Christine had been right when she told Riatt that Nancy Almar would
be resentful after a dull evening at the Usshers’.
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.
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.
“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?”
“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.”
“And often do, I dare say,” said Nancy. “I have a point of seven,
and fourteen aces.”
“I must own I can’t see Riatt’s irresistible quality,” said Hickson
irritably.
“Rich, nice looking and has his wits about him,” replied Mrs. Almar
succinctly.
“About as good-looking as a fence-rail.”
“And they say women are envious!” exclaimed his sister.
“Are you a feminist, Mrs. Almar?” inquired the irrepressible
Wickham.
“No, just a female, Mr. Wickham.”
“I never thought a big bony nose made a man a beauty,” grumbled
Hickson.
“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--”
“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.”
“Well, I don’t understand women’s taste, anyhow,” said Hickson.
“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.”
“I never had a worse run of luck,” observed Wickham with an attempt
at indifference.
Mrs. Almar stood up yawning. “Doubtless you are on the brink of a
great amorous triumph,” she said languidly, and went off to bed.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
“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!”
“Very terrible,” said Hickson.
“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.”
Edward was really stirred to anger. “Nancy,” he said, “how do you
dare, even in fun--”
“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.”
“I can’t imagine Christine playing such a part.”
“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.”
“But, Nancy, Christine almost admitted that--that he tried to make
love to her.”
“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.”
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.”
“Good,” said Nancy. “Do you know the most painful experience she
could have been through?”
“No, what?”
“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.”
Ned looked at her doubtfully. “I thought I’d try and sleep a
little,” he said.
“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.
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.
The coast was thus clear, but Riatt was still absent.
Nancy’s methods were nothing if not direct. She rang the bell and
when the butler appeared she said:
“Where is Mr. Riatt?”
“In his room, madam.”
“Dressing?”
“No, madam, he is dressed. Resting, I should say.”
Nancy nodded her head once. “One moment,” she said; and going to
the writing table she sat down and wrote quickly:
“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.”
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.
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.
“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.”
[Illustration: “Isn’t that rather a reckless way for a man in your
situation to talk?”]
She looked at him with her hard, dark eyes. “Isn’t that rather a
reckless way for a man in your situation to talk?”
“I was not aware that I was in a situation.”
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.
She relaxed the tension of her attitude. “Are you really under the
impression that you’re not?”
“I feel quite sure of it.”
“You poor, dear, innocent creature.”
“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.”
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.”
“And I am the mouse?”
She nodded. “And in rather a dangerous sort of trap, too.”
He smiled at the seriousness of her tone.
“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.”
“Innocent Westerner as I am,” he answered, “that idea--”
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.”
“Oh, come,” said Riatt politely, “your brother is not so bad as you
seem to think.”
“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.”
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.
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.”
“What do you mean?”
“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?”
“Good heavens, no!” cried Riatt from the heart.
“Then, run while there’s time.”
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:
“Well, after all, there are certain things you can’t be made to do
against your will.”
“Certainly. But you are not referring to marriage, are you?”
“Yes, I was.”
“My poor, dear man! As if half the marriages in the world were not
made against the wish of one party or the other.”
His heart sank. “It’s perfectly true,” he said. “And yet one does
rather hate to run away.”
“Not so much as one hates afterward to think one might have.”
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.”
“Oh, not quite as bad as that, I hope,” said Riatt.
“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.”
There was complete silence between them until the footman appeared
and Riatt had given the necessary orders.
“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.”
“Dine with me in town on Wednesday, and you can tell me which it
is.”
“You don’t seem to be much afraid of my anger.”
“I think perhaps your gratitude might be the more dangerous of the
two.”
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.
“You’re up early, Nancy,” she said pleasantly.
“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.”
Mrs. Ussher glanced quickly at her cousin. “Are you leaving us,
Max?”
“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.”
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.”
“How wonderful you are, Laura,” murmured Mrs. Almar.
Mrs. Ussher looked vague. “In what way, dear?”
“In all ways, but I think it’s as a friend that I admire you most.”
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?”
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.”
Riatt, terrified at this proof that Nancy’s prophecy was coming
true, resolved to cling to her.
“Sit down and learn the game, too, Laura,” he said. “It’s a very
good one.”
“I want to speak to you about a business matter, Max.”
“I never attend to business during church hours, Laura,” he
answered. “We’ll talk about it after lunch, if you like.”
Laura had learnt the art of yielding gracefully. “That will do just
as well,” she said, and sat down to watch the game.
Presently Wickham, seeing that Mrs. Almar seemed to be safely
engaged, ventured back. And they were all thus innocently occupied
when luncheon was announced.
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.
“Well, Miss Fenimer,” said Wickham, as they sat down. “You look
very blooming after your terrible experiences.”
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.”
“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--”
“But I thought it was Mr. Riatt’s own choice,” said Nancy gently.
“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--”
“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:
“_If_, it had been an accident, Nancy? What the deuce do you mean
by _if_?”
Nancy shook her small head. “I express myself badly,” she said.
“English rhetoric was left out of my education.”
“You manage to convey your ideas, dear,” said Laura.
“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--”
Wickham pricked up his ears. “Oh, I say, Miss Fenimer,” he
exclaimed, “did you really hit the horse?”
“Certainly, I did, Mr. Wickham.”
“But what did you do that for?”
Christine did not trouble to answer this question. Hickson, who had
been suffering far more than any one, rushed to the rescue.
“Miss Fenimer did not do it on purpose, Wickham. She happened to be
standing--”
“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.”
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.”
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.
“Oh,” he said, “I enjoyed our game immensely.”
“Good,” answered Nancy. “We’ll have another this afternoon then.”
“Indeed, yes,” said Wickham, looking rather wan.
