CHAPTER IX.
Meanwhile, since irritation sometimes relieved her, the betrothed of Mr.
Mudge found herself indebted to that admirer for amounts of it perfectly proportioned to her fidelity.

She always walked with him on Sundays, usually in the Regent's Park, and quite often, once or twice a month he took her, in the Strand or thereabouts, to see a piece that was having a run.

The productions he always preferred were the really good ones--Shakespeare, Thompson or some funny American thing; which, as it also happened that she hated vulgar plays, gave him ground for what was almost the fondest of his approaches, the theory that their tastes were, blissfully, just the same.

He was for ever reminding her of that, rejoicing over it and being affectionate and wise about it.

There were times when she wondered how in the world she could "put up with" him, how she could put up with any man so smugly unconscious of the immensity of her difference.