Ladies Must Live Part 12

"Good heavens, no!" cried Riatt from the heart.

"Then, run while there's time."

As the ox fears the gad-fly and the elephant the mouse, so does the bravest of men fear the emotional entanglement of any making but his own.

For an instant Riatt felt himself swept by the frankest, wildest panic.

Misadventures among the clouds he had had many times, and had looked a clean straight death in the face. He had never felt anything like the terror that for an instant possessed him. Then it pa.s.sed and he said with conviction:

"Well, after all, there are certain things you can't be made to do against your will."

"Certainly. But you are not referring to marriage, are you?"

"Yes, I was."

"My poor, dear man! As if half the marriages in the world were not made against the wish of one party or the other."

His heart sank. "It's perfectly true," he said. "And yet one does rather hate to run away."

"Not so much as one hates afterward to think one might have."

He laughed and she went on: "The moment is critical. Laura Ussher and Christine have been closeted together for the better part of two hours.

Something is going to happen immediately. At any moment Laura may appear and say with that wonderfully casual manner of hers, 'May I have a word with you, Max?' And then you'll be lost."

"Oh, not quite as bad as that, I hope," said Riatt.

"Lost," she repeated, and leaning over she laid one polished finger tip on the bell. "When the man comes, tell him to get you ready for that early train."

There was complete silence between them until the footman appeared and Riatt had given the necessary orders.

"I wonder," he said when they were again alone, "whether I shall be angry at you for this advice, or grateful. It's a dangerous thing, you know, to advise a man to run away."

"Dine with me in town on Wednesday, and you can tell me which it is."

"You don't seem to be much afraid of my anger."

"I think perhaps your grat.i.tude might be the more dangerous of the two."

While he was struggling between a new-found prudence, and a natural desire to inquire further into her meaning, a door upstairs was heard to shut, and presently Laura Ussher came sauntering into the room.

"You're up early, Nancy," she said pleasantly.

"I thought I ought to recognize the return of the wanderers in some way--particularly, as I hear we are to lose one of them so soon."

Mrs. Ussher glanced quickly at her cousin. "Are you leaving us, Max?"

"I'm sorry to say I've just had word that I must, and I told the man to make arrangements for me to get that twelve-something-or-other train."

Mrs. Ussher did not change a muscle. "I'm sorry you have to go," she said. "We shall all miss you. By the way, you won't be able to get anything before the four-eighteen. That midday train is taken off in winter. Didn't the footman tell you? Stupid young man; but he's new and has not learnt the trains yet, I suppose. Do you want to send a telegram?

They have to be telephoned here, but if you write it out I'll have it sent for you."

"How wonderful you are, Laura," murmured Mrs. Almar.

Mrs. Ussher looked vague. "In what way, dear?"

"In all ways, but I think it's as a friend that I admire you most."

Mrs. Ussher smiled. "Yes," she said, "I'm very devoted to my friends even when they don't behave quite fairly to me. But I love my relations, too,"

she added. "Max, since I'm to lose you so soon, I'd like to have a talk with you before lunch. Shall we go to my little study?"

Nancy's eyes danced. "No, Laura," she said, "he will not. He has just promised to teach me a new solitaire, and I won't yield him to any one."

Riatt, terrified at this proof that Nancy's prophecy was coming true, resolved to cling to her.

"Sit down and learn the game, too, Laura," he said. "It's a very good one."

"I want to speak to you about a business matter, Max."

"I never attend to business during church hours, Laura," he answered.

"We'll talk about it after lunch, if you like."

Laura had learnt the art of yielding gracefully. "That will do just as well," she said, and sat down to watch the game.

Presently Wickham, seeing that Mrs. Almar seemed to be safely engaged, ventured back. And they were all thus innocently occupied when luncheon was announced.

Christine came down looking particularly lovely. It is a precaution which a good-looking woman rarely fails to take in a crisis. She was wearing a deep blue dress trimmed with fur, and only needed a solid gold halo behind her head to make her look like a Byzantine saint.

"Well, Miss Fenimer," said Wickham, as they sat down. "You look very blooming after your terrible experiences."

Christine had come prepared for battle. "Oh, they weren't so very terrible, Mr. Wickham, thank you," she said, and she leant her elbow on the table and played with those imitation pearls which she now hoped so soon to give to her maid. "Mr. Riatt is the most wonderful provider--expert as a cook as well as a furnace-man."

"It mayn't have been terrible for you," put in Ussher, who had a habit of conversational reversion, "but I bet it was no joke in the tool-house!

How an intelligent woman like you, Christine, could dream of making a man spend the night in that hole, just for the sake of--"

"But I thought it was Mr. Riatt's own choice," said Nancy gently.

"You wouldn't think so if you could have felt the place," Ussher continued. "And what difference did it make? Who was there to talk? Every one knows that their being there was just an unavoidable accident--"

"Oh, if it had been an accident!" said Nancy, and it was as if a little venomous snake had suddenly wriggled itself into the conversation. Every one turned toward her, and her brother asked sternly:

"_If_, it had been an accident, Nancy? What the deuce do you mean by _if_?"

Nancy shook her small head. "I express myself badly," she said. "English rhetoric was left out of my education."

"You manage to convey your ideas, dear," said Laura.

"I was trying to say that if poor, dear Christine had not been so unfortunately the one to hit the horse in the head, and start him off--"

Wickham p.r.i.c.ked up his ears. "Oh, I say, Miss Fenimer," he exclaimed, "did you really hit the horse?"

"Certainly, I did, Mr. Wickham."