e a change; he was not the same man who had
discussed Molly Wilcox in the billiard-room at Thorneytoft three years
ago. One thing he noticed which was new. Mrs. Nevill Tyson was not
literary; but whenever he called now he always found her sitting with
some book in her hand, which she instantly hid behind the cushions of her
chair. Stanistreet unearthed three of these volumes one day. They were
"Barrack-Room Ballads," "With Gordon in the Soudan," "India: What it can
Teach Us"--a work, if you please, on Vedic philosophy, annotated in
pencil by Tyson. Now Stanistreet had brought "Barrack-Room Ballads"
into the house; Stanistreet had been with Gordon, in the Soudan;
Stanistreet--no, Stanistreet had not been in India; but he might have
been. He was immensely amused at the idea of Mrs. Nevill Tyson
cultivating her mind. Poor little soul, how bored she must have been!

There could be no possible doubt about the boredom. Mrs. Nevill Tyson
turned from reading to talking with obvious relief. Their conversation
had taken a wider range lately; it was more intimate, and at the same
time less embarrassing. He wondered how often she thought of that scene
in the library at Thorneytoft; she had behaved ever since as if it had
never happened. For one thing Stanistreet was thankful--she had left off
discussing Nevill with him. If she had ever been in ignorance, she now
knew all that it concerned her to know. Not that she avoided the subject;
on the contrary, it seemed to have floated into the vague region of
general interest, where any chance current of thought might drift them to
it. Stanistreet dreaded it; but she was continually brushing up against
it, with a feathery lightness which made him marvel at the volatile
character of her mind. Was it the clumsiness of a butterfly or the
dexterity of a woman? Once or twice he thought he detected a certain
reluctant shyness in approaching the subject directly. It was as if she
regarded her affection for her husband as a youthful folly, and her
marriage as a discreditable episode of which she was now ashamed.

On the other hand, she was always ready to talk about Stanistreet and
his doings. She would listen for hours to his mess-room stories, his
descriptions of the people and the places he had seen, the engagements
he had taken part in. For a whole evening one Sunday they had talked
about nothing but fortification. Now it was impossible that Mrs. Nevill
Tyson could be interested in fortificati