But it was nothing to Stanistreet.
It would have been nothing to him if he had found Mrs.Nevill Tyson's drawing-room utterly consumed.

There was no reality for him but his own lust, and anger, and bitterness, and his idea of Mrs.Nevill Tyson.
Presently Tyson came back.
"You can go in," he said, "but keep quiet, for God's sake!" Stanistreet went in.
Tyson looked back; he saw him stop half-way from the threshold.
It was only for a second, but to Stanistreet it seemed eternity.

From all eternity Mrs.Nevill Tyson had been lying there on that couch, against those scarlet cushions, with the blinds up and the sun shining full on her small, scarred face, and on her shrunken, tortured throat.
She held out her hand and said, "I thought it was you.

I wanted to see you.

Can you find a chair ?" He murmured something absolutely trivial and sat down by her couch, playing with the fringe of the shawl that covered her.
"Did I hear you say you had been ill ?" she asked.
He leant forward, bending his head low over the fringe; she could not see his face.