Ladies Must Live Part 21

"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, d.i.c.k and Harry. Then the juster side of his nature rea.s.serted 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 pa.s.sed 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 fiancee?"

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 circ.u.mstances?

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?"

"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 impa.s.sive 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.

CHAPTER V

Running away is seldom a becoming gesture, yet it is one that should at least bring relief; but as Riatt went westward, he was conscious of no relief whatsoever. The day was bitter and gray, and, looking out of the window, he felt that he was about as flat and dreary as the country through which he was pa.s.sing.

He sat a little while with the Lanes in their compartment.

"I suppose you'll be glad to get home and see George and Louise and the children," said Mrs. Lane, referring to some cousins of Riatt's about whom, it is to be feared, he had not thought for weeks.

Dorothy laughed. "What does he care for home-staying cousins when he is leaving a lovely creature languishing for him in New York?" she said.

"I doubt if Christine does much languishing," he returned, though the idea was not at all disagreeable to him.

"You two are the strangest lovers I ever knew," said Miss Lane.

Riatt wondered if that were an accurate description of them--lovers, though strange ones.

He left his old friends presently and went and sat in the observation-car. What, he wondered, had Christine meant by her last words, about never coming back? Never come back to annoy with his critical att.i.tude? Never come back to watch her deterioration as Hickson's wife? Or never come back to disturb her peace of mind and heart by his mere presence? He debated all interpretations but the last pleased him most.

A bride and groom were in the car. The girl was not in the least like Christine. She was small and wore a pair of the most fantastic gray and black boots that Riatt had ever seen; but she was very blond and very much in love. Riatt hated both her and her husband. "People ought not to be allowed to show their feelings like that," he said to himself, as he kicked open the door leading to the back platform, with a violence that was utterly unnecessary.

Nor did things mend on his arrival at his home. His native town was naturally interested in his engagement; it showed this interest by keeping the idea continually before him. It a.s.sumed, of course, that he was going to bring his bride home. The rising architect of the community came to him with the a.s.sumption that he would wish to build her a more suitable house than that of his father, which, large and comfortable, had been constructed in the very worst taste of the early "eighties." No, Riatt found himself saying with determination, his father's house would be good enough for his wife. He thought the sentiment sounded rather well, as he p.r.o.nounced it. But this did not solve his difficulties, for now it was but too evident that he must at least redecorate the old house; and he found himself, he never knew exactly how, actually in process of doing over a bedroom, bathroom and boudoir for Christine, just exactly as if he had expected her ever to lay eyes on them.

Mrs. Lane came to him with the suggestion that he would wish Christine to be one of the patronesses of the next winter's dances. The list was about to be printed. Max hesitated. "It would be a little premature to put her down as Mrs. Riatt, wouldn't it?" he objected. Mrs. Lane thought this was merely superst.i.tious, and ordered the cards so printed without consulting him further.

Every one asked him what he heard from her, so that he actually stooped once or twice to invent sentences from imaginary letters of hers. He even went so far as to read the society columns of the New York newspapers, so that he might not be caught in any absurd error about her whereabouts.

Such at least is the reason by which he explained his conduct to himself.

He was shocked to find that he was restless and dissatisfied. The only occupation that seemed to give any relief was gambling; or, as a mine-owning friend of his expressed it, in making "a less conservative and more remunerative investment of his capital." He spent hours every day hanging over the ticker in the office of Burney, Manders and Company--and this young and eager firm of brokers made more money in commissions during the first two weeks of his return than they had during the whole year that preceded it.

On the whole he lost, and Welsley, his mining friend, seeing this began to urge on him more and more the advisability of buying out the majority of stock in a certain Spanish-American gold mine. At first he always made the same answer: "You know as well as I do, Welsley, I would never put a penny into any property I had not inspected."

But gradually a desire to inspect it grew up in his mind. What would suit his plans better than a long trip, as soon as the breaking of his engagement was announced? A week at sea, two or three days on a river, and then sixty miles on mule-back over the mountains--there at least he would not be troubled by accounts of Christine's wedding, or a.s.sertions that she had looked brilliant at the opera.