k
it in as she had not quite done before that her future was now
constituted. Mr. Mudge was distinctly her fate; yet at this moment she
turned her face quite away from him, showing him so long a mere quarter
of her cheek that she at last again heard his voice. He couldn't see a
pair of tears that were partly the reason of her delay to give him the
assurance he required; but he expressed at a venture the hope that she
had had her fill of Cocker's.

She was finally able to turn back. "Oh quite. There's nothing going on.
No one comes but the Americans at Thrupp's, and they don't do much. They
don't seem to have a secret in the world."

"Then the extraordinary reason you've been giving me for holding on there
has ceased to work?"

She thought a moment. "Yes, that one. I've seen the thing through--I've
got them all in my pocket."

"So you're ready to come?"

For a little again she made no answer. "No, not yet, all the same. I've
still got a reason--a different one."

He looked her all over as if it might have been something she kept in her
mouth or her glove or under her jacket--something she was even sitting
upon. "Well, I'll have it, please."

"I went out the other night and sat in the Park with a gentleman," she
said at last.

Nothing was ever seen like his confidence in her and she wondered a
little now why it didn't irritate her. It only gave her ease and space,
as she felt, for telling him the whole truth that no one knew. It had
arrived at present at her really wanting to do that, and yet to do it not
in the least for Mr. Mudge, but altogether and only for herself. This
truth filled out for her there the whole experience about to relinquish,
suffused and coloured it as a picture that she should keep and that,
describe it as she might, no one but herself would ever really see.
Moreover she had no desire whatever to make Mr. Mudge jealous; there
would be no amusement in it, for the amusement she had lately known had
spoiled her for lower pleasures. There were even no materials for it.
The odd thing was how she never doubted that, properly handled, his
passion was poisonable; what had happened was that he had cannily
selected a partner with no poison to distil. She read then and there
that she should never interest herself in anybody as to whom some other
sentiment, some superior view, wouldn't be sure to interfere for him with
jealousy. "And what did you get out of that?" he asked with a concer