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| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:40:43 -0700 |
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| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:40:43 -0700 |
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diff --git a/12789-h/12789-h.htm b/12789-h/12789-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..a4f6cce --- /dev/null +++ b/12789-h/12789-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,5616 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html> +<html lang="en"> +<head> + <meta charset="UTF-8"> + <title> + Ladies must live, by Alice Duer Miller; Illustrator: Paul Meylan—A Project Gutenberg eBook + </title> + <link rel="icon" href="images/cover.jpg" type="image/x-cover"> + <style> +body { + margin-left: 10%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +h1,h2 { + text-align: center; /* all headings centered */ + clear: both; +} + +h1 { + font-weight: bold; + font-size: 240% + } +h2 { + margin-top: 4em; + font-weight: bold; + font-size: 200% + } + +p { + margin-top: .51em; + text-align: justify; + margin-bottom: .49em; + text-indent: 1em; +} + +.p2 {margin-top: 2em;} +.p2bot {margin-bottom: 2em;} +.p4 {margin-top: 4em;} + +.fs80 {font-size: 80%;} +.fs100 {font-size: 100%;} +.fs150 {font-size: 150%;} +.fs200 {font-size: 200%;} + +hr { + width: 33%; + margin-top: 2em; + margin-bottom: 2em; + margin-left: 33.5%; + margin-right: 33.5%; + clear: both; +} + +hr.tb {width: 30%; margin-left: 35%; margin-right: 35%;} +hr.chap {width: 65%; margin-left: 17.5%; margin-right: 17.5%;} +x-ebookmaker hr.chap {width: 0%; display: none;} + +div.chapter {page-break-before: always;} +h2.nobreak {page-break-before: avoid;} + +table { + margin-left: auto; + margin-right: auto; + width: 90%; +} + +table.autotable { border-collapse: collapse;} + +.tdl {text-align: left;} +.tdr {text-align: right; padding-right: 1em; vertical-align: bottom;} + +/* for spacing */ +.padr2 {padding-right: 2em;} + +.blockquot { + margin-left: 5%; + margin-right: 10%; +} + +.center {text-align: center; text-indent: 0em;} +.hang {padding-left: 2em; text-indent: -2em;} +.noindent {text-indent: 0em;} +.right {text-align: right;} +.smcap {font-variant: small-caps;} +ul {list-style-type: none;} + +.caption {font-weight: normal; + font-size: 70%; +} + +img { + max-width: 100%; + height: auto; +} + +img.w100 {width: 100%;} +img.w80 {width: 80%;} + +.figcenter { + margin: auto; + text-align: center; + page-break-inside: avoid; + max-width: 100%; +} + +/* for non-image large letter dropcaps */ +.drop-capy {text-indent: -.9em;} + +.drop-capy:first-letter { + float: left; + margin: 0.11em 0.4em 0em .4em; + font-size: 250%; + line-height:0.7em; + clear: both; +} + +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-capy {text-indent: 0em;} + +.x-ebookmaker p.drop-capy:first-letter { + float: none; + margin: 0; + font-size: 100%;} + +.poetry-container {text-align: center;} +.poetry {text-align: left; margin-left: 5%; margin-right: 5%;} +.poetry .stanza {margin: 1em 0 0 0;} +.poetry .verse {text-indent: -3em; padding-left: 3em;} +.poetry {display: inline-block; font-size: 80%} + +.x-ebookmaker .poetry {display: block;} + +/* Long-line poetry */ +.poetry .indent0 {text-indent: -3em;} + +/* Illustration classes */ +.illowe5 {width: 5em;} +.illowp80 {width: 80%;} +.x-ebookmaker .illowp80 {width: 80%;} + +x-ebookmaker-drop, .x-ebookmaker-drop {} + + </style> + </head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12789 ***</div> + + + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<div class="figcenter illowp80" id="cover"> +<img alt="Public domain cover" class="w80" src="images/cover.jpg"> +</div> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="p4 center noindent fs200">LADIES MUST LIVE</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="frontis" style="max-width: 35.9375em;"><a id="Frontispiece"></a> + <img class="w100" src="images/frontis.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center">She stopped with her hand on the banister, like Louise of Prussia</p></figcaption> +</figure> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<h1>LADIES MUST LIVE</h1> + +<p class="center p2 noindent"><span class="fs100">BY</span><br> +<span class="fs200">ALICE DUER MILLER</span><br> +<span class="fs100">Author of “Come Out of the Kitchen,” etc.</span></p> + +<p class="center p2 p2bot noindent"><span class="fs100">ILLUSTRATED BY</span><br> +<span class="fs150">PAUL MEYLAN</span></p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowe5" id="colophon"> + <img class="w100" src="images/colophon.jpg" alt="Publisher_colophon"> +</figure> + +<p class="center p2 noindent fs150">NEW YORK<br> +THE CENTURY CO.<br> +1917</p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<p class="center p4 noindent fs100">Copyright, 1917, by<br> +<span class="smcap">The Century Co.</span> + +<p class="center noindent p2 fs80">Copyright, 1917, by<br> +<span class="smcap">International Magazine Co.</span></p> + +<p class="center noindent p2 fs100"><i>Published, October, 1917</i></p> +</div> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="LIST_OF_ILLUSTRATIONS">LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS</h2> +</div> + +<table class="autotable"> +<tr> +<td class="tdl"> </td> +<td class="tdr"><span class="fs80">PAGE</span></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl hang">She stopped with her hand on the banister, like Louise of Prussia</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#Frontispiece"><i>Frontispiece</i></a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl hang">And then, with a clean towel, he deliberately dried her hands, finger by finger</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#69">69</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl hang">“Isn’t that rather a reckless way for a man in your situation to talk?”</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#91">91</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl hang">“Well, heaven itself can’t save a fool,” said Mrs. Almar</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#119">119</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl hang">It was arranged that he was to bring Dorothy to dine with them that evening</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#147">147</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl hang">He stood like a rock under her caress</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#173">173</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl hang">“May I ask, Mr. Riatt, what rights in the matter you consider that you have?” Linburne pursued</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#199">199</a></td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td class="tdl hang">“Max,” she said, “I love you”</td> +<td class="tdr"><a href="#241">241</a></td> +</tr> +</table> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_I">CHAPTER I</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-capy">Mrs. Ussher was having a small house party in the country over New Year’s +Day. This is equivalent to saying that the half dozen most fashionable +people in New York were out of town.</p> + +<p>Certain human beings are admitted to have a genius for discrimination in +such matters as objects of art, pigs or stocks. Mrs. Ussher had this same +instinct in regard to fashion, especially where fashions in people were +concerned. She turned toward hidden social availability very much as the +douser’s hazel wand turns toward the hidden spring. When she crossed the +room to speak to some woman after dinner, whatever that woman’s social +position might formerly have been, you could be sure that at present she +was on the upward wing. When Mrs. Ussher discovered extraordinary +qualities of mind and sympathy in some hitherto impossible man, you might +be certain it was time to begin to book him in advance.</p> + +<p>Not that Mrs. Ussher was a kingmaker; she herself had no more power over +the situation than the barometer has over the weather. She merely was +able to foretell; she had the sense of approaching social success.</p> + +<p>She was unaware of her own powers, and really supposed that her sudden +and usually ephemeral friendships were based on mutual attraction. The +fact that for years her friends had been the small group of the +momentarily fashionable required, in her eyes, no explanation. So simple +was her creed that she believed people were fashionable for the same +reason that they were her friends, because “they were so nice.”</p> + +<p>During the short period of their existence, Mrs. Ussher gave to these +friendships the utmost loyalty and devotion. She agonized over the +financial, domestic and romantic troubles of her friends; she sat up till +the small hours, talking to them like a schoolgirl; during the height of +their careers she organized plots for their assistance; and even when +their stars were plainly on the decline, she would often ask them to +lunch, if she happened to be alone.</p> + +<p>Many people, we know, are prone to make friends with the rich and great. +Mrs. Ussher’s genius consisted in having made friends with them before +they were either. When you hurried to her with some account of a newly +discovered treasure—a beauty or a conversable young man—she would +always say: “Oh, yes, I crossed with her two years ago,” or “Isn’t he a +dear?—he was once in Jack’s office.” The strange thing was these +statements were always true; the subjects of them confessed with tears +that “dear Mrs. Ussher” or “darling Laura” was the kindest friend they +had ever had.</p> + +<p>Her house party was therefore likely to be notable.</p> + +<p>First, there was of course Mrs. Almar—of course without her husband. +There is only one thing, or perhaps two, to be said for Nancy Almar—that +she was very handsome and that she was not a hypocrite, no more than a +pirate is a hypocrite who comes aboard with his cutlass in his teeth. +Mrs. Almar’s cutlass was always in her teeth, when it was not in +somebody’s vitals.</p> + +<p>She had smooth, jet-black hair, done close to her pretty head, a clear +white-and-vermilion complexion, and a good figure, not too tall. She said +little, but everything she did say, she most poignantly meant. If, while +you were talking to her, she suddenly cried out: “Ah, that’s really +good!” there was no doubt you had had the good fortune to amuse her; +while if she yawned and left you in the midst of a sentence there was no +question that she was bored.</p> + +<p>She hated her husband—not for the conventional reason that she had +married him. She hated him because he was a hypocrite, because he was +always placating and temporizing.</p> + +<p>For instance, he had said to her as she was about to start for the +Usshers’:</p> + +<p>“I hope you’ll explain to them why I could not come.”</p> + +<p>There had never been the least question of Mr. Almar’s coming, and she +turned slowly and looked at him as she asked:</p> + +<p>“You mean that I would not have gone if you had?”</p> + +<p>He did not seem annoyed.</p> + +<p>“No,” he said, “that I’m called South on business.”</p> + +<p>“I shan’t tell them that,” she said, slowly wrapping her furs about her +throat; and then foreseeing a comic moment, she added, “but I’ll tell +them you say so, if you like.”</p> + +<p>She was as good as her word—she usually was.</p> + +<p>When the party was at tea about the drawing-room fire, she asked without +the slightest change of expression:</p> + +<p>“Would any one like to hear Roland’s explanation of why he is not with +us?”</p> + +<p>“Had it anything to do with his not being asked?” said a pale young man; +and as soon as he had spoken, he glanced hastily round the circle to +ascertain how his remark had succeeded.</p> + +<p>So far as Mrs. Almar was concerned it had not succeeded at all, in fact, +though he did not know it, nothing he said would ever succeed with her +again, although a week before she had hung upon his every word. He had +been a new discovery, something unknown and Bohemian, but alas, a day or +two before, she had observed that underlying his socialistic theories was +an aching desire for social recognition. He liked to tell his bejeweled +hostesses about his friends the car-drivers; but, oh, twenty times more, +he would have liked to tell the car-drivers about his friends the +bejeweled hostesses. For this reason Mrs. Almar despised him, and where +she despised she made no secret of the fact.</p> + +<p>“Not asked, Mr. Wickham!” she said. “I assume my husband is asked +wherever I am,” and then turning to Laura Ussher she added with a faint +smile: “One’s husband is always asked, isn’t he?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly, as long as you never allow him to come,” said another +speaker.</p> + +<p>This was the other great beauty of the hour—or, since she was blond and +some years younger than Mrs. Almar, perhaps it would be right to say that +she was the beauty of the hour.</p> + +<p>She was very tall, golden, fresh, smooth, yet with faint hollows in her +cheeks that kept her freshness from being insipid. Christine Fenimer had +another advantage—she was unmarried. In spite of the truth of the +observation that a married woman’s greatest charm is her husband, he is +also in the most practical sense a disadvantage; he does sometimes stand +across the road of advancement, even in a land of easy divorce. Mrs. +Almar, for instance, was regretfully aware that she might have done much +better than Roland Almar. The great stakes were really open to the +unmarried.</p> + +<p>She was particularly aware of this fact at the moment, for the party was +understood to be awaiting a great stake. Mrs. Ussher had discovered a +cousin, a young man who, soon after graduating from a technical college, +had invented a process in the manufacture of rubber that had brought him +a fortune before he was thirty. He was now engaged in spending it on +aviation experiments. He was reckless and successful. Besides which he +was understood to be personally attractive—his picture in a silver +frame stood on a neighboring table. He was of the lean type that Mrs. +Almar admired.</p> + +<p>Now it was perfectly clear to her why he was asked. Mrs. Ussher adored +Christine Fenimer. Of all girls in the world it was essential that +Christine should marry money. This man, Max Riatt, new to the fashionable +world, ought to be comparatively easy game. The thing ought to go on +wheels. But Mrs. Almar herself was not indifferent to six feet of +splendid masculinity; nor without her own uses at the moment for a +good-looking young man.</p> + +<p>In other words, there was going to be a contest; in the full sight of the +little public that really mattered, the lists were set. Nobody present, +except perhaps Wickham, who was dangerously ignorant of the world in +which he was moving, doubted for one moment that Miss Fenimer had +resolved to marry Max Riatt, if, that is, he turned out to be actually as +per the recommendations of Mrs. Ussher; nor was it less certain that Mrs. +Almar intended that he should be hers.</p> + +<p>Of course if Mrs. Ussher had been absolutely single-minded, she would not +have invited Mrs. Almar to this party; but though a warm friend to +Christine Fenimer, Laura was not a fanatic, and the piratical Nancy was +her friend, too.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Almar could have pleaded an additional reason for her wish to +interfere with this match, besides the natural one of not wishing Miss +Fenimer to attain any success; and that was the fact that Edward Hickson, +her brother, had wanted for several years to marry Christine. Hickson was +a dull, kindly, fairly well-to-do young man—exactly the type you would +like to see your rival marry. Hickson had motored out with his sister, +and had received some excellent counsel on the way.</p> + +<p>“Now, Ned,” she had said, “don’t cut your own throat by being an adoring +foil. Don’t let Christine grind your face in the dust, just to show this +new man that she can do it.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t do Christine justice,” he had answered, “if you think she +would do that.”</p> + +<p>His sister did not reply. She thought it would have been doing the girl +injustice to suppose that she would do anything else.</p> + +<p>They were still sitting about the tea-table at a quarter to seven, when +Christine and Mrs. Almar rose simultaneously. It was almost time for the +arrival of Riatt, and neither had any fancy for meeting him save at her +best—in all the panoply of evening dress.</p> + +<p>“We’re not dining till a quarter past eight, my dears,” said Mrs. Ussher.</p> + +<p>Both ladies thought they would lie down before dinner. And here chance +took a hand. Riatt’s train was late, whereas Christine’s clock was fast. +And so it happened that she came downstairs just as he was coming up.</p> + +<p>There had been no one to greet him. He was told by the butler that Mrs. +Ussher was dressing, that dinner would be in fifteen minutes; he started +to bound up the stairs, following the footman with his bags, when +suddenly looking up the broad flight he saw a blond vision in white and +pearls coming slowly down. He hoped that his lower jaw hadn’t fallen, but +she really was extraordinarily beautiful; and he could not help slowing +down a little. She stopped, with her hand on the banisters, like Louise +of Prussia.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you’re Mr. Riatt,” she said, very gently. “You know you’re most +awfully late.”</p> + +<p>“I wish,” he said, “that I were wise enough to be able to say: ‘Oh, +you’re Miss ——’”</p> + +<p>“I might be a Mrs.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I hope not,” he answered. “Are you?”</p> + +<p>She smiled.</p> + +<p>“You’ll know as soon as you come down to dinner.”</p> + +<p>“I shall be quick about dressing.”</p> + +<p>He went on up, and she pursued her slow progress down. She felt that her +future had been settled by those few seconds on the stairs.</p> + +<p>“He will do admirably,” she said to herself, and a smile like that of a +sleeping infant curved her lips. She felt calmly triumphant. She had +always said there was no reason why even a rich man should be absolutely +impossible. She recalled certain great fortunes with repulsive owners, +which some of her friends had accepted. For herself she had always +intended to have everything—love and money, too. And here it was, almost +in her hands. There had been moments when she had been so discouraged +that she had actually made up her mind to marry Ned Hickson. How wise she +had been to hold off!</p> + +<p>She leant her arm on the mantel-piece and studied herself in the mirror. +It was a Chinese painted mirror, and the tint of the glass was green and +unbecoming, yet even this could not mar the dazzling reflection. The only +object on which she looked with dissatisfaction was her string of pearls; +they were imitation. She thought she would have emeralds; and she heard +clearly in her own inner ear this sentence: “Yes, that is young Mrs. Max +Riatt; is she not very beautiful in her emeralds!”</p> + +<p>Fortunately she did not say it aloud, for Mrs. Ussher came down at this +moment, and soon Hickson, and then in an incredibly short space of time +Riatt himself.</p> + +<p>Undoubtedly he would do magnificently. He stood the test even of evening +clothes, though Christine fancied as she studied him that she would alter +his style of collars. They would be better higher. Mrs. Ussher brought +him over at once and introduced him.</p> + +<p>“This is my cousin Max, Christine, about whom I’ve talked so much. Max, +this is Miss Fenimer.”</p> + +<p>They smiled at each other with a common impulse not to confess that +earlier meeting on the stairs; and he was just about to settle down +beside her, when the door opened and, last of all, Mrs. Almar came in. +She was wearing her flame-color and lilac dress. Christine knew she would +have it on; knew that she saved it for the greatest moments. She did not +advance very far into the room, but stood looking around her.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said, “where is Cousin Max?”</p> + +<p>It must not be supposed from this question that she had not seen him +almost through the crack of the door as the butler opened it for her; but +by speaking just when and where she did, she forced him to get up from +Christine’s side, and come to where she was to be introduced to her. Then +as dinner was at the same instant announced, she put her hand on his arm.</p> + +<p>“Take me in to dinner, Cousin Max,” she said.</p> + +<p>“I did not know he was <em>your</em> cousin,” said Wickham, who suffered from +the fatal tendency in moments of doubt to say something.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Almar looked at Riatt.</p> + +<p>“Will you be a cousin to me?” she asked. “It commits you to nothing.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t consider that an advantage,” he returned, drawing his elbow +slightly inward, so that her hand, if not actually pressed, was made to +feel secure upon his arm. “There are some things I wouldn’t a bit mind +being committed to.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Almar moved her black head from side to side.</p> + +<p>“You must be more specific,” she said, “or I shan’t understand you.”</p> + +<p>“More specific in words?” he inquired gently. They were crossing the +hall, and had a sort of privacy for an instant.</p> + +<p>“Dear me,” she returned, “you do move rather rapidly, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“I’m an aviator, you see,” he answered.</p> + +<p>Across the table Christine was trying to be gracious and graceful while +she put up with Hickson, but she was feeling as any honest captain feels +at having a prize cut out from under his very nose.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ussher seeing this, decided that such methods as Nancy’s ought not +to prevail; she seated herself on Max’s other side, and instantly engaged +in conversation.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you think my dear little Christine is an angel?” she said, without +any encumbering subtility.</p> + +<p>“She certainly looks like one.”</p> + +<p>“Who looks like what?” asked Mrs. Almar, from his other side. She had had +this sort of thing tried too often not to be on her guard.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ussher leant forward.</p> + +<p>“Max was just saying that Christine looks like an angel.”</p> + +<p>Nancy looked at him and made a very slight grimace.</p> + +<p>“Are you so awfully strong for angels?” she said. He laughed.</p> + +<p>“I never met one before.”</p> + +<p>“You haven’t met one to-night.”</p> + +<p>“You mean that you’re not an angel, Mrs. Almar?”</p> + +<p>“I? Oh, I’m well and favorably known as the wickedest woman in New York. +I meant that Miss Fenimer is not an angel.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t like her?”</p> + +<p>“How you jump at conclusions! To say she isn’t an angel, doesn’t mean +dislike. As a matter of fact, I am eager to secure her as my +sister-in-law.”</p> + +<p>Riatt glanced at Hickson and was aware of the faintest possible pang. +What qualities, he wondered, had a man like that.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” he said, “is she engaged to your brother?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not,” answered Mrs. Almar. “But it is fairly well understood +by every one except my brother, that if she doesn’t find anything better +within the next few years she will put up with him.”</p> + +<p>At this a slight feeling of disgust for both ladies took +possession of Riatt.</p> + +<p>“I see,” he said rather coldly, and turned to Mrs. Ussher, but Nancy was +not so easily disposed of.</p> + +<p>“You mean,” she went on, “that you see it is my duty as a sister to +prevent anything else turning up. Suppose, for example, that a handsome, +rich, attractive young man should suddenly appear upon the scene and show +an interest in the angelic Christine.” (By this time Riatt had turned +again to her, and she looked straight into his eyes as she ran through +her list of adjectives.) “Don’t you think it would be my duty to distract +his attention—to go almost any length to distract his attention?”</p> + +<p>“However personally disagreeable to you the process might be?”</p> + +<p>“Probably if he were as I described him, the process would not be so +disagreeable.”</p> + +<p>He smiled. There was no denying he found her amusing.</p> + +<p>In the meantime, the couple across the table had reached a somewhat +similar point.</p> + +<p>Hickson had said as they sat down:</p> + +<p>“Well, and what do you think of this new fellow?”</p> + +<p>Christine’s natural irritation appeared in her answer.</p> + +<p>“I have hardly had an opportunity of judging,” she answered, “but, +watching your sister’s attentions to him, I would say he must be +extremely attractive.”</p> + +<p>Hickson looked a little dashed.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” he said, “Nancy does not mean anything when she goes on like that.”</p> + +<p>The only effect of this speech was to depress further Miss Fenimer’s +estimate of her companion’s intelligence, for in her opinion Nancy’s +whole life was one long black intention. Feeling this, Ned went on:</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact, one reason why she’s so nice to him is to keep him +away from you and give me a chance.”</p> + +<p>“Not very flattering to you, is it?”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“The assumption that the only way to make a woman take an interest in you +is to prevent her speaking to any other man.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I didn’t mean that—” Hickson began, but she interrupted him.</p> + +<p>“That, if anything, Ned.” And she turned to Wickham, who sat on her +other side.</p> + +<p>Wickham was waiting for a little notice and began instantly.</p> + +<p>“I have been taking the liberty of looking at your pearls, Miss Fenimer, +and indulging in such an interesting speculation. Here on the one hand, +you are wearing round your throat the equivalent of life, health and +virtue for half a hundred working girls, as young, as human, as yourself. +Are we to say this is wrong? Are we to say that beautiful jewels worn by +beautiful women are a crime against society—”</p> + +<p>“One moment, Mr. Wickham,” she said. “My pearls are imitation and cost +eight dollars and fifty cents without the clasp. But,” she added cruelly, +seeing his face fall, “you can say that same thing to your friend Mrs. +Almar, because hers are not artificial, though I have heard her assert +sometimes that they are,” and turning back to Hickson, who was +laboriously trying to carry on a conversation with his host, she +interrupted ruthlessly to say, hardly lowering her voice:</p> + +<p>“Why in the world, Ned, did Nancy bring this Wickham man here? He’s +perfectly impossible.”</p> + +<p>“Nancy didn’t bring him,” answered her brother innocently. “I motored out +with her myself.”</p> + +<p>“She said she wouldn’t come unless he were asked. Still I know the +answer. Nancy has always had a weakness for blond boys, and last week she +was crazy about this one. Now she has turned against him, she wants to +foist him off on us, but I for one don’t intend to help her out—”</p> + +<p>By this time Wickham, aware that he had been rebuffed, had found an +explanation for it. The girl was annoyed at having been forced to admit +her pearls were imitation. He decided to put everything right.</p> + +<p>“Miss Fenimer,” he said, and she turned her head perhaps half an inch in +his direction, “I think you misunderstood me just now. My standards are +probably different from those of the men you are accustomed to. To me +the fact that your pearls are not real is an added beauty. I’m glad +they’re not—”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” said Christine, “but I’m not.” And this time he understood +that he had lost her for good.</p> + +<p>After dinner, Mrs. Almar, knowing that her innings were over, very +effectively prevented Christine having hers, by insisting on playing +bridge. She had an excellent head for cards, and always needed money. +Christine allowed herself to be drawn in, supposing that Riatt would be +one of the players, and found herself seated opposite to Hickson and next +to Jack Ussher.</p> + +<p>Wickham, feeling very much left out and desirous of showing how well +accustomed he was to the casual manners of polite society, consoled +himself with an evening paper. Laura Ussher led Riatt to a comfortable +corner out of earshot of the bridge-table.</p> + +<p>“Now do tell me, Max,” she said, “what you think of them all.”</p> + +<p>“I think, my dear Laura,” he answered, “that they are a very playful band +of cut-throats, and next time you ask me to stay, I hope you and Jack +will be entirely alone.”</p> + +<hr class="tb"> + +<p>The servants in a household like the Usshers’ were subjected to almost +every strain, except that of early rising. No one dreamed of coming down +stairs before eleven, and most people not until lunch time.</p> + +<p>The next morning Riatt was among the first—that is to say he was up +early enough not to be able to escape a tour of inspection of the place +under the guidance of his host. He had seen the stables and the new +garage, and the sheet of snow beneath which lay the garden, and the other +totally different sheet of snow beneath which was the soil in which +Ussher intended next summer to plant a rose garden. He had gone over, +tree by tree, the plantation of firs, and had noted how the tips of some +were injured, and had given his opinion as to whether or not it were +likely that deer had stolen down from the wild country near at hand and +nibbled the young firs in the night.</p> + +<p>“It’s perfectly possible,” said Ussher. “I have five hundred acres +myself, and then the Club owns a huge tract, and then there’s some state +land. You see we have hardly any neighbors except the Fenimers and +they’re eight or nine miles away.”</p> + +<p>“They live here?”</p> + +<p>“In summer—and then only when Fred Fenimer is in funds, and that’s not +often. A precarious sort of existence, his—gambling in mining stocks, +almost always in wrong. Hard on the daughter—wish some nice fellow would +come along and marry her.”</p> + +<p>“He probably will,” answered Riatt rather coldly. “It’s beginning to +snow again.”</p> + +<p>Ussher had just had his pond swept so that his guests could skate, and +now couldn’t imagine what he should provide for them for the afternoon, +so that his thoughts were instantly and completely turned from +Christine’s problems to his own.</p> + +<p>At the house they found every one waiting for lunch; Mrs. Almar and +Christine chattering together on a window-seat as if they were the most +intimate allies; Hickson reading his fourth morning paper, and Mrs. +Ussher paying the profoundest attention to something Wickham was saying. +She had suddenly wakened to the fact that he was having a wretched time +and that he was after all her guest. But he interpreted her actions +differently, and supposing that he was at last being appreciated, he had +launched fearlessly forth upon the conversational sea. It was this +spectacle that had drawn Christine and Nancy together, in their +whisperings and giggles in the window.</p> + +<p>“This perhaps will illustrate my meaning,” he was saying rather loudly: +“this is the difference in our outlook on life. If you say ‘she dresses +well,’ you intend a compliment, but to me it is just the reverse. The +idea is repellent to me that a woman wastes time, thought, money on her +vanity, on decking her body—”</p> + +<p>“One on you, my dear,” whispered Christine.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t he tiresome?” answered Nancy, shutting her eyes.</p> + +<p>“I thought he was your selection.”</p> + +<p>“Nobody’s infallible, my dear. Besides, I telegraphed him not to accept +the invitation, but he says he never got my message.”</p> + +<p>“Why does he think you sent it?”</p> + +<p>“Because I couldn’t trust myself—”</p> + +<p>They grinned at each other.