Ladies Must Live | Page 4

her hand, if not actually pressed, was made to feel secure upon his arm. "There are some things I wouldn't a bit mind being committed to."
Mrs. Almar moved her black head from side to side.
"You must be more specific," she said, "or I shan't understand you."
"More specific in words?" he inquired gently. They were crossing the hall, and had a sort of privacy for an instant.
"Dear me," she returned, "you do move rather rapidly, don't you?"
"I'm an aviator, you see," he answered.
Across the table Christine was trying to be gracious and graceful while she put up with Hickson, but she was feeling as any honest captain feels at having a prize cut out from under his very nose.
Mrs. Ussher seeing this, decided that such methods as Nancy's ought not to prevail; she seated herself on Max's other side, and instantly engaged in conversation.
"Don't you think my dear little Christine is an angel?" she said, without any encumbering subtility.
"She certainly looks like one."
"Who looks like what?" asked Mrs. Almar, from his other side. She had had this sort of thing tried too often not to be on her guard.
Mrs. Ussher leant forward.
"Max was just saying that Christine looks like an angel."
Nancy looked at him and made a very slight grimace.
"Are you so awfully strong for angels?" she said. He laughed.
"I never met one before."
"You haven't met one to-night."
"You mean that you're not an angel, Mrs. Almar?"
"I? Oh, I'm well and favorably known as the wickedest woman in New York. I meant that Miss Fenimer is not an angel."
"You don't like her?"
"How you jump at conclusions! To say she isn't an angel, doesn't mean dislike. As a matter of fact, I am eager to secure her as my sister-in-law."
Riatt glanced at Hickson and was aware of the faintest possible pang. What qualities, he wondered, had a man like that.
"Oh," he said, "is she engaged to your brother?"
"Certainly not," answered Mrs. Almar. "But it is fairly well understood by every one except my brother, that if she doesn't find anything better within the next few years she will put up with him."
At this a slight feeling of disgust for both ladies took possession of Riatt.
"I see," he said rather coldly, and turned to Mrs. Ussher, but Nancy was not so easily disposed of.
"You mean," she went on, "that you see it is my duty as a sister to prevent anything else turning up. Suppose, for example, that a handsome, rich, attractive young man should suddenly appear upon the scene and show an interest in the angelic Christine." (By this time Riatt had turned again to her, and she looked straight into his eyes as she ran through her list of adjectives.) "Don't you think it would be my duty to distract his attention--to go almost any length to distract his attention?"
"However personally disagreeable to you the process might be?"
"Probably if he were as I described him, the process would not be so disagreeable."
He smiled. There was no denying he found her amusing.
In the meantime, the couple across the table had reached a somewhat similar point.
Hickson had said as they sat down:
"Well, and what do you think of this new fellow?"
Christine's natural irritation appeared in her answer.
"I have hardly had an opportunity of judging," she answered, "but, watching your sister's attentions to him, I would say he must be extremely attractive."
Hickson looked a little dashed.
"Oh," he said, "Nancy does not mean anything when she goes on like that."
The only effect of this speech was to depress further Miss Fenimer's estimate of her companion's intelligence, for in her opinion Nancy's whole life was one long black intention. Feeling this, Ned went on:
"As a matter of fact, one reason why she's so nice to him is to keep him away from you and give me a chance."
"Not very flattering to you, is it?"
"What do you mean?"
"The assumption that the only way to make a woman take an interest in you is to prevent her speaking to any other man,"
"Oh, I didn't mean that--" Hickson began, but she interrupted him.
"That, if anything, Ned." And she turned to Wickham, who sat on her other side.
Wickham was waiting 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