Ladies Must Live | Page 8

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, and with this object she always made the process look as difficult and dangerous as possible at the very beginning.
She looked back at him and smiled with irritating calm.
"I shall be just as long as is necessary," she replied, and so saying, she turned, or rather attempted to turn, the key.
But disuse, or cold, or her own lack of strength prevented and she was presently reduced to asking Riatt to help her. He did not volunteer his assistance. She had definitely and directly to ask for it. Then he was friendliness itself.
"Just stand by the horse's head, will you?" he said, and when he saw her stationed there, he sprang out, and with an almost insulting ease opened the door.
Just as he did so, however, a gust of wind, fiercer than any other, swept round the corner of the house and carried away Christine's hat. She made a quick gesture to catch it, and as she did so, struck the horse under the chin. The animal reared, and Christine jumped aside to avoid being struck by its hoofs; the next instant, it had thrown its head in the air, and started at full speed down the road, dragging the empty sleigh after it. Riatt, who had his