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.
“You’re not going to have the supreme cruelty,” he said, “to let
poor Hickson think that our engagement is a genuine one?”
Christine paused. “I wonder,” she answered thoughtfully, “which in
the end would deceive him most--to make him think it was real or
fake?”
“You blood-curdling woman,” said Riatt. “I am not engaged to you.”
“Oh, yes, you are--until March first.”
“I am pretending to be until March first.”
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.”
“Oh, if I enjoyed the process, I should regard myself as lost.”
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.”
“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.”
Christine sighed gently. “You’re getting disagreeable again,” she
said with the softest reproach in her tone. “Let’s go on.”
“You haven’t answered my question,” he said. “Are you going to tell
Hickson the truth?”
“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.”
“And you may add that my intention is the same,” replied Riatt with
some sternness.
Christine smiled. “There’s no use in telling him that,” she
answered, “for he wouldn’t believe it.”
“Upon my word,” said he, “I think you’re the vainest woman I ever
met.”
“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.
“Oh, Laura,” said Christine, “could I have just a word with you?”
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.
“With me?” she said, and in her eagerness she was already at the
door, before Christine stopped her.
“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.”
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.”
“Oh, Nancy, I’m sure you think I’m getting far more than I
deserve,” said Christine.
“You haven’t actually got it yet, darling,” returned Mrs. Almar.
“That sounds almost like a threat, my dear.”
“More in the line of a prophecy.”
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.”
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.
“I can’t describe to you,” he said crossly, “how intensely
disagreeable I find the situation.”
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.”
“I believe he will make you an excellent husband.”
“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.”
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.”
Christine was quite unabashed by his directness.
“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.”
“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.”
“Oh, you can’t do that!” cried Christine, in genuine alarm.
“You surely don’t expect me to neglect my legitimate business on
account of this ridiculous farce.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
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?
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.
After this he went to his hotel and found a pile of letters had
accumulated in his absence.
The first he opened was in a round childish hand with uncertain
margins, and a final “e” on the word Hotel.
“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.
“Your loving cousin,
“MURIEL USSHER.”
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:
“Dear Max:
“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?
“Yours as ever,
“DOROTHY.”
He went to the telephone, found that she was in and immediately
arranged that she should go out to lunch with him.
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.
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.
“Dolly,” he said, “do I look as if something tremendous had just
happened?”
“Don’t tell me you’ve invented a submarine, or something?”
“No, this is something of a more personal nature.”
“Oh, Max, you’ve fallen in love?”
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.”
“Max! But why if--”
“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.”
Miss Lane had grown extremely serious. “Who is she?” she asked.
“Her name is Christine Fenimer.”
“I’ve seen her name in the papers.”
“Who has not?” he returned bitterly.
“What is she like?”
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:
“What a lovely creature!”
“That is Miss Fenimer.”
A sudden and deep flush spread over Miss Lane’s face.
“And you have been telling me of your indifference to her?” she
asked bitterly. “How could any man be indifferent!”
“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--”
“Yes, and old friendship, too,” said Miss Lane, “but they don’t
always amount to much.”
“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.”
“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.”
“You mean you don’t believe a word of what I have been trying to
tell you.”
“Oh, yes, I do. I believe you are engaged.”
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.
“I suppose I had better go and speak to them,” Max said.
“I should think so,” replied Dorothy tonelessly. “Who are the
others?”
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.
On Hickson, Max touched more briefly.
When at last he did cross the room, Christine received him with the
utmost cordiality.
“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 _us_. 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?”
“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.
“Who are you lunching with, Max? Is that your little secretary?”
The tone, very civil and friendly, made Max furious, as if any one
that Christine did not know was hardly worth inquiring about.
“No, it’s Miss Lane--an old friend of mine. I think I must have
spoken to you about her.”
“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?”
“No,” answered Riatt, with a sudden inspiration of ill-humor. “I’m
dining with Miss Lane.”
“Bring her, too! Won’t she come?”
“I really can’t say.”
“You can ask her.”
“To your house?”
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.”
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.
[Illustration: It was arranged that he was to bring Dorothy to dine
with them that evening]
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:
“How charming and simple she is, Max. You always hear of these
people as being so artificial and elaborate.”
“Oh, they’re direct enough,” returned Riatt bitterly.
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?”
Max now made use of the well-known counter question as an escape
from a tight place.
“And what is your judgment on that point, Dolly?”
“She loves you,” said Miss Lane, with conviction, and a moment
afterward she sighed.
“Without disputing your opinion,” returned Riatt, “I should very
much like to know on what you base it.”
“Oh, on a hundred things--on her look, her manner, her being so
nice to me--on woman’s intuition in fact.”
Riatt thought to himself that he had never had much confidence in
the intuition theory and now he had none.
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.
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.
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.
“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.”
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.
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:
“You’re in love with this girl.”
Riatt, who had sunk comfortably down on a sofa by the fire, looked
up in surprise.
“And if I am?” he answered.
“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.”
“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.”
“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.
“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.
“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.
“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--”
“I hate to hear you talk like that.”
“Why should you care? _She’ll_ never do silly things--that’s clear.
Is that why you love her?”
“As a matter of fact I am not in love with Miss Lane.”
“My dear Max, there’s really no reason why you should deceive me
about it.”
“That’s just what she said about you.”
“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?”
“I most assuredly did.”
“Max, how could you be so low, so despicable, so false?”
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.”
Christine threw up her hands. “The game is up,” she said. “She’ll
tell everybody, of course.”
