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 passing.

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 attitude? 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 assumed, of course, that he was going to bring his bride home. The rising architect of the community came to him with the assumption 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 pronounced 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 superstitious, 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 assertions that she had looked brilliant at the opera.

He had been at home about two weeks, when her first letter came. So far the only scrap of her handwriting that he possessed was the formal release that she had given him the afternoon they became engaged, and which, for safe keeping doubtless, he always carried in his pocketbook, and which he sometimes found himself reading over—not as a proof that he could get out of his engagement, but rather in an attempt to verify the fact that he had ever got into it.

However unfamiliar with her writing, he had not the least doubt about the letter from the first instant that he saw it. No one else could use such absurd faint blue and white paper and such large square envelopes. As he took it up, he said to himself that it had never occurred to him that she would write, and yet he saw without any sense of inconsistency that he had looked for this letter in every mail. And yet, so perverse is the nature of mankind, that he opened it, not with pleasure, but with a sudden return of all his old terror of being trapped.

“Dear Max,” it said. “I have been pretending so often to write to you for the benefit of my inquiring friends, that I think I may as well do it as a tribute to truth.“How foolish that was—the night you went away! One gets carried away sometimes by the drama of a situation, without any relation to the facts, and the idea of parting forever from one’s fiancé is rather dramatic, isn’t it? I cried all night, and rather enjoyed it. Then in the morning when I woke up, everything seemed to have returned to the normal, and I could not understand what had made me so silly.“Don’t suppose that because you have gone, I am therefore freed from the disagreeable criticism of which you made such a speciality. Ned comes in almost every day to tell me that he does not approve of my conduct. I am not behaving, it appears, as an affianced bride should. Don’t you like to think of Ned so loyally protecting your interests in your absence? His criticisms are, I suppose, based on the attentions of a nice little boy just out of college, who calls me ‘Helen,’ and writes sonnets to me which are to appear in the most literary of weeklies. Look out for them. They are good, and may raise your low estimate of my charms. The best one begins:“When the blond wonder first on Paris dawned—“Isn’t that pretty?“Write to me. At least send me a blank envelope that I may leave ostentatiously on my desk.“Yours at the moment,“Christine.”

“Dear Max,” it said. “I have been pretending so often to write to you for the benefit of my inquiring friends, that I think I may as well do it as a tribute to truth.

“How foolish that was—the night you went away! One gets carried away sometimes by the drama of a situation, without any relation to the facts, and the idea of parting forever from one’s fiancé is rather dramatic, isn’t it? I cried all night, and rather enjoyed it. Then in the morning when I woke up, everything seemed to have returned to the normal, and I could not understand what had made me so silly.

“Don’t suppose that because you have gone, I am therefore freed from the disagreeable criticism of which you made such a speciality. Ned comes in almost every day to tell me that he does not approve of my conduct. I am not behaving, it appears, as an affianced bride should. Don’t you like to think of Ned so loyally protecting your interests in your absence? His criticisms are, I suppose, based on the attentions of a nice little boy just out of college, who calls me ‘Helen,’ and writes sonnets to me which are to appear in the most literary of weeklies. Look out for them. They are good, and may raise your low estimate of my charms. The best one begins:

“When the blond wonder first on Paris dawned—

“Isn’t that pretty?

“Write to me. At least send me a blank envelope that I may leave ostentatiously on my desk.

“Yours at the moment,“Christine.”

Riatt’s first thought on laying down the letter was: “Hickson never in the world objected to any little poet just out of college, and she knows it very well. It’s Linburne he is worried about—Linburne, whose name she does not even mention.” And how absurd to attempt to make him believe she had cried all night. That was simply an untruth. Yet oddly enough, it came before his eyes in a more vivid picture than many a scene he had actually witnessed.

A few minutes later he went to the club and looked up the literary weekly of which she had spoken. There was no sonnet in it, but the issue of the next week contained it. Riatt read it with an emotion he could not mistake. It brought Christine like a visible presence before him. Also it made him angry, to have to see her like this, through another man’s eyes. “Little whelp,” he said, “to detail a woman’s beauty in print like that! What does he know about it anyhow? I don’t believe for one second she looked at him like that.”

