“But you're all togged up. You're going out.”
“No—well—that is—er—I was thinking you would like to see a show. I've got tickets.”
“But it's late. I'm not dressed.”
“What's the odds? You look all right. There's never anybody but muckers there Saturday nights. We'll miss it all if you stop to prink.”
“All right,” she cried, and hurried through the dinner.
He was glad at least that he had escaped a solemn evening at home. He could not keep awake at home.
So they went to the theater; but there was not “nobody there,” as he had promised.
Zada was there—alone in a box, dressed in her best, and wearing her East-Lynniest look of pathos.
The coincidence was not occult. After several hours of brave battle with grief and a lonely dinner Zada had been faced by the appalling prospect of an evening alone.
She remembered Cheever's purchase of the theater tickets, and she was startled with an intuition that he would take his wife in her place. Men are capable of such indecent economies.