Ladies Must Live written by Alice Duer Miller

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"What is the matter, Ned?" she said to her brother, as he fidgeted about
the card-table, after a last futile expedition to the telephone. "Can't
you decide whether you'd rather the lady of your love were dead or
subjected for twenty-four hours to the fascinations of an irresistible
young man?"

"What an interesting question that raises," observed Wickham, examining
rather ruefully the three meager cards he had drawn. "A modern
Lady-or-the-Tiger idea. I am not of a jealous temperament and should
always prefer to see a woman happy with another man."

"And often do, I dare say," said Nancy. "I have a point of seven, and
fourteen aces."

"I must own I can't see Riatt's irresistible quality," said Hickson
irritably.

"Rich, nice-looking and has his wits about him," replied Mrs. Almar
succinctly.

"About as good-looking as a fence-rail."

"And they say women are envious!" exclaimed his sister.

"Are you a feminist, Mrs. Almar?" inquired the irrepressible Wickham.

"No, just a female, Mr. Wickham."

"I never thought a big bony nose made a man a beauty," grumbled Hickson.

"Ah, how much wisdom there is in that reply of yours, Mrs. Almar," said
Wickham. "Just a female. Your meaning is, if I interpret you rightly,
that you are content with the duties and charms which Nature has bestowed
upon your sex--"

"Until I can get something better," replied Nancy briskly, drawing the
score toward her and beginning to add it up. "My idea is to let the other
women do the fighting; if they win, I shall profit; if they lose, I'm no
worse off. I believe I've rubiconed you again, Mr. Wickham."

"Well, I don't understand women's taste, anyhow," said Hickson.

"You never spoke a truer word than that, my dear," said Nancy.
"Seventy-four fifty, I think that makes it, Mr. Wickham, subtracting the
dollar and a half you made on the first game. Oh, yes, a check will do
perfectly. I'm less likely to lose it."

"I never had a worse run of luck," observed Wickham with an attempt at
indifference.

Mrs. Almar stood up yawning. "Doubtless you are on the brink of a great
amorous triumph," she said languidly, and went off to bed.

Hickson did not attempt to sleep. He sat up for the remainder of the
night, in the hope that some sudden call might come, and at six o'clock
as Ussher had told Christine, he was ready for new efforts.

Rescued and rescuers reached the Usshers' house about half past ten the
following morning. Nancy was not yet downstairs. Wickham had not been
able to judge what was the correct note to strike in connection with the
whole incident, and so did not dare to sound any. The arrival was
comparatively simple. Mrs. Ussher received her beloved Christine with
open arms; Riatt went noncommittally upstairs to take a bath; Hickson had
decided, in spite of his depression of spirits, to try to make up a
little of last night's lost sleep, when he received a summons from his
sister. Her maid, a clever, sallow little Frenchwoman, came down with her
hands in her apron pockets to say that Madame should like to speak to
Monsieur at once.

He found Nancy still in bed; her little black head looking blacker than
usual against the lace of the pillows and the coverlet and of her own
bed-jacket. The only color about her was the yellow covered French
novel she laid down as he entered, and the one enormous ruby on her
fourth finger.

"And now, Ned, my dear," she said quite affectionately for her, "I hear
you have brought the wanderers safely home. Tell me all about it."

Hickson, to whom this summons had not come as a surprise, had resolved
that he would confide none of his anxieties to his sister but, alas, as
well might a pane of glass resolve to be opaque to a ray of sunlight.
Within ten minutes, Nancy knew not only all that he knew, but such
additional deductions as her sharper wits enabled her to draw.

"I see," she murmured, as he finished. "The only positive fact that we
have is that he did not leave the house until after five. How very
interesting!"

"Very terrible," said Hickson.

"Terrible," exclaimed Nancy, with the most genuine surprise. "Not at all.
From your point of view most encouraging. It can mean only one thing. The
young man very prudently ran away."

Edward was really stirred to anger. "Nancy," he said, "how do you dare,
even in fun--"

"Oh, my dear," answered his sister, as one wearied by all the folly in
the world, "how can I be of any use to you if you will not open your
eyes? He ran away. We don't know of course just from what; but we do know
this: Max Riatt is the best match that has yet presented himself, and
that Christine is the last girl in the world to ignore that simple fact.
Come, Ned, even if you do love her, you may as well admit the girl is not
a perfect fool. Fate, accident, or possibly her own clever manoeuvering
put the game into her hands. The question is, how did she play it? I know
what I'd have done, but I don't believe she would. I think she probably
tried to make him believe that she was hopelessly compromised in the eyes
of the world, and that there was no course open to an honorable man but
to ask her to marry him."

