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 a 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.

Another moment and the expression of her face had changed again; he saw
something there that he had never seen before, something unguarded and
appealing. He was near the end of doubt.

He felt that if he stayed with her another moment he would lose his head,
and he did not want to lose it--yet! He struggled desperately between his
desire to stay and his will to go--if there was any difference between
desire and will.

His struggles were cut short by the entrance of Tyson.

He walked into the room at half-past five, greeted Stanistreet cheerfully
(his eyes twinkling), ordered fresh tea, and began to talk to his wife as
if nothing had happened. If Louis had