The sonnet ended:

She turned, a white embodiment of joy,And looking on him, sealed the doom of Troy.

She turned, a white embodiment of joy,

And looking on him, sealed the doom of Troy.

He was roused by a friendly shout in his ear. “Ho, ho, Max, reading poetry, are you? What love does for the worst of us!” It was Welsley, who snatched the paper out of his hand, running over the lines rapidly to himself: “Hem, hem, ‘carnation, alabaster, gold and fire.’ Some queen, that, eh? Have you had your dinner? Well, don’t be cross. There’s no reason why you shouldn’t read verse if you like. And this young man is the latest thing. My wife says they are going to import him here to speak to the Greek Study Club.”

“I shall be curious to hear him, if the Greek Club will ask me,” said Max.

“Oh, you’ll be in the East getting married,” answered Welsley.

Strangely enough, it was with something like a pang that Max said to himself that he wouldn’t be.

“Carnation, alabaster, gold and fire.”

It was not a bad line, he thought.

After dinner, he felt a little more amiable, and so he sat down and wrote his first real letter to his fiancée.

“If we were really engaged, my dear Christine,” he wrote, “you would have had a night letter long before this, asking you to explain to me just how it was that you did look on that amorous young poet. His verse is pretty enough, though I can’t say I exactly enjoyed it. However, my native town thinks very highly of him, and intends to ask him to come and address one of our local organizations. If so, I shall have an opportunity of questioning him on the subject of the sources of his inspiration. ‘Is Helen a real person?’ I shall ask. ‘Not so very,’ I can imagine his replying. Ah, what would we both give to know?“My friends here, stimulated by Dorothy Lane’s ravishing description of you, have asked many times to see your picture. I am ashamed of my own carelessness in having gone away without obtaining one for exhibition purposes. Will you send me one at once? One not already in circulation among poets and painters. I will set it on my writing table, and allow my eyes to stray sentimentally toward it whenever I have people to dinner.“By the way, the day I left New York I told a florist to send you flowers every day. We worked out quite an elaborate scheme for every day in the week. Did he ever do it?“Yours, at least in the sight of this company,“Max Riatt.”

“My friends here, stimulated by Dorothy Lane’s ravishing description of you, have asked many times to see your picture. I am ashamed of my own carelessness in having gone away without obtaining one for exhibition purposes. Will you send me one at once? One not already in circulation among poets and painters. I will set it on my writing table, and allow my eyes to stray sentimentally toward it whenever I have people to dinner.

“By the way, the day I left New York I told a florist to send you flowers every day. We worked out quite an elaborate scheme for every day in the week. Did he ever do it?

“Yours, at least in the sight of this company,

“Max Riatt.”

In answer to this, he was surprised by a telegram:

“So sorry for absurd mistake. Entirely misunderstood source of the flowers. Enjoy them a great deal more now. Yes, they come regularly. A thousand thanks. Am sending photograph by mail.”

Riatt did not need to ask himself from whom she had imagined they came. Not the poet, unless magazine rates were rising unduly. Nor Hickson, who failed a little in such attentions. No, it was Linburne—and evidently Linburne’s attentions were taken so much as a matter of course, that she had not even thanked him, nor had he noticed her omission.

He did not answer the telegram, nor did he acknowledge the photograph but, true to his word, he established it at once on his desk in a frame which he spent a long time in selecting. The picture represented Christine at her most queenly and unapproachable. She wore the black and gold dress, and the huge feather fan was folded across her bare arms. Every time he looked at it, he remembered how those same arms had been clasped round his own stiff and unbending neck. And sometimes he found the thought distracted his attention from important matters.

It was about the middle of February when he received one morning a letter from Nancy Almar. He knewherhandwriting. She was always sending him little notes of one kind or another. This one was very brief.

“Clever mouse! So it knew a way to get out all the time!”

