Ladies Must Live Part 11

"Terrible," exclaimed Nancy, with the most genuine surprise. "Not at all.

From your point of view most encouraging. It can mean only one thing. The young man very prudently ran away."

Edward was really stirred to anger. "Nancy," he said, "how do you dare, even in fun--"

"Oh, my dear," answered his sister, as one wearied by all the folly in the world, "how can I be of any use to you if you will not open your eyes? He ran away. We don't know of course just from what; but we do know this: Max Riatt is the best match that has yet presented himself, and that Christine is the last girl in the world to ignore that simple fact.

Come, Ned, even if you do love her, you may as well admit the girl is not a perfect fool. Fate, accident, or possibly her own clever manoeuvering put the game into her hands. The question is, how did she play it? I know what I'd have done, but I don't believe she would. I think she probably tried to make him believe that she was hopelessly compromised in the eyes of the world, and that there was no course open to an honorable man but to ask her to marry him."

"I can't imagine Christine playing such a part."

"I tell you, you never do the poor girl justice. If she did that--and the chances are she did--then his running away is most encouraging. It means, in your own delightful language, that he did not fall for it--did not want to run any risk of compromising her, if marriage was the consequence."

"But, Nancy, Christine almost admitted that--that he tried to make love to her."

"I can't see what that has to do with it, or what difference it makes,"

replied Mrs. Almar. "However, too much importance should not be attached to such admissions. I have sometimes made them myself when the facts did not bear me out. No woman likes to confess, especially to an old adorer like you, that she has spent so many hours alone with a man and he has not made love to her."

Hickson shook his head. "I'm not clever enough to be able to explain it,"

he said, "but I received the clearest impression from her that she had been through some painful experience."

"Good," said Nancy. "Do you know the most painful experience she could have been through?"

"No, what?"

"If he hadn't paid the slightest attention to her; and that, my dear brother, is what I am inclined to think took place. No, the game is still on; only now she'll have the Usshers to help her. This is no time for me to lie in bed."

Ned looked at her doubtfully. "I thought I'd try and sleep a little," he said.

"The best thing you can do," she returned. "Lucie! Lucie! Where are the bells in this house! What privations one suffers for staying away from home! Oh, yes, here it is," and she caught the atom of enamel and gold dangling at the head of her bed, and rang it without ceasing until the maid, who regarded her mistress with an admiration quite untinctured by affection, appeared silently at the doorway.

In an astonis.h.i.+ngly short s.p.a.ce of time, she was dressed and downstairs, presenting her usual sleek and polished appearance. Wickham was alone in the drawing-room, and a suggestion that they should have another game of piquet quickly drove him to the writing of some purely imaginary business letters.

The coast was thus clear, but Riatt was still absent.

Nancy's methods were nothing if not direct. She rang the bell and when the butler appeared she said:

"Where is Mr. Riatt?"

"In his room, madam."

"Dressing?"

"No, madam, he is dressed. Resting, I should say."

Nancy nodded her head once. "One moment," she said; and going to the writing table she sat down and wrote quickly:

"I should like five minutes' conversation with you. Strange to say my motive is altruistic--so altruistic that I feel I should sign myself 'Pro Bono Publico,' instead of Nancy Almar. There is no one down here in the drawing-room at the moment."

She put this in an envelope, sealed it with sealing wax (to the disgust of the butler who found it hard enough, as it was, to keep up with all that went on in the house) and told the man to send it at once to Mr.

Riatt's room.

She did not have long to wait. Riatt, with all the satisfaction in his bearing of one who has just bathed, shaved and eaten, came down to her at once.

"Good morning, Pro Bono Publico," he said, just glancing about to be sure he was not overheard. "It was not necessary to put this interview on an altruistic basis. I should have been glad to come to it, even if it had been as a favor to you."

She looked at him with her hard, dark eyes. "Isn't that rather a reckless way for a man in your situation to talk?"

"I was not aware that I was in a situation."

This was exactly the expression that she had wanted from him. It seemed to come spontaneously, and could only mean that at least he was not newly engaged.

She relaxed the tension of her att.i.tude. "Are you really under the impression that you're not?"

"I feel quite sure of it."

"You poor, dear, innocent creature."

"However," he went on, sitting down beside her on the wide, low sofa, "something tells me that I shall enjoy extremely having you tell me all about it."

Tucking one foot under her, as every girl is taught in the school-room it is most unladylike to do, she turned and faced him. "Mr. Riatt," she said, "when I was a child I used to let the mice out of the traps--not so much, I'm afraid, from tenderness for the mice, as from dislike of my natural enemy, the cook. Since then I have never been able to see a mouse in anybody's trap but my own, without a desire to release it."

"And I am the mouse?"

She nodded. "And in rather a dangerous sort of trap, too."

He smiled at the seriousness of her tone.

"Ah," said she, "the self-confidence which your smile betrays is one of the weaknesses by which nature has delivered your s.e.x into the hands of mine. I would explain it to you at length, but the time is too short. The great offensive may begin at any moment. The Usshers have made up their minds that you are to marry Christine Fenimer. That was why you were asked here."

"Innocent Westerner as I am," he answered, "that idea--"

She interrupted him. "Yes, but don't you see it's entirely different now.

Now they really have a sort of hold on you. I don't know what Christine's own att.i.tude may be, but I can tell you this: her position was so difficult that she was on the point of engaging herself to Ned."

"Oh, come," said Riatt politely, "your brother is not so bad as you seem to think."

"He's not bad at all, poor dear. He's very good; but women do not fall in love with him. You, on the contrary, are rich and attractive. You'll just have to take my word for that," she added without a trace of coquetry.

"And so--and so--and so, if I were you, my dear Cousin Max, I should give orders to have my bag packed at once, and take a very slow, tiresome train that leaves here at twelve-forty-something, and not even wait for the afternoon express."

There was that in her tone that would have made the blood of any man run cold with terror, but he managed a smile. "In my place you would run away?" he said.

She shook her head. "No, I wouldn't run away myself, but I advise you to.

I shouldn't be in any danger. Being a mere woman, I can be cruel, cold and selfish when the occasion demands. But this is a situation that requires all the qualities a man doesn't possess."

"What do you mean?"

"Does your heart become harder when a pretty woman cries? Is your conscience unmoved by the responsibility of some one else's unhappiness?

Can you be made love to without a haunting suspicion that you brought it on yourself?"