"I can't imagine Christine playing such a part."

"I tell you, you never do the poor girl justice. If she did that--and the
chances are she did--then his running away is most encouraging. It means,
in your own delightful language, that he did not fall for it--did not
want to run any risk of compromising her, if marriage was the
consequence."

"But, Nancy, Christine almost admitted that--that he tried to make
love to her."

"I can't see what that has to do with it, or what difference it makes,"
replied Mrs. Almar. "However, too much importance should not be attached
to such admissions. I have sometimes made them myself when the facts did
not bear me out. No woman likes to confess, especially to an old adorer
like you, that she has spent so many hours alone with a man and he has
not made love to her."

Hickson shook his head. "I'm not clever enough to be able to explain it,"
he said, "but I received the clearest impression from her that she had
been through some painful experience."

"Good," said Nancy. "Do you know the most painful experience she could
have been through?"

"No, what?"

"If he hadn't paid the slightest attention to her; and that, my dear
brother, is what I am inclined to think took place. No, the game is still
on; only now she'll have the Usshers to help her. This is no time for me
to lie in bed."

Ned looked at her doubtfully. "I thought I'd try and sleep a
little," he said.

"The best thing you can do," she returned. "Lucie! Lucie! Where are the
bells in this house! What privations one suffers for staying away from
home! Oh, yes, here it is," and she caught the atom of enamel and gold
dangling at the head of her bed, and rang it without ceasing until the
maid, who regarded her mistress with an admiration quite untinctured by
affection, appeared silently at the doorway.

In an astonishingly short space of time, she was dressed and downstairs,
presenting her usual sleek and polished appearance. Wickham was alone in
the drawing-room, and a suggestion that they should have another game of
piquet quickly drove him to the writing of some purely imaginary
business letters.

The coast was thus clear, but Riatt was still absent.

Nancy's methods were nothing if not direct. She rang the bell and when
the butler appeared she said:

"Where is Mr. Riatt?"

"In his room, madam."

"Dressing?"

"No, madam, he is dressed. Resting, I should say."

Nancy nodded her head once. "One moment," she said; and going to the
writing table she sat down and wrote quickly:

"I should like five minutes' conversation with you. Strange to say my
motive is altruistic--so altruistic that I feel I should sign myself 'Pro
Bono Publico,' instead of Nancy Almar. There is no one down here in the
drawing-room at the moment."

She put this in an envelope, sealed it with sealing wax (to the disgust
of the butler who found it hard enough, as it was, to keep up with all
that went on in the house) and told the man to send it at once to Mr.
Riatt's room.

She did not have long to wait. Riatt, with all the satisfaction in
his bearing of one who has just bathed, shaved and eaten, came down
to her at once.

"Good morning, Pro Bono Publico," he said, just glancing about to be sure
he was not overheard. "It was not necessary to put this interview on an
altruistic basis. I should have been glad to come to it, even if it had
been as a favor to you."

She looked at him with her hard, dark eyes. "Isn't that rather a reckless
way for a man in your situation to talk?"

"I was not aware that I was in a situation."

This was exactly the expression that she had wanted from him. It seemed
to come spontaneously, and could only mean that at least he was not
newly engaged.

She relaxed the tension of her attitude. "Are you really under the
impression that you're not?"

"I feel quite sure of it."

"You poor, dear, innocent creature."

"However," he went on, sitting down beside her on the wide, low sofa,
"something tells me that I shall enjoy extremely having you tell me all
about it."

Tucking one foot under her, as every girl is taught in the school-room it
is most unladylike to do, she turned and faced him. "Mr. Riatt," she
said, "when I was a child I used to let the mice out of the traps--not so
much, I'm afraid, from tenderness for the mice, as from dislike of my
natural enemy, the cook. Since then I have never been able to see a mouse
in anybody's trap but my own, without a desire to release it."

"And I am the mouse?"

She nodded. "And in rather a dangerous sort of trap, too."

He smiled at the seriousness of her tone.

"Ah," said she, "the self-confidence which your smile betrays is one of
the weaknesses by which nature has delivered your sex into the hands of
mine. I would explain it to you at length, but the time is too short. The
great offensive may begin at any moment. The Usshers have made up their
minds that you are to marry Christine Fenimer. That was why you were
asked here."

