Stanistreet looked grave. Whither was all this tending? To a final abandonment of Mrs. Nevill Tyson?
"Of course, the mistake was to try. There might have been a chance for me if I'd had a tithe of your sense. But being what I am, I must needs go and marry. It was the deed of a lunatic."
"Isn't it rather late to go back on that now? What's the good?"
"None, you fool, none. And if there's anything that stamps a man as a cur and a cad, it's this vile habit of slanging the women for his own sins. All the same—I'm not blaming anybody but myself, mind—all the same, I being what I am, there's no doubt I married the wrong sort of woman. I don't mind making that confession to you. I believe you know more about me than anybody, barring my Maker."
Stanistreet looked straight in front of him, terribly detached and stern.
"She was not the wrong sort," he said slowly; "but she may have been the wrong woman for you."
"Men like you and me, Stanistreet, contrive to get hold of the wrong woman; I don't know why."
"You must know that your marriage did nothing for you that was not very well done before."
"Yes. It seems to me that there was a time when I had an immortal soul. That was before the Framley episode. You remember? An edifying experience."
Stanistreet assented. He knew the horrible story, of a mad boy and a bad woman. Perhaps it accounted for the ugliest facts in Tyson's character. He was warped from his youth, the bitter, premature manhood, so soon corrupt.