"It doesn"t amount to anything," answered his cousin. "But surely, Max, you"re not afraid of a little snow, if she isn"t!"
"Anything to oblige you, Laura," he said.
She did not quite like his tone, but felt she might safely leave the rest to Christine.
Mrs. Almar, unaware of these plots, settled down as soon as the meal was over, on a comfortable sofa large enough for two, with a box of cigarettes at her side and a current magazine that contained a new article on flying. The bird-like objects in the huge page of cloudy sky at once caught Max"s eye. He came and bent over it and her, with his hands in his pockets. Still absorbed in it, she half-unconsciously swept aside her skirts, and he sat down beside her. She murmured a question--it was only about planes, and he answered it. Their heads were close together when Christine came down in her dark furs ready to go.
The bells of Jack Ussher"s fastest trotter were already to be heard tinkling at the door.
"Are you ready, Max?" said Laura, rather sharply.
"Laura expects every man to do his duty," murmured Nancy, without looking up.
Riatt expressed himself as entirely ready. Ussher lent him a fur cap and heavy gloves, warned him about the charmingly uncertain character of the horse; he and Christine were tucked into the sleigh, and they were off.
The snow, as Laura had said, did not seem to amount to much, the wind was behind them, the horse fast, the roads well packed. Riatt glanced down at his lovely companion, and felt his spirits rising. He smiled at her and she smiled back.
"I do hope you really feel like that," she said, "not sorry, I mean, to go on this expedition. Because it was extremely wicked of me to forget my father"s coat, and this was obviously the occasion to make amends, but there was no one to take me--"
"No one to take you?"
"Oh, I suppose one of the grooms might have driven me over, but I should have hated that. There was no one else. Jack is much too selfish, and I wouldn"t have gone with that Wickham person for anything in the world, even if he had ever driven a sleigh, which I am sure he hasn"t."
"And how about Mr. Hickson?" Riatt asked. "Wasn"t he a possibility?"
"What has Nancy Almar told you about her brother and me?"
"Nothing but what he told me himself in every look and word--that he loves you."
Christine sighed.
He smiled at her.
"And you"re glad of it," he said.
"You mean I care for him?"
"I don"t know anything about that, but you"re glad he cares for you."
"You"re utterly mistaken."
"How would you feel if another woman came and took him away from you to-morrow?"
"Took him away from me?" cried Christine, in a tone of surprise that made Riatt laugh aloud.
"That"s the wonderful thing about the so-called weaker s.e.x," he said.
"Saying "no" seems to have no terrors to them at all. The timidest girl will refuse a man with no more trouble and anxiety than she would expend on refusing a dinner invitation; whereas men, with all their vaunted courage, are absolutely at the mercy of a determined woman. I have a friend who has just married a girl--whom he three times explicitly refused--only because she asked him to."
Miss Fenimer looked at him thoughtfully.
"Surely you exaggerate," she said.
He shook his head sadly.
"I wish I did," he returned, "but I a.s.sure you that is the great secret--that any man would rather marry any woman than refuse her to her face. You see, no graceful way for a man to say "no" has ever been discovered."
"Why, you poor defenseless creatures!" said Christine. "I"ll teach you some ways immediately. I couldn"t bear to think of your going about a prey to the first woman who proposed to you. Let us begin our lessons immediately. Have I your attention?"
"Completely."
"Let me see. In the first place there are several general types of proposal. There is the calmly rational, the pa.s.sionate whirlwind, the dangerously controlled, or volcano under a sheet of ice--" she broke off.
"I don"t know how women do it," she said. "I only know about men."
He smiled, "But you admit to knowing all about them, I gather?"
It would have been folly to deny it.
"And then there"s the meltingly pathetic," she went on. "I imagine that"s what women attempt oftenest. Let us begin with that. Now you are to suppose that I, with tears streaming down my face, have just confessed that I have always looked up to you as a sort of G.o.d, that I hardly dare--"
"Wait, wait!" cried Riatt. "This is by far the most interesting part of the lesson, and you go so fast. I have no imagination. I don"t know how it would be, you must say all those things."
"Do I have to cry?" said Christine.
Riatt debated the point.
"No," he answered at length, "I can imagine the tears, but everything else you must act out. Particularly that part about my seeming like a G.o.d to you."
"But how in the world can I teach you what to do, if I have to act a part myself?"
"Well, before we begin, just give me a sketch of what I ought to do."
"You must be very cold and firm, and explain to me that though my mistake is natural, you are really not a G.o.d at all; and then that gives you an excuse to talk a great deal about yourself, and tell how wicked and human and splendid you are, and that you are not worthy of a simple, good girl like myself, and how you don"t love me anyhow. And then the essential thing is to go away quickly, and end the interview before I have a chance to begin all over again."
He looked doubtfully at the snow.
"Must I get out and walk home?" he asked.
"No," she said. "I think that"s too complicated. We might try an easier one to begin. Suppose we do the calmly rational first. I explain to you that I have watched you from boyhood, and have come to the conclusion that our tastes, our intellects, our--"
"Oh, no," said Riatt, "there"s really no use in going on with that. Even I should have no difficulty with any lady who approached me in that way.
But there was one of the others that sounded rather promising and difficult. How about the pa.s.sionate whirlwind? I say to try that next."
To her surprise, Christine found herself coloring a little.
"Ah," she said, laying her hand on her lips and shaking her head, "that"s very difficult, because you see, it really can"t be imitated--"
"Can"t be imitated!" cried Max. "Why, what sort of a teacher are you? I believe you don"t know your job. You are the sort of teacher who would tell an arithmetic cla.s.s that long division could not be imitated. I believe the trouble with you is that you don"t understand the pa.s.sionate whirlwind yourself. I believe you"re a fraud, and I shall have your license to teach taken away from you. Can"t be imitated! Well, let me see you try, at least."
Christine felt that he had the better of her, but she said firmly: