Her ways were indeed inscrutable; but he had learnt to know them all, not a gesture escaped him. How well he knew the turn of her head and the sudden flash of her face as they entered a theatre, and her eyes swept the house, eager, expectant, dubious; how well he knew the excited touch on his sleeve, the breath half-drawn, the look that was a confidence and an enigma; knew, too, the despondent droop of her eyes when the play was done and it was all over; the tightening of her hand upon his arm, and the shrinking of the whole tiny figure as they made their way out through the crowd. She had spirit enough for anything; but her nerves were all on edge—she was so easily tired, so easily startled.
Day after day, and night after night; it was evident that at this rate she and Tyson were bound to see each other some time, somewhere. Stanistreet wondered whether that thought had ever occurred to her. And if they met—well, he could not tell whether he desired or feared to see that meeting. In all probability it would put an end to doubt. Was it possible that he had begun to love doubt for its own sake?
At last they met, as was to be expected, and Stanistreet was there to see. He had taken her to the "Criterion" one night, and at the close of the first act Tyson came into the box opposite theirs. He was alone. The lights went up in the house, and he looked round before he sat down; evidently he had recognized his wife, and evidently she knew it. Stanistreet, watching her with painful interest, saw her body slacken and her face turn white under its paint and powder.
"Either she cares for the beggar still, or else—she's afraid for her life of him."
A horrible thought flashed across him. What if all the time she had simply been making use of him as—as a damned stalking-horse for Tyson? It might account for the enigmatic smiles, the swift transitions, the whole maddening mystery of her ways. If he had been nothing to her but the man who knew more about Tyson than anybody else? She had always had a way of making him talk about Tyson, while he seemed to himself to be most engagingly egotistic.
And he had once thought that Mrs. Nevill Tyson adored her husband for his (Stanistreet's) benefit. There was this summer, and that moment in the library at Thorneytoft—Mrs. Nevill Tyson was beyond him. And he had been three years trying to understand her. He was a man of the world, and he ought to have understood.
Ah—perhaps that was the reason of his failure!
He looked at her again. She had shifted her position, turned her back on the stage; her eyes were lowered, fixed on the programme in her lap, but they were motionless; she was not reading. One ungloved arm hung by her side, and under the white skin he could see the pulses leaping and throbbing in the arteries, the delicate tissues of her bodice trembled and shook. Was it possible that in that frivolous little body, under that corsage of lace and satin and whalebone, there beat one of those rare and tragic passions, all-consuming, all-absorbing, blind and deaf to everything but itself? In that case—well, he felt something very like awe before what he called her miraculous stupidity. But no, it was impossible; to believe it was to believe in miracles, and he had long ago lost his faith in the supernatural. Women did not love like that nowadays.
Tyson left the box before the close of the last act. She kept her place for ten minutes after the fall of the curtain, while the crowd streamed out. She stood long after the house was empty, saying nothing, but waiting—waiting. Once she looked piteously at Stanistreet. Her fingers trembled so that she could not fasten her cloak, her gloves. He helped her. A weird little ghost of a smile fluttered to her lips and vanished.
They hurried out at last along empty passages. Tyson was nowhere to be seen. They drove quickly home.