</p> + +<p>With the entrance of Riatt and Ussher they went in to lunch, and there +manœuvering for places for the afternoon immediately began.</p> + +<p>Hickson supposed that by starting early he could secure Christine’s +company. So he at once asked her what she was going to do, and before +she had time to answer he had suggested that she skate, take a walk, +or go sleighing with him. Ussher explained that the skating was +spoiled, and Christine under cover of this diversion managed to avoid +committing herself.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact her afternoon was arranged. She had told Laura Ussher +a pathetic story of having to go over to her father’s house, and look up +an old fur coat of his which had been left behind when the house was shut +for the winter. Mr. Fenimer was known to be rather an irritable parent +where questions of his own comfort were concerned; it was not impossible +that he would make himself disagreeable if his orders were not carried +out. Laura did not inquire very closely, but she agreed that the best way +for Christine to traverse the distance would be for Riatt to drive her +over in the cutter. Riatt sat next to Laura at luncheon, and she put it +to him, when the general conversation was loudest.</p> + +<p>“Would you mind awfully driving poor little Christine over to her own +place to get something or other for that horrid father of hers?”</p> + +<p>Of course Riatt didn’t say he did mind; as a matter of fact he didn’t. He +might even have enjoyed the prospect, if it hadn’t been for the slight +hint of compulsion about it.</p> + +<p>“It’s snowing, you know,” he said.</p> + +<p>“It doesn’t amount to anything,” answered his cousin. “But surely, Max, +you’re not afraid of a little snow, if she isn’t!”</p> + +<p>“Anything to oblige you, Laura,” he said.</p> + +<p>She did not quite like his tone, but felt she might safely leave the rest +to Christine.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Almar, unaware of these plots, settled down as soon as the meal was +over, on a comfortable sofa large enough for two, with a box of +cigarettes at her side and a current magazine that contained a new +article on flying. The bird-like objects in the huge page of cloudy sky +at once caught Max’s eye. He came and bent over it and her, with his +hands in his pockets. Still absorbed in it, she half-unconsciously swept +aside her skirts, and he sat down beside her. She murmured a +question—it was only about planes, and he answered it. Their heads were +close together when Christine came down in her dark furs ready to go. +The bells of Jack Ussher’s fastest trotter were already to be heard +tinkling at the door.</p> + +<p>“Are you ready, Max?” said Laura, rather sharply.</p> + +<p>“Laura expects every man to do his duty,” murmured Nancy, without +looking up.</p> + +<p>Riatt expressed himself as entirely ready. Ussher lent him a fur cap and +heavy gloves, warned him about the charmingly uncertain character of the +horse; he and Christine were tucked into the sleigh, and they were off.</p> + +<p>The snow, as Laura had said, did not seem to amount to much, the wind was +behind them, the horse fast, the roads well packed. Riatt glanced down at +his lovely companion, and felt his spirits rising. He smiled at her and +she smiled back.</p> + +<p>“I do hope you really feel like that,” she said, “not sorry, I mean, to +go on this expedition. Because it was extremely wicked of me to forget my +father’s coat, and this was obviously the occasion to make amends, but +there was no one to take me—”</p> + +<p>“No one to take you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I suppose one of the grooms might have driven me over, but I should +have hated that. There was no one else. Jack is much too selfish, and I +wouldn’t have gone with that Wickham person for anything in the world, +even if he had ever driven a sleigh, which I am sure he hasn’t.”</p> + +<p>“And how about Mr. Hickson?” Riatt asked. “Wasn’t he a possibility?”</p> + +<p>“What has Nancy Almar told you about her brother and me?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing but what he told me himself in every look and word—that he +loves you.”</p> + +<p>Christine sighed.</p> + +<p>He smiled at her.</p> + +<p>“And you’re glad of it,” he said.</p> + +<p>“You mean I care for him?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know anything about that, but you’re glad he cares for you.”</p> + +<p>“You’re utterly mistaken.”</p> + +<p>“How would you feel if another woman came and took him away from you +to-morrow?”</p> + +<p>“Took him away from me?” cried Christine, in a tone of surprise that made +Riatt laugh aloud.</p> + +<p>“That’s the wonderful thing about the so-called weaker sex,” he said. +“Saying ‘no’ seems to have no terrors to them at all. The timidest girl +will refuse a man with no more trouble and anxiety than she would expend +on refusing a dinner invitation; whereas men, with all their vaunted +courage, are absolutely at the mercy of a determined woman. I have a +friend who has just married a girl—whom he three times explicitly +refused—only because she asked him to.”</p> + +<p>Miss Fenimer looked at him thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>“Surely you exaggerate,” she said.</p> + +<p>He shook his head sadly.</p> + +<p>“I wish I did,” he returned, “but I assure you that is the great +secret—that any man would rather marry any woman than refuse her to her +face. You see, no graceful way for a man to say ‘no’ has ever been +discovered.”</p> + +<p>“Why, you poor defenseless creatures!” said Christine. “I’ll teach you +some ways immediately. I couldn’t bear to think of your going about a +prey to the first woman who proposed to you. Let us begin our lessons +immediately. Have I your attention?”</p> + +<p>“Completely.”</p> + +<p>“Let me see. In the first place there are several general types of +proposal. There is the calmly rational, the passionate whirlwind, the +dangerously controlled, or volcano under a sheet of ice—” she broke off. +“I don’t know how women do it,” she said. “I only know about men.”</p> + +<p>He smiled, “But you admit to knowing all about them, I gather?”</p> + +<p>It would have been folly to deny it.</p> + +<p>“And then there’s the meltingly pathetic,” she went on. “I imagine +that’s what women attempt oftenest. Let us begin with that. Now you are +to suppose that I, with tears streaming down my face, have just +confessed that I have always looked up to you as a sort of god, that I +hardly dare—”</p> + +<p>“Wait, wait!” cried Riatt. “This is by far the most interesting part of +the lesson, and you go so fast. I have no imagination. I don’t know how +it would be, you must say all those things.”</p> + +<p>“Do I have to cry?” said Christine.</p> + +<p>Riatt debated the point.</p> + +<p>“No,” he answered at length, “I can imagine the tears, but everything +else you must act out. Particularly that part about my seeming like a +god to you.”</p> + +<p>“But how in the world can I teach you what to do, if I have to act a +part myself?”</p> + +<p>“Well, before we begin, just give me a sketch of what I ought to do.”</p> + +<p>“You must be very cold and firm, and explain to me that though my mistake +is natural, you are really not a god at all; and then that gives you an +excuse to talk a great deal about yourself, and tell how wicked and human +and splendid you are, and that you are not worthy of a simple, good girl +like myself, and how you don’t love me anyhow. And then the essential +thing is to go away quickly, and end the interview before I have a chance +to begin all over again.”</p> + +<p>He looked doubtfully at the snow.</p> + +<p>“Must I get out and walk home?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“No,” she said. “I think that’s too complicated. We might try an easier +one to begin. Suppose we do the calmly rational first. I explain to you +that I have watched you from boyhood, and have come to the conclusion +that our tastes, our intellects, our—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no,” said Riatt, “there’s really no use in going on with that. Even +I should have no difficulty with any lady who approached me in that way. +But there was one of the others that sounded rather promising and +difficult. How about the passionate whirlwind? I say to try that next.”</p> + +<p>To her surprise, Christine found herself coloring a little.</p> + +<p>“Ah,” she said, laying her hand on her lips and shaking her head, “that’s +very difficult, because you see, it really can’t be imitated—”</p> + +<p>“Can’t be imitated!” cried Max. “Why, what sort of a teacher are you? I +believe you don’t know your job. You are the sort of teacher who would +tell an arithmetic class that long division could not be imitated. I +believe the trouble with you is that you don’t understand the passionate +whirlwind yourself. I believe you’re a fraud, and I shall have your +license to teach taken away from you. Can’t be imitated! Well, let me see +you try, at least.”</p> + +<p>Christine felt that he had the better of her, but she said firmly:</p> + +<p>“Are you teaching this subject, or am I?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly you can’t think <em>you</em> are. But if you say so, I’ll have a +try.”</p> + +<p>Not sorry to create a diversion, Christine looked about her, and was more +diverted from the subject in hand than she had expected to be.</p> + +<p>They were on the wrong road. What with the snow and the fact that she had +been so busy talking that she really had no idea how far they had been, +it took her a moment to orient herself anew. She told him with a +conscience-struck look.</p> + +<p>“And you,” said Riatt, “who do not even know the road to your own house, +were volunteering to pilot me through an emotional crisis.”</p> + +<p>Even a suggestion of adverse criticism was unpleasant to Miss Fenimer. +She was not accustomed to it; and she answered with some sharpness:</p> + +<p>“Yes, but the road is real, whereas I understand your embarrassment +through the attentions of ladies is purely fictitious.”</p> + +<p>Riatt wondered how fictitious, but he turned the cutter about in +obedience to her commands. The horse started forward even more gaily, +under the impression that he was going home. But for the drivers, the +change was not so agreeable. A high wind had come up, the snow was +falling faster, and the light of the winter afternoon, already beginning +to fade, was obscured by high, dark, silver-edged banks of clouds.</p> + +<p>“Upon my word,” said Riatt, “I think we had better go back.”</p> + +<p>“It’s only a little way from here,” Christine answered, trying hard to +think how far it really was. She did want to get her father’s coat, but +she was not indifferent to the triumph of making Riatt late for dinner, +and leaving Nancy Almar throughout the afternoon with no companion but +Wickham or Jack Ussher.</p> + +<p>The wind cut their faces, the horse pulled and pranced, the gaiety had +gone out of their little expedition. They drove on a mile or so, and then +Riatt stopped the horse.</p> + +<p>“We’ve got to go back, Miss Fenimer,” he said firmly.</p> + +<p>“Oh, please not, Mr. Riatt; we are almost there, and,” she added with a +fine sense of filial obligation, “I really feel I must do as my father +asked me.”</p> + +<p>Riatt felt inclined to point out that she, with her muff held up to her +face, was not making the greatest sacrifice to the ideal of duty.</p> + +<p>“Have you any very clear idea where your house is?” he asked. His tone +was not flattering, and Christine was quick to feel it.</p> + +<p>“Do I know where I live five months of the year?” she returned. “Of +course I do. It’s just over this next hill.”</p> + +<p>The afternoon was turning out so perversely that she would hardly have +been surprised to find that the house had disappeared from its accustomed +place. But as they came over the crest, there it was, in a hollow between +two hills, looking as summer houses do in winter, like a forlorn toy left +out in the snow.</p> + +<p>“But it’s shut up,” said Riatt. “There’s no one in it.”</p> + +<p>“I have the keys to the back door.”</p> + +<p>He touched the horse for the first time with the whip, and they went +jingling down the slope, in between the almost completely buried +gateposts, and drew up before the kitchen door.</p> + +<p>Miss Fenimer kicked her feet free from the rugs, jumped out, and from the +recesses of her muff produced a key which she inserted in the lock.</p> + +<p>“Now you won’t be long, will you?” said Riatt, with more of command than +persuasion in his tone.</p> + +<p>It was a principle of life on the part of Christine that she never +allowed any man to bully her; or perhaps, it would be more nearly just to +say that she never intended to allow any man to do so until she herself +became persuaded that he could, and with this object she always made the +process look as difficult and dangerous as possible at the very +beginning.</p> + +<p>She looked back at him and smiled with irritating calm.</p> + +<p>“I shall be just as long as is necessary,” she replied, and so saying, +she turned, or rather attempted to turn, the key.</p> + +<p>But disuse, or cold, or her own lack of strength prevented and she was +presently reduced to asking Riatt to help her. He did not volunteer his +assistance. She had definitely and directly to ask for it. Then he was +friendliness itself.</p> + +<p>“Just stand by the horse’s head, will you?” he said, and when he saw +her stationed there, he sprang out, and with an almost insulting ease +opened the door.</p> + +<p>Just as he did so, however, a gust of wind, fiercer than any other, swept +round the corner of the house and carried away Christine’s hat. She made +a quick gesture to catch it, and as she did so, struck the horse under +the chin. The animal reared, and Christine jumped aside to avoid being +struck by its hoofs; the next instant, it had thrown its head in the air, +and started at full speed down the road, dragging the empty sleigh after +it. Riatt, who had his back turned, did not see the beginning of the +incident, but a cry from Christine soon roused his attention, and he +started in pursuit, calling to the animal to stop, in the hope that the +human voice might succeed when all other methods were quite obviously +useless. But the horse, now thoroughly excited by the hanging reins, the +bells, and the sense of its own power, went only faster and faster, and +finally disappeared at full speed.</p> + +<p>Riatt came slowly back; he was sinking in the snow to his waist at every +step. Christine was watching him with some anxiety.</p> + +<p>“Is there a telephone in the house?” he asked.</p> + +<p>She shook her head.</p> + +<p>“No, it’s disconnected when we leave in the autumn.”</p> + +<p>There was a moment’s silence, then she said questioningly: “What +shall we do?”</p> + +<p>“There’s only one thing we can do,” he returned; “go into the house and +light a fire.”</p> + +<p>But Christine hesitated.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think it will be wise to waste time doing that,” she said, “if +you have to go back on foot to the Usshers’—”</p> + +<p>“Go back on foot!” Riatt interrupted. “My dear Miss Fenimer, that +is quite impossible. It must be every inch of ten miles, it’s +dark, a blizzard is blowing, I don’t know the way, and we haven’t +passed a house.”</p> + +<p>“But, but,” said she, “suppose they don’t rescue us to-night?”</p> + +<p>“They probably will to-morrow,” answered Riatt, and he walked past her +into the house.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_II">CHAPTER II</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-capy">Christine was glad to get out of the wind, but the damp chill of the +deserted house was not much of an improvement. Ahead of her in the +darkness, she could hear Riatt snapping electric switches which +produced nothing.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t the light connected?” he called.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t there lamps in the house?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>“Where could I find some candles?”</p> + +<p>“What a tiresome man!” she thought; and for the third time she answered: +“I don’t know.”</p> + +<p>A rather unappreciative grunt was his only reply, and then he called +back: “You’d better stay where you are, till I find something to +make a light.”</p> + +<p>She asked nothing better. She was oppressed with a sense of crisis. An +inner voice seemed to be saying, in parody of Charles Francis Adams’s +historic words: “I need hardly point out to your ladyship that this means +marriage.”</p> + +<p>She had thought, lightly enough, that everything was settled the evening +before on the stairs when she had made up her mind that he would do. But +with all her belief in herself, she was not unaware even then that +unforeseen obstacles might arise. He might be secretly engaged for all +she knew to the contrary. But now she felt quite sure of him. With Fate +playing into her hands like this—with romance and adventure and the +possibilities of an uninterrupted tête-à-tête, she knew she could have +him if she wanted him. And the point was that she did. At least she +supposed she did. She felt as many a young man feels when he lands his +first job—triumphant, but conscious of lost freedoms.</p> + +<p>Marriage, she knew, was the only possible solution of her problems. Her +life with her father was barely possible. As a matter of fact they were +but rarely together. The tiny apartment in New York did not attract +Fred Fenimer as a winter residence, when he had an opportunity of going +to Aiken or Florida or California at the expense of some more fortunate +friend. In summer it was much the same. “My dear,” he would say to his +daughter, “I really can’t afford to open the house this summer.” And +Christine would coldly acquiesce, knowing that this statement only +meant that he had received an invitation that he preferred to a quiet +summer with her.</p> + +<p>Sometimes throughout the whole season father and daughter would only +meet by chance on some unexpected visit, or coming into a harbor on +different yachts.</p> + +<p>“Isn’t that the _Sea-Mew’s_ flag?” Christine would say languidly. “I +rather think my father is on board.”</p> + +<p>And then, perhaps, some amiable hostess in need of an extra man would +send the launch to the <i>Sea-Mew</i> to bring Mr. Fenimer back to dine; and +he would come on board, very civil, very neat, very punctilious on +matters of yachting etiquette; and he and Christine having exchanged +greeting, would find that they had really nothing whatsoever to say to +each other.</p> + +<p>Their only vital topic of conversation was money, and as this was always +disagreeable, both of them instinctively tried to avoid it. Whenever +Fenimer had money, he either speculated with it, or immediately spent it +on himself. So that he was always able to say with perfect truth, +whenever his daughter asked for it, that he had none. The result of this +was that she had easily drifted into the simple custom of running up +bills for whatever she needed, and allowing the tradesmen to fight it out +with her father.</p> + +<p>Such a system does not tend to economy. Christine’s idea of what was +necessary, derived from the extravagant friends who offered her the most +opportunity for amusing herself, enlarged year by year. Besides, she +asked herself, why should she deny herself, in order that her father +might lose more money in copper stocks?</p> + +<p>Sometimes during one of their casual meetings, he would say to her under +his breath: “Good Heavens, girl, do you know, I’ve just had a bill of +almost three thousand dollars from your infernal dressmaker? How can I +stop your running up such bills?” And she would answer coolly: “By paying +them every year or so.”</p> + +<p>She knew—she had always known since she was a little girl—that from +this situation, only marriage could rescue her, and from the worse +situation that would follow her father’s death; for she suspected that he +was deeply in debt. Not having been brought up in a sentimental school +she was prepared to do her share in arranging such a marriage. In the +world in which she lived, competition was severe. Already she had seen a +possible husband carried off under her nose by a little school-room mouse +who had had the aid of an efficient mother.</p> + +<p>But now for the first time in her life, she saw that the game was in her +own hands. She had only to do the right thing—only perhaps to avoid +doing the wrong one—and her future was safe.</p> + +<p>She heard Riatt calling and she followed him into the laundry, where he +had collected some candles: he was much engaged in lighting a fire in +the stove.</p> + +<p>“But wouldn’t the kitchen range be better?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“No water turned on,” he answered.</p> + +<p>To her this answer was utterly unintelligible. What, she wondered, was +the connection between fire and water. But, rather characteristically, +she was disinclined to ask. She walked to the sink, however, and turned +the tap; a long husky cough came from it, but no water.</p> + +<p>After this burst of energy she sank into a chair, amused to watch his +arrangements. Thoroughly idle people—and there is not much question +that Miss Fenimer was idle—learn a variety of methods for keeping other +people at work, and probably the most effective of these is flattery. +Christine may have been ignorant of the feminine arts of cooking and +fire-making; but of the super-feminine art of flattery she was a +thorough mistress.</p> + +<p>Now as Riatt finished building his fire, and began to bring in buckets of +snow to supply their need of water, the gentle flow of her flattery +soothed him as the sound of a hidden brook in the leafy month of June. +Nor, strangely enough, did the fact that he dimly apprehended its purpose +in the least interfere with his enjoyment.</p> + +<p>“If ever I’m thrown away on a desert island, I speak to be thrown away +with you,” she said. “There isn’t another man of my acquaintance who +could bring order out of these primitive conditions.”</p> + +<p>He laughed. “Well, you know,” he said, “this isn’t really what you’d call +primitive. I was snowed up in Alaska once.”</p> + +<p>“Alaska! You’ve been snowed up in Alaska?” she echoed in the tone of a +child who says: was it a <em>black</em> bear?</p> + +<p>Oh, yes, it lightened his toil. Nevertheless, he asked for her +assistance in trying to find something to eat. She knew no more about +the kitchen than he did, but she advanced toward a door and opened it +gingerly between her thumb and forefinger. It was the kitchen closet. +She opened a tin box.</p> + +<p>“There is something here that looks like gravel,” she called. He rushed +to her side. It was cereal. He found other supplies, too, a little salt, +sugar, coffee, and a jar of bacon.</p> + +<p>“How clever of you to know what they all are,” she murmured, and he felt +as if he had invented them out of thin air, like an Eastern magician.</p> + +<p>He carried them back to the kitchen. “I wonder if you’d get the coffee +grinder,” he said.</p> + +<p>She hadn’t the faintest idea what a coffee grinder looked like, but she +went away to find it, and came back presently with an object strange +enough to serve any purpose.</p> + +<p>“Is this it?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“That’s a meat chopper,” he answered, and then laughed. “You’re not a +very good housekeeper, are you?”</p> + +<p>“Of course not,” she said. “Did you ever know an agreeable woman who was? +Good housekeepers are always bores, because they can never for an instant +get their minds off the most tiresome things in the world like bills, and +how the servants are behaving. All clever women are bad housekeepers, and +so they always find some one like you to take care of them.”</p> + +<p>He was putting the cereal to boil, and answered only after a second. +“Perhaps you’ll think me old-fashioned, but I cannot help respecting the +art of housekeeping.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, so do I in its place,” replied Miss Fenimer. “My maid does the whole +thing capitally. But let me give you a test. Think of the very best +housekeeper you ever met. Would you like to have her here instead of me? +You may be quite candid.”</p> + +<p>Riatt stopped and considered an instant with his head on one side. “She’d +make me awfully comfortable,” he said.</p> + +<p>Miss Fenimer nodded, as much as to say: yes, but even so—</p> + +<p>“No,” he said at length, as if the decision had been close. “No, after +all I would rather do the work and have you. But it isn’t because you are +a poor housekeeper that I prefer you. It’s because—”</p> + +<p>Compliments upon her charms were platitudes to Christine, and she cut +him short. “Yes, it is. It’s because I’m so detached, and don’t +interfere, and let you do things your own way, and think you so wonderful +to be able to do them at all. Now if I knew how to do them, too, I should +be criticizing and suggesting all the time, and you’d have no peace. You +like me for <em>being a poor housekeeper</em>.”</p> + +<p>He smiled. “On that ground I ought to like you very much then,” he +answered.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you do,” she said cheerfully. “Anyhow I’m sure you like me +better than that other girl you were thinking of—that good housekeeper. +Who is she?”</p> + +<p>“I like her quite a lot.”</p> + +<p>“I see—you think she’d make a good wife.”</p> + +<p>“I think she’d make a good wife to any man who was fortunate enough—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, what a dreadful way to talk of the poor girl!”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary, I admire her extremely.”</p> + +<p>“I believe you are engaged to her.”</p> + +<p>“Not as much as you are to Hickson.”</p> + +<p>Christine laughed. “From the way you describe her,” she said, “I believe +she’d make a perfect wife for Ned.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, she’s much too good for him.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you. You seem to think I’ll do nicely for him.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, but she’s much better than you are.”</p> + +<p>“And yet you said you’d rather have me here than her.”</p> + +<p>He smiled. “I think,” he said, and Christine rather waited for his +next words, “I think I shall go down and see if I can’t get the +furnace going.”</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, she said to herself when he was gone, “I should not feel at +all easy about him, if I were the other girl.”</p> + +<p>She knew there was no prospect of their being rescued that night. When +the sleigh arrived at the Usshers’, if it ever did arrive, its empty +shattered condition would suggest an accident. The Usshers were at that +moment probably searching for them in ditches, and hedges. The marks of +the sleigh would be quickly obliterated by the storm. No, she thought +comfortably, there was no escape from the fact that their situation was +compromising. The only question was how could the matter be most +tactfully called to his attention. At the moment he seemed happily +unaware that such things as the proprieties existed.</p> + +<p>At this his head appeared at the head of the cellar stairs.</p> + +<p>“Watch the cereal, please,” he said, “and see that it doesn’t burn.”</p> + +<p>“Like King Alfred?”</p> + +<p>“Not too much like him, please, for that pitiful little dab of food is +about all we have to eat.”</p> + +<p>When he was gone Christine advanced toward the stove and looked at the +cereal—looked at it closely, but it seemed to her to be but little +benefited by her attention. Presently she discovered on a shelf beside +the laundry clock a pinkish purple paper novel, called: “The Crime of the +Season.” Its cover depicted a man in a check suit and side-whiskers +looking on in astonishment at the removal of a drowned lady in full +evening dress from a very minute pond. Christine opened it, and was so +fortunate as to come full upon the crime. She became as completely +absorbed in it as the laundress had been before her.</p> + +<p>She was recalled to the more sordid but less criminal surroundings of +real life by a strong pungent smell. She sniffed, and then her heart +suddenly sank as she realized that the cereal was burning. She recognized +a peculiarly disagreeable flavor about which she had often scolded the +cook, thinking such carelessness on the part of one of her employees to +be absolutely inexcusable.</p> + +<p>She ran to the head of the cellar stairs. “Mr. Riatt!” she called.</p> + +<p>He was now shaking down the furnace, and the noise completely drowned her +voice. “Oh, dear, what a noisy man he is,” she thought and when he had +finished, she called again: “Mr. Riatt!”</p> + +<p>This time he heard. “What is it?” he answered.</p> + +<p>“Mr. Riatt, what shall I do? The cereal is burning terribly.”</p> + +<p>“I should think it was,” he said. “I can smell it down here.” He sprang +up the stairs and snatched the pot from the stove. “You must have stopped +stirring it,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I didn’t stir it!”</p> + +<p>“What did you do?”</p> + +<p>“You didn’t tell me to stir it.”</p> + +<p>“I certainly did.”</p> + +<p>“No, you said just to watch it.”</p> + +<p>Riatt looked at her. “Well,” he said, “I’ve heard of glances cutting +like a knife, but never stirring like a spoon. If I were a really just +man,” he went on, “I’d make you eat that burnt mess for your supper, but +I’m so absurdly indulgent that I’ll share some of my bacon and biscuits +with you.”</p> + +<p>His tone as well as his words were irritating to one not used to +criticism in any form.</p> + +<p>“I don’t care for that sort of joke,” she said.</p> + +<p>“I wasn’t aware of having made a joke.”</p> + +<p>“I mean your attitude as if I were a child that had been naughty.”</p> + +<p>“It wouldn’t be so bad if you were a child.”</p> + +<p>“You consider me to blame because that wretched cereal chose to burn?”</p> + +<p>“Emphatically I do.”</p> + +<p>“How perfectly preposterous,” said Christine, and a sense of bitter +injustice seethed within her. “Why in the world should <em>I</em> be expected to +know how to cook?”</p> + +<p>“I’m a little too busy at the moment to explain it to you,” Riatt +answered, “but I promise to take it up with you at a later date.”</p> + +<p>There was something that sounded almost like a threat in this. She turned +away, and walking to the window stood staring out into the darkness. He +was really quite a disagreeable young man, she thought. How true it was, +that you couldn’t tell what people were like when everything was going +smoothly. She wondered if he would always be like that—trying to keep +one up to one’s duty and making one feel stupid and ignorant about the +merest trifles.</p> + +<p>“Well, this rich meal is ready,” he said presently.</p> + +<p>She turned around. The table was set—she couldn’t help wondering +where he had found the kitchen knives and forks—the bacon was +sizzling, the tin of biscuits open, and the coffee bubbling and +gurgling in its glass retort.</p> + +<p>She sat down and began to eat in silence, but as she did so, she studied +him furtively. She was used to many different kinds of masculine bad +temper; her father’s irritability whenever anything affected his personal +comfort: and from other men all forms of jealousy and hurt feelings. But +this stern indifference to her as a human being was something a little +different. She decided on her method.</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear,” she said, “this meal couldn’t be much drearier if we were +married, could it?”</p> + +<p>“Except,” he returned, unsmilingly, “that then it would be one of a +long series.”</p> + +<p>“Not as far as I’m concerned,” she answered. “I should leave you on +account of your bad temper.”</p> + +<p>“If I hadn’t first left you on account of—”</p> + +<p>“Of burning the cereal?”