A rather unappreciative grunt was his only reply, and then he called back: "You"d better stay where you are, till I find something to make a light."
She asked nothing better. She was oppressed with a sense of crisis. An inner voice seemed to be saying, in parody of Charles Francis Adams"s historic words: "I need hardly point out to your ladyship that this means marriage."
She had thought, lightly enough, that everything was settled the evening before on the stairs when she had made up her mind that he would do. But with all her belief in herself, she was not unaware even then that unforeseen obstacles might arise. He might be secretly engaged for all she knew to the contrary. But now she felt quite sure of him. With Fate playing into her hands like this--with romance and adventure and the possibilities of an uninterrupted tete-a-tete, she knew she could have him if she wanted him. And the point was that she did. At least she supposed she did. She felt as many a young man feels when he lands his first job--triumphant, but conscious of lost freedoms.
Marriage, she knew, was the only possible solution of her problems. Her life with her father was barely possible. As a matter of fact they were but rarely together. The tiny apartment in New York did not attract Fred Fenimer as a winter residence, when he had an opportunity of going to Aiken or Florida or California at the expense of some more fortunate friend. In summer it was much the same. "My dear," he would say to his daughter, "I really can"t afford to open the house this summer." And Christine would coldly acquiesce, knowing that this statement only meant that he had received an invitation that he preferred to a quiet summer with her.
Sometimes throughout the whole season father and daughter would only meet by chance on some unexpected visit, or coming into a harbor on different yachts.
"Isn"t that the _Sea-Mew"s_ flag?" Christine would say languidly. "I rather think my father is on board."
And then, perhaps, some amiable hostess in need of an extra man would send the launch to the _Sea-Mew_ to bring Mr. Fenimer back to dine; and he would come on board, very civil, very neat, very punctilious on matters of yachting etiquette; and he and Christine having exchanged greeting, would find that they had really nothing whatsoever to say to each other.
Their only vital topic of conversation was money, and as this was always disagreeable, both of them instinctively tried to avoid it. Whenever Fenimer had money, he either speculated with it, or immediately spent it on himself. So that he was always able to say with perfect truth, whenever his daughter asked for it, that he had none. The result of this was that she had easily drifted into the simple custom of running up bills for whatever she needed, and allowing the tradesmen to fight it out with her father.
Such a system does not tend to economy. Christine"s idea of what was necessary, derived from the extravagant friends who offered her the most opportunity for amusing herself, enlarged year by year. Besides, she asked herself, why should she deny herself, in order that her father might lose more money in copper stocks?
Sometimes during one of their casual meetings, he would say to her under his breath: "Good Heavens, girl, do you know, I"ve just had a bill of almost three thousand dollars from your infernal dressmaker? How can I stop your running up such bills?" And she would answer coolly: "By paying them every year or so."
She knew--she had always known since she was a little girl--that from this situation, only marriage could rescue her, and from the worse situation that would follow her father"s death; for she suspected that he was deeply in debt. Not having been brought up in a sentimental school she was prepared to do her share in arranging such a marriage. In the world in which she lived, compet.i.tion was severe. Already she had seen a possible husband carried off under her nose by a little school-room mouse who had had the aid of an efficient mother.
But now for the first time in her life, she saw that the game was in her own hands. She had only to do the right thing--only perhaps to avoid doing the wrong one--and her future was safe.
She heard Riatt calling and she followed him into the laundry, where he had collected some candles: he was much engaged in lighting a fire in the stove.
"But wouldn"t the kitchen range be better?" she asked.
"No water turned on," he answered.
To her this answer was utterly unintelligible. What, she wondered, was the connection between fire and water. But, rather characteristically, she was disinclined to ask. She walked to the sink, however, and turned the tap; a long husky cough came from it, but no water.
After this burst of energy she sank into a chair, amused to watch his arrangements. Thoroughly idle people--and there is not much question that Miss Fenimer was idle--learn a variety of methods for keeping other people at work, and probably the most effective of these is flattery.
Christine may have been ignorant of the feminine arts of cooking and fire-making; but of the super-feminine art of flattery she was a thorough mistress.
Now as Riatt finished building his fire, and began to bring in buckets of snow to supply their need of water, the gentle flow of her flattery soothed him as the sound of a hidden brook in the leafy month of June.
Nor, strangely enough, did the fact that he dimly apprehended its purpose in the least interfere with his enjoyment.
"If ever I"m thrown away on a desert island, I speak to be thrown away with you," she said. "There isn"t another man of my acquaintance who could bring order out of these primitive conditions."
He laughed. "Well, you know," he said, "this isn"t really what you"d call primitive. I was snowed up in Alaska once."
"Alaska! You"ve been snowed up in Alaska?" she echoed in the tone of a child who says: was it a _black_ bear?
Oh, yes, it lightened his toil. Nevertheless, he asked for her a.s.sistance in trying to find something to eat. She knew no more about the kitchen than he did, but she advanced toward a door and opened it gingerly between her thumb and forefinger. It was the kitchen closet.
She opened a tin box.
"There is something here that looks like gravel," she called. He rushed to her side. It was cereal. He found other supplies, too, a little salt, sugar, coffee, and a jar of bacon.
"How clever of you to know what they all are," she murmured, and he felt as if he had invented them out of thin air, like an Eastern magician.
He carried them back to the kitchen. "I wonder if you"d get the coffee grinder," he said.
She hadn"t the faintest idea what a coffee grinder looked like, but she went away to find it, and came back presently with an object strange enough to serve any purpose.
"Is this it?" she asked.
"That"s a meat chopper," he answered, and then laughed. "You"re not a very good housekeeper, are you?"
"Of course not," she said. "Did you ever know an agreeable woman who was?
Good housekeepers are always bores, because they can never for an instant get their minds off the most tiresome things in the world like bills, and how the servants are behaving. All clever women are bad housekeepers, and so they always find some one like you to take care of them."
He was putting the cereal to boil, and answered only after a second.
"Perhaps you"ll think me old-fashioned, but I cannot help respecting the art of housekeeping."
"Oh, so do I in its place," replied Miss Fenimer. "My maid does the whole thing capitally. But let me give you a test. Think of the very best housekeeper you ever met. Would you like to have her here instead of me?
You may be quite candid."
Riatt stopped and considered an instant with his head on one side. "She"d make me awfully comfortable," he said.
Miss Fenimer nodded, as much as to say: yes, but even so--
"No," he said at length, as if the decision had been close. "No, after all I would rather do the work and have you. But it isn"t because you are a poor housekeeper that I prefer you. It"s because--"
Compliments upon her, charms were plat.i.tudes to Christine, and she cut him short. "Yes, it is. It"s because I"m so detached, and don"t interfere, and let you do things your own way, and think you so wonderful to be able to do them at all. Now if I knew how to do them, too, I should be criticizing and suggesting all the time, and you"d have no peace. You like me for _being a poor housekeeper_."
He smiled. "On that ground I ought to like you very much then," he answered.
"Perhaps you do," she said cheerfully. "Anyhow I"m sure you like me better than that other girl you were thinking of--that good housekeeper.
Who is she?"
"I like her quite a lot."
"I see--you think she"d make a good wife."
"I think she"d make a good wife to any man who was fortunate enough--"
"Oh, what a dreadful way to talk of the poor girl!"
"On the contrary, I admire her extremely."
"I believe you are engaged to her."
"Not as much as you are to Hickson."
Christine laughed. "From the way you describe her," she said, "I believe she"d make a perfect wife for Ned."
"Oh, she"s much too good for him."
"Thank you. You seem to think I"ll do nicely for him."