"Innocent Westerner as I am," he answered, "that idea--"

She interrupted him. "Yes, but don't you see it's entirely different now.
Now they really have a sort of hold on you. I don't know what Christine's
own attitude may be, but I can tell you this: her position was so
difficult that she was on the point of engaging herself to Ned."

"Oh, come," said Riatt politely, "your brother is not so bad as you seem
to think."

"He's not bad at all, poor dear. He's very good; but women do not fall in
love with him. You, on the contrary, are rich and attractive. You'll just
have to take my word for that," she added without a trace of coquetry.
"And so--and so--and so, if I were you, my dear Cousin Max, I should give
orders to have my bag packed at once, and take a very slow, tiresome
train that leaves here at twelve-forty-something, and not even wait for
the afternoon express."

There was that in her tone that would have made the blood of any man run
cold with terror, but he managed a smile. "In my place you would run
away?" he said.

She shook her head. "No, I wouldn't run away myself, but I advise you to.
I shouldn't be in any danger. Being a mere woman, I can be cruel, cold
and selfish when the occasion demands. But this is a situation that
requires all the qualities a man doesn't possess."

"What do you mean?"

"Does your heart become harder when a pretty woman cries? Is your
conscience unmoved by the responsibility of some one else's unhappiness?
Can you be made love to without a haunting suspicion that you brought it
on yourself?"

"Good heavens, no!" cried Riatt from the heart.

"Then, run while there's time."

As the ox fears the gad-fly and the elephant the mouse, so does the
bravest of men fear the emotional entanglement of any making but his own.
For an instant Riatt felt himself swept by the frankest, wildest panic.
Misadventures among the clouds he had had many times, and had looked a
clean straight death in the face. He had never felt anything like the
terror that for an instant possessed him. Then it passed and he said with
conviction:

"Well, after all, there are certain things you can't be made to do
against your will."

"Certainly. But you are not referring to marriage, are you?"

"Yes, I was."

"My poor, dear man! As if half the marriages in the world were not made
against the wish of one party or the other."

His heart sank. "It's perfectly true," he said. "And yet one does rather
hate to run away."

"Not so much as one hates afterward to think one might have."

He laughed and she went on: "The moment is critical. Laura Ussher and
Christine have been closeted together for the better part of two hours.
Something is going to happen immediately. At any moment Laura may appear
and say with that wonderfully casual manner of hers, 'May I have a word
with you, Max?' And then you'll be lost."

"Oh, not quite as bad as that, I hope," said Riatt.

"Lost," she repeated, and leaning over she laid one polished finger tip
on the bell. "When the man comes, tell him to get you ready for that
early train."

There was complete silence between them until the footman appeared and
Riatt had given the necessary orders.

"I wonder," he said when they were again alone, "whether I shall be angry
at you for this advice, or grateful. It's a dangerous thing, you know, to
advise a man to run away."

"Dine with me in town on Wednesday, and you can tell me which it is."

"You don't seem to be much afraid of my anger."

"I think perhaps your gratitude might be the more dangerous of the two."

While he was struggling between a new-found prudence, and a natural
desire to inquire further into her meaning, a door upstairs was heard to
shut, and presently Laura Ussher came sauntering into the room.

"You're up early, Nancy," she said pleasantly.

"I thought I ought to recognize the return of the wanderers in some
way--particularly, as I hear we are to lose one of them so soon."

Mrs. Ussher glanced quickly at her cousin. "Are you leaving us, Max?"

"I'm sorry to say I've just had word that I must, and I told the man to
make arrangements for me to get that twelve-something-or-other train."

Mrs. Ussher did not change a muscle. "I'm sorry you have to go," she
said. "We shall all miss you. By the way, you won't be able to get
anything before the four-eighteen. That midday train is taken off in
winter. Didn't the footman tell you? Stupid young man; but he's new and
has not learnt the trains yet, I suppose. Do you want to send a telegram?
They have to be telephoned here, but if you write it out I'll have it
sent for you."

"How wonderful you are, Laura," murmured Mrs. Almar.

Mrs. Ussher looked vague. "In what way, dear?"

"In all ways, but I think it's as a friend that I admire you most."

Mrs. Ussher smiled. "Yes," she said, "I'm very devoted to my friends even
when they don't behave quite fairly to me. But I love my relations, too,"
she added. "Max, since I'm to lose you so soon, I'd like to have a talk
with you before lunch. Shall we go to my little study?"