“She’ll tell absolutely no one.”
“Because she’s perfect, I suppose?”
“Because she didn’t for one moment believe me.”
“Didn’t believe we were engaged?”
“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.”
Christine’s manner softened slightly. “She thinks me charming?”
“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.”
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.”
“She is not jealous, but I suppose it may hurt her feelings a
little that I shouldn’t--”
“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.”
“Perhaps, we’d better be going back,” said Riatt calmly.
Christine barred the door, spreading out both her arms.
“She thinks you’re making love to me, Max.”
“And yet, Christine, I’m not.”
“But she doesn’t know that; she doesn’t know what an immovable
iceberg you are.”
“No, indeed she doesn’t.”
Christine’s manner again changed utterly. All the playfulness
disappeared. “You mean,” she said, “that you’re not cold and
immovable with her?”
“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.
“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 _pretend_ to
care for me just a little?”
Riatt rose. “Yes, I do,” he said, “and so I shall, in public.”
Christine was all the gentle, wistful child immediately.
“Never when we’re alone?” she asked.
Max lit a cigarette briskly. “I don’t suppose we shall very often
be alone,” he returned. “After all, why should we?”
She looked at him like a wounded bird: “No reason if you don’t want
to.”
At this moment the door opened and her father came in.
“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.”
“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.
“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.”
Riatt admitted that this was true and he and Christine went back to
the drawing-room.
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.
“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?”
“None,” answered Riatt, but added rather quickly, “And what did you
think of Linburne?”
“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.”
“I gather it did not shock Mrs. Almar.”
“She knew it already. ‘Lee,’ she said, ‘that story is so old that
even my husband knows it,’ and every one laughed.”
“I’m afraid you did not enjoy yourself.”
“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.”
“Yes, Hickson’s crazy about her,” said Riatt casually.
“Dear Max, why do you try to deceive yourself about your own
feeling for her?”
“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.
Instead he formed a plan to go home with her and her mother, when
they went.
“When are you going back, Dolly?”
“The day after to-morrow.”
“Any objections to my going, too?”
“Objections! Max, dear!”
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.
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.
“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.”
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?”
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.
“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.
She was studying the stockings, and she drew away with her head at
a critical angle.
“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.”
“Nothing could make your ankles look anything but slim, Christine,”
he replied politely.
“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.”
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.
“Wouldn’t it look well on our drawing-room mantel-piece?” she said.
“I’ll give it to you as a wedding present,” he answered. “That is,
if you think Hickson would like it.”
“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.”
“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.
“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.”
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.
“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.”
She nodded understandingly. “It will be much nicer for you to have
them.”
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.
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.
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.
“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.
“But feels none the less grateful for the kind intention to rescue
him.”
“Oh, I don’t care much for the gratitude of a man in love with
another woman.”
“You judge me to be very much in love?”
This general conviction on the part of the ladies of his
acquaintance was growing monotonous. Nancy continued:
“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?”
“I’ve had many opportunities of judging. I’ve been nowhere for two
days without meeting him.”
Mrs. Almar laughed with meaning.
“I wonder why that should be,” she said.
“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.
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.
Behind it she now murmured to Max:
“And what poisonous thing did dear Nancy tell you coming down?”
“Nothing--except what everyone has been telling me for the last few
days--that I seemed very much in love.”
“And that annoyed you, I suppose.”
“On the contrary. I was delighted to find I was such a good actor.”
“People who pretend to be asleep sometimes end by actually doing
it. Pretending is rather dangerous sometimes.”
“Yes, but you see I shan’t have to pretend after to-morrow.”
“Are you all packed and ready?”
“Mentally I am.”
In the _entr’acte_ 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.”
He rose at once, and as he did so, Linburne slipped into his place.
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.
“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.”
“I thought she looked rather tired this evening,” answered Riatt,
who always found himself perverse in face of Laura’s enthusiasm.
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 _you_ 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.”
But Riatt insisted on making way for the South American diplomat,
who was standing courteously in the back of the box.
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:
“Who’s this fellow she’s engaged to?”
“No one knows--a Western chap with a lot of money.”
“Suppose she cares anything about him?”
“Oh, no, she’s telling every one she doesn’t. They say he’s mad
about her.”
“Ought to be, by Jove. I always thought the only man she ever cared
for--”
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.
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.
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.”
“Mind when I have my Roland to keep me company?” said Nancy. “One
seems to take one’s husband to the opera this year.”
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.”
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:
“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.
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.”
“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?”
He saw that she was in her most teasing mood, and somehow this made
him more serious.
“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.”
“Oh, no. It looked so well.”
“It would not have looked so well for Linburne to take you home.”
She clapped her hands. “Excellent,” she said, “but you know it is
not necessary to take that proprietary tone when we are alone.”
“Even as a mere acquaintance I might offer you some advice,” he
said.
“I’m rather sleepy as it is,” she returned, yawning slightly.
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.
“Good-by,” he said briefly.
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?”
[Illustration: He stood like a rock under her caress]
“I’m not so sure I want to remember you.”
“I hope you don’t. It’s the things you don’t want to remember that
you never can get out of your head.”
“Good-by,” he said again.
“Haven’t you one nice thing to say to me before you go?”
“Not one.”
“Wouldn’t you at least admit that I had enlarged your point of
view?”
“Aren’t you going to shake hands with me?” he said.
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.”
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.
It was a matter of only a few seconds. Then she dropped her arms,
and he went away.