The fact was, being engaged was deadly monotonous. It had no excitement, no novelty. Everything was known, expected, unravelled. When she met George at a concert she did not think: “I wonder if he has come here on _my_ account.” She knew beyond all question that he had. When at some social function she saw him chatting amongst his male friends she did not think: “Will he come up and speak to me or not?” She knew that his very presence there was probably on her account, and that he would leave his male friends at the first available opportunity. And when they had ices at a tiny table in some retiring alcove it was not possible to think: “How funny we should both have met like this! How curious that we should be alone here!” For she knew that the whole thing had been premeditated, that the alcove itself had probably been left attractively vacant for their especial benefit. There was no point, no thrill, no expectancy in asking the question: “Is it really _me_ he comes to all these places for?” He had declared his passion in unequivocal terms that left nothing to be desired. That was just it: there was nothing left to be desired. She would rather he had been ambiguous about it. And occasionally the awful thought came to her: “If this is being engaged, what must it be like to be married? ...” Life was so placid, so wearyingly similar day after day, evening after evening. Every night he met her at the stage-door of the theatre and escorted her home. Every night he raised his hat and said “Good evening!” Every night he took her music-case off her, and they walked arm-in-arm down the High Street. Their conversation was always either woefully sterile or spuriously brilliant. On the rare occasions when they had anything particular to talk about they lingered at the corner of Gifford Road. But she could not confide in him. To tell him of her dreams and ambitions would be like asking for a pomegranate and being given a gaudily decorated cabbage. Their conversations were therefore excessively trivial: she retailed theatrical and musical gossip, or, if the hour were very late and she were tired, as frequently happened, she replied in weary monosyllables to his enquiries. She found her mind becoming obsessed with hundreds of insignificant facts which by dint of constant repetition he had impressed upon her. She knew the names, histories, characters, and family particulars of all the men who worked with him in the stuffy little basement of the accountant’s office in Leadenhall Street. She knew the complicated tangle of rivalries and jealousies that went on there--how Mr. Smallwood did this and Mr. Teake did that, and how Mr. Mainwaring (pronounced Mannering) frequently lost his temper. She knew all the minutiae of George’s daily work and existence, the restaurant he frequented for lunch, the train he caught on the way home, the men he met day after day in the restaurant and on the trains. Nothing of him was there which she did not know....