Nancy's eyes danced. "No, Laura," she said, "he will not. He has just
promised to teach me a new solitaire, and I won't yield him to any one."

Riatt, terrified at this proof that Nancy's prophecy was coming true,
resolved to cling to her.

"Sit down and learn the game, too, Laura," he said. "It's a very
good one."

"I want to speak to you about a business matter, Max."

"I never attend to business during church hours, Laura," he answered.
"We'll talk about it after lunch, if you like."

Laura had learnt the art of yielding gracefully. "That will do just as
well," she said, and sat down to watch the game.

Presently Wickham, seeing that Mrs. Almar seemed to be safely engaged,
ventured back. And they were all thus innocently occupied when luncheon
was announced.

Christine came down looking particularly lovely. It is a precaution which
a good-looking woman rarely fails to take in a crisis. She was wearing a
deep blue dress trimmed with fur, and only needed a solid gold halo
behind her head to make her look like a Byzantine saint.

"Well, Miss Fenimer," said Wickham, as they sat down. "You look very
blooming after your terrible experiences."

Christine had come prepared for battle. "Oh, they weren't so very
terrible, Mr. Wickham, thank you," she said, and she leant her elbow on
the table and played with those imitation pearls which she now hoped so
soon to give to her maid. "Mr. Riatt is the most wonderful
provider--expert as a cook as well as a furnace-man."

"It mayn't have been terrible for you," put in Ussher, who had a habit of
conversational reversion, "but I bet it was no joke in the tool-house!
How an intelligent woman like you, Christine, could dream of making a man
spend the night in that hole, just for the sake of--"

"But I thought it was Mr. Riatt's own choice," said Nancy gently.

"You wouldn't think so if you could have felt the place," Ussher
continued. "And what difference did it make? Who was there to talk? Every
one knows that their being there was just an unavoidable accident--"

"Oh, if it had been an accident!" said Nancy, and it was as if a little
venomous snake had suddenly wriggled itself into the conversation. Every
one turned toward her, and her brother asked sternly:

"_If_, it had been an accident, Nancy? What the deuce do you mean by
_if_?"

Nancy shook her small head. "I express myself badly," she said. "English
rhetoric was left out of my education."

"You manage to convey your ideas, dear," said Laura.

"I was trying to say that if poor, dear Christine had not been so
unfortunately the one to hit the horse in the head, and start him off--"

Wickham pricked up his ears. "Oh, I say, Miss Fenimer," he exclaimed,
"did you really hit the horse?"

"Certainly, I did, Mr. Wickham."

"But what did you do that for?"

Christine did not trouble to answer this question. Hickson, who had been
suffering far more than any one, rushed to the rescue.

"Miss Fenimer did not do it on purpose, Wickham. She happened to be
standing--"

"Oh, is that what your sister meant?" said Christine, as if a sudden
light dawned on her. "Tell me, Nancy darling, do you really think I hit
the horse on purpose, so as to have an uninterrupted evening with Mr.
Riatt? How you do flatter men! It's a great art. I'm afraid I shall never
learn it."

For the first time, Riatt found himself looking at her with a certain
amount of genuine admiration. This was very straight fighting. "They have
the piratical virtues," he thought, "courage, and the ability to give and
take hard blows."

Mrs. Almar was not to be outdone. "Well," she said, "I may as well be
honest. I can imagine myself doing it, for the right man. And we should
have had an amusing evening of it, which was more than we had here, I can
tell you. We were very dreary. Mr. Wickham tried to relieve the monotony
by a game of piquet, but I'm afraid he did not really enjoy it, for he
has not asked me to play since." And she cast a quick stimulating glance
at Wickham, whose usual inability to say nothing again betrayed him.

"Oh," he said, "I enjoyed our game immensely."

"Good," answered Nancy. "We'll have another this afternoon then."

"Indeed, yes," said Wickham, looking rather wan.

"After Mr. Riatt has gone," said Nancy distinctly. She knew that Laura
had had no opportunity to convey this intelligence to Christine, and it
amused her to see how she would support the blow. Christine's expression
did not change, but her blue eyes grew suddenly a little darker. She
turned slowly toward Riatt.

"And are you leaving us?" she asked.

"Sorry to say I am."

"What a bore," said Miss Fenimer politely. Hickson's simple heart bounded
for joy. "She's refused him," he thought, "and that's why he's rushing
off like this."

"Yes," said Ussher, "I should think he would want to go home and take
some care of himself. It's a wonder if he doesn't develop pneumonia."

