my
husband's friends came to tell him that they had booked a box at a
well-known musical comedy theatre, I begged to be permitted to join
them.

"Nonsense, my dear! Brompton Oratory would suit you better," said my
husband, chucking me under the chin.

But I persisted in my importunities, and at length Mr. Eastcliff said:

"Let her come. Why shouldn't she?"

"Very well," said my husband, pinching my cheek. "As you please. But if
you don't like it don't blame _me_."

It did not escape me that as a result of my change of front my husband
had risen in his own esteem, and that he was behaving towards me as one
who thought he had conquered my first repugnance, or perhaps
triumphantly ridden over it. But in my simplicity I was so fixed in my
determination to make my husband forget the loss of his mistress that I
had no fear of his familiarities and no misgivings about his mistakes.

All that was to come later, with a fresh access of revulsion and
disgust.

FORTY-THIRD CHAPTER

I had seen enough of London by this time to know that the dresses which
had been made for me at home were by no means the _mode_; but after I
had put on the best-fitting of my simple quaker-like costumes with a
string of the family pearls about my neck and another about my head, not
all the teaching of the good women of the convent could prevent me from
thinking that my husband and his friends would have no reason to be
ashamed of me.

We were a party of six in all, whereof I was the only woman, and we
occupied a large box on the first tier near the stage, a position of
prominence which caused me a certain embarrassment, when, as happened
at one moment of indefinable misery, the opera glasses of the people in
the dress-circle and stalls were turned in our direction.

I cannot say that the theatre impressed me. Certainly the building
itself did not do so, although it was beautifully decorated in white and
gold, for I had seen the churches of Rome, and in my eyes they were much
more gorgeous.

Neither did the audience impress me, for though I had never before seen
so many well-dressed people in one place, I thought too many of the men,
when past middle life, seemed fat and overfed, and too many of the
women, with their plump arms and bare shoulders, looked as if they
thought of nothing but what to eat and what to put on.

Nor did the performers impress me, for though when the curtain rose,
disclosing the stage full of people, chief