Ladies Must Live | Page 7

him?"
"I don't know anything about that, but you're glad he cares for you."
"You're utterly mistaken."
"How would you feel if another woman came and took him away from you to-morrow?"
"Took him away from me?" cried Christine, in a tone of surprise that made Riatt laugh aloud.
"That's the wonderful thing about the so-called weaker sex," he said. "Saying 'no' seems to have no terrors to them at all. The timidest girl will refuse a man with no more trouble and anxiety than she would expend on refusing a dinner invitation; whereas men, with all their vaunted courage, are absolutely at the mercy of a determined woman. I have a friend who has just married a girl--whom he three times explicitly refused--only because she asked him to."
Miss Fenimer looked at him thoughtfully.
"Surely you exaggerate," she said.
He shook his head sadly.
"I wish I did," he returned, "but I assure you that is the great secret--that any man would rather marry any woman than refuse her to her face. You see, no graceful way for a man to say 'no' has ever been discovered."
"Why, you poor defenseless creatures!" said Christine. "I'll teach you some ways immediately. I couldn't bear to think of your going about a prey to the first woman who proposed to you. Let us begin our lessons immediately. Have I your attention?"
"Completely."
"Let me see. In the first place there are several general types of proposal. There is the calmly rational, the passionate whirlwind, the dangerously controlled, or volcano under a sheet of ice--" she broke off. "I don't know how women do it," she said. "I only know about men."
He smiled, "But you admit to knowing all about them, I gather?"
It would have been folly to deny it.
"And then there's the meltingly pathetic," she went on. "I imagine that's what women attempt oftenest. Let us begin with that. Now you are to suppose that I, with tears streaming down my face, have just confessed that I have always looked up to you as a sort of god, that I hardly dare--"
"Wait, wait!" cried Riatt. "This is by far the most interesting part of the lesson, and you go so fast. I have no imagination. I don't know how it would be, you must say all those things."
"Do I have to cry?" said Christine.
Riatt debated the point.
"No," he answered at length, "I can imagine the tears, but everything else you must act out. Particularly that part about my seeming like a god to you."
"But how in the world can I teach you what to do, if I have to act a part myself?"
"Well, before we begin, just give me a sketch of what I ought to do."
"You must be very cold and firm, and explain to me that though my mistake is natural, you are really not a god at all; and then that gives you an excuse to talk a great deal about yourself, and tell how wicked and human and splendid you are, and that you are not worthy of a simple, good girl like myself, and how you don't love me anyhow. And then the essential thing is to go away quickly, and end the interview before I have a chance to begin all over again."
He looked doubtfully at the snow.
"Must I get out and walk home?" he asked.
"No," she said. "I think that's too complicated. We might try an easier one to begin. Suppose we do the calmly rational first. I explain to you that I have watched you from boyhood, and have come to the conclusion that our tastes, our intellects, our--"
"Oh, no," said Riatt, "there's really no use in going on with that. Even I should have no difficulty with any lady who approached me 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