Page:Dale - A Marriage Below Zero.djvu/71

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A Marriage Below Zero.
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Ah, there was a good subject for conversation in the young couple opposite, a bride and bridegroom, a couple three months old—matrimonially old, I mean. They were evidently very much enamored and they sickened me. It was very rude of me to take them all in; but they had no idea I was staring at them, so it was all right. I saw him take up her dance programme, and scan the names with a frown, she all the time glancing at him with pride and admiration. Then he whispered something in her ear, taking care to brush it with his moustache, and she put one dainty gloved finger on his lip. He sat down beside her and for five minutes they talked so earnestly that I am quite convinced they forgot the fact that they were "in society." I am ashamed to say I listened to them. It was not an edifying conversation. He declared that an evening spent away from her was a terrible ordeal. She asserted that it was a good thing to dance with other men, as the contrast between them and her own dear husband showed her how immeasurably superior he was.

And all this time I forgot I was to amuse my