</p> + +<p>“Of being so infernally irresponsible about it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, that’s the trouble, is it?” she said. “That I did not seem to care? +Well, I assure you that I don’t like burnt food any better than you do, +but I have some self-control. I wouldn’t spoil a whole evening just +because—” A sudden inspiration came to her. Her voice failed her, and +she hid her face in her pocket handkerchief.</p> + +<p>Riatt leant back in his chair and looked at her, looked at least at the +back of her long neck, and the twist of her golden hair and the +occasional heave of her shoulders.</p> + +<p>The strange and the humiliating thing was that she had just as much +effect upon him when he quite obviously knew that she was insincere.</p> + +<p>“Why,” he said gently, “are you crying? Or perhaps I ought to say, why +are you pretending to cry?”</p> + +<p>She paid no attention to the latter part of his question.</p> + +<p>“You’re so unkind,” she said, careful not to overdo a sob. “You don’t +seem to understand what a terrible situation this is for me.”</p> + +<p>“In what way is it terrible?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t you know that a story like this clings to a girl as long as she +lives? That among the people I know there will always be gossip—”</p> + +<p>“You’re not serious?”</p> + +<p>She nodded, still behind her handkerchief, “Yes, I am. This will be +something I shall have to live down, as much as you would if you had +robbed a bank.”</p> + +<p>She now raised her head, and wiping her eyes hard enough to make them a +little red, she glanced at him.</p> + +<p>Really she thought it would save a great deal of time and trouble, if he +could just see the thing clearly and ask her to marry him now.</p> + +<p>But apparently his mind did not work so quickly.</p> + +<p>“Who will repeat it?” he said. “Not the Usshers—”</p> + +<p>“Nancy Almar won’t let it pass. She’ll have found the evening dull +without you, and she’ll feel she has a right to compensation. And that +worm, Wickham; it will be his favorite anecdote for the rest of his life. +I was horrible to him last night at dinner.”</p> + +<p>“Sorry you were?”</p> + +<p>“Not a bit. I’d do it again, but I may as well face the fact that he +won’t be eager to conceal his own social triumphs for the sake of my good +name. Can’t you hear him, ‘Curious thing happened the other day—at my +friends the Usshers’. Know them? A lovely country place—’—”</p> + +<p>“I’m awfully sorry,” he said. “What a bore! Is there anything I +could do—”</p> + +<p>“Well, there <em>is</em> one thing.”</p> + +<p>He looked up quickly. If ever terror flashed in a man’s eyes, she saw it +then in his. Her heart sank, but her mind worked none the less well.</p> + +<p>“It’s this,” she went on smoothly. “There’s a lodge, a sort of +tool-house, only about half a mile down the road. Couldn’t you take a +lantern, couldn’t you possibly spend the night there?”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t by any chance,” he said, “that you’re afraid of having me +here?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, not you,” she answered. “No, I should feel much safer with you +here than there.” (If he went her case was ruined, and she was now +actually afraid perhaps he would go.) “I should be terrified in this +great place all by myself. Still, I think you ought to go. It’s not so +very far. You go down the road a little way and then turn to the right +through the woods. I think you’ll find it. The roof used to leak a +little, but I dare say you won’t mind that. There isn’t any fireplace, +but you could take lots of blankets—”</p> + +<p>“I tell you what I’ll do,” he said. “No one will come to rescue us +to-night. I’ll sleep here to-night, and to-morrow as soon as it’s light, +I’ll go to this cottage, and when they come, you can tell them any story +you please. Will that do?”</p> + +<p>It did perfectly. “Oh, thank you,” she said. “How kind you are! And you +do forgive me, don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“About the cereal? Oh, yes, on one condition.”</p> + +<p>“What is that?” She was still meltingly sweet.</p> + +<p>“That you wash these dishes.”</p> + +<p>She felt inclined to box his ears. Had he seen through her all the time?</p> + +<p>“I never washed a dish in my life,” she observed thoughtfully.</p> + +<p>“Have you ever done anything useful?”</p> + +<p>She reflected, and after some thought she replied, not boastfully, but as +one who states an indisputable fact: “Never.”</p> + +<p>He folded his arms, leant against the wall and looked down upon her. “I +wish,” he said, “if it isn’t too much trouble that you would give me a +detailed account of one of your average days.”</p> + +<p>“You talk,” said she, “as if you were studying the manners and customs +of savages.”</p> + +<p>“Let us say of an unknown tribe.”</p> + +<p>She leant back in her chair and stretched her arms over her head. “Well, +let me see,” she said. “I wake up about nine or a little after if I +haven’t been up all night, and I ring for my maid. And about eleven—”</p> + +<p>“Don’t skip, please. You ring for your maid. What does she do for you?”</p> + +<p>Imagine any one’s not knowing! Miss Fenimer marveled. “Why, she draws my +bath and puts out my things, and while I’m taking my bath, she +straightens the room and lights the fire, if it’s cold, and brings in my +breakfast-tray and my letters. And by half past ten, I’m finally dressed +if no one has come in to delay me, only some one always has. Last winter +my time was immensely occupied by two friends of mine who had both fallen +in love with the same man—one of them was married to him—and they used +to come every day and confide in me. You have no idea how amusing it was. +He behaved shockingly, but I couldn’t help feeling a little sorry for +him. They were both such determined women. Finally I went to him, and +told him how it was I knew so much about his affairs, and said I thought +he ought to try and make up his mind which of them he really did care +for. And what do you think he said? That he had always been in love with +me.” She laughed. “How absurdly things happen, don’t they?”</p> + +<p>“Good Heavens!” said Riatt.</p> + +<p>“But even at the worst, I’m generally out by noon, and get a walk. I’m +rather dependent on exercise, and then I lunch with some one or other—”</p> + +<p>“Men or women?”</p> + +<p>“Either or both. And then after lunch I drive with some one, or go to see +pictures or hear music, and then I like to be at home by tea time, +because that’s, of course, the hour every one counts on finding you; and +then there’s dressing and going out to dinner, and very often something +afterwards.”</p> + +<p>“Good Lord,” said Riatt again, and after a moment he added: “And does +that life amuse you?”</p> + +<p>“No, but it doesn’t bore me as much as doing things that are more +trouble.”</p> + +<p>“What sort of things?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, being on committees that you don’t really take any interest in.” She +rather enjoyed his amazement.</p> + +<p>“Now tell me one thing more,” he said. “What would you do if you had to +earn your living?”</p> + +<p>The true answer was that she would marry Edward Hickson, but, though +heretofore she had been fairly candid, she thought on this point a +little dissembling was permissible. “I should starve, I suppose,” she +returned gaily.</p> + +<p>“And suppose you fell in love with a poor man?”</p> + +<p>She grew grave at once. “Oh, that’s a dreadful thing to happen to one,” +she said. “I’ve had two friends who did that.” She almost shuddered. “One +actually married him.”</p> + +<p>“And what happened to her?”</p> + +<p>Miss Fenimer shook her head. “I don’t know. She’s living in the suburbs +somewhere. I haven’t seen her for ages.”</p> + +<p>“And the other?”</p> + +<p>“She was more practical. She married him to a rich widow ten years older +than he was. That provided for him, you see, at least. But it turned out +worse than the other case.”</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“Why, he fell in love with this other woman—”</p> + +<p>“His wife, you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Yes. Imagine it! Men are so fickle.”</p> + +<p>“Do you know that you really shock me?”</p> + +<p>“It’s better to appreciate the way things are.”</p> + +<p>“It isn’t the way things are among decent normal human beings.”</p> + +<p>She shrugged her shoulders. “Oh, I imagine it is,” she said, “only +they’re not honest enough to admit it.”</p> + +<p>He continued to stare at her and, strangely enough, she had never seemed +to him more beautiful.</p> + +<p>“And do you mean to tell me,” he said, “that people who have the +standards that you describe will attach the slightest importance to an +innocent little adventure like this of ours?”</p> + +<p>“Of course. They are the very people who will.”</p> + +<p>“Nonsense.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, because they make a point of always believing the worst, or at +least of pretending to.”</p> + +<p>“Why pretend?”</p> + +<p>“Because it makes conversation so much more amusing. Sometimes,” she +added thoughtfully, “I have a terrible suspicion that there really isn’t +an atom of harm in any of them—that they all behave perfectly well, and +just excite themselves by talking as if they didn’t.”</p> + +<p>“And you call that suspicion terrible?”</p> + +<p>“Well, it makes it all seem a little flat. But then sometimes,” she went +on brightly, “one does find out something absolutely hideous.”</p> + +<p>“See here,” he said, “it’s a crime for a girl of your age to talk like +this. It’s a silly habit. I don’t believe you’re like that at heart.”</p> + +<p>“You talk,” said she, “like Edward Hickson.”</p> + +<p>“In some communities that would be thought a fighting word,” he returned. +“But you haven’t yet answered my question. You’ve told me what your +friends have done; but what would you do yourself, if you fell in love +with a poor man?”</p> + +<p>“In the first place, I never should. What makes a man attractive to me is +power, preëminence, being bowed down to. If I lived in a military +country, I’d love the greatest soldier; and if I lived in a savage +country, I’d love the strongest warrior; but here to-day, the only form +of power I see is money. It’s what makes you able to have everything you +want, and that’s a man’s greatest charm.”</p> + +<p>“And it seems to me that the most tied-down creatures I ever saw are the +rich men I’ve met in the East.”</p> + +<p>She was honestly surprised. “Why, what is there they can’t do?” +she asked.</p> + +<p>He smiled. “They can’t do anything that might endanger their property +rights,” he answered, “and that seems to me to cut them off from most +forms of human endeavor. But no matter about that. You say you would not +be likely to fall in love with a poor man, but suppose you <em>did</em>. Perhaps +it has happened already?”</p> + +<p>Miss Fenimer looked thoughtful. “I was trying to think,” she said. “Yes, +there was a young artist two years ago that I was rather interested in. +He was very nice looking, and Nancy Almar kept telling me how much he was +in love with her.”</p> + +<p>“And that stimulated your interest?”</p> + +<p>“Of course.”</p> + +<p>“Just for the sake of information,” he said, “do you always want to take +away any man who is safely devoted to another woman?”</p> + +<p>Christine seemed resolved to be accurate. “It depends,” she answered, +“whether or not I have anything else to do, but of course the idea always +pops into one’s head: I wonder if I couldn’t make him like me best.”</p> + +<p>“And do you always find you can?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, there’s no rule about it; only as a newcomer one has the advantage +of novelty, and that’s something.”</p> + +<p>“And what happened about this artist?”</p> + +<p>Christine smiled reminiscently: “I found he wasn’t really in love with +Nancy at all: he just wanted to paint her portrait.”</p> + +<p>“I should think he would have wanted to paint yours.”</p> + +<p>“He did and gave it to me as a present, and then he behaved very badly.” +She sighed.</p> + +<p>“What did he do?”</p> + +<p>“Well,” she hesitated. “He did not really want to give me the picture. He +thought he wanted to keep it himself. It was much the best thing he ever +did. I had to persuade him a good deal, and in persuading him, I may have +given him the impression that I cared about him more than I really did. +Anyhow, after I actually had the portrait hanging in my sitting-room, I +told him I thought it was better for us not to meet any more. Some men +would have been flattered to think I took them so seriously. But he was +furious, and one day when I was out he sent for the portrait and cut it +all to pieces. Wasn’t that horrible? My pretty portrait!”</p> + +<p>“Horrible!” said Riatt. “It seems to me the one spark of spirit the poor +young man showed.”</p> + +<p>She glanced at him under her lashes. “What would you have done?”</p> + +<p>“I’d take you out to the plains for a year or so, and let you find out a +little about what life is like.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think it would be a success,” she returned. “I don’t profit by +discipline, I’m afraid. But,” she stood up, “I’m perfectly open minded. +I’ll make a beginning. I’ll wash the dishes—just to please you.”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_069" style="max-width: 35.9375em;"><a id="69"></a> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_069.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center">And then, with a clean towel, he deliberately dried +her hands, finger by finger</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>He watched her go to the kitchen sink, and pour water from the steaming +kettle into a dish pan, saw her turn up her lace-frilled cuffs, and begin +with her long, slim, inefficient hands to take up the dirty plates. +Suddenly, much to his surprise, he found he couldn’t bear it, couldn’t +bear to see the lace fall down again and again, and her obvious shrinking +from the task.</p> + +<p>He crossed the room and took the plates from her, and then with a clean +towel, he deliberately dried her hands, finger by finger, while she stood +by like a docile child, looking up at him in wonder.</p> + +<p>“Don’t you want to reform me?” she asked plaintively.</p> + +<p>“No,” he answered shortly.</p> + +<p>“Why not?”</p> + +<p>“Because you would be too dangerous,” he returned. “Now you have every +charm except goodness. If you turned good and gentle you’d be supreme.”</p> + +<p>“I never thought goodness was a <em>charm</em>,” she objected.</p> + +<p>“And that’s just what I hope you will never find out.”</p> + +<p>She laughed. “I don’t believe there’s much danger,” she said. “I think I +shall go on being wicked and mercenary and selfish to the day of my +death, and probably getting everything I want.”</p> + +<p>“I hope not. I mean I hope you won’t get what you want.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, why are you so unkind?”</p> + +<p>“Because I shall want to use you as a terrible example to my +grandchildren.”</p> + +<p>“Do you think you will remember me as long as that?”</p> + +<p>“I feel no doubt about it.”</p> + +<p>She smiled. “It seems rather hard that I have to come to a bad end just +to oblige your horrid little grandchildren,” she said. “As a matter of +fact, I shall probably run them down in my motor as they go to work with +their little dinner-pails. And as I take their mangled forms to the +hospital, I’ll murmur: ‘Riatt, Riatt, I think I once knew a half-hearted +reformer of that name.’”</p> + +<p>“You think you, too, will remember as long as that?”</p> + +<p>“I have an excellent memory for trifles,” she returned, and rose yawning. +“And now I think I’ll go to bed—unless there’s anything more you want to +know about our tribal customs. Are you going to write a nature book about +us: ‘Head-hunting Among the Idle Rich’?”</p> + +<p>“‘The Cannibals of the Atlantic Coast’ is the title,” he answered as he +gave her a candle. “I’ll leave your breakfast for you in the morning +before I go. And by the way, if some one comes to rescue you, don’t go +off and leave me in the tool-house, will you?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I’m not really as bad as that.”</p> + +<p>He shook his head as if he didn’t feel sure.</p> + +<p>She went away well satisfied with her evening’s work. There had been +something extremely flattering in his mingled horror and amusement at her +candid revelations. Holding up the candle she looked at her own image in +her mirror. “I wonder,” she thought, “if that young man knows what a +dangerous frame of mind he’s in?”</p> + +<p>He had some suspicion, for as he dragged a mattress downstairs and laid +it before the kitchen fire, he kept repeating to himself, as if in a +last effort to rouse some moral enthusiasm: “What a band of cut-throats +they are!”</p> + +<p>Christine woke the next morning to find the sun shining on an unbroken +sheet of snow. The storm had passed in the night. She dressed quickly and +went down to find the kitchen empty, and the track of footsteps in the +snow leading away in the direction of the tool-house. Her coffee was +bubbling and slices of bacon neatly laid in the frying pan were ready for +cooking. She thought he might have stayed and cooked it for her.</p> + +<p>“No one will come as early as this,” she thought, plaintively.</p> + +<p>But hardly had she finished her simple meal, when the sound of sleigh +bells reached her ears, and running to the window she saw that Ussher and +Hickson in a two horse sleigh were driving down the slope.</p> + +<p>A moment later they were in the kitchen. And after the minimum time had +elapsed during which all three talked at once recounting their own +individual anxieties, Ussher asked:</p> + +<p>“Where’s Max?”</p> + +<p>Christine cast down her eyes with a sort of Paul-and-Virginia expression, +as she answered: “Oh, he is sleeping in the tool-house!”</p> + +<p>“Well, I call that damned nonsense,” said Ussher. “Let a man freeze to +death! Upon my word, Christine, I thought you had more sense.” And he +strode away to the back door. “Yes, here are his tracks, poor fellow.” +Ussher went out after him, and Hickson turned back.</p> + +<p>“But <em>you</em> think I was right, don’t you, Edward?” said Christine, for she +had never failed to elicit commendation from Edward.</p> + +<p>But now his brow was dark. “But, I say, Christine,” he said, “there’s one +thing I don’t understand. These tracks of his footsteps in the snow.”</p> + +<p>“He didn’t fly, Ned, even if he is an aviator.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but it didn’t stop snowing until four o’clock this morning.”</p> + +<p>How irritating the weather always is, Christine thought. For though she +was willing to use scandal as a weapon over Riatt, she was not sure that +she wished to put it into Hickson’s hands.</p> + +<p>She thought hard, and then said brightly:</p> + +<p>“Oh, perhaps he came back for his breakfast before I was up.”</p> + +<p>Hickson shook his head: “They only lead one way,” he said.</p> + +<p>In the face of the tactlessness of hard facts, Christine decided to +create a diversion.</p> + +<p>“I can’t stand here gossiping about the conduct of an aviator,” she said, +“when there’s so much to be done. Look at all these dirty plates. What +ought to be done with them, Edward, dear?” she appealed to him as to a +fountain of wisdom, and he did not fail her.</p> + +<p>“They ought to be washed,” he said. “Give me a towel. I’ll do it.” And +he felt more than rewarded when, as she handed him a towel, her hand +touched his.</p> + +<p>The many duties of which she had just spoken seemed suddenly to have +melted away, for she sat down quite idly and watched him.</p> + +<p>“How well you do it, Edward,” she said, not quite honestly, for she +compared his slow gestures very unfavorably with Riatt’s deft hands. +“It’s quite as if you had washed dishes all your life.”</p> + +<p>“Ah, Christine,” he answered, looking at her sentimentally over a +coffee-cup, “I shouldn’t ask anything better than to wash your dishes for +the rest of my life.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Edward, but I think I should ask something a good deal +better,” she answered.</p> + +<p>It was on this scene that Ussher and Riatt entered, and the eyes of the +latter twinkled.</p> + +<p>“Engaged a kitchen-maid, I see,” he said in a low tone to Christine.</p> + +<p>“I think it’s so good for people to do something useful now and then, +don’t you?”</p> + +<p>“A form of education that you offer almost every one who comes near you.”</p> + +<p>Hickson did not hear everything, but he caught the idea, and said +severely:</p> + +<p>“I don’t suppose any one would ask Miss Fenimer to wash dirty dishes.”</p> + +<p>Riatt laughed: “No one who had ever seen her try.”</p> + +<p>Ussher, who had been fuming in the background, now broke out:</p> + +<p>“Upon my word, Christine, that tool-house was like a vault. It was +madness to ask any one to spend the night in such a place.”</p> + +<p>“Did you spend the night in the tool-house?” said Hickson with unusual +directness.</p> + +<p>“There are worse places than the tool-house,” said Riatt, as he and +Ussher hurried down to the cellar to put out the furnace fire.</p> + +<p>Hickson turned to Christine. “The fellow didn’t answer me,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps he thought it was none of your business, Edward, my dear,” +she answered.</p> + +<p>“Everything connected with you is my business,” he returned.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Edward, what a dreary outlook for me!”</p> + +<p>“Christine, answer me. Did or did not this man make advances to you?”</p> + +<p>“Edward, he did.”</p> + +<p>“What happened?”</p> + +<p>“He gave me a long, tiresome, moral lecture and, judging by you, my dear, +that is proof of affection.”</p> + +<p>“You’re simply amusing yourself with me!”</p> + +<p>“I’m not amusing myself very much, Edward, if that’s any comfort.”</p> + +<p>“You drive me mad,” he said and stamped away from her so hard, that +Ussher came up from the cellar.</p> + +<p>“What’s Edward doing?” he said.</p> + +<p>“He says he’s going mad,” returned Christine, “but I thought he was +washing the dishes.”</p> + +<p>“There’s no pleasing Edward,” said Ussher. “He was in my room at six +o’clock this morning trying to get me to start a rescuing party (and I +needn’t tell you, Christine, we none of us had much sleep last night), +and now that he is here and finds you safe, he seems to be just as +restless as ever.” And Ussher returned to the cellar still grumbling.</p> + +<p>“You know why I’m restless, Christine,” Hickson said when they were +again alone.</p> + +<p>Christine seemed to wonder. “The artistic temperament is usually given as +the explanation, but somehow, in your case, Edward—”</p> + +<p>He came and stood directly in front of her.</p> + +<p>“Christine, what did happen last night?”</p> + +<p>Although not a muscle of Miss Fenimer’s face moved, she knew very well +that this was a turning-point. She had the choice between killing the +scandal, or giving it such life and strength that nothing but her +marriage with Riatt would ever allay it. She knew that a few sensible +words would put Hickson straight, and Hickson would be a powerful ally. +On the other hand, if he came back plainly weighted with a terrible +doubt, no one would ask any further evidence. The question was, how much +would Riatt feel the responsibility of such a situation. It was a +fighting chance. Themistocles when he burnt his ships must have argued in +very much the same way, but probably not so rapidly.</p> + +<p>“There are some things, Edward,” Christine said in a low shaken voice, +“that I cannot discuss even with you.”</p> + +<p>Hickson turned away with a groan.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_III">CHAPTER III</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-capy">Christine had been right when she told Riatt that Nancy Almar would be +resentful after a dull evening at the Usshers’.</p> + +<p>The evening, as far as Nancy was concerned, had been very dull indeed. To +be bored, in her creed, was a confession of complete failure; it +indicated the most contemptible inefficiency, since she designed the +whole fabric of her life with the unique object of keeping herself +amused. Nothing bored her more than to have the general attention +centered on some one else, as all that evening it had been focussed on +the absent ones. Not only did she miss the excitement of her contest with +Christine over the possession of Riatt, but she was positively wearied by +the Usshers’ anxiety, by her brother’s agony of jealousy and fear, and by +Wickham’s continual effort to strike an original thought from the +dramatic quality of the situation.</p> + +<p>She was finally reduced to playing piquet with Wickham, and though she +won a good deal of money from him—more, that is, than he could +comfortably afford to lose—she still counted the evening a failure, bad +in the present, and extremely menacing to the future. For with her +habitual mental candor, she admitted that by this time Christine, if not +actually frozen to death—which after all one could not exactly hope—had +probably won the game. The chances were that Riatt was captured.</p> + +<p>“What is the matter, Ned?” she said to her brother, as he fidgeted about +the card-table, after a last futile expedition to the telephone. “Can’t +you decide whether you’d rather the lady of your love were dead or +subjected for twenty-four hours to the fascinations of an irresistible +young man?”</p> + +<p>“What an interesting question that raises,” observed Wickham, examining +rather ruefully the three meager cards he had drawn. “A modern +Lady-or-the-Tiger idea. I am not of a jealous temperament and should +always prefer to see a woman happy with another man.”</p> + +<p>“And often do, I dare say,” said Nancy. “I have a point of seven, and +fourteen aces.”</p> + +<p>“I must own I can’t see Riatt’s irresistible quality,” said Hickson +irritably.</p> + +<p>“Rich, nice looking and has his wits about him,” replied Mrs. Almar +succinctly.</p> + +<p>“About as good-looking as a fence-rail.”</p> + +<p>“And they say women are envious!” exclaimed his sister.</p> + +<p>“Are you a feminist, Mrs. Almar?” inquired the irrepressible Wickham.</p> + +<p>“No, just a female, Mr. Wickham.”</p> + +<p>“I never thought a big bony nose made a man a beauty,” grumbled Hickson.</p> + +<p>“Ah, how much wisdom there is in that reply of yours, Mrs. Almar,” said +Wickham. “Just a female. Your meaning is, if I interpret you rightly, +that you are content with the duties and charms which Nature has bestowed +upon your sex—”</p> + +<p>“Until I can get something better,” replied Nancy briskly, drawing the +score toward her and beginning to add it up. “My idea is to let the other +women do the fighting; if they win, I shall profit; if they lose, I’m no +worse off. I believe I’ve rubiconed you again, Mr. Wickham.”</p> + +<p>“Well, I don’t understand women’s taste, anyhow,” said Hickson.</p> + +<p>“You never spoke a truer word than that, my dear,” said Nancy. +“Seventy-four fifty, I think that makes it, Mr. Wickham, subtracting the +dollar and a half you made on the first game. Oh, yes, a check will do +perfectly. I’m less likely to lose it.”</p> + +<p>“I never had a worse run of luck,” observed Wickham with an attempt at +indifference.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Almar stood up yawning. “Doubtless you are on the brink of a great +amorous triumph,” she said languidly, and went off to bed.</p> + +<p>Hickson did not attempt to sleep. He sat up for the remainder of the +night, in the hope that some sudden call might come, and at six o’clock +as Ussher had told Christine, he was ready for new efforts.</p> + +<p>Rescued and rescuers reached the Usshers’ house about half past ten the +following morning. Nancy was not yet downstairs. Wickham had not been +able to judge what was the correct note to strike in connection with the +whole incident, and so did not dare to sound any. The arrival was +comparatively simple. Mrs. Ussher received her beloved Christine with +open arms; Riatt went noncommittally upstairs to take a bath; Hickson had +decided, in spite of his depression of spirits, to try to make up a +little of last night’s lost sleep, when he received a summons from his +sister. Her maid, a clever, sallow little Frenchwoman, came down with her +hands in her apron pockets to say that Madame should like to speak to +Monsieur at once.</p> + +<p>He found Nancy still in bed; her little black head looking blacker than +usual against the lace of the pillows and the coverlet and of her own +bed-jacket. The only color about her was the yellow covered French +novel she laid down as he entered, and the one enormous ruby on her +fourth finger.</p> + +<p>“And now, Ned, my dear,” she said quite affectionately for her, “I hear +you have brought the wanderers safely home. Tell me all about it.”</p> + +<p>Hickson, to whom this summons had not come as a surprise, had resolved +that he would confide none of his anxieties to his sister but, alas, as +well might a pane of glass resolve to be opaque to a ray of sunlight. +Within ten minutes, Nancy knew not only all that he knew, but such +additional deductions as her sharper wits enabled her to draw.</p> + +<p>“I see,” she murmured, as he finished. “The only positive fact that we +have is that he did not leave the house until after five. How very +interesting!”</p> + +<p>“Very terrible,” said Hickson.</p> + +<p>“Terrible,” exclaimed Nancy, with the most genuine surprise. “Not at all. +From your point of view most encouraging. It can mean only one thing. The +young man very prudently ran away.”</p> + +<p>Edward was really stirred to anger. “Nancy,” he said, “how do you dare, +even in fun—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, my dear,” answered his sister, as one wearied by all the folly in +the world, “how can I be of any use to you if you will not open your +eyes? He ran away. We don’t know of course just from what; but we do know +this: Max Riatt is the best match that has yet presented himself, and +that Christine is the last girl in the world to ignore that simple fact. +Come, Ned, even if you do love her, you may as well admit the girl is not +a perfect fool. Fate, accident, or possibly her own clever manœuvering +put the game into her hands. The question is, how did she play it? I know +what I’d have done, but I don’t believe she would. I think she probably +tried to make him believe that she was hopelessly compromised in the eyes +of the world, and that there was no course open to an honorable man but +to ask her to marry him.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t imagine Christine playing such a part.”</p> + +<p>“I tell you, you never do the poor girl justice. If she did that—and the +chances are she did—then his running away is most encouraging. It means, +in your own delightful language, that he did not fall for it—did not +want to run any risk of compromising her, if marriage was the +consequence.”</p> + +<p>“But, Nancy, Christine almost admitted that—that he tried to make +love to her.”</p> + +<p>“I can’t see what that has to do with it, or what difference it makes,” +replied Mrs. Almar. “However, too much importance should not be attached +to such admissions. I have sometimes made them myself when the facts did +not bear me out. No woman likes to confess, especially to an old adorer +like you, that she has spent so many hours alone with a man and he has +not made love to her.”</p> + +<p>Hickson shook his head. “I’m not clever enough to be able to explain it,” +he said, “but I received the clearest impression from her that she had +been through some painful experience.”</p> + +<p>“Good,” said Nancy. “Do you know the most painful experience she could +have been through?”</p> + +<p>“No, what?”</p> + +<p>“If he hadn’t paid the slightest attention to her; and that, my dear +brother, is what I am inclined to think took place. No, the game is still +on; only now she’ll have the Usshers to help her. This is no time for me +to lie in bed.”</p> + +<p>Ned looked at her doubtfully. “I thought I’d try and sleep a +little,” he said.