All day he speculated on the meaning of this strange message. Had Nancy discovered some proof of the nature of his engagement? Had Christine been moved by pity to tell Hickson the truth? On the whole he inclined to think that this was the explanation.

The next day he knew he had been mistaken. He had a letter from Laura Ussher—not the first in the series—urging him to come back at once.

“Max,” she wrote, with a haste that made her almost indecipherable, “you must come. What are you dreaming of—to leave a proud, beautiful, impressionable creature like Christine the prey to so finished a villain as Linburne? You are not so ignorant of the ways of the world as not to know his intentions. Most people are saying you deserve everything that is happening to you. I try to explain, but I know you saw enough while you were here to be put upon your guard. Why don’t you come? I must warn you that if you do not come at once you need not come at all.”

Riatt had just come in; it was late in the afternoon. The letters were lying on his writing table; and as he finished this one, he raised his eyes and looked at Christine’s picture.

He did not believe Laura’s over-wrought picture. Christine was no fool, Linburne no villain. There was probably a little flirtation, and a good deal of gossip. But that would all be put a stop to by the announcement of Christine’s engagement to Hickson. He did not even feel annoyed at his cousin’s suggestion that he did not know his way about the world. He knew it rather better than she did, he fancied.

And having so disposed of his mail, he took up the evening paper which lay beneath it, and read the first headline:

Mrs. Lee Linburne to seek divorce: Wife of well-known multimillionaire now at Reno—

As he read this a blind rage swept over Riatt. He did not stop to inquire why if he were willing to give Christine up to Hickson he was infuriated at the idea of Linburne’s marrying her; nor why, as he had allowed himself to be made use of, he was angry to find that he had been far more useful than he had supposed. He only knew that he was angry, and with an anger that demanded instant action.

He looked at his watch. He had time to catch a train to Chicago. He went upstairs and packed. He knew that what he was doing was foolish, that he would poignantly regret it, but he never wavered an instant in his intention.

He reached New York early in the afternoon. He had notified no one of his departure, and he did not announce his arrival. He went straight to the Fenimers’ house—not indeed expecting to find Christine at home at that hour, but resolved to await her return.

The young man at the door, who had known Riatt before, appeared confused, but was decided.

Miss Fenimer, he insisted, was out.

Glancing past him Riatt saw a hat and stick on the hall table. He had no doubt as to their owner.

“I’ll wait then,” he said, coming in, and handing his own things to the footman, who seemed more embarrassed still.

Taking pity on him, Riatt said:

“You mean Miss Fenimer is at home, but has given orders that she won’t see any one?”

Such, the man admitted, was the case.

“She’ll see me,” Riatt answered, “take my name up.”

The footman, looking still more wretched, obeyed. Riatt heard him go into the little drawing-room overhead, and then there was a long pause. Once he thought he heard a voice raised in anger. As may be imagined his own anger was not appeased by this reception.

While he was waiting, the door of a room next the front door opened and Mr. Fenimer came out. His astonishment at seeing Riatt was so great that with all his tact he could not repress an exclamation, which somehow did not express pleasure.

“You here, my dear Riatt!” he said, grasping him cordially by the hand. “Christine, I’m afraid—”

“I’ve sent up to see,” said Max, curtly.

“Ah, well, my dear fellow,” Mr. Fenimer went on easily, “come, you know, a man really can’t go off in the casual way you did and expect to find everything just as he likes when he comes back. I have a word to say to you myself. Shall we walk as far as the corner together?”

To receive his dismissal from Mr. Fenimer was something that Riatt had never contemplated.

“I should prefer to wait until the footman comes down,” he answered.

“No use, no use,” said Mr. Fenimer, suddenly becoming jovial, “I happen to know that Christine is out. Come back a little later—”

“And whose hat is that, then?” asked Max.

It had been carelessly left on its crown and the initials “L.L.” were plainly visible.

Mr. Fenimer could not on the instant think of an answer, and Riatt decided to go upstairs unannounced.

