LADIES MUST LIVE
[Illustration: She stopped with her hand on the banister, like
Louise of Prussia]
LADIES MUST LIVE
BY
ALICE DUER MILLER
Author of “Come Out of the Kitchen,” etc.
ILLUSTRATED BY
PAUL MEYLAN
[Illustration: (Publisher’s colophon)]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1917
Copyright, 1917, by
The Century Co.
Copyright, 1917, by
INTERNATIONAL MAGAZINE CO.
_Published, October, 1917_
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
PAGE
She stopped with her hand on the banister, like
Louise of Prussia _Frontispiece_
And then, with a clean towel, he deliberately
dried her hands, finger by finger 69
“Isn’t that rather a reckless way for a man in
your situation to talk?” 91
“Well, heaven itself can’t save a fool,” said Mrs.
Almar 119
It was arranged that he was to bring Dorothy to
dine with them that evening 147
He stood like a rock under her caress 173
“May I ask, Mr. Riatt, what rights in the matter
you consider that you have?” Linburne pursued 199
“Max,” she said, “I love you” 241
CHAPTER I
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.
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.
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.
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.”
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.
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.
Her house party was therefore likely to be notable.
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.
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.
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.
For instance, he had said to her as she was about to start for the
Usshers’:
“I hope you’ll explain to them why I could not come.”
There had never been the least question of Mr. Almar’s coming, and
she turned slowly and looked at him as she asked:
“You mean that I would not have gone if you had?”
He did not seem annoyed.
“No,” he said, “that I’m called South on business.”
“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.”
She was as good as her word--she usually was.
When the party was at tea about the drawing-room fire, she asked
without the slightest change of expression:
“Would any one like to hear Roland’s explanation of why he is not
with us?”
“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.
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.
“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?”
“Certainly, as long as you never allow him to come,” said another
speaker.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
“You don’t do Christine justice,” he had answered, “if you think
she would do that.”
His sister did not reply. She thought it would have been doing the
girl injustice to suppose that she would do anything else.
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.
“We’re not dining till a quarter past eight, my dears,” said Mrs.
Ussher.
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.
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.
“Oh, you’re Mr. Riatt,” she said, very gently. “You know you’re
most awfully late.”
“I wish,” he said, “that I were wise enough to be able to say: ‘Oh,
you’re Miss ----’”
“I might be a Mrs.”
“Oh, I hope not,” he answered. “Are you?”
She smiled.
“You’ll know as soon as you come down to dinner.”
“I shall be quick about dressing.”
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.
“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!
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!”
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.
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.
“This is my cousin Max, Christine, about whom I’ve talked so much.
Max, this is Miss Fenimer.”
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.
“Well,” she said, “where is Cousin Max?”
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.
“Take me in to dinner, Cousin Max,” she said.
“I did not know he was _your_ cousin,” said Wickham, who suffered
from the fatal tendency in moments of doubt to say something.
Mrs. Almar looked at Riatt.
“Will you be a cousin to me?” she asked. “It commits you to
nothing.”
“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.”
Mrs. Almar moved her black head from side to side.
“You must be more specific,” she said, “or I shan’t understand you.”
“More specific in words?” he inquired gently. They were crossing
the hall, and had a sort of privacy for an instant.
“Dear me,” she returned, “you do move rather rapidly, don’t you?”
“I’m an aviator, you see,” he answered.
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.
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.
“Don’t you think my dear little Christine is an angel?” she said,
without any encumbering subtility.
“She certainly looks like one.”
“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.
Mrs. Ussher leant forward.
“Max was just saying that Christine looks like an angel.”
Nancy looked at him and made a very slight grimace.
“Are you so awfully strong for angels?” she said. He laughed.
“I never met one before.”
“You haven’t met one to-night.”
“You mean that you’re not an angel, Mrs. Almar?”
“I? Oh, I’m well and favorably known as the wickedest woman in New
York. I meant that Miss Fenimer is not an angel.”
“You don’t like her?”
“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.”
Riatt glanced at Hickson and was aware of the faintest possible
pang. What qualities, he wondered, had a man like that.
“Oh,” he said, “is she engaged to your brother?”
“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.”
At this a slight feeling of disgust for both ladies took possession
of Riatt.
“I see,” he said rather coldly, and turned to Mrs. Ussher, but
Nancy was not so easily disposed of.
“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?”
“However personally disagreeable to you the process might be?”
“Probably if he were as I described him, the process would not be
so disagreeable.”
He smiled. There was no denying he found her amusing.
In the meantime, the couple across the table had reached a somewhat
similar point.
Hickson had said as they sat down:
“Well, and what do you think of this new fellow?”
Christine’s natural irritation appeared in her answer.
“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.”
Hickson looked a little dashed.
“Oh,” he said, “Nancy does not mean anything when she goes on like
that.”
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:
“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.”
“Not very flattering to you, is it?”
“What do you mean?”
“The assumption that the only way to make a woman take an interest
in you is to prevent her speaking to any other man.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean that--” Hickson began, but she interrupted him.