</p> + +<p>“The best thing you can do,” she returned. “Lucie! Lucie! Where are the +bells in this house! What privations one suffers for staying away from +home! Oh, yes, here it is,” and she caught the atom of enamel and gold +dangling at the head of her bed, and rang it without ceasing until the +maid, who regarded her mistress with an admiration quite untinctured by +affection, appeared silently at the doorway.</p> + +<p>In an astonishingly short space of time, she was dressed and downstairs, +presenting her usual sleek and polished appearance. Wickham was alone in +the drawing-room, and a suggestion that they should have another game of +piquet quickly drove him to the writing of some purely imaginary +business letters.</p> + +<p>The coast was thus clear, but Riatt was still absent.</p> + +<p>Nancy’s methods were nothing if not direct. She rang the bell and when +the butler appeared she said:</p> + +<p>“Where is Mr. Riatt?”</p> + +<p>“In his room, madam.”</p> + +<p>“Dressing?”</p> + +<p>“No, madam, he is dressed. Resting, I should say.”</p> + +<p>Nancy nodded her head once. “One moment,” she said; and going to the +writing table she sat down and wrote quickly:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“I should like five minutes’ conversation with you. Strange to say my +motive is altruistic—so altruistic that I feel I should sign myself ‘Pro +Bono Publico,’ instead of Nancy Almar. There is no one down here in the +drawing-room at the moment.”</p> +</div> + +<p>She put this in an envelope, sealed it with sealing wax (to the disgust +of the butler who found it hard enough, as it was, to keep up with all +that went on in the house) and told the man to send it at once to Mr. +Riatt’s room.</p> + +<p>She did not have long to wait. Riatt, with all the satisfaction in +his bearing of one who has just bathed, shaved and eaten, came down +to her at once.</p> + +<p>“Good morning, Pro Bono Publico,” he said, just glancing about to be sure +he was not overheard. “It was not necessary to put this interview on an +altruistic basis. I should have been glad to come to it, even if it had +been as a favor to you.”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_091" style="max-width: 35.9375em;"><a id="91"></a> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_091.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center">“Isn’t that rather a reckless way for a man in your +situation to talk?”</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>She looked at him with her hard, dark eyes. “Isn’t that rather a reckless +way for a man in your situation to talk?”</p> + +<p>“I was not aware that I was in a situation.”</p> + +<p>This was exactly the expression that she had wanted from him. It seemed +to come spontaneously, and could only mean that at least he was not +newly engaged.</p> + +<p>She relaxed the tension of her attitude. “Are you really under the +impression that you’re not?”</p> + +<p>“I feel quite sure of it.”</p> + +<p>“You poor, dear, innocent creature.”</p> + +<p>“However,” he went on, sitting down beside her on the wide, low sofa, +“something tells me that I shall enjoy extremely having you tell me all +about it.”</p> + +<p>Tucking one foot under her, as every girl is taught in the school-room it +is most unladylike to do, she turned and faced him. “Mr. Riatt,” she +said, “when I was a child I used to let the mice out of the traps—not so +much, I’m afraid, from tenderness for the mice, as from dislike of my +natural enemy, the cook. Since then I have never been able to see a mouse +in anybody’s trap but my own, without a desire to release it.”</p> + +<p>“And I am the mouse?”</p> + +<p>She nodded. “And in rather a dangerous sort of trap, too.”</p> + +<p>He smiled at the seriousness of her tone.</p> + +<p>“Ah,” said she, “the self-confidence which your smile betrays is one of +the weaknesses by which nature has delivered your sex into the hands of +mine. I would explain it to you at length, but the time is too short. The +great offensive may begin at any moment. The Usshers have made up their +minds that you are to marry Christine Fenimer. That was why you were +asked here.”</p> + +<p>“Innocent Westerner as I am,” he answered, “that idea—”</p> + +<p>She interrupted him. “Yes, but don’t you see it’s entirely different now. +Now they really have a sort of hold on you. I don’t know what Christine’s +own attitude may be, but I can tell you this: her position was so +difficult that she was on the point of engaging herself to Ned.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, come,” said Riatt politely, “your brother is not so bad as you seem +to think.”</p> + +<p>“He’s not bad at all, poor dear. He’s very good; but women do not fall in +love with him. You, on the contrary, are rich and attractive. You’ll just +have to take my word for that,” she added without a trace of coquetry. +“And so—and so—and so, if I were you, my dear Cousin Max, I should give +orders to have my bag packed at once, and take a very slow, tiresome +train that leaves here at twelve-forty-something, and not even wait for +the afternoon express.”</p> + +<p>There was that in her tone that would have made the blood of any man run +cold with terror, but he managed a smile. “In my place you would run +away?” he said.</p> + +<p>She shook her head. “No, I wouldn’t run away myself, but I advise you to. +I shouldn’t be in any danger. Being a mere woman, I can be cruel, cold +and selfish when the occasion demands. But this is a situation that +requires all the qualities a man doesn’t possess.”</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?”</p> + +<p>“Does your heart become harder when a pretty woman cries? Is your +conscience unmoved by the responsibility of some one else’s unhappiness? +Can you be made love to without a haunting suspicion that you brought it +on yourself?”</p> + +<p>“Good heavens, no!” cried Riatt from the heart.</p> + +<p>“Then, run while there’s time.”</p> + +<p>As the ox fears the gad-fly and the elephant the mouse, so does the +bravest of men fear the emotional entanglement of any making but his own. +For an instant Riatt felt himself swept by the frankest, wildest panic. +Misadventures among the clouds he had had many times, and had looked a +clean straight death in the face. He had never felt anything like the +terror that for an instant possessed him. Then it passed and he said with +conviction:</p> + +<p>“Well, after all, there are certain things you can’t be made to do +against your will.”</p> + +<p>“Certainly. But you are not referring to marriage, are you?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, I was.”</p> + +<p>“My poor, dear man! As if half the marriages in the world were not made +against the wish of one party or the other.”</p> + +<p>His heart sank. “It’s perfectly true,” he said. “And yet one does rather +hate to run away.”</p> + +<p>“Not so much as one hates afterward to think one might have.”</p> + +<p>He laughed and she went on: “The moment is critical. Laura Ussher and +Christine have been closeted together for the better part of two hours. +Something is going to happen immediately. At any moment Laura may appear +and say with that wonderfully casual manner of hers, ‘May I have a word +with you, Max?’ And then you’ll be lost.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, not quite as bad as that, I hope,” said Riatt.</p> + +<p>“Lost,” she repeated, and leaning over she laid one polished finger tip +on the bell. “When the man comes, tell him to get you ready for that +early train.”</p> + +<p>There was complete silence between them until the footman appeared and +Riatt had given the necessary orders.</p> + +<p>“I wonder,” he said when they were again alone, “whether I shall be angry +at you for this advice, or grateful. It’s a dangerous thing, you know, to +advise a man to run away.”</p> + +<p>“Dine with me in town on Wednesday, and you can tell me which it is.”</p> + +<p>“You don’t seem to be much afraid of my anger.”</p> + +<p>“I think perhaps your gratitude might be the more dangerous of the two.”</p> + +<p>While he was struggling between a new-found prudence, and a natural +desire to inquire further into her meaning, a door upstairs was heard to +shut, and presently Laura Ussher came sauntering into the room.</p> + +<p>“You’re up early, Nancy,” she said pleasantly.</p> + +<p>“I thought I ought to recognize the return of the wanderers in some +way—particularly, as I hear we are to lose one of them so soon.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ussher glanced quickly at her cousin. “Are you leaving us, Max?”</p> + +<p>“I’m sorry to say I’ve just had word that I must, and I told the man to +make arrangements for me to get that twelve-something-or-other train.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ussher did not change a muscle. “I’m sorry you have to go,” she +said. “We shall all miss you. By the way, you won’t be able to get +anything before the four-eighteen. That midday train is taken off in +winter. Didn’t the footman tell you? Stupid young man; but he’s new and +has not learnt the trains yet, I suppose. Do you want to send a telegram? +They have to be telephoned here, but if you write it out I’ll have it +sent for you.”</p> + +<p>“How wonderful you are, Laura,” murmured Mrs. Almar.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ussher looked vague. “In what way, dear?”</p> + +<p>“In all ways, but I think it’s as a friend that I admire you most.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ussher smiled. “Yes,” she said, “I’m very devoted to my friends even +when they don’t behave quite fairly to me. But I love my relations, too,” +she added. “Max, since I’m to lose you so soon, I’d like to have a talk +with you before lunch. Shall we go to my little study?”</p> + +<p>Nancy’s eyes danced. “No, Laura,” she said, “he will not. He has just +promised to teach me a new solitaire, and I won’t yield him to any one.”</p> + +<p>Riatt, terrified at this proof that Nancy’s prophecy was coming true, +resolved to cling to her.</p> + +<p>“Sit down and learn the game, too, Laura,” he said. “It’s a very +good one.”</p> + +<p>“I want to speak to you about a business matter, Max.”</p> + +<p>“I never attend to business during church hours, Laura,” he answered. +“We’ll talk about it after lunch, if you like.”</p> + +<p>Laura had learnt the art of yielding gracefully. “That will do just as +well,” she said, and sat down to watch the game.</p> + +<p>Presently Wickham, seeing that Mrs. Almar seemed to be safely engaged, +ventured back. And they were all thus innocently occupied when luncheon +was announced.</p> + +<p>Christine came down looking particularly lovely. It is a precaution which +a good-looking woman rarely fails to take in a crisis. She was wearing a +deep blue dress trimmed with fur, and only needed a solid gold halo +behind her head to make her look like a Byzantine saint.</p> + +<p>“Well, Miss Fenimer,” said Wickham, as they sat down. “You look very +blooming after your terrible experiences.”</p> + +<p>Christine had come prepared for battle. “Oh, they weren’t so very +terrible, Mr. Wickham, thank you,” she said, and she leant her elbow on +the table and played with those imitation pearls which she now hoped so +soon to give to her maid. “Mr. Riatt is the most wonderful +provider—expert as a cook as well as a furnace-man.”</p> + +<p>“It mayn’t have been terrible for you,” put in Ussher, who had a habit of +conversational reversion, “but I bet it was no joke in the tool-house! +How an intelligent woman like you, Christine, could dream of making a man +spend the night in that hole, just for the sake of—”</p> + +<p>“But I thought it was Mr. Riatt’s own choice,” said Nancy gently.</p> + +<p>“You wouldn’t think so if you could have felt the place,” Ussher +continued. “And what difference did it make? Who was there to talk? Every +one knows that their being there was just an unavoidable accident—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, if it had been an accident!” said Nancy, and it was as if a little +venomous snake had suddenly wriggled itself into the conversation. Every +one turned toward her, and her brother asked sternly:</p> + +<p>“<em>If</em>, it had been an accident, Nancy? What the deuce do you mean by +<em>if</em>?”</p> + +<p>Nancy shook her small head. “I express myself badly,” she said. “English +rhetoric was left out of my education.”</p> + +<p>“You manage to convey your ideas, dear,” said Laura.</p> + +<p>“I was trying to say that if poor, dear Christine had not been so +unfortunately the one to hit the horse in the head, and start him off—”</p> + +<p>Wickham pricked up his ears. “Oh, I say, Miss Fenimer,” he exclaimed, +“did you really hit the horse?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly, I did, Mr. Wickham.”</p> + +<p>“But what did you do that for?”</p> + +<p>Christine did not trouble to answer this question. Hickson, who had been +suffering far more than any one, rushed to the rescue.</p> + +<p>“Miss Fenimer did not do it on purpose, Wickham. She happened to be +standing—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, is that what your sister meant?” said Christine, as if a sudden +light dawned on her. “Tell me, Nancy darling, do you really think I hit +the horse on purpose, so as to have an uninterrupted evening with Mr. +Riatt? How you do flatter men! It’s a great art. I’m afraid I shall never +learn it.”</p> + +<p>For the first time, Riatt found himself looking at her with a certain +amount of genuine admiration. This was very straight fighting. “They have +the piratical virtues,” he thought, “courage, and the ability to give and +take hard blows.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Almar was not to be outdone. “Well,” she said, “I may as well be +honest. I can imagine myself doing it, for the right man. And we should +have had an amusing evening of it, which was more than we had here, I can +tell you. We were very dreary. Mr. Wickham tried to relieve the monotony +by a game of piquet, but I’m afraid he did not really enjoy it, for he +has not asked me to play since.” And she cast a quick stimulating glance +at Wickham, whose usual inability to say nothing again betrayed him.</p> + +<p>“Oh,” he said, “I enjoyed our game immensely.”</p> + +<p>“Good,” answered Nancy. “We’ll have another this afternoon then.”</p> + +<p>“Indeed, yes,” said Wickham, looking rather wan.</p> + +<p>“After Mr. Riatt has gone,” said Nancy distinctly. She knew that Laura +had had no opportunity to convey this intelligence to Christine, and it +amused her to see how she would support the blow. Christine’s expression +did not change, but her blue eyes grew suddenly a little darker. She +turned slowly toward Riatt.</p> + +<p>“And are you leaving us?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Sorry to say I am.”</p> + +<p>“What a bore,” said Miss Fenimer politely. Hickson’s simple heart bounded +for joy. “She’s refused him,” he thought, “and that’s why he’s rushing +off like this.”</p> + +<p>“Yes,” said Ussher, “I should think he would want to go home and take +some care of himself. It’s a wonder if he doesn’t develop pneumonia.”</p> + +<p>Christine smiled at Riatt across the table. “They make me feel as if I +had been very cruel, Mr. Riatt,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Cruel, my dear,” cried Nancy. “Oh, I’m sure you weren’t <em>that</em>,” and +then intoxicated by her own success, she made her first tactical error. +She turned to Riatt and said: “Don’t forget that you are dining with me +on Wednesday evening.” She enjoyed this exhibition of power. She saw +Laura and Christine glance at each other. But they were not dismayed; +they saw at once that Max had not been playing his hand alone; he was +going not entirely on his own initiative, and that was encouraging.</p> + +<p>Riatt, who perfectly understood the public protectorate that was thus +established over him, resented it; in fact by the time they rose from the +table, he was thoroughly disgusted with all of them—weary, as he said to +himself of their hideous little games. He hardened his heart even as +Pharaoh did, and he felt not the least hesitation in according Laura the +promised interview, for the reason that he felt no doubt of his own +powers of resistance.</p> + +<p>He permitted himself to be ostentatiously led away, upstairs to her +little private sitting-room, with its books, and fireplace, and signed +photographs, and he pretended not to see Nancy Almar’s glance, which was +almost a wink, and might have been occasioned by the fact that she +herself was at the same moment gently guiding Wickham in the direction of +a card-table.</p> + +<p>Laura made her cousin very comfortable, in a long chair by the fire, with +his cigarettes and his coffee beside him on a little table, and then she +began murmuring:</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it a pity Nancy Almar is so poisonous at times! She isn’t really +bad hearted, but anything connected with Christine has always roused her +jealousy—the old beauty and the new one, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder,” said Riatt, “what is the difference, if any, between a pirate +and a bucaneer? Miss Fenimer and Mrs. Almar seem to me to have many +qualities in common.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Max, how can you say that? Christine is so much more gentle and +womanly, so much—”</p> + +<p>“My dear Laura, we haven’t very much time, and I think you said you +wanted to talk to me on a business matter.”</p> + +<p>Laura Ussher had the grace to hesitate, just an instant, before she +answered: “Oh, yes, but it’s your business I want to talk about. I want +to speak to you about this terrible situation in which Christine finds +herself. Do you realize that Nancy and Wickham between them will spread +this story everywhere, with all the embellishments their fancy may +dictate, particularly emphasizing the fact that it was Christine who made +the horse run away. It will be in the papers within a week. You know, +Max, just as well as I do, that it wasn’t her fault. Is she to be so +cruelly punished for it? Can you permit that?”</p> + +<p>“It’s not my fault either, Laura.”</p> + +<p>“You can so easily save the situation.”</p> + +<p>“How?”</p> + +<p>“By asking her to marry you.”</p> + +<p>“That I will not do.”</p> + +<p>“Are you involved with some one else?”</p> + +<p>“I might make you understand better if I said yes, but it would not be +true. I’m not in love with any individual, but I know clearly the type of +woman I could fall in love with, and it most emphatically is not Miss +Fenimer’s.”</p> + +<p>“Yet so many men have fallen in love with her.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I see her beauty; I even feel her charm; but to marry her, no.”</p> + +<p>“Think of the prestige her beauty and position—”</p> + +<p>“My dear Laura, what position? Social position as represented by the +hectic triviality of the last few days? Thank you, no, again.”</p> + +<p>“Dear Max,” said his cousin more seriously than she had hitherto spoken, +“you know I would not want you to do anything that I thought would make +you unhappy. But this wouldn’t. I know Christine better than you do. I +know that under all her worldliness and hardness there is a vein of +devotion and sweetness—”</p> + +<p>“Very likely there is. But it would not be brought out by a mercenary +marriage with a man who cared nothing for her. If that is all you have to +say, Laura, let’s end an interview which hasn’t been very pleasant for +either of us.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Max, how can you abandon that lovely creature to some tragic +future?”</p> + +<p>“You know quite well she is going to do nothing more tragic than to +marry Hickson.”</p> + +<p>“And you are willing to sacrifice her to Hickson?”</p> + +<p>“My dear Laura, I cannot prevent all the beautiful, dissatisfied women in +the world from marrying dull, kind-hearted young men who adore them.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ussher stared at him in baffled, unhappy silence, and in the pause, +the door quickly and silently opened and Christine herself entered. She +looked calm, almost Olympian, as she laid her hand on Laura’s arm.</p> + +<p>“Let me have just a word alone with Mr. Riatt,” she said; and as Laura +precipitately left the room, Christine turned to Riatt with a reassuring +smile. “Don’t be alarmed,” she said. “Your most dangerous antagonist has +just gone. I’ve really come to rescue you.” She sank into a chair. “How +exhausting scenes are. Let me have a cigarette, will you?”</p> + +<p>She smoked a moment in silence, while he stood erect and alert by the +mantel-piece. At last, glancing up at him, she said:</p> + +<p>“I suppose Laura was suggesting that you marry me?”</p> + +<p>He nodded.</p> + +<p>“Laura’s a dear, but not always very wise. You see, she thinks we are +both so wonderful, she can’t believe we wouldn’t make each other happy. +And from her point of view, it is rather an obvious solution. You see, +she does not know about that paragon in the Middle West.”</p> + +<p>“She existed only in my imagination.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, a dream-lady,” said Christine, and her eyes brightened a little. “No +wonder you thought her too good for Ned. Well, that brings me to what I +came to tell you. I have decided to marry Edward Hickson.”</p> + +<p>There was a blank and rather flat pause, during which Riatt took his +cigarette from his mouth and very carefully studied the ash, but could +think of nothing to say. The thought in his mind was that Hickson was +a dull dog.</p> + +<p>“Have you told Hickson?” he asked after a moment.</p> + +<p>She shook her head. “No, and I shan’t till I get more accustomed to the +idea myself. It isn’t exactly an easy idea to get accustomed to. The +prospect is not lively.”</p> + +<p>“I dare say you will contrive to make it as lively as possible.”</p> + +<p>She smiled drearily. “How very poorly you do think of me! I shan’t make +Ned a bad wife. He will be very happy, and Nancy and I will be like +sisters. By the way, you’re not in love with Nancy, are you?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not.”</p> + +<p>“Good. They all say it’s a dog’s life.” She yawned. “Oh, isn’t everything +tiresome! If I had had any idea my filial deed in going to find my +father’s coat would have resulted in my having to marry Ned, I never +would have gone.”</p> + +<p>Riatt struggled in silence. He wanted—any man would have wanted—to ask +her whether there wasn’t some other way out; but knowing that he himself +was the only other way, he refrained and asked instead: “Is there +anything I can do to help you?”</p> + +<p>“There is,” she responded promptly. “Rather a disagreeable thing, too. +But it will be all over in an instant, and you can take your afternoon +train and forget all about us. Will you do it?”</p> + +<p>He hesitated, and she went on:</p> + +<p>“Ah, cautious to the last! It’s just a demonstration, a <i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">beau geste</span></i>. +It’s this: You see, the situation, as I have discovered from a little +talk with Ned, is more ugly than has yet appeared. They are holding one +thing up their sleeve. Ned, it seems, noticed the track of your feet +leaving the house, and it did not stop snowing until the morning. That +was rather careless of you, wasn’t it? Nancy can make a good deal of that +one little fact.”</p> + +<p>“What people you are!”</p> + +<p>“Rather horrid, aren’t we? Did Laura keep telling you what a wonderful +advantage it would be for you to be one of us? I wish I could have seen +your face.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, she did say something of the advantages of belonging to a group +like this. Do you know what any man who married you ought to do with +you,” he added with sudden vigor. “He ought to take you to the smallest, +ugliest, deadest town he could find and keep you there five years.”</p> + +<p>“Thank you,” she said. “You have achieved the impossible. You have made +Ned seem quite exciting. Hitherto I have taken New York for granted, but +now I shall add it to his positive advantages. But you haven’t heard yet +what it is I want you to do.”</p> + +<p>“What is it?”</p> + +<p>“I want you to make me a well authenticated offer of marriage before you +go for good.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Fenimer, I have the honor to ask you to marry me.”</p> + +<p>“I regret so much, Mr. Riatt, that a previous attachment prevents my +accepting—but, my dear man, that isn’t at all what I mean. Do you +suppose Wickham and Nancy will believe me just because I walk out of +this room and say you asked me to marry you? No, we must have some proof +to offer.”</p> + +<p>“Something in writing?”</p> + +<p>She hesitated.</p> + +<p>“No,” she said, “one really can’t go about with a framed proposal like a +college degree. I want a public demonstration.”</p> + +<p>“Something with a band or a phonograph?”</p> + +<p>She was evidently thinking it out—or wished to appear to be. “Not quite +that either. This would be more like it. Suppose I send for Nancy to +come here now and consult with me as to whether I shall accept your +offer or not. If I told her before you, she could hardly refuse to +believe it. And you would be safe, for there isn’t the least doubt what +advice she will give me.”</p> + +<p>“You think she will advise you against me?”</p> + +<p>Christine nodded. “She will try to save you from the awful fate she is +reserving for her brother.” She touched the bell. “Do you feel nervous?”</p> + +<p>“A trifle,” he answered, and indeed he did, for he knew better than +Christine could, how strange this coming interview would appear to Mrs. +Almar after the conversation before lunch. He consoled himself, however, +by the thought that train-time was drawing near, “and then, please +heaven,” he said to himself, “I need never see any of them again.”</p> + +<p>“Isn’t it strange,” began Miss Fenimer, and then as a servant appeared in +the doorway: “Oh, will you please ask Mrs. Almar to come here for a few +minutes and speak to me. Tell her it is very important. Isn’t it +strange,” she went on, when the man had gone, “that I’m not a bit +nervous, and yet I have so much more at stake than you have.”</p> + +<p>“You have a good deal clearer notion of your rôle than I.”</p> + +<p>“Your rôle is easy. You confirm everything I say, and contrive to look a +little depressed at the end. Nothing could be simpler.”</p> + +<p>He hesitated. “Simpler than to look depressed when you refuse me?”</p> + +<p>“No one really likes to be refused,” she said. “Even I, hardened as I am, +felt a certain distaste for the idea that Laura had been urging me on +your reluctant acceptance. By the way, you did seem able to say no, after +all your talk on our unfortunate drive about no man’s being able to +refuse a woman.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, a third party,” he answered. “That’s a very different thing. Had it +been you yourself, with streaming eyes—” He looked at her sitting very +cool and straight at a safe distance.</p> + +<p>“I don’t think I could cry to save my life,” she observed. “Certainly not +to save my reputation.”</p> + +<p>He did not answer. The situation had begun to seem like a game to him, or +some absurd farce in which he was only reading some regular actor’s part; +and when presently the door opened to admit Mrs. Almar, he felt as if she +had been waiting all the time in the wings.</p> + +<p>Nancy stopped with a gesture of surprise, on finding that she was +interrupting a tête-à-tête. Christine ignored her astonishment.</p> + +<p>“Nancy dear,” she said. “How nice of you to come, when I know how busy +you were teaching Wickham piquet. Sit down. This is the reason I sent for +you. As one of my best friends, I want your candid advice about this +horrid situation.”</p> + +<p>“But Laura is one of your best friends, too,” said Mrs. Almar.</p> + +<p>“You’ll see why I did not send for Laura. She is so ridiculously +prejudiced in favor of Mr. Riatt. There’s no question as to what her +advice would be. In fact,” said Christine with the frankest laugh, “she’s +advised it long ago—even before he asked me.”</p> + +<p>At these sinister words, Mrs. Almar gave a glance like the jab of a +knife at Riatt.</p> + +<p>“See here, Christine,” she said, “every minute I spend here is a direct +pecuniary loss to me. Let’s get to the point.”</p> + +<p>“Of course. How selfish I am,” answered Miss Fenimer. “The point is this. +In view of the gossip and talk, and your own dear little suggestion, +darling, that I had frightened the horse on purpose, Mr. Riatt has +thought it necessary to ask me to marry him. I say he has thought it +necessary, because in spite of all his flattering protestations, I can’t +help feeling that he’s done it from a sense of duty. But whatever his +sentiments may be, I’ve been quite open about mine. I’m not in love with +him. In view of all this, Nancy, do you think it advisable that I accept +his offer?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Almar had never been considered particularly good-tempered. Now she +jumped to her feet with her eyes positively blazing. “Have I been called +away from the care of my depleted bank account to take part in a farce +like this?” she cried. “You ought to be ashamed of yourself, Christine. +You know just as well as I do that that young man never even thought of +asking you to marry him.”</p> + +<p>Christine was quite unruffled. “Oh, Nancy dear,” she said, “how helpful +you always are. I see what you mean. You think no one will believe that +he ever did propose unless I accept him. I think you’re perfectly right.”</p> + +<p>“They won’t and I don’t,” said Nancy, and moved rapidly to the door.</p> + +<p>“One moment, Mrs. Almar,” said Riatt, firmly. “You happen to be mistaken. +I did very definitely ask Miss Fenimer to marry me not ten minutes ago.”</p> + +<p>“And do you renew that request?” said Christine.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_119" style="max-width: 35.9375em;"><a id="119"></a> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_119.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center">“Well, heaven itself can’t save a fool,” said Mrs. +Almar</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“I do.”</p> + +<p>Christine held out her hand with the gesture of a queen. “And I very +gratefully accept your generous offer,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Well, heaven itself can’t save a fool,” said Mrs. Almar, and she went +out of the room, and slammed the door after her.</p> + +<p>As she went, Riatt actually flung the hand of his newly affianced wife +from him. “May I ask,” he said, “what you think you are doing?”</p> + +<p>Christine had covered her face with her hands, and had sunk into a chair. +For an instant Riatt really thought that the strain of the situation had +been too much for her; but on closer inspection he found that she was +shaking with laughter.</p> + +<p>“I can’t be sure which was funnier,” she gasped, “your face or Nancy’s.”</p> + +<p>Riatt did not seem to feel mirthful. “Do you take in,” he asked her +sternly, “that you have just broken your word.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve just plighted it, haven’t I?”</p> + +<p>“You promised to refuse me.”</p> + +<p>She sprang up. “I did not. I never said a word like it. If a stenographer +had been here, the record would bear me out. You inferred it, I dare say. +Besides, what could I do? Even Nancy herself told us no one would believe +us unless I accepted you—at least for a time.”</p> + +<p>“For what time?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, don’t let us cross bridges until we get to them. We are hardly +engaged yet—Max! I must practise calling you Max, mustn’t I?” In +attempting to repress an irrepressible smile she developed an unknown +dimple in her left cheek. The sight of it made his tone particularly +relentless as he answered:</p> + +<p>“If by the fifteenth of this month you have not broken this engagement, +I’ll announce its termination myself.”</p> + +<p>“And you,” she went on, as if he had not spoken, “must get into the habit +of calling me Christine.”