Mrs. Nevill Tyson was said to be making
good use of her liberty. No names had been mentioned in Mrs. Wilcox's
hearing, but she knew perfectly well what had given rise to these
ridiculous reports. It was the conspicuous attention which Sir Peter had
insisted on paying Mrs. Nevill Tyson. Not that there was anything to be
objected to in an old gentleman's frank admiration for a young (and
remarkably pretty) married woman. No doubt Sir Peter had been very
indiscreet in his expression of it. What with calling on her in private
and paying her the most barefaced compliments in public, he had made her
the talk of the county. Mrs. Wilcox went further: she was firmly
convinced that Sir Peter had fallen a hopeless victim to her daughter's
attractions, and she had derived a great deal of gratification from the
flattering thought. But now that Molly was being compromised by the old
fellow's attentions, it was another matter.

That anybody else could have compromised her by his attentions did not
once occur to Mrs. Wilcox. By its magnificent unlikelihood, the idea that
Sir Peter Morley, M.P., was fascinated by her daughter extinguished every
other. So possessed was Mrs. Wilcox by the idea of Sir Peter that she had
never thought of Stanistreet. In any case Stanistreet was the last person
she would have thought of. He came and went without her notice, a
familiar, and therefore insignificant, fact of her daily life.

Of course Molly was a desperate little flirt; but it was absurd that her
flirtations should be made responsible for "this temporary separation."
(That was the mild phrase by which Mrs. Wilcox described Tyson's
desertion of his wife.) As for her encouraging Sir Peter in her husband's
absence, that was all nonsense. Mrs. Wilcox was a woman of the world, and
she would have passed the whole thing off with a laugh, but that, really,
the reports were so scandalous. They actually declared that her daughter
had been seen going about with Sir Peter in the most open and shameless
manner, ever since she had been left to her own devices.

Well, Mrs. Wilcox could disprove _that_ by the irrefragable logic of
facts.

It was high time something should be done. Her plan was to go quietly and
call on Miss Batchelor, and mention the facts in a casual way. She would
not mention Sir Peter.

So with the idea of Sir Peter in her head and a letter from Molly in
her pocket, Mrs. Wilcox called on Miss Batchelor. There was nothing
extraordinary