Ladies Must Live Part 17

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 a.s.sumption 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 acc.u.mulated 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 circ.u.mstances might have ended, or favoring circ.u.mstances 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 b.u.t.ter suggested that Madame probably preferred fresh b.u.t.ter 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 G.o.ddess." 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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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.