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id he expected to see you figuring in the law courts some of these days--Probate, Divorce, and Admiralty Division." Tyson rose, putting her down from his knee as if she had been a baby. "I hope you didn't tell Miss Batchelor that?" "Yes, I did though--rather!" He smiled in spite of himself. "What did she do?" "Oh, she just stared--over her shoulder; you know her way." "Look here, Molly, you must _not_ go about saying that sort of thing. People here don't understand it; they'll only think--" "What?" "Never mind what they'll think. The world is chock-full of wickedness, my child. But if half the people we meet are sinners, the other half are fools. I never knew any one yet who wasn't one or the other. So don't think about what they think, but mind what you say. See?" "I'm sorry." She had come softly up to the window where he stood; and now she was rubbing his sleeve with one side of her face and smiling with the other. He stroked her hair. "All right. Don't do it again, that's all." "I won't--if you'll only tell me one thing. Were you ever engaged to anybody but me?" "No; I was never engaged to anybody but you." "Then you were never in love with ten gentlemen at once like the Countess Pol--" His answer was cut short by the entrance of Sir Peter Morley, followed by Captain Stanistreet. CHAPTER IV THE FIRST STONE Tyson was much flattered by the rumor that Sir Peter Morley had pronounced his wife to be "the loveliest woman in Leicestershire"; for Lady Morley herself was a sufficiently splendid type, with her austere Puritan beauty. As for the rector, it was considered that his admiration of Mrs. Nevill Tyson somewhat stultified his utterances in the pulpit. It is not always well for a woman when the judgment of the other sex reverses that of her own. It was not well for Mrs. Nevill Tyson to be told that she had fascinated Sir Peter Morley and spoiled the rector's sermons; it was not well for her to be worshipped (collectively) by the riff-raff that swarmed about Thorneytoft at Tyson's invitation; but any of these things were better than for her to be left, as she frequently was, to the unmixed society of Captain Stanistreet. He had a reputation. Tyson thought nothing of going up to town for the week-end and leaving Louis to entertain his wife in his absence. To do him justice, this neglect was at first merely a device by which he heightened the luxury of possession. In hi
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