</p> + +<p>“Listen to me,” he said, and he took her by the shoulders with a +gesture that no one could have mistaken for a caress. “I do not intend +to marry you.”</p> + +<p>“I see you feel no doubt of my wishes in the matter.”</p> + +<p>“I wonder where I got the idea.”</p> + +<p>“Be reassured,” she said, finding herself released. “My intentions are +honorable. I would not marry any really nice man absolutely against his +will. Although I did say to myself the very first time I saw you, coming +downstairs in that well-cut coat of yours—or is it the shoulders?—I did +say: ‘I could be happy with that man, happier, that is, than with Ned.’ +You may think it isn’t much of a compliment, but Ned has a very nice +disposition, nicer than yours.”</p> + +<p>“And I should say it was the first requisite for your husband.”</p> + +<p>She became suddenly plaintive. “Of course I can see,” she said, “why any +one shouldn’t want to be married, but I can’t see why you object to being +engaged to me for a few weeks.”</p> + +<p>“How can I be sure you will keep your word?”</p> + +<p>“I’ll give it to you in writing,” she returned. “Write: This is to +certify that I, Christine Fenimer, have enveigled the innocent and +unsuspecting youth—”</p> + +<p>“I won’t,” said Riatt.</p> + +<p>“I will then,” she answered, and sitting down she wrote:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“This is to certify that I, Christine Fenimer, have speciously, +feloniously and dishonorably induced Mr. Max Riatt to make me an offer of +marriage, which I knew at the time he had no wish to fulfil, and I hereby +solemnly vow and swear to release him from same on or before the first +day of March of this year of grace. (Signed) <span class="smcap">Christine Fenimer</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>“There,” she said, “put that in your pocketbook, and for goodness’ sake +don’t let your pocket be picked between now and the first of March.”</p> + +<p>He took it and put it very carefully away, observing as he did so: “It’s +a long time to the first of March.”</p> + +<p>“It mayn’t seem as long as you think.”</p> + +<p>“Are you by any chance supposing,” he asked with a directness he had +learnt from her own methods, “that by that time I may have fallen in love +with you?”</p> + +<p>She did not hesitate at all. “Well, I think it is a possibility.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, anything’s possible, but I can tell you this: Even if I were in love +with you, you are not the type of woman I should ever dream of marrying.”</p> + +<p>“What would you do?”</p> + +<p>“If I saw the slightest chance of falling in love with you—which I +don’t—I should try all the harder to free myself.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t see how you could try any harder than you have. You begin to +make me suspicious.”</p> + +<p>“Miss Fenimer—”</p> + +<p>“Christine, please.”</p> + +<p>“Christine, I am not the least bit in love with you.”</p> + +<p>“Quite sure that you’re not whistling to keep your courage up?”</p> + +<p>“Quite sure.”</p> + +<p>“Well,” she said, “just to show my fair spirit, I’ll tell you that I +entirely believe you. Shall I add it to the contract: And I credit his +repeated assertion that he is not and never will be in the least in love +with me? No, I think I’ll omit the ‘and never will be’ clause.”</p> + +<p>“And may I ask one other question,” he continued, ignoring her last +suggestion. “What did you mean when you told me that you had decided to +marry Hickson?”</p> + +<p>“So I have. Don’t you see? He and I are really engaged, but he doesn’t +know it. You and I are not really engaged, and you <em>do</em> know it.”</p> + +<p>“I wish I did,” he returned gloomily.</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes,” she said, “you know it and I know it, but the dog—that’s +Nancy—she doesn’t know it.”</p> + +<p>He seemed unimpressed by the humor of the situation. He walked away and +put his hand on the knob.</p> + +<p>“One thing more,” he said. “I would like to be sure that you understand +this. The weapons are all in my hands. The only strength of your position +lies in my good nature and willingness to keep up appearances. Neither +one is a rock of defense. I’m not, as you said yourself, good-tempered, +and I care very little for appearances. The risk you run, if you don’t +play absolutely fair, is of being publicly jilted.”</p> + +<p>“And I should hate that,” she answered candidly.</p> + +<p>“I’m sure you would,” he answered. “And I don’t particularly enjoy +threatening you with such a possibility.”</p> + +<p>“Really,” said she. “Now I rather like you when you talk like that.”</p> + +<p>“Fortunate that you do,” he returned, “for you will probably hear a good +deal of it.”</p> + +<p>She nodded with perfect acquiescence. “And now,” she said, “if you have +no more hateful things to say, let’s go and tell our friends of the great +happiness that has come into our lives.”</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_IV">CHAPTER IV</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-capy">As they went down the stairs—those same stairs on which only two +evenings before they had first met—toward the drawing-room where their +great announcement was to be made, Riatt stopped Christine in her +triumphal progress.</p> + +<p>“You’re not going to have the supreme cruelty,” he said, “to let poor +Hickson think that our engagement is a genuine one?”</p> + +<p>Christine paused. “I wonder,” she answered thoughtfully, “which in the +end would deceive him most—to make him think it was real or fake?”</p> + +<p>“You blood-curdling woman,” said Riatt. “I am not engaged to you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, you are—until March first.”</p> + +<p>“I am pretending to be until March first.”</p> + +<p>She leant against the banisters, and regarded him critically. “Isn’t it +strange,” she remarked, “that you dislike so much the idea of my trying +to make you care for me? Some men would be crazy about the process.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, if I enjoyed the process, I should regard myself as lost.”</p> + +<p>She shook her head. “I’m not sure that this terror isn’t a more +significant confession of weakness. Who is it is most afraid of high +places? Those who feel a desire to jump off.”</p> + +<p>“I’m not afraid,” he returned crossly. “I just don’t like it. I +don’t want to be made love to. That’s one of the mistakes women are +always making. They think all men want to be made love to by any +woman. We don’t.”</p> + +<p>Christine sighed gently. “You’re getting disagreeable again,” she said +with the softest reproach in her tone. “Let’s go on.”</p> + +<p>“You haven’t answered my question,” he said. “Are you going to tell +Hickson the truth?”</p> + +<p>“How can I? If I told him, Nancy would know at once, and the whole aim of +this plot is to deceive Nancy. However,” she added brightly, “I shall do +what I can to alleviate his sufferings. I shall tell him that I am not in +the least in love with you, that you have never so much as kissed me, and +that my present intention is that you never shall.”</p> + +<p>“And you may add that my intention is the same,” replied Riatt with some +sternness.</p> + +<p>Christine smiled. “There’s no use in telling him that,” she answered, +“for he wouldn’t believe it.”</p> + +<p>“Upon my word,” said he, “I think you’re the vainest woman I ever met.”</p> + +<p>“Candid, merely,” she returned, as she opened the door of the +drawing-room. The scene that greeted them was eminently suited to their +purpose. Laura and Ussher were standing at the table watching the last +bitter moments of the game between Nancy and the unfortunate Wickham. +Hickson was not there.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Laura,” said Christine, “could I have just a word with you?”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ussher looked up startled. She had been deeply depressed by her +unsuccessful conversation with her cousin. He had seemed to her +absolutely immovable, but there was no mistaking the significant +bride-like modulations of Christine’s voice.</p> + +<p>“With me?” she said, and in her eagerness she was already at the door, +before Christine stopped her.</p> + +<p>“Really,” she said, “I don’t know why only with you. I know you are all +enough my friends to be interested—even Mr. Wickham. Max and I wanted to +tell you that we are engaged. Only, of course, it’s a secret.”</p> + +<p>Riatt had resolved that he would not look at Mrs. Almar, and he didn’t. +She was adding up the score, and her arithmetic did not fail her. “And +that makes 387, Mr. Wickham,” she said, and then she looked up with her +bright, piercing eyes, in time to see Laura fling herself +enthusiastically into Riatt’s arms. She got up with a shrewd smile. “Let +me congratulate you, too, Mr. Riatt,” she said. “I always like to see +people get what they deserve.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Nancy, I’m sure you think I’m getting far more than I deserve,” said +Christine.</p> + +<p>“You haven’t actually got it yet, darling,” returned Mrs. Almar.</p> + +<p>“That sounds almost like a threat, my dear.”</p> + +<p>“More in the line of a prophecy.”</p> + +<p>At this moment the footman created a diversion by announcing that the +sleigh was waiting to take Mr. Riatt to the train, and Riatt explained +that he had decided not to take the train that day. Then Christine, on +inquiring, found that Hickson was writing letters in the library, and +went away to talk to him. She had no fear of leaving Max; she knew he was +in safe hands; Laura would not allow Nancy an instant alone with him. +Nor, as a matter of fact, was Riatt himself eager to subject himself to +the cross-examination of that keen and contemptuous intelligence. Indeed +Nancy soon drifted out of the room, and Riatt found himself committed to +a long tête-à-tête with Laura on the subject of Christine’s perfections, +and his supposed deceitfulness in pretending indifference. “Oh, you +protested too much, my dear Max,” Laura insisted with the most irritating +exuberance. “I knew when you began to say that she was the last woman in +the world you would fall in love with, that your hour had come. No man +ever lived who could resist Christine when she chooses to make herself +agreeable.”</p> + +<p>Riatt felt he was looking rather grim for an accepted lover, as he +answered that it was a great comfort to feel one had succumbed only to +the irresistible. Before very long Christine came back, and taking in +what had been going on, managed to get rid of her friend. Laura made it +plain that she was only too glad to accord the lovers a few blissful +moments alone.</p> + +<p>“I can’t describe to you,” he said crossly, “how intensely disagreeable I +find the situation.”</p> + +<p>Christine laughed. “And did you look like that while Laura was detailing +my perfections? A judge about to pronounce the death sentence is gay in +comparison. Cheer up. I haven’t had a pleasant fifteen minutes myself. I +never thought myself kind-hearted, but I assure you I really longed to +tell Ned the truth. He is the nicest person.”</p> + +<p>“I believe he will make you an excellent husband.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear, I’m afraid he will.” She sighed. “Safety first will be a dull +motto to go through life with. Do you want to know what I told him? No? +Well, I’m going to tell you anyhow. I said that you had made me this +magnificent offer, prompted, I felt sure, by the purest chivalry; and +that I felt I owed it to my family, my friends and my reputation to +accept it, but that you had left my heart untouched, and that if he and +you were both penniless, I should prefer him to you. That wasn’t all +perfectly true.”</p> + +<p>Suddenly Riatt found himself smiling. “My innocent child,” he said, +“let me make one thing clear to you. Any effort on your part to create +an impression that you have fallen in love with me will not be crowned +with success.”</p> + +<p>Christine was quite unabashed by his directness.</p> + +<p>“I’m not a bit in love with you,” she said—“not any more than you are +with me, only I realize that there is a possibility for either of us, and +of the two,” she added maliciously, “I really think I’m the more +hard-hearted.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps you will think I am running away from danger,” he answered, +“when I tell you that as soon as I have seen your father, got your +ring, and fulfilled the immediate necessities of the occasion, I +shall go home.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, you can’t do that!” cried Christine, in genuine alarm.</p> + +<p>“You surely don’t expect me to neglect my legitimate business on account +of this ridiculous farce.”</p> + +<p>For the first time a certain amount of real hostility crept in their +relation. They looked at each other steadily. Then Christine said +politely: “Well, we’ll see how things go.” He knew, however, that she was +as determined that he should stay as he was to leave, and the knowledge +made him all the firmer.</p> + +<p>The evening was a stupid one, devoted largely to toasts, jokes, +congratulations and a few stabs from Nancy. Through it all poor Hickson’s +gloom was obvious.</p> + +<p>The next day the party broke up. Wickham and Hickson taking an early +express; the others, even Nancy who abandoned her motor on account of the +snow, going in by a noonday train. Already, it seemed to Riatt that the +bonds of matrimony were closing about him as he found himself delegated +to look up Christine’s trunks, maid and dressing-case.</p> + +<p>Soon after the arrival of the train he had an appointment, made by +telephone, with Mr. Fenimer. The interview was to take place at Mr. +Fenimer’s club, a most discreet and elegant organization of fashionable +virility. Riatt was not kept waiting. Fenimer came promptly to meet him.</p> + +<p>He was a man of fifty, well made, and supremely well dressed. He was +tanned as befits a sportsman; on his face the absence of furrows created +by the absence of thought was made up for by the fine wrinkles induced by +poignant and continued anxiety about his material comforts. In his figure +the vigor of the athlete contended with the comfortable stoutness of the +epicure. He had left a discussion in which all his highest faculties had +been roused, a discussion on the replenishing of the club’s cellar, and +had come to speak to his future son-in-law, with satisfaction but without +vital interest. His manner was a perfect blending of reserve and +cordiality.</p> + +<p>“You will hardly expect a definite answer from me to-day, Mr. Riatt,” he +said. “You understand, I am sure, that knowing so little of you—an only +child, my daughter”—He waved his hand, not manicured but most +beautifully cared for. Riatt noticed that in spite of these chilling +sentences, Fenimer was soon composing a paragraph for the press, and +advocating the setting of the date for the wedding early in April, as he +himself was booked for a fishing-trip later. He did this under the +assumption that he was yielding to Riatt’s irresistible eagerness. “You +have an excellent advocate in Christine. My daughter has always ruled me. +And now in my old age I am to lose her. I had a long letter from her by +the early mail, speaking of you in the highest terms.” He smiled. Riatt +rose, and allowed him to return to the question of the club’s wines.</p> + +<p>Something about this interview was more shocking to him than the cynicism +of Nancy and Christine; Fenimer’s suave eagerness to hand his daughter +over to a total stranger, did not amuse him as the women’s light talk had +done. He felt sorry for Christine and a little disgusted. He wondered +what that letter had really said. Was Fenimer a conspirator, too, or only +a willing dupe?</p> + +<p>From the club he went to the jeweler’s and selected the most conspicuous +diamond he could find. Her friends should not miss the fact that she was +engaged if a solitaire could prove it to them. He ordered it sent to her, +much to the surprise of the clerk, who pointed out that it was usual to +present such things in person.</p> + +<p>After this he went to his hotel and found a pile of letters had +accumulated in his absence.</p> + +<p>The first he opened was in a round childish hand with uncertain margins, +and a final “e” on the word Hotel.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> + +<p>“Dear Cousin Max,” it said, “I do not know you, but Mamma says that you +are going to marry Christine. I think you are very lucky, and am glad you +are bringing her into our family. Victor and I love her. She comes to the +nursery sometimes, but never stays long.</p> + +<p class="right noindent"><span class="padr2">“Your loving cousin,</span><br> +“<span class="smcap">Muriel Ussher</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Riatt laughed as he laid it down. “I bet she doesn’t stay long,” he said. +“How she does skim the cream!” And then with an exclamation of surprise +he tore open another envelope which had been left by hand. It said:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="noindent">“Dear Max:</p> + +<p>“I hope you will be pleasantly surprised to find that Mother and I are +staying in this hotel. I find New York more wonderful but more unfriendly +than I had been told, and I want terribly to see a familiar face. Won’t +you look us up as soon as you can?</p> + +<p class="right noindent"><span class="padr2">“Yours as ever,</span><br> +“<span class="smcap">Dorothy</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>He went to the telephone, found that she was in and immediately arranged +that she should go out to lunch with him.</p> + +<p>All the morning and some of the night, he had been engaged in the +composition of a letter to Dorothy Lane. Theirs was an old and +sentimental friendship, which adverse circumstances might have ended, or +favoring circumstances have changed into love. As things were, it seemed +to be tending toward their marriage without any whirlwind rapidity.</p> + +<p>There was no doubt he was very glad to see her, as he hurried her into a +taxicab, and told the man to drive to the restaurant of the hour. She was +very neatly and nicely dressed in a tailor-made costume for which she had +just paid twice as much as a native New York woman would have paid. In +fact she was an essentially neat and nice little person. They talked both +at once like two children about all the people at home, until they were +actually seated at table, and lunch was ordered. Then Riatt made up his +mind he must take the plunge.</p> + +<p>“Dolly,” he said, “do I look as if something tremendous had just +happened?”</p> + +<p>“Don’t tell me you’ve invented a submarine, or something?”</p> + +<p>“No, this is something of a more personal nature.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, Max, you’ve fallen in love?”</p> + +<p>A waiter rushing up with rolls and butter suggested that Madame probably +preferred fresh butter to salted, before Riatt answered: “No, that is +just what I haven’t done—and that’s the secret, Dolly. I’m not a bit in +love, but I am engaged to be married.”</p> + +<p>“Max! But why if—”</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you on the second of March. It’s a good story. You’ll enjoy +it, but for the present, my dear, you must just accept the fact that I am +engaged, that I am neither wildly elated nor unduly depressed.”</p> + +<p>Miss Lane had grown extremely serious. “Who is she?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Her name is Christine Fenimer.”</p> + +<p>“I’ve seen her name in the papers.”</p> + +<p>“Who has not?” he returned bitterly.</p> + +<p>“What is she like?”</p> + +<p>Riatt felt some temptation to answer truthfully and say: “She is +designing, mercenary, hard-hearted and as beautiful as a goddess.” But he +did not, and, as he paused he saw the head waiter spring forward from the +doorway, smiling and holding up a pencil to attract the attention of some +underling, and then he saw that Christine, Hickson and Mr. and Mrs. +Linburne were being ushered in. Christine approached, tall, beautiful, +conspicuous, and as divinely unconscious of it as Adam and Eve of their +nakedness; she moved between the tables, bowing here and there to people +she knew, not purposely ignoring all others, but seeming to find them +invisible as thin air. Riatt watched as if she were some great spectacle, +and was recalled only by hearing Dorothy’s voice saying:</p> + +<p>“What a lovely creature!”</p> + +<p>“That is Miss Fenimer.”</p> + +<p>A sudden and deep flush spread over Miss Lane’s face.</p> + +<p>“And you have been telling me of your indifference to her?” she asked +bitterly. “How could any man be indifferent!”</p> + +<p>“Good Heavens,” cried Riatt fiercely. “All you women are alike! Beauty +isn’t the only thing in the world for a man to love. There are such +things as truth and honor—”</p> + +<p>“Yes, and old friendship, too,” said Miss Lane, “but they don’t always +amount to much.”</p> + +<p>“That is an unnecessary, unkind thing to say,” he answered. “My +friendship for you means a good deal more to me than my engagement to +her.”</p> + +<p>“Max, I don’t need to be consoled or soothed about your engagement,” said +Miss Lane with a good deal of spirit. “As far as I am concerned you are +quite free not only to become engaged, but to have any feeling you like +for the lady you have chosen. I’m sure I congratulate you very heartily.”</p> + +<p>“You mean you don’t believe a word of what I have been trying to +tell you.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, I do. I believe you are engaged.”</p> + +<p>Perhaps it was as well that at this instant, Christine’s eyes fell upon +her; she stared, then laughed, and pointed him out to Hickson, who +glanced at him coldly; he was evidently thinking that he would not have +taken another girl out to lunch the very day his engagement was +announced.</p> + +<p>“I suppose I had better go and speak to them,” Max said.</p> + +<p>“I should think so,” replied Dorothy tonelessly. “Who are the others?”</p> + +<p>Riatt, not sorry for a moment’s respite, entered into a detailed account +of Lee Linburne. He was the third generation of a great fortune, +augmenting rather than decreasing with years. He was but little over +thirty and had taken the whole field of amusement and sports as his own. +He played polo, had a racing stable and a racing yacht, had gone in +recently for flying (hence Riatt’s connection with him), occasionally +financed a theatrical show, and now and then attended a directors’ +meeting of some of his grandfather’s companies. The result was that his +name was as widely known through the country as Abraham Lincoln’s. +Dorothy knew as soon as she heard his name, that he had married a girl +from Pittsburg, and had gone through her native city in a private car on +his honeymoon three years before, and had stopped, she rather thought, +and had lunch with the Governor of the State.</p> + +<p>On Hickson, Max touched more briefly.</p> + +<p>When at last he did cross the room, Christine received him with the +utmost cordiality.</p> + +<p>“What luck to run across you, though of course this is the only place in +New York where one can get food that doesn’t actually poison one. Last +week—do you remember, Lee? We dined somewhere or other with the +Petermans and nothing from the beginning of dinner to the end was fit to +eat. But, bless them, they did not know. Have you met Mrs. Linburne? Oh, +she knows all about <em>us</em>. In fact every one does, for I can’t resist +wearing this.” She moved her left hand on which his diamond shone like a +swollen star. “How did you find my father?”</p> + +<p>“Most amiable,” answered Riatt rather poisonously, and regretted the +poison when he saw the Linburnes exchange an amused glance. Of course +every one knew that Mr. Fenimer would present no obstacles.</p> + +<p>“Who are you lunching with, Max? Is that your little secretary?”</p> + +<p>The tone, very civil and friendly, made Max furious, as if any one that +Christine did not know was hardly worth inquiring about.</p> + +<p>“No, it’s Miss Lane—an old friend of mine. I think I must have spoken to +you about her.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, the perfect provider? Is that really she?” Christine craned her neck +openly to stare at her. “Why, she’s rather nice looking—for a good +housekeeper, that is. You’re dining with me to-night, aren’t you?”</p> + +<p>“No,” answered Riatt, with a sudden inspiration of ill-humor. “I’m dining +with Miss Lane.”</p> + +<p>“Bring her, too! Won’t she come?”</p> + +<p>“I really can’t say.”</p> + +<p>“You can ask her.”</p> + +<p>“To your house?”</p> + +<p>Christine always knew when she was really beaten. She got up with a +sigh. “Take me over,” she said to him, “and I’ll ask her myself.” And +she added to the Linburnes: “Out of town people are always so fussy +about little things.”</p> + +<p>Riatt did not know if this slightly contemptuous observation were meant +to apply to him or to Miss Lane; he hoped in his heart that Dorothy would +refuse the invitation. But he under-estimated Christine’s powers. No one +could have been more persuasive, more meltingly sweet, and compellingly +cordial than she was, and it was soon arranged that he was to bring +Dorothy to dine that evening.</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_147" style="max-width: 35.9375em;"><a id="147"></a> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_147.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center">It was arranged that he was to bring Dorothy to +dine with them that evening</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>When it was over, and he was back again in his own seat, he could see, by +glancing at Christine that she was engaged in a long humorous account of +the incident, for her own table; and he could tell, even from that +distance, when he was supposed to be speaking, when Dorothy, and when +Christine was repeating her own words. Meanwhile Dorothy was saying:</p> + +<p>“How charming and simple she is, Max. You always hear of these people as +being so artificial and elaborate.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, they’re direct enough,” returned Riatt bitterly.</p> + +<p>The bitterness was so apparent that Dorothy could not ignore it. She +looked up at him for an instant and then she said seriously: “I believe I +know what the trouble with you is, Max. You can’t believe that she loves +you for yourself. You’re haunted by the dread that what you have has +something to do with it. Isn’t that it?”</p> + +<p>Max now made use of the well-known counter question as an escape from a +tight place.</p> + +<p>“And what is your judgment on that point, Dolly?”</p> + +<p>“She loves you,” said Miss Lane, with conviction, and a moment afterward +she sighed.</p> + +<p>“Without disputing your opinion,” returned Riatt, “I should very much +like to know on what you base it.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, on a hundred things—on her look, her manner, her being so nice to +me—on woman’s intuition in fact.”</p> + +<p>Riatt thought to himself that he had never had much confidence in the +intuition theory and now he had none.</p> + +<p>They did not part at the termination of lunch. It was almost a duty, +Riatt considered, to show a stranger a few of the sights. Miss Lane, who +was extremely well-informed on all questions of art, suggested the +Metropolitan Museum; and after that they took a taxicab and drove along +the river and watched the winter sunset above the palisades; and then +they went and had tea at the Plaza, and by the time they returned to Mrs. +Lane it was almost the hour for dressing for dinner; and then Max sat +gossiping with Mrs. Lane, for whom he had always had the deepest +affection, until he knew he was going to be late.</p> + +<p>They were late—a difficult thing to be in the Fenimer household. The +party, a small one, was waiting when Miss Lane and Mr. Riatt were ushered +in. Nancy was there, and Hickson, and Mr. Linburne without his wife this +time; and Mr. Fenimer himself, doing honor to his future son-in-law by +taking a meal at home.</p> + +<p>Christine in a wonderful pink chiffon and lace tea-gown came forward to +greet Dorothy, rather than Max, to whom she gave merely an understanding +smile, while she held the girl’s hand an instant.</p> + +<p>“Max says this is your first visit to New York,” she said, after she +had introduced her father and Nancy. “It is good of you to give us an +evening, when there are so many more amusing things to do, but Max +says we are as interesting as Bushmen or Hottentots. I hope you’ll +find us so.”</p> + +<p>The hope seemed unlikely to be fulfilled, for while the presence of Mr. +Fenimer, who was rather a stickler for etiquette, prevented the perfect +freedom that had reigned at the Usshers’, the talk turned on people whom +Dorothy did not know, and it was so quick and allusive that no outsider +could have followed it. Hickson, soon appreciating something in Miss +Lane’s situation not utterly unlike his own, was touched by her obvious +isolation, and tried to make up for the neglect of the others. Riatt, +sitting between Nancy and Christine, had little time left to him for +observation of any one else.</p> + +<p>When dinner was over Christine instantly drew him away to her own little +sitting-room, on pretense of showing him some letter of congratulation +that she had received. But once there, she shut the door, and standing +before it, she said, with an air of the deepest feeling:</p> + +<p>“You’re in love with this girl.”</p> + +<p>Riatt, who had sunk comfortably down on a sofa by the fire, looked up +in surprise.</p> + +<p>“And if I am?” he answered.</p> + +<p>“You need not humiliate me by making it so evident,” she retorted, and +almost stamped her foot. “Lunching with her in public, and taking her to +tea, as I was told, getting here so late for dinner—I wish you could +have heard the way Nancy and Lee Linburne were goading me before dinner +about it.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Christine,” said Max, and he was amused to hear a tone of real +conjugal remonstrance in his voice, “you have lunched and dined in one +day with Hickson, and yet I don’t feel I have any grounds of complaint.”</p> + +<p>“Every one knows how little I care for Ned,” she answered, “but people +say you do care for this little Western mouse. I hate her. She’s good and +nice, and the kind of a girl men think it wise to marry, and just as +different from me as she can be. I do hate her—and I hate myself too.” +And she covered her face with her hands.</p> + +<p>“Come here, Christine,” said Riatt, without moving, and was rather +surprised when she obeyed. He made her sit down beside him, and +taking her hands from her face, was astonished to find that she was +really crying.</p> + +<p>“Why, my dear child,” he said, in the most paternal manner he could +manage. “What is this all about?” And it was quite in the same note that +Christine wept a moment on his shoulder. Then she raised her head, with a +return of her old brisk manner.</p> + +<p>“I’m jealous,” she said. “Oh, don’t suppose one can’t be jealous of +people one doesn’t care for. I could be jealous of any one when Nancy +begins teasing me and making fun of me. And I’m jealous too, because I’m +sure she’s a nice girl and I’ve made such a mess of my life, and I +deserve it all; but when you came in together, as if you had just been +happily married, and I looked at Ned and thought how wretched I’m always +going to be with him, and what silly things I shall undoubtedly do +before I die—”</p> + +<p>“I hate to hear you talk like that.”</p> + +<p>“Why should you care? <em>She’ll</em> never do silly things—that’s clear. Is +that why you love her?”</p> + +<p>“As a matter of fact I am not in love with Miss Lane.”</p> + +<p>“My dear Max, there’s really no reason why you should deceive me +about it.”</p> + +<p>“That’s just what she said about you.”</p> + +<p>“You mean”—Christine sprang to her feet and gazed at him like an +outraged empress—“You mean that you told her that you didn’t love me?”</p> + +<p>“I most assuredly did.”</p> + +<p>“Max, how could you be so low, so despicable, so false?”