As he opened the drawing-room door he heard Christine’s voice saying: “Thank you, I shall please myself, Lee, even without your kind permission.”

The doors in the Fenimer house opened silently, so that though Christine, who was facing the door, saw him at once, Linburne, whose back was turned to it, was unaware of his presence, and answered:

“You ought to have more pride than to want to see a fellow who has made it so clear he doesn’t care sixpence about seeing you.”

Christine openly smiled at Max, as she answered: “Well, I do want to see him,” and Linburne turning to see at what her smile was directed found himself face to face with Riatt.

Max made a gesture to the footman, and shut the door behind his hasty retreat, then he came slowly into the room.

“In one thing you are mistaken, Mr. Linburne,” he said. “I do care whether or not I see Miss Fenimer.”

Linburne was angry at Christine, not only for insisting on seeing Riatt, but for the lovely smile with which she had greeted him. He was glad of an outlet for his feelings.

He almost shrugged his shoulders. “An outsider can only judge by your conduct, Mr. Riatt,” he answered. “And I may tell you that you have subjected Miss Fenimer to a good deal of disagreeable gossip by your apparently caring so little.”

“And others by apparently caring so much,” said Max.

Christine was the only one who recognized at once the fact that both men were angry; and she did not pour oil on the waters by laughing gaily. “You can’t find any subject for argument there,” she observed, “for you are both perfectly right. You have both made me the subject of gossip; but don’t let it worry you, for my best friends have long ago accustomed me to that.”

“I hope you won’t think I’m asking too much, Mr. Riatt,” said Linburne, with a politeness that only accentuated his irritation, “in suggesting that as your visit is, I believe, unexpected, and as mine is an appointment of some standing, that you will go away and let me finish my conversation with Miss Fenimer.”

Max smiled. “Oddly enough,” he said, “I was about to make the same request to you. But I suppose we must let Miss Fenimer settle the question.”

Christine smiled like an angel. “Can’t we have a nice time as we are?” she asked.

This frivolous reply was properly ignored by both men, and Riatt went on: “Don’t you think you ought to consider the fact that Miss Fenimer and I are engaged?”

“Miss Fenimer assures me she does not intend to marry you.”

“And may I ask if you consider that she does intend to marry you—that is if you should happen to become marriageable?”

“That is a question between her and me,” returned Linburne.

Riatt laughed. “I see,” he said. “The matrimonial plans of my future wife are no affair of mine?” And for an instant he felt his most proprietary rights were being invaded.

“Miss Fenimer is not your future wife.”

“Well, Mr. Linburne, I hear you say so.”

“You shall hearhersay so,” answered Linburne. “Christine,” he added peremptorily, “tell Riatt what you have just been telling me.”

There was a long painful silence. Both men stood looking intently at Christine, who sat with her head erect, staring ahead of her like a sphinx, but saying nothing. After a moment she glanced up at Max’s face, as if she expected to find there an answer to her problem. She did not look at Linburne.

“Christine,” said Max very gently, “what have you told Mr. Linburne?”

“She has told me everything,” answered Linburne impetuously, and then seeing by the glance that the two others exchanged that such was not the case, his temper got the best of him.

“Do you mean you’ve been lying to me?” he asked.

“Just what did you tell him, Christine?” said Riatt, finding it easier and easier to be calm and protecting as his adversary grew more violent.

Christine looked up at him with the innocence of a child. “I told him that we did not love each other, and that our engagement was really broken, but that no one was to know until March.”

“Why did you tell him that?”

“It’s the truth, Max—almost the truth.”

“Almost the truth!” cried Linburne. “Do you want me to think you care something for this man after all?”

“In the simple section of the country from which I come,” observed Riatt, “we often care a good deal for the people we marry.”

Linburne turned on him. “Really, Mr. Riatt,” he said, “you don’t take an idea very quickly. You have just heard Miss Fenimer say that she did not love you and that she considered your engagement at an end.”

“I heard her say she had told you that.”

“You mean to imply that she said what was untrue?”