“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.
“And are you leaving us?” she asked.
“Sorry to say I am.”
“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.”
“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.”
Christine smiled at Riatt across the table. “They make me feel as
if I had been very cruel, Mr. Riatt,” she said.
“Cruel, my dear,” cried Nancy. “Oh, I’m sure you weren’t _that_,”
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.
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.
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.
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:
“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.”
“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.”
“Oh, Max, how can you say that? Christine is so much more gentle
and womanly, so much--”
“My dear Laura, we haven’t very much time, and I think you said you
wanted to talk to me on a business matter.”
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?”
“It’s not my fault either, Laura.”
“You can so easily save the situation.”
“How?”
“By asking her to marry you.”
“That I will not do.”
“Are you involved with some one else?”
“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.”
“Yet so many men have fallen in love with her.”
“Oh, I see her beauty; I even feel her charm; but to marry her, no.”
“Think of the prestige her beauty and position--”
“My dear Laura, what position? Social position as represented by
the hectic triviality of the last few days? Thank you, no, again.”
“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--”
“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.”
“Oh, Max, how can you abandon that lovely creature to some tragic
future?”
“You know quite well she is going to do nothing more tragic than to
marry Hickson.”
“And you are willing to sacrifice her to Hickson?”
“My dear Laura, I cannot prevent all the beautiful, dissatisfied
women in the world from marrying dull, kind-hearted young men who
adore them.”
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.
“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?”
She smoked a moment in silence, while he stood erect and alert by
the mantel-piece. At last, glancing up at him, she said:
“I suppose Laura was suggesting that you marry me?”
He nodded.
“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.”
“She existed only in my imagination.”
“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.”
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.
“Have you told Hickson?” he asked after a moment.
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.”
“I dare say you will contrive to make it as lively as possible.”
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?”
“Certainly not.”
“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.”
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?”
“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?”
He hesitated, and she went on:
“Ah, cautious to the last! It’s just a demonstration, a _beau
geste_. 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.”
“What people you are!”
“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.”
“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.”
“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.”
“What is it?”
“I want you to make me a well authenticated offer of marriage
before you go for good.”
“Miss Fenimer, I have the honor to ask you to marry me.”
“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.”
“Something in writing?”
She hesitated.
“No,” she said, “one really can’t go about with a framed proposal
like a college degree. I want a public demonstration.”
“Something with a band or a phonograph?”
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.”
“You think she will advise you against me?”
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?”
“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.”
“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.”
“You have a good deal clearer notion of your rôle than I.”
“Your rôle is easy. You confirm everything I say, and contrive to
look a little depressed at the end. Nothing could be simpler.”
He hesitated. “Simpler than to look depressed when you refuse me?”
“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.”
“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.
“I don’t think I could cry to save my life,” she observed.
“Certainly not to save my reputation.”
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.
Nancy stopped with a gesture of surprise, on finding that she was
interrupting a tête-à-tête. Christine ignored her astonishment.
“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.”
“But Laura is one of your best friends, too,” said Mrs. Almar.
“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.”
At these sinister words, Mrs. Almar gave a glance like the jab of a
knife at Riatt.
“See here, Christine,” she said, “every minute I spend here is a
direct pecuniary loss to me. Let’s get to the point.”
“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?”
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.”
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.”
“They won’t and I don’t,” said Nancy, and moved rapidly to the door.
“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.”
“And do you renew that request?” said Christine.
[Illustration: “Well, heaven itself can’t save a fool,” said Mrs.
Almar]
“I do.”
Christine held out her hand with the gesture of a queen. “And I
very gratefully accept your generous offer,” she said.
“Well, heaven itself can’t save a fool,” said Mrs. Almar, and she
went out of the room, and slammed the door after her.
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?”
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.
“I can’t be sure which was funnier,” she gasped, “your face or
Nancy’s.”
Riatt did not seem to feel mirthful. “Do you take in,” he asked her
sternly, “that you have just broken your word.”
“I’ve just plighted it, haven’t I?”
“You promised to refuse me.”
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.”
“For what time?”
“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:
“If by the fifteenth of this month you have not broken this
engagement, I’ll announce its termination myself.”
“And you,” she went on, as if he had not spoken, “must get into the
habit of calling me Christine.”
“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.”
“I see you feel no doubt of my wishes in the matter.”
“I wonder where I got the idea.”
“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.”
“And I should say it was the first requisite for your husband.”
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.”
“How can I be sure you will keep your word?”
“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--”
“I won’t,” said Riatt.
“I will then,” she answered, and sitting down she wrote:
“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) CHRISTINE
FENIMER.”
“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.”
He took it and put it very carefully away, observing as he did so:
“It’s a long time to the first of March.”
“It mayn’t seem as long as you think.”
“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?”
She did not hesitate at all. “Well, I think it is a possibility.”
“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.”
“What would you do?”
“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.”
“I don’t see how you could try any harder than you have. You begin
to make me suspicious.”
“Miss Fenimer--”
“Christine, please.”
“Christine, I am not the least bit in love with you.”
“Quite sure that you’re not whistling to keep your courage up?”
“Quite sure.”
“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.”
“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?”
“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 _do_
know it.”
“I wish I did,” he returned gloomily.
“Oh, yes,” she said, “you know it and I know it, but the
dog--that’s Nancy--she doesn’t know it.”
He seemed unimpressed by the humor of the situation. He walked away
and put his hand on the knob.
“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.”
“And I should hate that,” she answered candidly.
“I’m sure you would,” he answered. “And I don’t particularly enjoy
threatening you with such a possibility.”
“Really,” said she. “Now I rather like you when you talk like that.”
“Fortunate that you do,” he returned, “for you will probably hear a
good deal of it.”
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.”