Ladies Must Live

								

to be introduced to her. Then as dinner was at the same instant
announced, she put her hand on his arm.
“Take me in to dinner, Cousin Max,” she said.
“I did not know he was your cousin,” said Wickham, who suffered
from the fatal tendency in moments of doubt to say something.
Mrs. Almar looked at Riatt.
“Will you be a cousin to me?” she asked. “It commits you to
nothing.”
“I don’t consider that an advantage,” he returned, drawing his
elbow slightly inward, so that 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.