmount Gardens till he had seen her homecoming.  Stanistreet’s immediate departure was a relief to a certain anxiety that he was base enough to feel.  And still there remained a vague suspicion and discomfort.  He had to begin all over again with her.  In their first courtship she was a child; in their second she was a woman.  Hitherto, the creature of a day, she had seemed to spring into life afresh every morning, without a memory of yesterday or a thought of to-morrow; she had had no past, not even an innocent one.  And now he had no notion what experiences she might not have accumulated during this year in which he had left her.  That was her past; and they had the future before them.

They had been alone together for three days, three days and three nights of happiness; and on the evening of the fourth day Tyson had found her reading—­yes, actually reading!

He sat down opposite her to watch the curious sight.

Perhaps she had said to herself:  “Some day I shall be old, and very likely I shall be ugly.  If I am stupid too, he will be bored, and perhaps he will leave me.  So now—­I am going to be his intellectual companion.”

He was amused, just as Stanistreet had been.  “I say, I can’t have that, you know.  What have you got there?”

She held up her book without speaking.  “Othello,” of all things in the world!

“Shakespeare?  I thought so.  When a woman’s in a damned bad temper she always reads Shakespeare, or Locke on the Human Understanding.  Come out of that.”

Though Mrs. Nevill Tyson set her little teeth very hard, the corners of her mouth and eyes curled with mischief.  It was delicious to feel that she could torment Nevill, to know that she had so much power.  And while she pretended to read she played with the pearl necklace she wore.  It was one shade with the white of her beautiful throat.

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Project Gutenberg
The Tysons from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.