Though they had cut them dead lately, it must be confessed that some
people found Drayton Parva a very dull place without Mr. and Mrs. Nevill
Tyson. They heard about them sometimes from Sir Peter, who was now in
Parliament; and from Miss Batchelor, after her flying visits to the
Morleys' house in town. Stanistreet, by the way, had his headquarters
somewhere in London; and in London Mrs. Nevill Tyson revived. She had
begun all over again. She had got new clothes, new servants, and a new
drawing-room. An absurd little drawing-room it was, too--all white paint,
muslin draperies, and frivolous gim-crack furniture. A place, said Miss
Batchelor, that it would have been dangerous to smoke a cigarette in. And
if you would believe it, she had hung up Tyson's sword over the couch in
the dining-room, as a memorial of his deeds in the Soudan. So ridiculous,
when everybody knew that he was nothing but a sort of volunteer (Miss
Batchelor had had a brother in "the Service").

Having furnished her drawing-room, and hung up her husband's sword, Mrs.
Nevill Tyson seems to have done nothing noteworthy, but to have sat down
and waited for events.

She had not long to wait. By the end of the season she was alone in the
flat. _He_ had left her. She had no clue to his whereabouts; but, other
people believed him to be living in another flat--not alone.

Drayton Parva was alive again with the scandal. Miss Batchelor, as became
the intelligence of Drayton Parva, alone kept calm. She went about saying
that she was not at all surprised to hear it. Miss Batchelor never was
surprised at anything. She refused to take a part, to commit herself
to a definite opinion. Human nature is a mixed matter, and in these
cases there are generally faults on both sides. Mrs. Nevill Tyson had
been--certainly--very--indiscreet. It was indiscreet of her to go on
living in that flat all by herself. Did Miss Batchelor think there was
anything in that report about Captain Stanistreet? Well, if there wasn't
something in it you would have thought she would have come back to
Thorneytoft; her staying in town looked bad under the circumstances.

Poor Mrs. Nevill Tyson, every circumstance made a link in a chain of
evidence whose ends were nowhere.

And, indeed, she was not left very long to herself.

But though Stanistreet was always hanging about Ridgmount Gardens, he was
no nearer solving the problem that had perplexed him. And yet his views
of women had undergon