ating him
Mrs. Wilcox felt that she was doing something particularly esoteric and
rather daring. She had taken a line. She loved everything that was a
little flagrant, a little out of the common, and a little dubious. To a
lady with these tastes Tyson was a godsend; he more than satisfied her
desire for magnificence and mystery. For economical reasons Mrs. Wilcox's
body was compelled to live with Mr. Wilcox in a cottage in Drayton Parva;
but her soul dwelt continually in a side-street in Bayswater, in a region
haunted by the shabby-refined, the shabby-smart, and the innocently
risky. Mrs. Wilcox, I maintain, was as innocent as the babe unborn. She
believed that not only is this world the best of all possible worlds, but
that Bayswater is the best of all possible places in it. So, though she
was quite deaf to many of the chords in Tyson's being, her soul responded
instantly to the note of "town." And when she discovered that Tyson had
met and, what is more, dined with her old friends the Blundell-Thompsons
"of Bombay," her satisfaction knew no bounds.

At any rate, Tyson had not been very long at Thorneytoft before Mrs.
Wilcox found herself arguing with Mr. Wilcox. She herself was impervious
to argument, and owing to her rapt inconsequence it was generally
difficult to tell what she would be at. This time, however, she seemed
to be defending Mr. Nevill Tyson from unkind aspersions.

"Of course, all young men are likely to be wild; but Mr. Tyson is not a
young man."

"Therefore Mr. Tyson is not likely to be wild. Do you know you are guilty
of the fallacy known to logicians as illicit process of the major?"

Mrs. Wilcox looked up in some alarm. The term suggested anything from a
court-martial to some vague impropriety.

"The Major? Major who?" she inquired, deftly recovering her mental
balance. "Where is he?"

"Somewhere about the premises, I fancy," said Mr. Wilcox, dryly. When all
argument failed he had still a chastened delight in mystifying the poor
lady.

Mrs. Wilcox looked out of the window. "Oh, I see; you mean Captain
Stanistreet." She smiled; for where Captain Stanistreet was Mr. Nevill
Tyson was not very far away. Moreover, she was glad that she had on her
nice ultramarine tea-gown with the green _moire_ front. (They were
wearing those colors in town that season.)

At Thorneytoft a few hours later Stanistreet's tongue was running on as
usual, when Tyson pulled him up with a jerk. "Hold hard. Do you know