"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."
CHAPTER IV
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 tete-a-tete 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 succ.u.mbed 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 p.r.o.nounce 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 a.s.sure 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.