He had yet to prove it.
Of course she was a little fool; that went without saying. He had known
many women who were fools, and he had survived their folly. But it seemed
that he could not live without this particular little fool.
He called the next day at Ridgmount Gardens.
Mrs. Nevill Tyson's manner was a little disconcerting. He found her at
the piano, singing in her pathetic mezzo-soprano a song that used to he
a favorite of Tyson's. The selection was another freak; it was the first
time Louis had heard her sing that song since they left Thorneytoft.
This is what she sang; but Louis only came in for the last two verses.
"Oh feet that would be roving,
I will not bid you stay,
Though my heart should break with loving,
When love is far away.
(Dim.) "Oh heart that would be sleeping,
I will not wake you. No,
You shall hear no sound of weeping,
No footsteps come and go.
"Then come not for my calling,
Roam on the livelong day;
Some time when night is falling,
Love will steal home and stay.
"Or sleep, and fe-ear no waking,
Sleep on, the li-ights are low,
Some time when dawn is breaking,
Love will awa-ake--awa-ake,
(Cresc.) Love will awa-ake and know."
That was the sort of song Tyson liked; and well, as Mrs. Nevill sang it,
Stanistreet liked it too. And Stanistreet was not in the least musical.
"What--you here again?" said she, swinging round on her music-stool.
"That's a jolly crescendo, isn't it? But they're the silliest words,
don't you think? As if love ever came home to stay if he could help it.
He might put up a few things in a portmanteau, and run down from Saturday
to Monday, perhaps, and--the lady was very accommodating, wasn't she?"
Stanistreet frowned and champed the ends of his mustache. This was not at
all the mood he desired to find her in.
"Don't be cynical," said he; "it's not like you."
"Dear me--what shall I be then? What is like me?" She threw herself
back in a chair, kicked out her little feet, and yawned. It reminded
Louis unpleasantly of the attitude of the woman in the Marriage à la
Mode. Then she chattered; and it struck him, as it had struck him more
than once before, that Tyson had found his wife's head empty and
furnished it according to his own taste. She was always quoting Tyson;
and as there was not the least indication of inverted commas, it was hard
to tell which was quotation and which was the original text. This
creature of fitful, unbalanced mind and reckless speech was certainly the
Mrs. Nevill Tyson he had sometimes seen at Thorneytoft; but it was not
the Mrs. Nevill Tyson of last night, nor even of the other day, that
afternoon when her eyes said, as unmistakably as eyes could say anything,
that she would not accept defeat.