Ladies Must Live | Page 5

for a little notice and began instantly.
"I have been taking the liberty of looking at your pearls, Miss Fenimer,
and indulging in such an interesting speculation. Here on the one hand,
you are wearing round your throat the equivalent of life, health and
virtue for half a hundred working girls, as young, as human, as yourself.
Are we to say this is wrong? Are we to say that beautiful jewels worn
by beautiful women are a crime against society--"
"One moment, Mr. Wickham," she said. "My pearls are imitation and
cost eight dollars and fifty cents without the clasp. But," she added
cruelly, seeing his face fall, "you can say that same thing to your friend
Mrs. Almar, because hers are not artificial, though I have heard her
assert sometimes that they are," and turning back to Hickson, who was
laboriously trying to carry on a conversation with his host, she
interrupted ruthlessly to say, hardly lowering her voice:
"Why in the world, Ned, did Nancy bring this Wickham man here?
He's perfectly impossible."
"Nancy didn't bring him," answered her brother innocently. "I motored
out with her myself."
"She said she wouldn't come unless he were asked. Still I know the
answer. Nancy has always had a weakness for blond boys, and last
week she was crazy about this one. Now she has turned against him,
she wants to foist him off on us, but I for one don't intend to help her
out--"
By this time Wickham, aware that he had been rebuffed, had found an
explanation for it. The girl was annoyed at having been forced to admit
her pearls were imitation. He decided to put everything right.
"Miss Fenimer," he said, and she turned her head perhaps half an inch
in his direction, "I think you misunderstood me just now. My standards
are probably different from those of the men you are accustomed to. To

me the fact that your pearls are not real is an added beauty. I'm glad
they're not--"
"Thank you," said Christine, "but I'm not." And this time he understood
that he had lost her for good.
After dinner, Mrs. Almar, knowing that her innings were over, very
effectively prevented Christine having hers, by insisting on playing
bridge. She had an excellent head for cards, and always needed money.
Christine allowed herself to be drawn in, supposing that Riatt would be
one of the players, and found herself seated opposite to Hickson and
next to Jack Ussher.
Wickham, feeling very much left out and desirous of showing how well
accustomed he was to the casual manners of polite society, consoled
himself with an evening paper. Laura Ussher led Riatt to a comfortable
corner out of earshot of the bridge-table.
"Now do tell me, Max," she said, "what you think of them all."
"I think, my dear Laura," he answered, "that they are a very playful
band of cut-throats, and next time you ask me to stay, I hope you and
Jack will be entirely alone."
* * * * *
The servants in a household like the Usshers' were subjected to almost
every strain, except that of early rising. No one dreamed of coming
down stairs before eleven, and most people not until lunch time.
The next morning Riatt was among the first--that is to say he was up
early enough not to be able to escape a tour of inspection of the place
under the guidance of his host. He had seen the stables and the new
garage, and the sheet of snow beneath which lay the garden, and the
other totally different sheet of snow beneath which was the soil in
which Ussher intended next summer to plant a rose garden. He had
gone over, tree by tree, the plantation of firs, and had noted how the
tips of some were injured, and had given his opinion as to whether or

not it were likely that deer had stolen down from the wild country near
at hand and nibbled the young firs in the night.
"It's perfectly possible," said Ussher. "I have five hundred acres myself,
and then the Club owns a huge tract, and then there's some state land.
You see we have hardly any neighbors except the Fenimers and they're
eight or nine miles away."
"They live here?"
"In summer--and then only when Fred Fenimer is in funds, and that's
not often. A precarious sort of existence, his--gambling in mining
stocks, almost always in wrong. Hard on the daughter--wish some nice
fellow would come along and marry her."
"He probably will," answered Riatt rather coldly. "It's beginning to
snow again."
Ussher had just had his pond swept so that his guests could skate, and
now couldn't imagine what he should provide for them for the
afternoon, so that his thoughts