“I could answer your question better,” said Riatt, “if I understood a little more clearly what your connection with this whole situation is.”

“The connection of any old friend who does not care to see Miss Fenimer neglected and humiliated,” answered Linburne, all the more hotly because he knew it was an awkward question.

Perhaps the young poet had not been so wrong in attaching the name of Helen to Miss Fenimer, for she sat now as calmly interested in the conflict developing before her, as Helen when she sat on the walls of Troy and designated the Greek heroes for the amusement of her newer friends.

“May I ask, Mr. Riatt, what rights in the matter you consider that you have?” Linburne pursued.

For Riatt, too, the question was an awkward one, but he had his answer ready. “The rights,” he said, “of a man who certainly was once engaged to Miss Fenimer, and who came East ignorant that the engagement was already at an end.”

Christine laughed. “Very neatly put,” she said.

“Neatly put,” exclaimed Linburne. “You talk as if we were playing a game.”

“May I ask, Mr. Riatt, what rights in the matter you consider that you have?” Linburne pursued

“You have the reputation of playing all games well, my dear Lee,” she returned. The obvious fact that she was enjoying the interview, made both men eager to end it—but, unfortunately, they wished to end it in diametrically opposite ways.

“Christine,” said Linburne, “will you ask Mr. Riatt to be so kind as to let me have ten minutes alone with you?”

Riatt spoke to her also. “I will do exactly as you say,” he said, “but you understand that if I go now, I shall not come back.”

Christine smiled. “Is that a threat or a promise?” she asked, the sweetness of her smile almost taking away the sting of her words.

Seeing that she hesitated, Riatt went on: “Since I have come more than a thousand miles to see you, don’t you think you might suggest to Mr. Linburne that he let me have my visit undisturbed?”

There was a long and rather terrible pause, terrible that is to the two men. Christine probably enjoyed every second of it. There was nothing in Linburne’s experience of life to make him think that any woman whom he had honored with his preference was likely to prefer another man to himself. So the pause was terrible to him, not because he doubted what the climax would be, but because he felt his dignity insulted by even an appearance of hesitation. Max, on the other hand, was still a good deal in doubt as to her ultimate intentions.

It was to him, finally, that she spoke.

“Max,” she said, “do you remember that while we were staying at the Usshers’ we composed a certain document together?”

He nodded, and then as she did not continue, he opened his pocketbook and took out the release.

She made no motion to take it; on the contrary, she leaned back and crossed her hands in her lap.

“Yes,” she said, “that’s it. Well, you may stay, if you care to burn that scrap of paper.”

It was now Max’s turn to hesitate, for the decision of freedom or captivity was in his own hands; the crisis he had so recklessly rushed to meet was now upon him.

“What is in that paper?” asked Linburne, as one who has a right to question.

Christine was perfectly good-tempered as she answered: “Well, Lee, it still belongs to Mr. Riatt; but if he decides not to burn it, I promise to tell you all about it as we drink our tea.”

“Do you promise me that, Christine?”

“Most solemnly, Lee.” She looked up at Linburne, and before Max knew what he was doing he found he had dropped the paper into the fire.

Strangely enough, though the fire was hot, the paper did not catch at once, but curled and rocked an instant in the heat, before it disappeared in flame and smoke. Not until it was a black crisp did Christine turn to Linburne, and hold out her hand.

“Good-by, Lee,” she said pleasantly. But he did not answer or take her hand. He left the room in silence.

When the door had shut behind him, Christine glanced at her remaining visitor. “And now,” she said, “I suppose you are wishing you had not.”

“What sort of a woman are you?” Riatt exclaimed. “Will you take any man that offers, me or Hickson, or Linburne or me again, just as luck will have it?”

“I take the best that offers, Max—and that’s no lie.”

The implied compliment did not soften Riatt. He went on: “If you and I are really to be married—”

“If, my dear Max! What could be more certain?”

“Since, then, we are to be married, you must tell me exactly what has taken place between you and Linburne.”