</p> + +<p>Riatt laughed. “Well, it certainly was not false, Christine,” he said. +“It happens to be true, you know; and I felt I owed a measure of truth to +a very old and very real friendship. I told her nothing more than that—I +was engaged and not madly in love.”</p> + +<p>Christine threw up her hands. “The game is up,” she said. “She’ll tell +everybody, of course.”</p> + +<p>“She’ll tell absolutely no one.”</p> + +<p>“Because she’s perfect, I suppose?”</p> + +<p>“Because she didn’t for one moment believe me.”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t believe we were engaged?”</p> + +<p>“Didn’t believe that any one could be engaged to so beautiful and +charming a person as you are and not be in love with her.”</p> + +<p>Christine’s manner softened slightly. “She thinks me charming?”</p> + +<p>“She thinks you irresistible, almost as irresistible as Laura thinks +you; and she is trying to find out why I am so eager to deceive her in +the matter.”</p> + +<p>Christine clapped her hands, and executed a few steps. “She’s jealous, +too,” she cried. “The perfect woman is jealous. I never thought of her +suffering, too.”</p> + +<p>“She is not jealous, but I suppose it may hurt her feelings a little that +I shouldn’t—”</p> + +<p>“Oh, nonsense, Max, she loves you. Do you think I could be deceived on +such a subject? She watches you all the time. She loves you. And I think +it would be very impertinent of her not to. I should think very poorly of +her if she didn’t. Imagine what she must be undergoing at this moment, by +our prolonged absence.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps, we’d better be going back,” said Riatt calmly.</p> + +<p>Christine barred the door, spreading out both her arms.</p> + +<p>“She thinks you’re making love to me, Max.”</p> + +<p>“And yet, Christine, I’m not.”</p> + +<p>“But she doesn’t know that; she doesn’t know what an immovable +iceberg you are.”</p> + +<p>“No, indeed she doesn’t.”</p> + +<p>Christine’s manner again changed utterly. All the playfulness +disappeared. “You mean,” she said, “that you’re not cold and immovable +with her?”</p> + +<p>“What’s the use of my telling you anything, if you don’t believe me?” The +idea of teasing Christine had never occurred to him before, but he +thought highly of it. She came toward him at once.</p> + +<p>“Oh, Max, my dear,” she said, “don’t be horrid, when I’m having such a +wretched time anyhow. Don’t you think you might <em>pretend</em> to care for me +just a little?”</p> + +<p>Riatt rose. “Yes, I do,” he said, “and so I shall, in public.”</p> + +<p>Christine was all the gentle, wistful child immediately.</p> + +<p>“Never when we’re alone?” she asked.</p> + +<p>Max lit a cigarette briskly. “I don’t suppose we shall very often be +alone,” he returned. “After all, why should we?”</p> + +<p>She looked at him like a wounded bird: “No reason if you don’t want to.”</p> + +<p>At this moment the door opened and her father came in.</p> + +<p>“Come, come, my dear, this is no way to treat your guests,” he said. “I +must really insist that you go back to the drawing-room. Upon my word, +Riatt, you ought not to keep her like this.”</p> + +<p>“It was a great temptation to have her a few minutes to myself, Mr. +Fenimer,” said Max, and Christine grinned gratefully at him behind her +father’s back.</p> + +<p>“Very likely, very likely,” said Mr. Fenimer crossly, “but I want to go +to the club, and how can I, unless she goes back? You can’t think only of +yourself, my dear fellow.”</p> + +<p>Riatt admitted that this was true and he and Christine went back to the +drawing-room.</p> + +<p>Very soon afterwards, he gave Dorothy a keen prolonged look, which she +did not misunderstand. She got up at once and said good night. In the +taxicab, he questioned her at once as to her impressions.</p> + +<p>“I didn’t like Mr. Linburne or Mrs. Almar at all, Max. She kept asking me +the greatest number of questions about you and the story of your life. +What interest has she in you, I wonder?”</p> + +<p>“None,” answered Riatt, but added rather quickly, “And what did you think +of Linburne?”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t bear him, though I own he’s nice looking. But he told +Mrs. Almar a story—I could not help hearing—I never heard such a +story in my life.”</p> + +<p>“I gather it did not shock Mrs. Almar.”</p> + +<p>“She knew it already. ‘Lee,’ she said, ‘that story is so old that even my +husband knows it,’ and every one laughed.”</p> + +<p>“I’m afraid you did not enjoy yourself.”</p> + +<p>“I like Mr. Hickson very much. And I thought Miss Fenimer more beautiful +than before. He was telling me what a wonderful nature she has. He said +he had never seen her out of temper.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, Hickson’s crazy about her,” said Riatt casually.</p> + +<p>“Dear Max, why do you try to deceive yourself about your own +feeling for her?”</p> + +<p>“Deceive myself,” he said angrily. “If you knew the truth, my dear +Dolly!” His heart stood still. Deceive himself! What an insulting +phrase. He repressed a strong impulse to propose on the instant to +Dolly. That would show her how indifferent he was to Christine. It would +assure him, too.</p> + +<p>Instead he formed a plan to go home with her and her mother, when +they went.</p> + +<p>“When are you going back, Dolly?”</p> + +<p>“The day after to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Any objections to my going, too?”</p> + +<p>“Objections! Max, dear!”</p> + +<p>He engaged his ticket at once at the hotel office. Having done so, he +felt tranquil and relieved, and perhaps the least little bit dull. The +clerk assured him he was fortunate to be able to get a berth at such +short notice. “Very fortunate,” he agreed and was annoyed at a certain +cold ring in his voice.</p> + +<p>The next day, true to his promise to show Christine all attentions that +the public could expect, he sent her a box of flowers, and at four he +stopped for her and they went and took a long walk together, hoping to +meet as many people whom they knew as possible.</p> + +<p>“We won’t walk in the Park,” said Christine. “No one sees you there, +though of course if they do, it makes an impression. But, no; we’ll stick +to Fifth Avenue, and study all the windows that have clothes or furniture +in them, as if our minds were entirely taken up with trousseaux and +house-furnishing.”</p> + +<p>She was true to her word, and not squeamish. Riatt found it rather +amusing to wander at her side, dressing her in imagination in every +garment that the windows so frankly displayed, and answering with real +interest her constant inquiry: “Do you think that would become me? Would +you like me in that? Do you prefer silk to batiste?”</p> + +<p>They were standing in front of a stocking shop in which on a row of +composition legs which might have made a chorus envious, “new ideas in +hosiery” were romantically displayed, when Riatt decided to tell her of +his approaching departure. He chose the street, because he was well aware +that she would not approve of his plan, and he wished to avoid a +repetition of last evening’s scene.</p> + +<p>“I shall have to go away the day after to-morrow,” he said, and glanced +quickly down on her to see how she would take it.</p> + +<p>She was studying the stockings, and she drew away with her head at a +critical angle.</p> + +<p>“It’s a queer thing,” she said, “that certain stripes do make the ankle +look large. Theoretically they ought to make it look slim, but you take +my word for it, Max, they don’t.”</p> + +<p>“Nothing could make your ankles look anything but slim, Christine,” he +replied politely.</p> + +<p>“No, my ankles are rather good, aren’t they?” she replied, and then as if +she had now disposed of the more serious topic, she added: “And so you +are going home? Well, you mayn’t believe it, but I shall really miss you +a great deal. Oh, look at these jade flowers! They’re really good.”</p> + +<p>Riatt looked at the pale lilac and pink blossoms starting from their icy +green leaves, but he hardly saw them. He was disgusted at the discovery +of an unexpected perversity in his nature. He found himself hardly +pleased at the absence of protest with which his announcement was +greeted. All her attention was absorbed by the jade.</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t it look well on our drawing-room mantel-piece?” she said.</p> + +<p>“I’ll give it to you as a wedding present,” he answered. “That is, if you +think Hickson would like it.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t think he’ll like anything you ever give me. He did not even like +my ring. He thinks the stone too large. By the way, I never properly +thanked you for the ring. It has been most splendidly persuasive. Even +Nancy grew pale when she saw the proof of your sincerity.”</p> + +<p>“Will it be sufficient even in the face of my continued absence?” he +asked, for it occurred to him that perhaps she had not understood that he +meant to remain in the West indefinitely.</p> + +<p>“Oh, I think so,” she answered, pleasantly. “You might write to me now +and then, and I’ll show just a suitable paragraph here and there to an +intimate friend.”</p> + +<p>A new idea suddenly occurred to him. Had she any motive for desiring his +absence? Had some unexpected possibility cropped up? Did she want to get +rid of him? Not, he added, that he minded if she did, but it would be +rather interesting to know.</p> + +<p>“I’m going a little earlier than I expected,” he went on, “because the +Lanes are going, and I hate to make that long journey alone.”</p> + +<p>She nodded understandingly. “It will be much nicer for you to have them.”</p> + +<p>He looked at her coldly. It seemed to him he had never known a more +callous nature. And to think that the evening before she had actually +shed tears, simply because he took another girl to lunch! It caught his +attention, he said to himself, just as a study in human nature.</p> + +<p>He did not see her the next day until evening. They were both to dine at +Nancy’s—(thus had the proposed dinner with Mrs. Almar deteriorated) and +go afterward to the opera. Nancy of course would not have dreamed of +crowding three women into her box, so the party consisted of herself and +Christine, Riatt, Roland Almar—a pale, eager, little man, trying to +placate the world with smiles, and once again Linburne, whose handsome +dark head, and curved mouth, half cynical, half sensuous, began to weary +Riatt inexpressibly.</p> + +<p>After dinner he found that he and Mrs. Almar were to go in her tiny +coupé, and the four others in Linburne’s large car.</p> + +<p>“And so,” she observed as soon as they started, “the mouse preferred +the trap after all?” And he could feel that she was laughing at him in +the shadow.</p> + +<p>“But feels none the less grateful for the kind intention to rescue him.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, I don’t care much for the gratitude of a man in love with +another woman.”</p> + +<p>“You judge me to be very much in love?”</p> + +<p>This general conviction on the part of the ladies of his acquaintance was +growing monotonous. Nancy continued:</p> + +<p>“But come back in two years, and we’ll talk of gratitude then. In the +meantime let us stick to the impersonal. What do you think of Linburne?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve had many opportunities of judging. I’ve been nowhere for two days +without meeting him.”</p> + +<p>Mrs. Almar laughed with meaning.</p> + +<p>“I wonder why that should be,” she said.</p> + +<p>“What do you mean?” Riatt asked, but at that moment they drew up before +the Thirty-ninth Street entrance, and the doorman, opening the motor’s +door, shouted “Ten—Forty-five”—a cheerful lie he has been telling four +times a week for many years.</p> + +<p>In the opera box, Riatt at once seated himself behind Christine. There is +no place like the opera for public devotion. Christine was resplendent in +black and gold with a huge black and gold fan that made the fans of the +temple dancers—the opera was “Aïda”—look commonplace and ineffective.</p> + +<p>Behind it she now murmured to Max:</p> + +<p>“And what poisonous thing did dear Nancy tell you coming down?”</p> + +<p>“Nothing—except what everyone has been telling me for the last few +days—that I seemed very much in love.”</p> + +<p>“And that annoyed you, I suppose.”</p> + +<p>“On the contrary. I was delighted to find I was such a good actor.”</p> + +<p>“People who pretend to be asleep sometimes end by actually doing it. +Pretending is rather dangerous sometimes.”</p> + +<p>“Yes, but you see I shan’t have to pretend after to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>“Are you all packed and ready?”</p> + +<p>“Mentally I am.”</p> + +<p>In the <em>entr’acte</em> which followed quickly after their entrance, Christine +dismissed him very politely. “There,” she said, “you don’t have to stay +on duty all the time. You can go and stretch your legs, if you want.”</p> + +<p>He rose at once, and as he did so, Linburne slipped into his place.</p> + +<p>Riatt had caught sight of Laura Ussher across the house, and knew his +duty demanded that he should go and say a word to his exuberant cousin +who, he supposed, regarded herself as the artificer of his happiness.</p> + +<p>“Oh, my dear Max,” she began, hastily bundling out an old friend who had +been reminiscing about the days of the de Rezskes, and waving Riatt into +place, “every one is so delighted at the engagement, and thinks you both +so fortunate. How happy she is, Max! She looks like a different person.”</p> + +<p>“I thought she looked rather tired this evening,” answered Riatt, who +always found himself perverse in face of Laura’s enthusiasm.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Ussher raised her opera glass and studied Christine’s profile, bent +slightly toward Linburne, who was talking with the immobility of feature +which many people use when saying things in public which they don’t wish +overheard. “Oh, well, she doesn’t look as brilliant as she did when <em>you</em> +were with her. But isn’t that natural? I wonder why Nancy asked Lee +Linburne and where is that silly little wife of his. Oh, don’t go, Max. +It’s only the St. Anna attaché; we met him on the coast last summer.”</p> + +<p>But Riatt insisted on making way for the South American diplomat, who was +standing courteously in the back of the box.</p> + +<p>He wandered out into the corridors, not enough interested in any of his +recent acquaintances to go and speak to them. Two men coming up behind +him were talking; he could not help hearing their dialogue:</p> + +<p>“Who’s this fellow she’s engaged to?”</p> + +<p>“No one knows—a Western chap with a lot of money.”</p> + +<p>“Suppose she cares anything about him?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no, she’s telling every one she doesn’t. They say he’s mad +about her.”</p> + +<p>“Ought to be, by Jove. I always thought the only man she ever +cared for—”</p> + +<p>Riatt found himself straining his ears vainly to catch the name, but it +was drowned in other conversations that rose about him. He understood now +why Christine had been angry at his telling Dorothy that he was not in +love, for he found himself annoyed at the idea of her having told +everybody that she wasn’t. But, it’s a different thing, he thought, to +tell one intimate friend in confidence, or to give the news to every Tom, +Dick and Harry. Then the juster side of his nature reasserted itself, and +he saw that she was only laying the trail for the breaking of her +engagement. Yet this evidence of her good faith did not entirely allay +the irritation of his spirit.</p> + +<p>When he went back to the box, Linburne was gone, and the man who had +replaced him, yielded to Riatt with the most submissive promptness. But +this time no easy interchange occurred between them.</p> + +<p>About half past ten, Christine leaned over to her hostess, and said: +“Would you care at all if I deserted you, dear? I’m tired.”</p> + +<p>“Mind when I have my Roland to keep me company?” said Nancy. “One seems +to take one’s husband to the opera this year.”</p> + +<p>At this point Linburne, who had been standing in the back of the box, +came forward and said: “Won’t you take my car, Miss Fenimer? I’ll go down +and find it for you.”</p> + +<p>A look that passed between them, a twinkle in Nancy’s eyes, suddenly +convinced Riatt that the scheme was for Linburne to take Christine +home. He did not stop to ask why this idea was repugnant to him, but he +said firmly:</p> + +<p>“I have a car of my own downstairs, and I’ll take Miss Fenimer home.” It +was of course a lie, as the simple taxicab was his only means of +vehicular locomotion, but a taxi, thank heaven, can always be obtained +quickly at the Metropolitan. Christine consented. Linburne stepped back.</p> + +<p>They drove the few blocks in silence. He went up the steps of her house, +and when the door was opened he said: “May I come in for a few minutes? I +shan’t have time to-morrow probably.”</p> + +<p>“Do,” said Christine. She went into the drawing-room and sank into a +chair. “Who ever heard of not saying good-by to one’s fiancée?”</p> + +<p>He saw that she was in her most teasing mood, and somehow this made him +more serious.</p> + +<p>“Perhaps,” he said rather stiffly, “you think I carry out your +instructions too exactly. Perhaps I show a more scrupulous devotion in +public than you meant.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. It looked so well.”</p> + +<p>“It would not have looked so well for Linburne to take you home.”</p> + +<p>She clapped her hands. “Excellent,” she said, “but you know it is not +necessary to take that proprietary tone when we are alone.”</p> + +<p>“Even as a mere acquaintance I might offer you some advice,” he said.</p> + +<p>“I’m rather sleepy as it is,” she returned, yawning slightly.</p> + +<p>For the first time Riatt had a sense of crisis. He knew he must either +save her, or leave her. He could not give her a little sage advice and +abandon her. It would be like advising a starving man not to steal and +going away with your pockets full. He could not say, “Have nothing to do +with a selfish materialist like Linburne,” when he knew better perhaps +than any one how empty of any ideality or hope her relation to Hickson +was bound to be. Yet on the other hand, he could not say, “Come to me, +instead.” He despised her method of life, distrusted her character, +disliked her ideas, and was under no illusion as to her feeling for +himself. If he had come to her without money she would have laughed in +his face. What chance would either of them have under such circumstances? +It was simple madness to consider it. And why was he considering it? Just +because she looked lovely and wan, sunk in a deep chair in all her black +and gold finery, just because her face had the lines of an Italian saint +and her voice had strange and moving tones in it.</p> + +<p>“Good-by,” he said briefly.</p> + +<p>She sprang up. “Good gracious,” she said, “and are you going just like +that? You know it is customary to extract a promise to write. At least to +beg for a lock of the hair.” (She drew out a golden lock, and let it +crinkle back into place again.) “Or do you think you will remember me +without it?”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_173" style="max-width: 35.9375em;"><a id="173"></a> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_173.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center">He stood like a rock under her caress</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“I’m not so sure I want to remember you.”</p> + +<p>“I hope you don’t. It’s the things you don’t want to remember that you +never can get out of your head.”</p> + +<p>“Good-by,” he said again.</p> + +<p>“Haven’t you one nice thing to say to me before you go?”</p> + +<p>“Not one.”</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t you at least admit that I had enlarged your point of view?”</p> + +<p>“Aren’t you going to shake hands with me?” he said.</p> + +<p>She shook her head, and began to approach him. He felt afterward as if he +had known exactly what she meant to do, and yet he seemed to lack all +power to prevent her—or perhaps it was will that was lacking. She came +up to him, very deliberately put her arms about his neck, and, almost as +tall as he, laid her head on his shoulder; and then murmured under his +chin: “But you must never, never come back.”</p> + +<p>He stood like a rock under her caress; he did not make any answer; he did +not attempt to undo the clasp of her arms. He was as impassive as a +hunted animal who, in some terrible danger, pretends to be already dead.</p> + +<p>It was a matter of only a few seconds. Then she dropped her arms, and he +went away.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_V">CHAPTER V</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-capy">Running away is seldom a becoming gesture, yet it is one that should at +least bring relief; but as Riatt went westward, he was conscious of no +relief whatsoever. The day was bitter and gray, and, looking out of the +window, he felt that he was about as flat and dreary as the country +through which he was passing.</p> + +<p>He sat a little while with the Lanes in their compartment.</p> + +<p>“I suppose you’ll be glad to get home and see George and Louise and the +children,” said Mrs. Lane, referring to some cousins of Riatt’s about +whom, it is to be feared, he had not thought for weeks.</p> + +<p>Dorothy laughed. “What does he care for home-staying cousins when he is +leaving a lovely creature languishing for him in New York?” she said.</p> + +<p>“I doubt if Christine does much languishing,” he returned, though the +idea was not at all disagreeable to him.</p> + +<p>“You two are the strangest lovers I ever knew,” said Miss Lane.</p> + +<p>Riatt wondered if that were an accurate description of them—lovers, +though strange ones.</p> + +<p>He left his old friends presently and went and sat in the +observation-car. What, he wondered, had Christine meant by her last +words, about never coming back? Never come back to annoy with his +critical attitude? Never come back to watch her deterioration as +Hickson’s wife? Or never come back to disturb her peace of mind and +heart by his mere presence? He debated all interpretations but the last +pleased him most.</p> + +<p>A bride and groom were in the car. The girl was not in the least like +Christine. She was small and wore a pair of the most fantastic gray and +black boots that Riatt had ever seen; but she was very blond and very +much in love. Riatt hated both her and her husband. “People ought not to +be allowed to show their feelings like that,” he said to himself, as he +kicked open the door leading to the back platform, with a violence that +was utterly unnecessary.</p> + +<p>Nor did things mend on his arrival at his home. His native town was +naturally interested in his engagement; it showed this interest by +keeping the idea continually before him. It assumed, of course, that he +was going to bring his bride home. The rising architect of the community +came to him with the assumption that he would wish to build her a more +suitable house than that of his father, which, large and comfortable, had +been constructed in the very worst taste of the early “eighties.” No, +Riatt found himself saying with determination, his father’s house would +be good enough for his wife. He thought the sentiment sounded rather +well, as he pronounced it. But this did not solve his difficulties, for +now it was but too evident that he must at least redecorate the old +house; and he found himself, he never knew exactly how, actually in +process of doing over a bedroom, bathroom and boudoir for Christine, just +exactly as if he had expected her ever to lay eyes on them.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Lane came to him with the suggestion that he would wish Christine to +be one of the patronesses of the next winter’s dances. The list was about +to be printed. Max hesitated. “It would be a little premature to put her +down as Mrs. Riatt, wouldn’t it?” he objected. Mrs. Lane thought this was +merely superstitious, and ordered the cards so printed without consulting +him further.</p> + +<p>Every one asked him what he heard from her, so that he actually stooped +once or twice to invent sentences from imaginary letters of hers. He even +went so far as to read the society columns of the New York newspapers, so +that he might not be caught in any absurd error about her whereabouts. +Such at least is the reason by which he explained his conduct to himself.</p> + +<p>He was shocked to find that he was restless and dissatisfied. The only +occupation that seemed to give any relief was gambling; or, as a +mine-owning friend of his expressed it, in making “a less conservative +and more remunerative investment of his capital.” He spent hours every +day hanging over the ticker in the office of Burney, Manders and +Company—and this young and eager firm of brokers made more money in +commissions during the first two weeks of his return than they had during +the whole year that preceded it.</p> + +<p>On the whole he lost, and Welsley, his mining friend, seeing this began +to urge on him more and more the advisability of buying out the majority +of stock in a certain Spanish-American gold mine. At first he always made +the same answer: “You know as well as I do, Welsley, I would never put a +penny into any property I had not inspected.”</p> + +<p>But gradually a desire to inspect it grew up in his mind. What would suit +his plans better than a long trip, as soon as the breaking of his +engagement was announced? A week at sea, two or three days on a river, +and then sixty miles on mule-back over the mountains—there at least he +would not be troubled by accounts of Christine’s wedding, or assertions +that she had looked brilliant at the opera.</p> + +<p>He had been at home about two weeks, when her first letter came. So far +the only scrap of her handwriting that he possessed was the formal +release that she had given him the afternoon they became engaged, and +which, for safe keeping doubtless, he always carried in his pocketbook, +and which he sometimes found himself reading over—not as a proof that he +could get out of his engagement, but rather in an attempt to verify the +fact that he had ever got into it.</p> + +<p>However unfamiliar with her writing, he had not the least doubt about the +letter from the first instant that he saw it. No one else could use such +absurd faint blue and white paper and such large square envelopes. As he +took it up, he said to himself that it had never occurred to him that she +would write, and yet he saw without any sense of inconsistency that he +had looked for this letter in every mail. And yet, so perverse is the +nature of mankind, that he opened it, not with pleasure, but with a +sudden return of all his old terror of being trapped.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Dear Max,” it said. “I have been pretending so often to write to you for +the benefit of my inquiring friends, that I think I may as well do it as +a tribute to truth.</p> + +<p>“How foolish that was—the night you went away! One gets carried away +sometimes by the drama of a situation, without any relation to the facts, +and the idea of parting forever from one’s fiancé is rather dramatic, +isn’t it? I cried all night, and rather enjoyed it. Then in the morning +when I woke up, everything seemed to have returned to the normal, and I +could not understand what had made me so silly.</p> + +<p>“Don’t suppose that because you have gone, I am therefore freed from the +disagreeable criticism of which you made such a speciality. Ned comes in +almost every day to tell me that he does not approve of my conduct. I am +not behaving, it appears, as an affianced bride should. Don’t you like +to think of Ned so loyally protecting your interests in your absence? +His criticisms are, I suppose, based on the attentions of a nice little +boy just out of college, who calls me ‘Helen,’ and writes sonnets to me +which are to appear in the most literary of weeklies. Look out for them. +They are good, and may raise your low estimate of my charms. The best +one begins:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">“When the blond wonder first on Paris dawned—</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>“Isn’t that pretty?</p> + +<p>“Write to me. At least send me a blank envelope that I may leave +ostentatiously on my desk.</p> + +<p class="right noindent"><span class="padr2">“Yours at the moment,</span><br> +“<span class="smcap">Christine</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Riatt’s first thought on laying down the letter was: “Hickson never in +the world objected to any little poet just out of college, and she knows +it very well. It’s Linburne he is worried about—Linburne, whose name she +does not even mention.” And how absurd to attempt to make him believe she +had cried all night. That was simply an untruth. Yet oddly enough, it +came before his eyes in a more vivid picture than many a scene he had +actually witnessed.</p> + +<p>A few minutes later he went to the club and looked up the literary weekly +of which she had spoken. There was no sonnet in it, but the issue of the +next week contained it. Riatt read it with an emotion he could not +mistake. It brought Christine like a visible presence before him. Also it +made him angry, to have to see her like this, through another man’s eyes. +“Little whelp,” he said, “to detail a woman’s beauty in print like that! +What does he know about it anyhow? I don’t believe for one second she +looked at him like that.”</p> + +<p>The sonnet ended:</p> + +<div class="poetry-container"> +<div class="poetry"> + <div class="stanza"> + <div class="verse indent0">She turned, a white embodiment of joy,</div> + <div class="verse indent0">And looking on him, sealed the doom of Troy.</div> + </div> +</div> +</div> + +<p>He was roused by a friendly shout in his ear. “Ho, ho, Max, reading +poetry, are you? What love does for the worst of us!” It was Welsley, who +snatched the paper out of his hand, running over the lines rapidly to +himself: “Hem, hem, ‘carnation, alabaster, gold and fire.’ Some queen, +that, eh? Have you had your dinner? Well, don’t be cross. There’s no +reason why you shouldn’t read verse if you like. And this young man is +the latest thing. My wife says they are going to import him here to speak +to the Greek Study Club.”</p> + +<p>“I shall be curious to hear him, if the Greek Club will ask me,” said +Max.</p> + +<p>“Oh, you’ll be in the East getting married,” answered Welsley.</p> + +<p>Strangely enough, it was with something like a pang that Max said to +himself that he wouldn’t be.</p> + +<p>“Carnation, alabaster, gold and fire.”</p> + +<p>It was not a bad line, he thought.</p> + +<p>After dinner, he felt a little more amiable, and so he sat down and wrote +his first real letter to his fiancée.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“If we were really engaged, my dear Christine,” he wrote, “you would have +had a night letter long before this, asking you to explain to me just how +it was that you did look on that amorous young poet. His verse is pretty +enough, though I can’t say I exactly enjoyed it. However, my native town +thinks very highly of him, and intends to ask him to come and address one +of our local organizations. If so, I shall have an opportunity of +questioning him on the subject of the sources of his inspiration. ‘Is +Helen a real person?’ I shall ask. ‘Not so very,’ I can imagine his +replying. Ah, what would we both give to know?</p> + +<p>“My friends here, stimulated by Dorothy Lane’s ravishing description of +you, have asked many times to see your picture. I am ashamed of my own +carelessness in having gone away without obtaining one for exhibition +purposes. Will you send me one at once? One not already in circulation +among poets and painters. I will set it on my writing table, and allow my +eyes to stray sentimentally toward it whenever I have people to dinner.</p> + +<p>“By the way, the day I left New York I told a florist to send you flowers +every day. We worked out quite an elaborate scheme for every day in the +week. Did he ever do it?