e
possessed qualities that made her valuable to her husband. She was
extremely inquisitive, listened well, knew how to inquire, and was an
active reporter. On her side there was no real affection for Tyope; but
her admiration for his intellectual qualities, so far as she was able to
appreciate them, knew no bounds. It amounted almost to awe. Their
connection was consequently a partnership rather than anything else,--a
partnership based on physical affinities, on mutual interest, and on
habit. Of the higher sort of sympathy there was no trace. Neither had
room for it among the many occupations which their mode of life and
manner of intercourse called forth.

If Tyope was shrewd and cunning, and if he made of his own woman his
eye, ear, and mouth, as has been said in one of the previous chapters,
Hannay was not a fool. She did not of course understand anything of his
plans and schemes, and he never thought it necessary to inform her; but
she knew how to manage him whenever anything aroused her curiosity. She
contrived to gratify this sometimes in a way that her husband failed to
detect,--by drawing from his talk inferences that were exceedingly
correct and which he had no thought of furnishing. For Tyope knew his
wife's weakness; he knew that if her ears and her eyes were sharp, her
tongue was correspondingly swift; and he tried to be as guarded as
possible toward her on any topic which he did not wish to become public
property. Nevertheless Hannay succeeded in outwitting her husband more
than once, and in guessing with considerable accuracy things that he did
not regard as belonging within the field of her knowledge. So, for
instance, while he had carefully avoided stating to her the object of
the council, she nevertheless had put together in her own mind a number
of minor points and hints to which he attached no importance, and had
thus framed for herself a probable purpose of the meeting that fell not
much short of the real truth.

The main desire that occupied Hannay's mind for the present was the
union between Okoya and her daughter Mitsha. Okoya had, unknown to
himself, no stronger ally than the mother of the girl. The motive that
actuated her in this matter was simply the apparent physical fitness of
the match and the momentary advantages that she, considering her own age
and the loose nature of Indian marriages, might eventually derive from
the daily presence of Okoya at her home. In other words, she desired the