“With pleasure. Won’t you sit down?” She pointed to a chair near her own, but Riatt remained standing. “Shall we have tea first?”

“We’ll have the story.”

“Oh, it’s not much of a story. Lee and I have known each other since we were children. I suppose I always had it in mind that I might marry him—”

“You loved him?”

“Certainly not. He always had too high an opinion of himself, and I used to enjoy taking it out of him—and making it up to him afterwards, too. I used to enjoy that as well. Sometimes, of course, he found the process too unbearable; and in one of his fits of anger at me, just after he left college, he went and blundered into this marriage with Pauline. She, you see, took him at his own valuation. His marriage seemed to put an end to everything between us—”

“You surprise me.”

Christine laughed. “Ah, I was younger then.”

“You kept on seeing him?”

“Naturally we met now and then. Sometimes he used to tell me how I was the only woman—”

“That is your idea of putting an end to everything?”

“Oh, if one took seriously all the men who say that—I did not think much about Lee’s feelings for me, until my engagement was announced. Then it appeared that the notion of my marrying some one else was intolerable to him.”

“A high order of affection,” exclaimed Riatt. “He was content enough until there seemed some chance of your being happy.”

“Perhaps he did not consider that life with you would promise absolute happiness, Max.”

“I don’t call that love. I call it jealousy.”

At this Christine laughed outright. “And what emotion, may I ask, has just brought you here in such haste?”

The thrust went home. Riatt changed countenance.

“But I,” he said, “never pretended to love you.”

“Why then are you marrying me?”

“Heaven knows.”

“I know, too,” she answered, unperturbed by his rudeness, “and some day if you’re good I’ll tell you.”

Her calm assumption that everything was well seemed to him unbearable. “I don’t know that I feel very much inclined to chat,” he said, turning toward the door. “I’ll see you sometime to-morrow.”

She said nothing to oppose him, and he left the room. Downstairs the same footman was waiting to let him out. To him, at least, Riatt seemed a triumphant lover, only as Linburne had long since heavily subsidized him, even his admiration was tinctured with regret.

As for Max, himself, he left the house even more restless and dissatisfied than he had entered it.

To be honest, he had, he knew, sometimes imagined a moment when he would take Christine in his arms and say: “Marry me anyhow.” Such an action he knew would be reckless, but he had supposed it would be pleasant. But now there was nothing but bitterness and jealousy in his mood. What did he know or care for such people? he said to himself. What did he know of their standards and their histories? How much of Christine’s story about Linburne was to be believed? What more natural than that they had always loved each other? Some one knew the truth—every one, very likely, except himself. But whom could he ask? He could have believed Nancy on one side as little as Laura on the other.

And as he thought this, he saw coming down the street, Hickson—a witness prejudiced, perhaps, but strictly honest.

For the first time in their short acquaintance, Hickson’s face brightened at the sight of Riatt, and he called out with evident sincerity: “I am glad to see you.”

“I came on rather unexpectedly.”

“I’m glad you did. Quite right.” Hickson stopped at this, and looked at his companion with such wistful uncertainty, that it seemed perfectly natural for Riatt, answering that look, to say:

“You may speak frankly to me, you know.”

Ned took a long breath. “I believe that I may,” he said. “I hope so, anyhow. I haven’t had any one I could be frank with. Between ourselves, Fenimer is no good at all.”

“What, my future father-in-law?”

“Is that what he is?” Hickson asked with, for him, unusual directness.

Riatt’s affirmative was not very decided, and Ned went on:

“I can’t even talk to Nancy about it. She’s keen, but she does not understand Christine. She attributes the most shocking motives to her, and when I object, she says every one is like that, only I haven’t sense enough to see it. Well, I never pretended to have as much sense as Nancy, but I see some things that she doesn’t. I see, for instance, that there’s something noble in Christine, in spite of—I beg your pardon for talking to you like this, but you must remember that I have known her a good deal longer than you have, and that in a different way perhaps I care for her almost as much as you do.”

“I told you to speak frankly,” answered Riatt. “What is it that Mrs. Almar says of Christine?”