</p> + +<p>“Yours, at least in the sight of this company,</p> + +<p class="right noindent">“<span class="smcap">Max Riatt</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>In answer to this, he was surprised by a telegram:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“So sorry for absurd mistake. Entirely misunderstood source of the +flowers. Enjoy them a great deal more now. Yes, they come regularly. A +thousand thanks. Am sending photograph by mail.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Riatt did not need to ask himself from whom she had imagined they came. +Not the poet, unless magazine rates were rising unduly. Nor Hickson, who +failed a little in such attentions. No, it was Linburne—and evidently +Linburne’s attentions were taken so much as a matter of course, that she +had not even thanked him, nor had he noticed her omission.</p> + +<p>He did not answer the telegram, nor did he acknowledge the photograph +but, true to his word, he established it at once on his desk in a frame +which he spent a long time in selecting. The picture represented +Christine at her most queenly and unapproachable. She wore the black and +gold dress, and the huge feather fan was folded across her bare arms. +Every time he looked at it, he remembered how those same arms had been +clasped round his own stiff and unbending neck. And sometimes he found +the thought distracted his attention from important matters.</p> + +<p>It was about the middle of February when he received one morning a letter +from Nancy Almar. He knew <em>her</em> handwriting. She was always sending him +little notes of one kind or another. This one was very brief.</p> + +<p>“Clever mouse! So it knew a way to get out all the time!”</p> + +<p>All day he speculated on the meaning of this strange message. Had Nancy +discovered some proof of the nature of his engagement? Had Christine been +moved by pity to tell Hickson the truth? On the whole he inclined to +think that this was the explanation.</p> + +<p>The next day he knew he had been mistaken. He had a letter from Laura +Ussher—not the first in the series—urging him to come back at once.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Max,” she wrote, with a haste that made her almost indecipherable, “you +must come. What are you dreaming of—to leave a proud, beautiful, +impressionable creature like Christine the prey to so finished a villain +as Linburne? You are not so ignorant of the ways of the world as not to +know his intentions. Most people are saying you deserve everything that +is happening to you. I try to explain, but I know you saw enough while +you were here to be put upon your guard. Why don’t you come? I must warn +you that if you do not come at once you need not come at all.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Riatt had just come in; it was late in the afternoon. The letters were +lying on his writing table; and as he finished this one, he raised his +eyes and looked at Christine’s picture.</p> + +<p>He did not believe Laura’s over-wrought picture. Christine was no fool, +Linburne no villain. There was probably a little flirtation, and a good +deal of gossip. But that would all be put a stop to by the announcement +of Christine’s engagement to Hickson. He did not even feel annoyed at his +cousin’s suggestion that he did not know his way about the world. He knew +it rather better than she did, he fancied.</p> + +<p>And having so disposed of his mail, he took up the evening paper which +lay beneath it, and read the first headline:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>Mrs. Lee Linburne to seek divorce: Wife of well-known multimillionaire +now at Reno—</p> +</div> + +<p>As he read this a blind rage swept over Riatt. He did not stop to inquire +why if he were willing to give Christine up to Hickson he was infuriated +at the idea of Linburne’s marrying her; nor why, as he had allowed +himself to be made use of, he was angry to find that he had been far more +useful than he had supposed. He only knew that he was angry, and with an +anger that demanded instant action.</p> + +<p>He looked at his watch. He had time to catch a train to Chicago. He went +upstairs and packed. He knew that what he was doing was foolish, that he +would poignantly regret it, but he never wavered an instant in his +intention.</p> + +<p>He reached New York early in the afternoon. He had notified no one of his +departure, and he did not announce his arrival. He went straight to the +Fenimers’ house—not indeed expecting to find Christine at home at that +hour, but resolved to await her return.</p> + +<p>The young man at the door, who had known Riatt before, appeared confused, +but was decided.</p> + +<p>Miss Fenimer, he insisted, was out.</p> + +<p>Glancing past him Riatt saw a hat and stick on the hall table. He had no +doubt as to their owner.</p> + +<p>“I’ll wait then,” he said, coming in, and handing his own things to the +footman, who seemed more embarrassed still.</p> + +<p>Taking pity on him, Riatt said:</p> + +<p>“You mean Miss Fenimer is at home, but has given orders that she won’t +see any one?”</p> + +<p>Such, the man admitted, was the case.</p> + +<p>“She’ll see me,” Riatt answered, “take my name up.”</p> + +<p>The footman, looking still more wretched, obeyed. Riatt heard him go into +the little drawing-room overhead, and then there was a long pause. Once +he thought he heard a voice raised in anger. As may be imagined his own +anger was not appeased by this reception.</p> + +<p>While he was waiting, the door of a room next the front door opened and +Mr. Fenimer came out. His astonishment at seeing Riatt was so great that +with all his tact he could not repress an exclamation, which somehow did +not express pleasure.</p> + +<p>“You here, my dear Riatt!” he said, grasping him cordially by the hand. +“Christine, I’m afraid—”</p> + +<p>“I’ve sent up to see,” said Max, curtly.</p> + +<p>“Ah, well, my dear fellow,” Mr. Fenimer went on easily, “come, you know, +a man really can’t go off in the casual way you did and expect to find +everything just as he likes when he comes back. I have a word to say to +you myself. Shall we walk as far as the corner together?”</p> + +<p>To receive his dismissal from Mr. Fenimer was something that Riatt had +never contemplated.</p> + +<p>“I should prefer to wait until the footman comes down,” he answered.</p> + +<p>“No use, no use,” said Mr. Fenimer, suddenly becoming jovial, “I happen +to know that Christine is out. Come back a little later—”</p> + +<p>“And whose hat is that, then?” asked Max.</p> + +<p>It had been carelessly left on its crown and the initials “L.L.” were +plainly visible.</p> + +<p>Mr. Fenimer could not on the instant think of an answer, and Riatt +decided to go upstairs unannounced.</p> + +<p>As he opened the drawing-room door he heard Christine’s voice saying: +“Thank you, I shall please myself, Lee, even without your kind +permission.”</p> + +<p>The doors in the Fenimer house opened silently, so that though Christine, +who was facing the door, saw him at once, Linburne, whose back was turned +to it, was unaware of his presence, and answered:</p> + +<p>“You ought to have more pride than to want to see a fellow who has made +it so clear he doesn’t care sixpence about seeing you.”</p> + +<p>Christine openly smiled at Max, as she answered: “Well, I do want to see +him,” and Linburne turning to see at what her smile was directed found +himself face to face with Riatt.</p> + +<p>Max made a gesture to the footman, and shut the door behind his hasty +retreat, then he came slowly into the room.</p> + +<p>“In one thing you are mistaken, Mr. Linburne,” he said. “I do care +whether or not I see Miss Fenimer.”</p> + +<p>Linburne was angry at Christine, not only for insisting on seeing Riatt, +but for the lovely smile with which she had greeted him. He was glad of +an outlet for his feelings.</p> + +<p>He almost shrugged his shoulders. “An outsider can only judge by your +conduct, Mr. Riatt,” he answered. “And I may tell you that you have +subjected Miss Fenimer to a good deal of disagreeable gossip by your +apparently caring so little.”</p> + +<p>“And others by apparently caring so much,” said Max.</p> + +<p>Christine was the only one who recognized at once the fact that both men +were angry; and she did not pour oil on the waters by laughing gaily. +“You can’t find any subject for argument there,” she observed, “for you +are both perfectly right. You have both made me the subject of gossip; +but don’t let it worry you, for my best friends have long ago accustomed +me to that.”</p> + +<p>“I hope you won’t think I’m asking too much, Mr. Riatt,” said Linburne, +with a politeness that only accentuated his irritation, “in suggesting +that as your visit is, I believe, unexpected, and as mine is an +appointment of some standing, that you will go away and let me finish my +conversation with Miss Fenimer.”</p> + +<p>Max smiled. “Oddly enough,” he said, “I was about to make the same +request to you. But I suppose we must let Miss Fenimer settle the +question.”</p> + +<p>Christine smiled like an angel. “Can’t we have a nice time as we are?” +she asked.</p> + +<p>This frivolous reply was properly ignored by both men, and Riatt went on: +“Don’t you think you ought to consider the fact that Miss Fenimer and I +are engaged?”</p> + +<p>“Miss Fenimer assures me she does not intend to marry you.”</p> + +<p>“And may I ask if you consider that she does intend to marry you—that is +if you should happen to become marriageable?”</p> + +<p>“That is a question between her and me,” returned Linburne.</p> + +<p>Riatt laughed. “I see,” he said. “The matrimonial plans of my future wife +are no affair of mine?” And for an instant he felt his most proprietary +rights were being invaded.</p> + +<p>“Miss Fenimer is not your future wife.”</p> + +<p>“Well, Mr. Linburne, I hear you say so.”</p> + +<p>“You shall hear <em>her</em> say so,” answered Linburne. “Christine,” he added +peremptorily, “tell Riatt what you have just been telling me.”</p> + +<p>There was a long painful silence. Both men stood looking intently at +Christine, who sat with her head erect, staring ahead of her like a +sphinx, but saying nothing. After a moment she glanced up at Max’s face, +as if she expected to find there an answer to her problem. She did not +look at Linburne.</p> + +<p>“Christine,” said Max very gently, “what have you told Mr. Linburne?”</p> + +<p>“She has told me everything,” answered Linburne impetuously, and then +seeing by the glance that the two others exchanged that such was not the +case, his temper got the best of him.</p> + +<p>“Do you mean you’ve been lying to me?” he asked.</p> + +<p>“Just what did you tell him, Christine?” said Riatt, finding it easier +and easier to be calm and protecting as his adversary grew more violent.</p> + +<p>Christine looked up at him with the innocence of a child. “I told him +that we did not love each other, and that our engagement was really +broken, but that no one was to know until March.”</p> + +<p>“Why did you tell him that?”</p> + +<p>“It’s the truth, Max—almost the truth.”</p> + +<p>“Almost the truth!” cried Linburne. “Do you want me to think you care +something for this man after all?”</p> + +<p>“In the simple section of the country from which I come,” observed Riatt, +“we often care a good deal for the people we marry.”</p> + +<p>Linburne turned on him. “Really, Mr. Riatt,” he said, “you don’t take an +idea very quickly. You have just heard Miss Fenimer say that she did not +love you and that she considered your engagement at an end.”</p> + +<p>“I heard her say she had told you that.”</p> + +<p>“You mean to imply that she said what was untrue?”</p> + +<p>“I could answer your question better,” said Riatt, “if I understood a +little more clearly what your connection with this whole situation is.”</p> + +<p>“The connection of any old friend who does not care to see Miss Fenimer +neglected and humiliated,” answered Linburne, all the more hotly because +he knew it was an awkward question.</p> + +<p>Perhaps the young poet had not been so wrong in attaching the name +of Helen to Miss Fenimer, for she sat now as calmly interested in +the conflict developing before her, as Helen when she sat on the +walls of Troy and designated the Greek heroes for the amusement of +her newer friends.</p> + +<p>“May I ask, Mr. Riatt, what rights in the matter you consider that you +have?” Linburne pursued.</p> + +<p>For Riatt, too, the question was an awkward one, but he had his answer +ready. “The rights,” he said, “of a man who certainly was once engaged to +Miss Fenimer, and who came East ignorant that the engagement was already +at an end.”</p> + +<p>Christine laughed. “Very neatly put,” she said.</p> + +<p>“Neatly put,” exclaimed Linburne. “You talk as if we were playing a +game.”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_199" style="max-width: 35.9375em;"><a id="199"></a> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_199.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center">“May I ask, Mr. Riatt, what rights in the matter +you consider that you have?” Linburne pursued</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“You have the reputation of playing all games well, my dear Lee,” she +returned. The obvious fact that she was enjoying the interview, made both +men eager to end it—but, unfortunately, they wished to end it in +diametrically opposite ways.</p> + +<p>“Christine,” said Linburne, “will you ask Mr. Riatt to be so kind as to +let me have ten minutes alone with you?”</p> + +<p>Riatt spoke to her also. “I will do exactly as you say,” he said, “but +you understand that if I go now, I shall not come back.”</p> + +<p>Christine smiled. “Is that a threat or a promise?” she asked, the +sweetness of her smile almost taking away the sting of her words.</p> + +<p>Seeing that she hesitated, Riatt went on: “Since I have come more than a +thousand miles to see you, don’t you think you might suggest to Mr. +Linburne that he let me have my visit undisturbed?”</p> + +<p>There was a long and rather terrible pause, terrible that is to the two +men. Christine probably enjoyed every second of it. There was nothing in +Linburne’s experience of life to make him think that any woman whom he +had honored with his preference was likely to prefer another man to +himself. So the pause was terrible to him, not because he doubted what +the climax would be, but because he felt his dignity insulted by even an +appearance of hesitation. Max, on the other hand, was still a good deal +in doubt as to her ultimate intentions.</p> + +<p>It was to him, finally, that she spoke.</p> + +<p>“Max,” she said, “do you remember that while we were staying at the +Usshers’ we composed a certain document together?”</p> + +<p>He nodded, and then as she did not continue, he opened his pocketbook and +took out the release.</p> + +<p>She made no motion to take it; on the contrary, she leaned back and +crossed her hands in her lap.</p> + +<p>“Yes,” she said, “that’s it. Well, you may stay, if you care to burn that +scrap of paper.”</p> + +<p>It was now Max’s turn to hesitate, for the decision of freedom or +captivity was in his own hands; the crisis he had so recklessly rushed to +meet was now upon him.</p> + +<p>“What is in that paper?” asked Linburne, as one who has a right to +question.</p> + +<p>Christine was perfectly good-tempered as she answered: “Well, Lee, it +still belongs to Mr. Riatt; but if he decides not to burn it, I promise +to tell you all about it as we drink our tea.”</p> + +<p>“Do you promise me that, Christine?”</p> + +<p>“Most solemnly, Lee.” She looked up at Linburne, and before Max knew what +he was doing he found he had dropped the paper into the fire.</p> + +<p>Strangely enough, though the fire was hot, the paper did not catch at +once, but curled and rocked an instant in the heat, before it disappeared +in flame and smoke. Not until it was a black crisp did Christine turn to +Linburne, and hold out her hand.</p> + +<p>“Good-by, Lee,” she said pleasantly. But he did not answer or take her +hand. He left the room in silence.</p> + +<p>When the door had shut behind him, Christine glanced at her remaining +visitor. “And now,” she said, “I suppose you are wishing you had not.”</p> + +<p>“What sort of a woman are you?” Riatt exclaimed. “Will you take any +man that offers, me or Hickson, or Linburne or me again, just as luck +will have it?”</p> + +<p>“I take the best that offers, Max—and that’s no lie.”</p> + +<p>The implied compliment did not soften Riatt. He went on: “If you and I +are really to be married—”</p> + +<p>“If, my dear Max! What could be more certain?”</p> + +<p>“Since, then, we are to be married, you must tell me exactly what has +taken place between you and Linburne.”</p> + +<p>“With pleasure. Won’t you sit down?” She pointed to a chair near her own, +but Riatt remained standing. “Shall we have tea first?”</p> + +<p>“We’ll have the story.”</p> + +<p>“Oh, it’s not much of a story. Lee and I have known each other since +we were children. I suppose I always had it in mind that I might +marry him—”</p> + +<p>“You loved him?”</p> + +<p>“Certainly not. He always had too high an opinion of himself, and I used +to enjoy taking it out of him—and making it up to him afterwards, too. I +used to enjoy that as well. Sometimes, of course, he found the process +too unbearable; and in one of his fits of anger at me, just after he left +college, he went and blundered into this marriage with Pauline. She, you +see, took him at his own valuation. His marriage seemed to put an end to +everything between us—”</p> + +<p>“You surprise me.”</p> + +<p>Christine laughed. “Ah, I was younger then.”</p> + +<p>“You kept on seeing him?”</p> + +<p>“Naturally we met now and then. Sometimes he used to tell me how I was +the only woman—”</p> + +<p>“That is your idea of putting an end to everything?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, if one took seriously all the men who say that—I did not think +much about Lee’s feelings for me, until my engagement was announced. +Then it appeared that the notion of my marrying some one else was +intolerable to him.”</p> + +<p>“A high order of affection,” exclaimed Riatt. “He was content enough +until there seemed some chance of your being happy.”</p> + +<p>“Perhaps he did not consider that life with you would promise absolute +happiness, Max.”</p> + +<p>“I don’t call that love. I call it jealousy.”</p> + +<p>At this Christine laughed outright. “And what emotion, may I ask, has +just brought you here in such haste?”</p> + +<p>The thrust went home. Riatt changed countenance.</p> + +<p>“But I,” he said, “never pretended to love you.”</p> + +<p>“Why then are you marrying me?”</p> + +<p>“Heaven knows.”</p> + +<p>“I know, too,” she answered, unperturbed by his rudeness, “and some day +if you’re good I’ll tell you.”</p> + +<p>Her calm assumption that everything was well seemed to him unbearable. “I +don’t know that I feel very much inclined to chat,” he said, turning +toward the door. “I’ll see you sometime to-morrow.”</p> + +<p>She said nothing to oppose him, and he left the room. Downstairs the same +footman was waiting to let him out. To him, at least, Riatt seemed a +triumphant lover, only as Linburne had long since heavily subsidized him, +even his admiration was tinctured with regret.</p> + +<p>As for Max, himself, he left the house even more restless and +dissatisfied than he had entered it.</p> + +<p>To be honest, he had, he knew, sometimes imagined a moment when he would +take Christine in his arms and say: “Marry me anyhow.” Such an action he +knew would be reckless, but he had supposed it would be pleasant. But now +there was nothing but bitterness and jealousy in his mood. What did he +know or care for such people? he said to himself. What did he know of +their standards and their histories? How much of Christine’s story about +Linburne was to be believed? What more natural than that they had always +loved each other? Some one knew the truth—every one, very likely, except +himself. But whom could he ask? He could have believed Nancy on one side +as little as Laura on the other.</p> + +<p>And as he thought this, he saw coming down the street, Hickson—a witness +prejudiced, perhaps, but strictly honest.</p> + +<p>For the first time in their short acquaintance, Hickson’s face brightened +at the sight of Riatt, and he called out with evident sincerity: “I am +glad to see you.”</p> + +<p>“I came on rather unexpectedly.”</p> + +<p>“I’m glad you did. Quite right.” Hickson stopped at this, and looked at +his companion with such wistful uncertainty, that it seemed perfectly +natural for Riatt, answering that look, to say:</p> + +<p>“You may speak frankly to me, you know.”</p> + +<p>Ned took a long breath. “I believe that I may,” he said. “I hope so, +anyhow. I haven’t had any one I could be frank with. Between ourselves, +Fenimer is no good at all.”</p> + +<p>“What, my future father-in-law?”</p> + +<p>“Is that what he is?” Hickson asked with, for him, unusual directness.</p> + +<p>Riatt’s affirmative was not very decided, and Ned went on:</p> + +<p>“I can’t even talk to Nancy about it. She’s keen, but she does not +understand Christine. She attributes the most shocking motives to her, +and when I object, she says every one is like that, only I haven’t sense +enough to see it. Well, I never pretended to have as much sense as Nancy, +but I see some things that she doesn’t. I see, for instance, that there’s +something noble in Christine, in spite of—I beg your pardon for talking +to you like this, but you must remember that I have known her a good deal +longer than you have, and that in a different way perhaps I care for her +almost as much as you do.”</p> + +<p>“I told you to speak frankly,” answered Riatt. “What is it that Mrs. +Almar says of Christine?”</p> + +<p>At first Hickson refused to answer, but the suffering and anxiety he had +been undergoing pushed him toward self-expression, and Riatt did not have +to be very skilful to extract the whole story. Nancy had asserted that +Christine had never intended for a minute to marry Riatt—that she had +just used him to excite Linburne’s jealousy to such a point that he would +arrange matters so that he could marry her himself. For once Riatt found +himself in accord with Nancy.</p> + +<p>“Do more people than your sister think that?”</p> + +<p>Hickson was not without his reserves. “Oh, I dare say, but I don’t care +about that sort of gossip. It’s absurd to say she and Linburne are +engaged. How can a girl be engaged to a married man?”</p> + +<p>“We must move with the times, my dear Hickson,” said Riatt bitterly.</p> + +<p>“Linburne’s no good,” Ned went on, “not where women are concerned. He +wouldn’t treat her well if he did marry her. Why, Riatt,” he added +solemnly, “I’d far rather see her married to you than to him.”</p> + +<p>If Max felt disposed to smile at this innocent endorsement, he suppressed +the inclination, and merely answered:</p> + +<p>“You may have your wish.”</p> + +<p>“I hope so,” said Ned. “But you mustn’t go off to kingdom-come, and leave +Linburne a clear field. He’s a man who knows how to talk to women, and +what with the infatuation she has always had for him—”</p> + +<p>“You think she has always cared for him?” asked Max. He tried to smooth +his tone down to one of calm interest, but it alarmed Hickson.</p> + +<p>“I don’t know,” he returned hastily. “I used to think so, but I may be +wrong. I thought the same thing about you at the Usshers’. She kept +saying she wasn’t a bit in love with you, but it seemed to me she was +different with you from what she had ever been with any one else. I +suppose I oughtn’t to have said that either. Upon my word, Riatt, it is +awfully good of you to let me talk like this! I can assure you it is a +great relief to me.”</p> + +<p>His companion could hardly have echoed this sentiment. As he walked back +alone to his hotel, he found that Hickson’s words had put the last +touches to his mental discomfort.</p> + +<p>At first his own conduct had seemed inexplicable to him. Everything had +been going well, he had been just about to be free from the whole +entanglement, when an impulse of primitive jealousy and fierce masculine +egotism had suddenly brought him to New York and bound him hand and foot. +It had not been an agreeable prospect—to live among people whose +standards he did not understand, with a woman whom he did not love. But, +since his conversation with Hickson, his eyes were opened, and he saw the +situation in far more tragic colors.</p> + +<p>He <em>did</em> love her. He did not believe in her or trust her; he had no +illusions as to her feeling for him, but his for her was clear—he loved +her, loved her with that strange mingling of passion and hatred so often +found and so rarely admitted.</p> + +<p>He could imagine a man’s learning, even under the most suspicious +circumstances, to conquer jealousy of a woman who loved him. Or he could +imagine having confidence in a woman who did not pretend love. But to be +married to a woman whom you love, without a shred of belief either in her +principles or her affection, seemed to Riatt about as terrible a prospect +as could be offered to a human being.</p> + +<p>There was just one chance for him—that Christine might be willing to +release him. If she really loved Linburne, if there had been some sort of +understanding between them in the past, if his coming had only +precipitated a lovers’ quarrel, then certainly Christine had too much +intelligence to let such a chance slip through her fingers just on the +eve of Linburne’s divorce. Nor was she, he thought bitterly, too proud to +stoop to ask a man to reconsider; nor did it seem likely, however deeply +Linburne’s vanity had been wounded, that he would refuse to listen.</p> + +<p>With this in mind, as soon as he reached his hotel, he sat down and wrote +her a letter:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="noindent">“My dear Christine:<br></p> + +<p>“What was it, according to your idea, that happened this afternoon? I +believed that for the first time I asked you to marry me, and that you, +for the first time definitely accepted me. But as I think over your +manner, I am led to think you supposed it was just a continuation of +our old joke.</p> + +<p>“Did you accept me, Christine? And if so, why? Why commit yourself to a +marriage without affection, at the psychological moment when a man for +whom you have always cared is about to be free?</p> + +<p>“If you still need me in the game, I am ready enough to be of use, but +I will not be bound to a relation unless you, too, consider it +irrevocably binding.</p> + +<p class="right noindent"><span class="padr2">“Yours,</span><br> +“M. R.”</p> +</div> + +<p>He told the messenger to wait for an answer, but he thought that +Christine would hardly be willing to commit herself on such short notice, +or without an interview with Linburne.</p> + +<p>But, within a surprisingly short interval, her letter was in his +impatient hands.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p class="noindent">“Dear Max:</p> + +<p>“I will not be so cruel as to leave you one moment longer in the false +hope that your little break for freedom may be successful. Face the fact, +bravely, my dear. I am going to marry you. We are both irrevocably +bound—at least as irrevocably as the marriage tie can bind nowadays. If +this afternoon my manner seemed less portentous than you expected, that +must have been because I have always counted on just this termination to +our little adventure. You must do me the justice to confess that I have +always told you so. As for Lee, in spite of Nancy (I suppose it was Nancy +to whom you rushed for information from my very doorstep) I have never +cared sixpence for him.</p> + +<p class="right noindent"><span class="padr2">“Yours till death us do part,</span><br> +“<span class="smcap">Christine</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>Max read the letter which was brought to him while he was at dinner. He +put it into his pocket, finished an excellent salad, went to the theater, +came back to the hotel and went to bed and to sleep rather congratulating +himself on the fact that he had become callous to the whole situation, +and that, so far as he was concerned, the crisis was past.</p> + +<p>But of course it wasn’t. With the rattle of the first milkcart, which in +a modern city has taken the place of the half-awakened bird, he woke up, +and if he had been in jail he could not have felt a more choking sense of +imprisonment. There was no escape for him, no hope.</p> + +<p>He got up and looked out at the city far below, all outlined like a great +electric sign that said nothing. There must be some way of being free, +besides jumping from the twelfth story window. He lit a cigarette, and +stood thinking. Men disappeared every day; it could be done. What were +the chances, he wondered, of being identified if he shipped as steward, +or engineer for that matter, on a South American freighter?</p> + +<p>It was full daylight before he found himself in possession of a possible +scheme. He remembered the legend of a certain Saint, told him by his +nurse in his early days. She had been beautiful, too beautiful for her +religious ideals; the number of her suitors was distracting; so to one of +them who had extravagantly admired her eyes she sent them on a salver.</p> + +<p>Riatt did not intend sending Christine his worldly goods, but recognizing +that they were the source of the whole trouble, he decided to get rid of +the major part. The problem was simply to lose his money before the date +set for the wedding. And that was not so difficult, after all. There were +a number of people in the metropolis he thought who would give him every +assistance.</p> + +<p>The problem of getting it back again at some future time was more +complicated, but even that he thought he could accomplish. He had made +one fortune and he supposed he could some day make another.</p> + +<p>The practical question was: What sum would make him impossible to +Christine as a husband? Twenty thousand a year would be out of the +question. But to be perfectly safe he decided to leave himself only +fifteen thousand. He would begin operation as soon as the exchange opened +in the morning. In the meantime what about that mine of Welsley’s? There +was an easy means of sinking almost any sum.</p> + +<p>He took up the telephone and sent a telegram at once.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Plans for my wedding prevent trip to mine. Have, however, decided after +minute investigation here to invest $500,000 in it. Believe we shall make +our fortunes.”</p> +</div> + +<p>He stood an instant with the instrument still in his hand. “Suppose the +damned thing succeeds,” he thought, “I shall be worse off than ever.”</p> + +<p>Then his faith returned to him. “Nothing of Welsley’s ever did +succeed,” he thought; and with this conclusion he went back to bed and +slept like a child.</p> + + +<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop"> +<div class="chapter"> +<h2 class="nobreak" id="CHAPTER_VI">CHAPTER VI</h2> +</div> + +<p class="drop-capy">With his definite decision and unalterable plan of action, wonderful +peace of mind had come to Riatt. He said to himself that he was now to +have a few weeks—whatever time it should take him to lose his fortune +decently—of being engaged to a woman whom, he now acknowledged, he +passionately loved. He intended to make the best of it.</p> + +<p>The next day as he walked up Fifth Avenue on his way to lunch with her, +another inspiration came to him; it was not necessary to lose his money; +spending it would be quite as effective. Acting on this idea, he went +into a celebrated jeweler’s shop, and with astonishing celerity chose, +paid for and pocketed a string of brilliant pearls.</p> + +<p>It was a present that might have made any man welcome—and Christine had +never been accused of not being able to express herself when she wanted +to—but Christine had already welcomed him for his changed demeanor; his +brilliant smile and unruffled brow told her as soon as she saw him that +he was a very different person from the tortured and irritable creature +who had left her the preceding afternoon.