Christine smiled at Riatt across the table. "They make me feel as if I
had been very cruel, Mr. Riatt," she said.

"Cruel, my dear," cried Nancy. "Oh, I'm sure you weren't _that_," and
then intoxicated by her own success, she made her first tactical error.
She turned to Riatt and said: "Don't forget that you are dining with me
on Wednesday evening." She enjoyed this exhibition of power. She saw
Laura and Christine glance at each other. But they were not dismayed;
they saw at once that Max had not been playing his hand alone; he was
going not entirely on his own initiative, and that was encouraging.

Riatt, who perfectly understood the public protectorate that was thus
established over him, resented it; in fact by the time they rose from the
table, he was thoroughly disgusted with all of them--weary, as he said to
himself of their hideous little games. He hardened his heart even as
Pharaoh did, and he felt not the least hesitation in according Laura the
promised interview, for the reason that he felt no doubt of his own
powers of resistance.

He permitted himself to be ostentatiously led away, upstairs to her
little private sitting-room, with its books, and fireplace, and signed
photographs, and he pretended not to see Nancy Almar's glance, which was
almost a wink, and might have been occasioned by the fact that she
herself was at the same moment gently guiding Wickham in the direction of
a card-table.

Laura made her cousin very comfortable, in a long chair by the fire, with
his cigarettes and his coffee beside him on a little table, and then she
began murmuring:

"Isn't it a pity Nancy Almar is so poisonous at times! She isn't really
bad hearted, but anything connected with Christine has always roused her
jealousy--the old beauty and the new one, I suppose."

"I wonder," said Riatt, "what is the difference, if any, between a pirate
and a bucaneer? Miss Fenimer and Mrs. Almar seem to me to have many
qualities in common."

"Oh, Max, how can you say that? Christine is so much more gentle and
womanly, so much--"

"My dear Laura, we haven't very much time, and I think you said you
wanted to talk to me on a business matter."

Laura Ussher had the grace to hesitate, just an instant, before she
answered: "Oh, yes, but it's your business I want to talk about. I want
to speak to you about this terrible situation in which Christine finds
herself. Do you realize that Nancy and Wickham between them will spread
this story everywhere, with all the embellishments their fancy may
dictate, particularly emphasizing the fact that it was Christine who made
the horse run away. It will be in the papers within a week. You know,
Max, just as well as I do, that it wasn't her fault. Is she to be so
cruelly punished for it? Can you permit that?"

"It's not my fault either, Laura."

"You can so easily save the situation."

"How?"

"By asking her to marry you."

"That I will not do."

"Are you involved with some one else?"

"I might make you understand better if I said yes, but it would not be
true. I'm not in love with any individual, but I know clearly the type of
woman I could fall in love with, and it most emphatically is not Miss
Fenimer's."

"Yet so many men have fallen in love with her."

"Oh, I see her beauty; I even feel her charm; but to marry her, no."

"Think of the prestige her beauty and position--"

"My dear Laura, what position? Social position as represented by the
hectic triviality of the last few days? Thank you, no, again."

"Dear Max," said his cousin more seriously than she had hitherto spoken,
"you know I would not want you to do anything that I thought would make
you unhappy. But this wouldn't. I know Christine better than you do. I
know that under all her worldliness and hardness there is a vein of
devotion and sweetness--"

"Very likely there is. But it would not be brought out by a mercenary
marriage with a man who cared nothing for her. If that is all you have to
say, Laura, let's end an interview which hasn't been very pleasant for
either of us."

"Oh, Max, how can you abandon that lovely creature to some tragic
future?"

"You know quite well she is going to do nothing more tragic than to
marry Hickson."

"And you are willing to sacrifice her to Hickson?"

"My dear Laura, I cannot prevent all the beautiful, dissatisfied women in
the world from marrying dull, kind-hearted young men who adore them."

Mrs. Ussher stared at him in baffled, unhappy silence, and in the pause,
the door quickly and silently opened and Christine herself entered. She
looked calm, almost Olympian, as she laid her hand on Laura's arm.

"Let me have just a word alone with Mr. Riatt," she said; and as Laura
precipitately left the room, Christine turned to Riatt with a reassuring
smile. "Don't be alarmed," she said. "Your most dangerous antagonist has
just gone. I've really come to rescue you." She sank into a chair. "How
exhausting scenes are. Let me have a cigarette, will you?"

She smoked a moment in silence, while he stood erect and alert by the
mantel-piece. At last, glancing up at him, she said:

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