At first Hickson refused to answer, but the suffering and anxiety he had been undergoing pushed him toward self-expression, and Riatt did not have to be very skilful to extract the whole story. Nancy had asserted that Christine had never intended for a minute to marry Riatt—that she had just used him to excite Linburne’s jealousy to such a point that he would arrange matters so that he could marry her himself. For once Riatt found himself in accord with Nancy.

“Do more people than your sister think that?”

Hickson was not without his reserves. “Oh, I dare say, but I don’t care about that sort of gossip. It’s absurd to say she and Linburne are engaged. How can a girl be engaged to a married man?”

“We must move with the times, my dear Hickson,” said Riatt bitterly.

“Linburne’s no good,” Ned went on, “not where women are concerned. He wouldn’t treat her well if he did marry her. Why, Riatt,” he added solemnly, “I’d far rather see her married to you than to him.”

If Max felt disposed to smile at this innocent endorsement, he suppressed the inclination, and merely answered:

“You may have your wish.”

“I hope so,” said Ned. “But you mustn’t go off to kingdom-come, and leave Linburne a clear field. He’s a man who knows how to talk to women, and what with the infatuation she has always had for him—”

“You think she has always cared for him?” asked Max. He tried to smooth his tone down to one of calm interest, but it alarmed Hickson.

“I don’t know,” he returned hastily. “I used to think so, but I may be wrong. I thought the same thing about you at the Usshers’. She kept saying she wasn’t a bit in love with you, but it seemed to me she was different with you from what she had ever been with any one else. I suppose I oughtn’t to have said that either. Upon my word, Riatt, it is awfully good of you to let me talk like this! I can assure you it is a great relief to me.”

His companion could hardly have echoed this sentiment. As he walked back alone to his hotel, he found that Hickson’s words had put the last touches to his mental discomfort.

At first his own conduct had seemed inexplicable to him. Everything had been going well, he had been just about to be free from the whole entanglement, when an impulse of primitive jealousy and fierce masculine egotism had suddenly brought him to New York and bound him hand and foot. It had not been an agreeable prospect—to live among people whose standards he did not understand, with a woman whom he did not love. But, since his conversation with Hickson, his eyes were opened, and he saw the situation in far more tragic colors.

Hedidlove her. He did not believe in her or trust her; he had no illusions as to her feeling for him, but his for her was clear—he loved her, loved her with that strange mingling of passion and hatred so often found and so rarely admitted.

He could imagine a man’s learning, even under the most suspicious circumstances, to conquer jealousy of a woman who loved him. Or he could imagine having confidence in a woman who did not pretend love. But to be married to a woman whom you love, without a shred of belief either in her principles or her affection, seemed to Riatt about as terrible a prospect as could be offered to a human being.

There was just one chance for him—that Christine might be willing to release him. If she really loved Linburne, if there had been some sort of understanding between them in the past, if his coming had only precipitated a lovers’ quarrel, then certainly Christine had too much intelligence to let such a chance slip through her fingers just on the eve of Linburne’s divorce. Nor was she, he thought bitterly, too proud to stoop to ask a man to reconsider; nor did it seem likely, however deeply Linburne’s vanity had been wounded, that he would refuse to listen.

With this in mind, as soon as he reached his hotel, he sat down and wrote her a letter:

“My dear Christine:“What was it, according to your idea, that happened this afternoon? I believed that for the first time I asked you to marry me, and that you, for the first time definitely accepted me. But as I think over your manner, I am led to think you supposed it was just a continuation of our old joke.“Did you accept me, Christine? And if so, why? Why commit yourself to a marriage without affection, at the psychological moment when a man for whom you have always cared is about to be free?“If you still need me in the game, I am ready enough to be of use, but I will not be bound to a relation unless you, too, consider it irrevocably binding.“Yours,“M. R.”

“My dear Christine:

“What was it, according to your idea, that happened this afternoon? I believed that for the first time I asked you to marry me, and that you, for the first time definitely accepted me. But as I think over your manner, I am led to think you supposed it was just a continuation of our old joke.

