Ladies Must Live | Page 8

in that way.
But there was one of the others that sounded rather promising and
difficult. How about the passionate whirlwind? I say to try that next."
To her surprise, Christine found herself coloring a little.
"Ah," she said, laying her hand on her lips and shaking her head, "that's
very difficult, because you see, it really can't be imitated--"
"Can't be imitated!" cried Max. "Why, what sort of a teacher are you? I
believe you don't know your job. You are the sort of teacher who would
tell an arithmetic class that long division could not be imitated. I
believe the trouble with you is that you don't understand the passionate
whirlwind yourself. I believe you're a fraud, and I shall have your
license to teach taken away from you. Can't be imitated! Well, let me
see you try, at least."
Christine felt that he had the better of her, but she said firmly:
"Are you teaching this subject, or am I?"
"Certainly you can't think you are. But if you say so, I'll have a try."
Not sorry to create a diversion, Christine looked about her, and was
more diverted from the subject in hand than she had expected to be.
They were on the wrong road. What with the snow and the fact that she
had been so busy talking that she really had no idea how far they had
been, it took her a moment to orient herself anew. She told him with a
conscience-struck look.
"And you," said Riatt, "who do not even know the road to your own
house, were volunteering to pilot me through an emotional crisis."
Even a suggestion of adverse criticism was unpleasant to Miss Fenimer.
She was not accustomed to it; and she answered with some sharpness:
"Yes, but the road is real, whereas I understand your embarrassment

through the attentions of ladies is purely fictitious."
Riatt wondered how fictitious, but he turned the cutter about in
obedience to her commands. The horse started forward even more gaily,
under the impression that he was going home. But for the drivers, the
change was not so agreeable. A high wind had come up, the snow was
falling faster, and the light of the winter afternoon, already beginning to
fade, was obscured by high, dark, silver-edged banks of clouds.
"Upon my word," said Riatt, "I think we had better go back."
"It's only a little way from here," Christine answered, trying hard to
think how far it really was. She did want to get her father's coat, but she
was not indifferent to the triumph of making Riatt late for dinner, and
leaving Nancy Almar throughout the afternoon with no companion but
Wickham or Jack Ussher.
The wind cut their faces, the horse pulled and pranced, the gaiety had
gone out of their little expedition. They drove on a mile or so, and then
Riatt stopped the horse.
"We've got to go back, Miss Fenimer," he said firmly.
"Oh, please not, Mr. Riatt; we are almost there, and," she added with a
fine sense of filial obligation, "I really feel I must do as my father asked
me."
Riatt felt inclined to point out that she, with her muff held up to her
face, was not making the greatest sacrifice to the ideal of duty.
"Have you any very clear idea where your house is?" he asked. His
tone was not flattering, and Christine was quick to feel it.
"Do I know where I live five months of the year?" she returned. "Of
course I do. It's just over this next hill."
The afternoon was turning out so perversely that she would hardly have
been surprised to find that the house had disappeared from its

accustomed place. But as they came over the crest, there it was, in a
hollow between two hills, looking as summer houses do in winter, like
a forlorn toy left out in the snow.
"But it's shut up," said Riatt. "There's no one in it."
"I have the keys to the back door."
He touched the horse for the first time with the whip, and they went
jingling down the slope, in between the almost completely buried
gateposts, and drew up before the kitchen door.
Miss Fenimer kicked her feet free from the rugs, jumped out, and from
the recesses of her muff produced a key which she inserted in the lock.
"Now you won't be long, will you?" said Riatt, with more of command
than persuasion in his tone.
It was a principle of life on the part of Christine that she never allowed
any man to bully her; or perhaps, it would be more nearly just to say
that she never intended to allow any man to do so until she herself
became persuaded that he could,