"But it wasn't the manageress, my lord," said the waiter.
"Then who was it?"
"It was her . . . her ladyship," said the waiter.
"O-oh!" said my husband in a softer, if more insinuating tone, and a few minutes afterwards he went out whistling.
God knows that was small reward for the trouble I had taken, but I was so uplifted by the success of my experiment that I determined to go farther, and when towards evening of the same day a group of 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.