“That, if anything, Ned.” And she turned to Wickham, who sat on her
other side.
Wickham was waiting for a little notice and began instantly.
“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--”
“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:
“Why in the world, Ned, did Nancy bring this Wickham man here? He’s
perfectly impossible.”
“Nancy didn’t bring him,” answered her brother innocently. “I
motored out with her myself.”
“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--”
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.
“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--”
“Thank you,” said Christine, “but I’m not.” And this time he
understood that he had lost her for good.
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.
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.
“Now do tell me, Max,” she said, “what you think of them all.”
“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.”
* * * * *
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.
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.
“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.”
“They live here?”
“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.”
“He probably will,” answered Riatt rather coldly. “It’s beginning
to snow again.”
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.
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.
“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--”
“One on you, my dear,” whispered Christine.
“Isn’t he tiresome?” answered Nancy, shutting her eyes.
“I thought he was your selection.”
“Nobody’s infallible, my dear. Besides, I telegraphed him not to
accept the invitation, but he says he never got my message.”
“Why does he think you sent it?”
“Because I couldn’t trust myself--”
They grinned at each other.
With the entrance of Riatt and Ussher they went in to lunch, and
there manœuvering for places for the afternoon immediately began.
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.
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.
“Would you mind awfully driving poor little Christine over to her
own place to get something or other for that horrid father of hers?”
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.
“It’s snowing, you know,” he said.
“It doesn’t amount to anything,” answered his cousin. “But surely,
Max, you’re not afraid of a little snow, if she isn’t!”
“Anything to oblige you, Laura,” he said.
She did not quite like his tone, but felt she might safely leave
the rest to Christine.
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.
“Are you ready, Max?” said Laura, rather sharply.
“Laura expects every man to do his duty,” murmured Nancy, without
looking up.
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.
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.
“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--”
“No one to take you?”
“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.”
“And how about Mr. Hickson?” Riatt asked. “Wasn’t he a possibility?”
“What has Nancy Almar told you about her brother and me?”
“Nothing but what he told me himself in every look and word--that
he loves you.”
Christine sighed.
He smiled at her.
“And you’re glad of it,” he said.
“You mean I care for him?”
“I don’t know anything about that, but you’re glad he cares for
you.”
“You’re utterly mistaken.”
“How would you feel if another woman came and took him away from
you to-morrow?”
“Took him away from me?” cried Christine, in a tone of surprise
that made Riatt laugh aloud.
“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.”
Miss Fenimer looked at him thoughtfully.
“Surely you exaggerate,” she said.
He shook his head sadly.
“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.”
“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?”
“Completely.”
“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.”
He smiled, “But you admit to knowing all about them, I gather?”
It would have been folly to deny it.
“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--”
“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.”
“Do I have to cry?” said Christine.
Riatt debated the point.
“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.”
“But how in the world can I teach you what to do, if I have to act
a part myself?”
“Well, before we begin, just give me a sketch of what I ought to
do.”
“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.”
He looked doubtfully at the snow.
“Must I get out and walk home?” he asked.
“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--”
“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.”
To her surprise, Christine found herself coloring a little.
“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--”
“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.”
Christine felt that he had the better of her, but she said firmly:
“Are you teaching this subject, or am I?”
“Certainly you can’t think _you_ are. But if you say so, I’ll have
a try.”
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.
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.
“And you,” said Riatt, “who do not even know the road to your own
house, were volunteering to pilot me through an emotional crisis.”
Even a suggestion of adverse criticism was unpleasant to Miss
Fenimer. She was not accustomed to it; and she answered with some
sharpness:
“Yes, but the road is real, whereas I understand your embarrassment
through the attentions of ladies is purely fictitious.”
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.
“Upon my word,” said Riatt, “I think we had better go back.”
“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.
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.
“We’ve got to go back, Miss Fenimer,” he said firmly.
“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.”
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.
“Have you any very clear idea where your house is?” he asked. His
tone was not flattering, and Christine was quick to feel it.
“Do I know where I live five months of the year?” she returned. “Of
course I do. It’s just over this next hill.”
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.
“But it’s shut up,” said Riatt. “There’s no one in it.”
“I have the keys to the back door.”
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.
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.
“Now you won’t be long, will you?” said Riatt, with more of command
than persuasion in his tone.
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.
She looked back at him and smiled with irritating calm.
“I shall be just as long as is necessary,” she replied, and so
saying, she turned, or rather attempted to turn, the key.
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.
“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.
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.
Riatt came slowly back; he was sinking in the snow to his waist at
every step. Christine was watching him with some anxiety.
“Is there a telephone in the house?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“No, it’s disconnected when we leave in the autumn.”
There was a moment’s silence, then she said questioningly: “What
shall we do?”
“There’s only one thing we can do,” he returned; “go into the house
and light a fire.”
But Christine hesitated.
“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’--”
“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.”
“But, but,” said she, “suppose they don’t rescue us to-night?”
“They probably will to-morrow,” answered Riatt, and he walked past
her into the house.