“Did you accept me, Christine? And if so, why? Why commit yourself to a marriage without affection, at the psychological moment when a man for whom you have always cared is about to be free?

“If you still need me in the game, I am ready enough to be of use, but I will not be bound to a relation unless you, too, consider it irrevocably binding.

“Yours,“M. R.”

He told the messenger to wait for an answer, but he thought that Christine would hardly be willing to commit herself on such short notice, or without an interview with Linburne.

But, within a surprisingly short interval, her letter was in his impatient hands.

“Dear Max:“I will not be so cruel as to leave you one moment longer in the false hope that your little break for freedom may be successful. Face the fact, bravely, my dear. I am going to marry you. We are both irrevocably bound—at least as irrevocably as the marriage tie can bind nowadays. If this afternoon my manner seemed less portentous than you expected, that must have been because I have always counted on just this termination to our little adventure. You must do me the justice to confess that I have always told you so. As for Lee, in spite of Nancy (I suppose it was Nancy to whom you rushed for information from my very doorstep) I have never cared sixpence for him.“Yours till death us do part,“Christine.”

“Dear Max:

“I will not be so cruel as to leave you one moment longer in the false hope that your little break for freedom may be successful. Face the fact, bravely, my dear. I am going to marry you. We are both irrevocably bound—at least as irrevocably as the marriage tie can bind nowadays. If this afternoon my manner seemed less portentous than you expected, that must have been because I have always counted on just this termination to our little adventure. You must do me the justice to confess that I have always told you so. As for Lee, in spite of Nancy (I suppose it was Nancy to whom you rushed for information from my very doorstep) I have never cared sixpence for him.

“Yours till death us do part,“Christine.”

Max read the letter which was brought to him while he was at dinner. He put it into his pocket, finished an excellent salad, went to the theater, came back to the hotel and went to bed and to sleep rather congratulating himself on the fact that he had become callous to the whole situation, and that, so far as he was concerned, the crisis was past.

But of course it wasn’t. With the rattle of the first milkcart, which in a modern city has taken the place of the half-awakened bird, he woke up, and if he had been in jail he could not have felt a more choking sense of imprisonment. There was no escape for him, no hope.

He got up and looked out at the city far below, all outlined like a great electric sign that said nothing. There must be some way of being free, besides jumping from the twelfth story window. He lit a cigarette, and stood thinking. Men disappeared every day; it could be done. What were the chances, he wondered, of being identified if he shipped as steward, or engineer for that matter, on a South American freighter?

It was full daylight before he found himself in possession of a possible scheme. He remembered the legend of a certain Saint, told him by his nurse in his early days. She had been beautiful, too beautiful for her religious ideals; the number of her suitors was distracting; so to one of them who had extravagantly admired her eyes she sent them on a salver.

Riatt did not intend sending Christine his worldly goods, but recognizing that they were the source of the whole trouble, he decided to get rid of the major part. The problem was simply to lose his money before the date set for the wedding. And that was not so difficult, after all. There were a number of people in the metropolis he thought who would give him every assistance.

The problem of getting it back again at some future time was more complicated, but even that he thought he could accomplish. He had made one fortune and he supposed he could some day make another.

The practical question was: What sum would make him impossible to Christine as a husband? Twenty thousand a year would be out of the question. But to be perfectly safe he decided to leave himself only fifteen thousand. He would begin operation as soon as the exchange opened in the morning. In the meantime what about that mine of Welsley’s? There was an easy means of sinking almost any sum.

He took up the telephone and sent a telegram at once.

“Plans for my wedding prevent trip to mine. Have, however, decided after minute investigation here to invest $500,000 in it. Believe we shall make our fortunes.”

He stood an instant with the instrument still in his hand. “Suppose the damned thing succeeds,” he thought, “I shall be worse off than ever.”

Then his faith returned to him. “Nothing of Welsley’s ever did succeed,” he thought; and with this conclusion he went back to bed and slept like a child.

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