</p> + +<p>Never were two people more disposed to find each other and themselves +agreeable, and Riatt was in process of clasping the pearls about +Christine’s neck (for she had had some unaccountable difficulty in doing +it for herself) when the drawing-room door opened and Nancy Almar +strolled in.</p> + +<p>Her jaw did not actually drop at the scene that met her eyes, for that +did not happen to be her method of expressing surprise, but her manner +conveyed none the less an astonishment not very agreeable.</p> + +<p>“Was I mistaken,” she said, “in thinking I was to stop and take you to +the Bentons’?”</p> + +<p>“Quite right, my dear. Only Max’s return has put everything else out +of my head.”</p> + +<p>“What, you didn’t ever expect him to come back?”</p> + +<p>“You talk, Nancy, as if you had never heard that we were engaged.”</p> + +<p>“If you really are, Christine, why are the Linburnes being divorced?”</p> + +<p>“Because they loathe each other, I imagine.”</p> + +<p>“What a changeable creature you are, Christine! It seems only the other +day that you were crying your eyes out because Lee was engaged.”</p> + +<p>Without glancing at Max, Christine became aware that some of the gaiety +had gone from his expression.</p> + +<p>“Have you seen my pearls, dear?” she said.</p> + +<p>It was a complete answer, so far as Nancy was concerned, for she was one +of the women who can never harden herself to the sight of another +woman’s jewels.</p> + +<p>“How beautiful, love,” she answered. “If they were only a trifle larger +they might be mistaken for your old imitation string.” Then feeling that +she could never better this, she took her departure.</p> + +<p>“Oh, dear,” sighed Christine, “do you think I shall ever get so superior +that Nancy can’t tease me when she says things like that?”</p> + +<p>“Did you really cry, Christine?”</p> + +<p>“The night you went away?”</p> + +<p>“When you first heard of Linburne’s engagement?”</p> + +<p>She nodded at him, like a child who would like to lie its way out +of a scrape.</p> + +<p>“But then I often cry over trifles,” she added.</p> + +<p>“Like my going away?”</p> + +<p>“Really, Max, you ought to be able to understand why I cried over Lee’s +engagement. It was Nancy who brought me the news, and she was so +triumphant over it. She said every one would think he had been making a +fool of me. You know she has the power of teasing me more than any one in +the world—except, perhaps, you.”</p> + +<p>“I have a piece of news for you, Christine.”</p> + +<p>“Good or bad?”</p> + +<p>“Indifferent, I think you would say. It’s a scientific discovery.”</p> + +<p>“An invention, Max? Could I understand it?”</p> + +<p>“I think you can if you make an effort.”</p> + +<p>“What is it?”</p> + +<p>He put his arms suddenly about her. “I find I’m in love with you,” he +said, and added a moment later: “And just think that I’ve been engaged to +you so long and that’s the first time I’ve kissed you.”</p> + +<p>Christine with her head still buried on his shoulders murmured, “But it +won’t be the last.”</p> + +<p>Riatt’s expression changed. “Not absolutely the last, perhaps,” he +answered with something that just wasn’t a sigh.</p> + +<p>She looked up at him. “That piece of indifferent news of yours—” she +began.</p> + +<p>“Didn’t I describe it correctly?”</p> + +<p>“It wasn’t news to me.”</p> + +<p>“You mean you had already guessed that I loved you?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve always known it.”</p> + +<p>“Always?”</p> + +<p>“You can’t think I would ever have let you go away at all, if I had not +felt sure. And if you hadn’t loved me, I couldn’t have brought you back.”</p> + +<p>“I came back because—”</p> + +<p>“Because the Linburnes were getting a divorce, and because Laura +wrote you a letter. Do you fancy I had nothing to do with either of +those events?”</p> + +<p>And Riatt found himself answering almost in the word of Cyrano:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“<i><span lang="fr" xml:lang="fr">Non, non, mon cher amour, je ne vous aimais pas</span></i>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>The days that followed were the happiest that Riatt had ever known. Only +those who have lived in a brief and agreeable present can understand the +fullness of joy that he was able to extract from it. If he had been +under sentence of death he could not have given less thought to the +future. He gave himself up wholly to the two excitements of making love +and losing money.</p> + +<p>At first he prospered more at the former than the latter. For at first, +for some time after he had acquired the stock of the mine, the reports +from it grew more and more favorable and old friends came to him and +begged him to allow them to take up a little of it. His curt refusal to +all such propositions increased the impression that he knew he had a very +good thing and meant to keep it all for himself.</p> + +<p>But he did not have very long to wait for the turn of the tide. Within a +few weeks he received a letter from Welsley, alarming only because its +intention was so obviously to allay alarm. It appeared that a liberal +revolution was threatened; the concession from the government then in +power would not bear the scrutiny of an impartial witness such as our own +State Department. If, in other words, the present government fell, the +concession would fall, too.</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“However,” Welsley wrote cheerfully, “though the revolution has the +support of the uneducated element of the population, which comprises most +of the people, as they have neither arms, ammunition nor money, they +can’t do much, unless some fool in the north is induced to finance them. +You could help us a lot by looking about and seeing if there is any +danger of such a thing.”</p> +</div> + +<p>On receipt of this, Riatt instantly telegraphed to Welsley as follows:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“Count upon me. What is the name and address of the revolutionary +agent here?”</p> +</div> + +<p>The next day in a back bedroom of a down-town hotel, $10,000 changed +hands between a slight, dark, very finished gentleman who spoke English +with the slightest possible accent, and a tall, fine-looking young +American whose name never appeared in the transaction. Within a month a +shipment of arms had been smuggled into a certain South American country, +with the result that the revolution was completely successful—as indeed +it deserved to be. One of the first acts of the new government was to +revoke the iniquitous concession of the San Pedro gold mine, made to “a +group of greedy North American capitalists by the former corrupt and evil +administration.”</p> + +<p>Riatt’s bearing during this unhappy experience was universally praised. +As he went in and out of his broker’s office, not a trace of anxiety +visible upon his countenance, men would nudge each other and whisper, +“Did you ever see such nerve? He stands to lose a million.”</p> + +<p>The only moment of regret that he suffered was when one day, when things +first began to look badly, he met Linburne and another man in Wall +Street, and there was something subtly insulting and triumphant in the +former’s manner of condoling with him about the situation.</p> + +<p>Rumors of it reached Christine. She liked the picture of Riatt’s courage +and calm, and hated the danger of his losing money.</p> + +<p>“You’re not risking too much, are you, Max?” she asked.</p> + +<p>“Wouldn’t you enjoy love in a cottage, Christine?” he answered.</p> + +<p>She tried to make it clear to him how little such a prospect would tempt +her, and gathered from the fact that he hardly listened to her reply that +he felt confident there was no real danger.</p> + +<p>With the success of the revolution, Riatt realized that his holiday was +over, that he must tell Christine the truth and then retire to his old +home and begin a new method of life on his decreased income.</p> + +<p>It was now early April—a warm advanced spring—when he decided that the +next day should see the end of his little drama. But, as we all know, it +sometimes happens that those who set a mine are the most startled by the +explosion; and Riatt, at an early breakfast (for he and Christine were +going into the country for the day), with a mind occupied with the +phrases in which he should bid her good-by and eyes lazily reading the +newspaper, was suddenly startled beyond words by a short paragraph on the +financial page. This stated in the baldest terms the failure of his +brokers at home.</p> + +<p>There was no country expedition for Riatt that day. He rushed +down-town, leaving a short message for Christine, and by night he knew +the worst, knew that the liabilities of the firm far exceeded any +possible assets, knew positively that the comfortable sum he had +intended to preserve for himself had been swept away, knew that he now +really had to begin life over.</p> + +<p>That night when he came back to his hotel, he understood for the first +time that he had throughout been cherishing an unrecognized hope; that he +had not been honest with himself, and that all the time beneath his great +scheme had lain the belief that when the truth was known Christine would +prefer him and his moderate income to Linburne and his wealth; that, in +short, the great scheme had been all the time not a method of freeing +himself, but a test of her affection.</p> + +<p>Now any such possibility was over. Now he himself was facing the problem +of mere existence—at least he would be as soon as he had collected his +wits enough to face anything.</p> + +<p>The next day, which was Sunday, he spent entirely with his lawyer. When +he came back to his hotel, between the entrance and the elevator a figure +rose in his path. It was Hickson.</p> + +<p>“Riatt, I’m awfully sorry about this,” he said.</p> + +<p>“Thank you, Hickson. It’s very decent of you to be,” Max answered as +cordially as he could, but he was tired and wanted to be let alone, and +there was not as much real gratitude in his heart as there should have +been. He did not ask Ned to sit down until he had explained with his +accustomed simplicity that he had something of importance to say. Then +Riatt let him lead the way to one of those remote and stuffy +sitting-rooms in which all hotels abound. He saw at once that Hickson +found it difficult to say what he had come to say, but Riatt was in no +humor this time to help him out.</p> + +<p>“I’m awfully sorry this has happened,” Hickson went on, “not only on your +account, but on Christine’s. I mean that I did begin to hope that life +with you meant peace and happiness for her—”</p> + +<p>To cut him short, Riatt said quickly: “Now, of course, the marriage is +out of the question.”</p> + +<p>Hickson’s face brightened, as if the difficult words had been said for +him. “You do feel that?” he said, nodding a little as if to encourage +his friend.</p> + +<p>Max did not answer at first in words; he laughed rather bitterly, and +then after a pause he said, “Yes, Hickson, I do.”</p> + +<p>Ned was clearly relieved. “Of course,” he said, “I did not know how that +would be. But I own it did occur to me. The world is very censorious of +poor Christine. Every one will say that she is the kind of woman who +can’t stick to a man in adversity. Yes, I assure you, Riatt, lots of +these women who can’t put down one of their motors without having nervous +prostration will pillory Christine for breaking her engagement, +unless—” he paused.</p> + +<p>“I don’t follow your idea, Ned.”</p> + +<p>Hickson sighed. “Why, as long as you recognize the impossibility of the +marriage, couldn’t you in some way make it appear that the breaking of +the engagement came from you—as—if—”</p> + +<p>“I see,” said Riatt. There was a short silence, and then he asked in a +tone that sounded perfectly calm to Hickson: “Is this a message from +Christine?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, no. Not a message from Christine, though she has been trying to +communicate with you for two days. She can’t see why you won’t even +answer her letters. I told her I would find you—”</p> + +<p>“In fact, it <em>is</em> a message, or at least you are her messenger?”</p> + +<p>“No, Riatt, at least not from her. I have a message for you, but not +from her.”</p> + +<p>“From whom?”</p> + +<p>“From Linburne. He has the greatest admiration for your power, abilities, +in spite of any differences you may have had. He wants to offer you a +position, only he felt awkward about doing it himself after what has +taken place. He asked me to speak to you. It’s a good salary, only it +means going to Manchuria, no—”</p> + +<p>“One moment,” said Riatt. “These two messages, are they in any way +connected?”</p> + +<p>“I don’t understand.”</p> + +<p>“Linburne’s offer is not by any chance the reward for my giving Christine +a suitable release?”</p> + +<p>Hickson was really shocked. “How can you think such a thing, Riatt?”</p> + +<p>“Where did you see Linburne?”</p> + +<p>Hickson hesitated, but confessed after some protest that it had been at +Christine’s house.</p> + +<p>“But you don’t understand, you really don’t,” he said. “She has been +distracted by your reverses, and not hearing from you she has turned to +me, to Jack Ussher, to any one who could give her news and help you, as +she imagined—”</p> + +<p>“I understand quite enough,” answered Riatt. “Thank Mr. Linburne for his +kind offer and say I have other plans; and tell Christine she can have +her absolution for nothing. I’ll give her a letter that will put her +right with every one.” And walking to a desk:</p> + +<div class="blockquot"> +<p>“My dear Christine,” he wrote. “As you are aware, I have lost everything +I have in the world, and though I know that to a spirit like your own +poverty could not alter love, I must own that I, more experienced in +privation, find that the situation has had a somewhat chilling effect +upon my emotions. In short, my dear, I cannot begin life over again +hampered by a wife. Thanking you for the loyalty with which you have +stood by me in this crisis, and wishing you every happiness in the +future, believe me</p> + +<p class="right noindent"><span class="padr2">“Sincerely yours,</span><br> +“<span class="smcap">R. M. Riatt</span>.”</p> +</div> + +<p>He handed the note to Hickson. “I think that, taken externally, will +effect a cure,” he said. “Good night, Hickson. I’m dead tired, so you +won’t mind my going to bed. Oh, and I’m off to-morrow, so I shan’t see +you again. Good-by.”</p> + +<p>“Are you going home?” Hickson asked. But Max maintained a certain +vagueness as to his plans, which Hickson, having accomplished his +purpose, did not notice. He was very much pleased with the results of his +diplomacy. No one could say a word against Christine now. It wasn’t her +fault if the engagement was broken. Riatt was a noble fellow—only, the +noblest sometimes forgot these simple, practical details.</p> + +<p>The next day Riatt paid his bill at the hotel and went away without +leaving an address.</p> + +<p>Few of us have driven past rows of suburban cottages, or through streets +lined by city flats, without considering how easy it would be to sink +one’s identity and become part of a new unknown life. Riatt certainly had +often thought of such a possibility and now he put his plans into +operation. He took no great precautions against discovery, for he had no +notion that any one would be particularly interested in knowing his +whereabouts. But he allowed those at home to suppose he was working in +New York, as he suggested to those in New York that he had very naturally +gone home.</p> + +<p>As a matter of fact, he had taken a position with a new company which was +constructing aëroplanes for the market, into which in past times he had +put a little money. He hired a small flat in Brooklyn, on the top floor, +so that he had a glimpse of the harbor from his sitting-room windows. He +spent the last of his ready money in buying out the dilapidated furniture +of his predecessor; and then with the assistance of the janitor’s wife, +who gave him his breakfast and did what she called “redding up the +place,” he began to live on the slim salary that his new job gave him.</p> + +<p>Every afternoon he would take the new machines out and fly at sunset over +the sandy plains of Long Island, would dine cheaply at some neighboring +restaurant, and would return to his flat about ten, go to bed early and +be ready for work the next morning.</p> + +<p>The only relaxation he allowed himself was the excitement of hating +Christine, to which he now devoted a great deal of time and thought. It +was the only thing that gave life any interest.</p> + +<p>What was loss of money, after all, he said to himself, for an +able-bodied man? He could bear that well enough, if his life had not +been poisoned, if hope hadn’t been taken from him. She had spoilt him +for everything else. His success, if ever he should succeed, would not +bring him what most men wanted of success—a companion and a home. He +had nothing to work for, and yet nothing to do except work. It was all +his own fault, he said; and blamed her all the more bitterly. He was +glad, he thought, that he had made it impossible for her to have a final +interview with him; and in his heart he could not forgive her for not +having overcome the obstacles to a meeting which he had set up in the +last frenzied days in New York.</p> + +<p>“If I were of a revengeful disposition,” he said to himself, “I should +ask nothing better than that she should marry Linburne”; and he concluded +that he was not revengeful because he found he did not want it. He made +up his mind after the most prolonged consideration that a woman such as +Christine exercised the maximum influence for evil; a thoroughly wicked +woman could not help inspiring distrust, but a nature like hers had +enough good to attach you and yet left you nothing to depend upon.</p> + +<p>He read the papers, awaiting the announcement of her marriage, but found +no mention of her name except once, toward the end of May, a short +paragraph announcing that she had gone out of town for the season.</p> + +<p>It was soon after he had read this that he came home earlier than usual +and let himself into his little flat. The day had been successful, a new +device in the engine was working well and the company had had a large +order from abroad. And as usual, with the prospect of success had come to +him a bitter sense of the emptiness of the future. He was thinking of +Christine, and when he turned the switch of the electric light, there she +was. She was sitting in a large shabby armchair, drawn close to the +window, so that she could look out at the river. She had taken off her +hat, and her hair shown particularly golden and her eyes looked brightly +blue in the sudden glare of light.</p> + +<p>“You’re dreadfully late,” she said, quite as if she had charge of his +comings and goings. “I’ve been here hours and hours and hours.”</p> + +<p>Now that he actually saw her before him, it was neither love nor hate +that he felt, but an undefinable and overmastering emotion that seemed +to petrify him, so that he stood there quite silent with his hand on +the switch.</p> + +<p>“Well,” she went on, “aren’t you surprised to see me?”</p> + +<p>He bent his head.</p> + +<p>“Can you guess why I have come?”</p> + +<p>He shook his head.</p> + +<p>She looked a little distressed at this. “Then perhaps I’ve made a mistake +in coming.”</p> + +<p>At this he spoke for the first time. “I should say that the chances were +that you had,” he said, and his tone was not agreeable.</p> + +<p>The edge of his words seemed to give her back all her confidence. “Now, +how strange that you should not know why I’m here! I’ve come, of course, +to return your pearls.” He saw now, between the laces of her summer dress +that she was wearing them. “In common honesty I could hardly keep them.” +She put up her hands to the clasp, but it did not yield at once to her +touch, and she looked up at him. “I think you’ll have to undo it for me,” +she murmured, with bent head.</p> + +<p>“I don’t want them,” he answered, with temper. “I never want to see +them again.”</p> + +<p>“Nor me, either, perhaps?”</p> + +<p>“Nor you either—perhaps.”</p> + +<p>She rose and approached him. “I’ll keep them on one condition, Max—that +you take permanent charge of both of us.” Then seeing that she had +produced no change in his expression, she came very close indeed. +“There’s no use in looking like a stone image, Max. It won’t save you.”</p> + +<p>“Save me! And what is my danger?”</p> + +<p>“I’m your danger, my dear.”</p> + +<p>“Not any longer, Christine.”</p> + +<p>“You mean you don’t love me any more?”</p> + +<p>“Not a bit.”</p> + +<p>At this she shifted her ground with admirable ease.</p> + +<p>“In that case,” she said cheerfully, “we can talk the whole subject over +quite dispassionately.”</p> + +<p>“Quite, if there were anything to talk over.”</p> + +<p>“Only first,” she said, “aren’t you going to ask me to stay to dinner? +It’s very late, you know—”</p> + +<p>“I don’t dine here,” he answered, “and I doubt if you would eat very much +at the restaurant where I take my meals.”</p> + +<p>“Well, would you mind my going into the kitchen and making myself a +cup of tea?”</p> + +<p>He gave his consent, but evinced no intention of accompanying her. To see +her like this, in his own home, where he had so often imagined her being +and where she would never be again, was torture to him.</p> + +<p>After an interval that seemed to him an eternity, she came back +flushed and triumphant, carrying a tray on which were tea, toast and +scrambled eggs.</p> + +<p>“There,” she said, “don’t you think I’ve improved? Don’t you think I’m +rather a good housewife?”</p> + +<p>The element of pathos in her self-satisfaction was too much for him. “I’m +afraid I’m not in the mood either for comedy or for supper,” he said.</p> + +<p>Her face fell. “I thought you’d be so hungry,” she observed gently. “But +no matter. Sit down and we’ll talk.”</p> + +<p>“I know of nothing to talk about,” he returned, but he dropped +reluctantly into a hard, stiff chair opposite her.</p> + +<p>“I’ll tell you what there is to talk about,” said Christine. “Something +that has never been mentioned in all the discussions that have been +taking place. And that is my feelings.”</p> + +<p>“Your feelings,” Riatt began, rather contemptuously, but she stopped him.</p> + +<p>“No,” she said, “you shan’t say what you were going to. My feelings, +my feelings for you. You’ve told me that you did <em>not</em> love me, that +you despised me, that you <em>did</em> love me, but you’ve never asked how I +felt to you.”</p> + +<p>“But you’ve made it so clear. You felt that, in default of anything else, +I would do.”</p> + +<p>She leaned across the table and looked at him gravely. “Max,” she said, +“I love you.”</p> + +<p>He made no motion, not even one of contempt, and so she got up, and +coming round the table, she knelt down beside him and put her arms +tightly about him. Still he did not move, except that his hands, which +had been hanging at his sides, now gripped the edges of the chair with +the rigidity of iron, and he said in a voice which sounded even in his +own ears like that of a total stranger:</p> + +<p>“What folly this is, Christine!”</p> + +<p>“Why is it folly?”</p> + +<p>“If you had said this six weeks ago, while I still had enough money to—”</p> + +<figure class="figcenter illowp80" id="i_241" style="max-width: 35.9375em;"><a id="241"></a> + <img class="w100" src="images/i_241.jpg" alt=""> + <figcaption class="caption"><p class="center">“Max,” she said, “I love you”</p></figcaption> +</figure> + +<p>“If I had said it then you wouldn’t have believed me.” He looked at her; +it was true.</p> + +<p>“But now,” she went on rapidly, “you must believe me. If I come now to +live with you and work for you, no one can accuse me of mercenary +motives—not even you, Max. I shan’t get anything from the bargain but +you, and that is all I want.”</p> + +<p>“This is madness,” said Riatt, trying not very sincerely to free himself.</p> + +<p>“Yes, of course it’s mad, like all really logical things,” she answered. +“But that’s the way it’s going to be. I love you, and I am going to stay +with you.”</p> + +<p>“I couldn’t let you,” he said. “I couldn’t accept such a sacrifice.”</p> + +<p>“A sacrifice, Max. That’s the first really stupid thing I ever heard you +say. It isn’t a sacrifice; it’s a result, a consequence of the fact that +I love you. It isn’t a question of my doing it, or your letting me. It +simply can’t be otherwise. The other things I used to value—parties and +pretty clothes and luxuries—they were a sort of game I played because I +did not know any other. But only part of me was alive then. I was like a +blind person; and they were my stick; but now that I can see, the stick +is just in my way. It isn’t silly and romantic to believe in love, Max. +The hardest-headed, most practical people believe in it—every one who +has any sense really believes in it, when they find it. To be poor, to be +uncomfortable—it’s a price, but a small one to pay for love. Isn’t that +true—true, at least, as far as you’re concerned?”</p> + +<p>“Oh, yes, as far as I’m concerned—”</p> + +<p>“Then what right have you to think it’s not true to me? Don’t be such a +moral snob, Max. If love’s the best thing in the world for you, it’s ever +so much more so for me—I need it more.”</p> + +<p>“Nobody could need it more than I do,” he answered, suddenly clasping +her to him.</p> + +<p>“It’s the way it’s going to be, anyhow,” she murmured.</p> + +<p>“I can’t let you go,” he said, as if arguing with an unseen auditor.</p> + +<p>She nodded in a somewhat contracted space. “That’s it,” she announced. +“It has to be.”</p> + +<p>It was only a few days later that Nancy Almar, driving past a well-known +house-furnishing shop on her way home to tea, was surprised to observe +her brother standing, with a salesman at his elbow, in trancelike +contemplation of a small white enameled ice-box. With her customary +decision, Nancy ordered her chauffeur to stop, and entering the shop by +another door she stood close beside Hickson during his purchase of the +following articles: the ice-box, an improved coffee percolator and a +complete set of kitchen china of an extremely decorative pattern.</p> + +<p>“Bless me, Ned,” she said suddenly in his ear, “might one ask when you +are going to housekeeping, and with whom?”</p> + +<p>There was no denying that Ned’s start was guilty, and his manner confused +as he answered, “Oh, they’re not for me—”</p> + +<p>The salesman who, perhaps, lacked tact, or possibly only wanted to get +away to wait on another customer, said at this point:</p> + +<p>“And the address, sir? I have the name—Mrs. Max Riatt.”</p> + +<p>“Riatt married!” cried Nancy. “But to whom? I thought he had nothing left +in the world.”</p> + +<p>“He hasn’t,” answered Ned, hastily scribbling the address on a card and +handing it to the man.</p> + +<p>“Oh, then he’s married some one who loves him for himself alone, I know. +That faithful sleek-headed girl from his home town. Won’t Christine be +angry when she hears it! She always likes her old loves to pine a long +time before they console themselves. Let us go and tell her. Or is she +away still?”</p> + +<p>A rather sad smile lit up Hickson’s countenance as he followed his sister +to her motor. “I think she knows it,” he said.</p> + +<p>Nancy put her hand on his arm. “Oh, dear, darling Ned,” she said. “Get in +and drive home with me and tell me all about it. I knew he really never +cared for Christine. She dazzled and distressed him in about equal +proportions. And yet I doubt if Miss—Whatever-Her-Name-Was—will be very +exciting—”</p> + +<p>“It is not Miss Lane, who, by the way, I like and admire very much,” said +Ned, firmly.</p> + +<p>“Who is it? Some one I know?”</p> + +<p>“Yes, you know her.”</p> + +<p>Something in his extreme solemnity transferred the idea to her.</p> + +<p>“You don’t mean that Christine—”</p> + +<p>He nodded. “I was at their wedding yesterday.”</p> + +<p>“And where are they?”</p> + +<p>“That’s it, Nancy. They’re living in a flat and they have no servant—”</p> + +<p>His sister leaned back and laughed heartily, and then composing her +countenance with an effort, she said: “My poor dear! But it’s really all +for the best. She won’t stay with him six months.”</p> + +<p>“Nancy! She’ll stay with him forever.”</p> + +<p>“Where is this flat?”</p> + +<p>“I’ve promised not to tell. They don’t want to be bothered by all of us.”</p> + +<p>“They want to conceal their deplorable situation, of course. Well, my +dear, I can wait. Six months from now I’ll ask them to dine to meet +Linburne. Christine’s dresses will be a little out of fashion, and +they’ll come in a trolley car, and she’ll have a veil over her head—”</p> + +<p>“Six months from now Riatt may be on the way to making a nice little sum. +He has a very good thing, he thinks.”</p> + +<p>“He’d better be quick about it. A flat in summer! Oh, the cinders on the +window-sill, and the sun on the roof, and the knowledge that all of us +are going out of town to lawns and lakes—He’d better be quick, Ned.”</p> + +<p>The motor had stopped before the door of Nancy’s little house which was +arrayed in its summer dress of red and white awnings, and red and white +window boxes. The footman had rung the bell, and was waiting with his eye +on the front door, so as to catch the right second for opening the door +of the motor.</p> + +<p>“Nancy,” said her brother, with real horror in his tone, “you talk as if +you wanted her to fail.”</p> + +<p>“I do. I do, of course.”</p> + +<p>“Why? Do you hate her?”</p> + +<p>Nancy nodded. “Yes, I hate her now. I didn’t used to.”</p> + +<p>“It seems to me this is just the moment to admire her. It may be foolish, +but surely what she has done is noble, Nancy.”</p> + +<p>The hall door opened and simultaneously the door of the motor, and Nancy, +putting out one foot, said over her shoulder:</p> + +<p>“Oh, Ned, what a goose you are! Don’t you know any woman would have done +what she’s done, if she had the chance—the real chance?”</p> + +<p>She ran up the steps and into her house, leaving her brother staring +after her in amazement.</p> + + +<p class="center noindent p2">THE END</p> + + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12789 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/12789-h/images/colophon.jpg b/12789-h/images/colophon.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..1c80d13 --- /dev/null +++ b/12789-h/images/colophon.jpg diff --git a/12789-h/images/cover.jpg b/12789-h/images/cover.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e2e0779 --- /dev/null +++ b/12789-h/images/cover.jpg diff --git a/12789-h/images/frontis.jpg b/12789-h/images/frontis.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..eebb8e4 --- /dev/null +++ b/12789-h/images/frontis.jpg diff --git a/12789-h/images/i_069.jpg b/12789-h/images/i_069.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..39840c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/12789-h/images/i_069.jpg diff --git a/12789-h/images/i_091.jpg b/12789-h/images/i_091.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..bf032ff --- /dev/null +++ b/12789-h/images/i_091.jpg diff --git a/12789-h/images/i_119.jpg b/12789-h/images/i_119.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c98a7f0 --- /dev/null +++ b/12789-h/images/i_119.jpg diff --git a/12789-h/images/i_147.jpg b/12789-h/images/i_147.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4663da1 --- /dev/null +++ b/12789-h/images/i_147.jpg diff --git a/12789-h/images/i_173.jpg b/12789-h/images/i_173.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..8e6f01d --- /dev/null +++ b/12789-h/images/i_173.jpg diff --git a/12789-h/images/i_199.jpg b/12789-h/images/i_199.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..023c392 --- /dev/null +++ b/12789-h/images/i_199.jpg diff --git a/12789-h/images/i_241.jpg b/12789-h/images/i_241.jpg Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4b58d2 --- /dev/null +++ b/12789-h/images/i_241.jpg |
