Ladies Must Live written by Alice Duer Miller

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The first he opened was in a round childish hand with uncertain margins,
and a final "e" on the word Hotel.

"Dear Cousin Max," it said, "I do not know you, but Mamma says that you
are going to marry Christine. I think you are very lucky, and am glad you
are bringing her into our family. Victor and I love her. She comes to the
nursery sometimes, but never stays long.

"Your loving cousin,

"MURIEL USSHER."

Riatt laughed as he laid it down. "I bet she doesn't stay long," he said.
"How she does skim the cream!" And then with an exclamation of surprise
he tore open another envelope which had been left by hand. It said:

"Dear Max:

"I hope you will be pleasantly surprised to find that Mother and I are
staying in this hotel. I find New York more wonderful but more unfriendly
than I had been told, and I want terribly to see a familiar face. Won't
you look us up as soon as you can?

"Yours as ever,

"DOROTHY."

He went to the telephone, found that she was in and immediately arranged
that she should go out to lunch with him.

All the morning and some of the night, he had been engaged in the
composition of a letter to Dorothy Lane. Theirs was an old and
sentimental friendship, which adverse circumstances might have ended, or
favoring circumstances have changed into love. As things were, it seemed
to be tending toward their marriage without any whirlwind rapidity.

There was no doubt he was very glad to see her, as he hurried her into a
taxicab, and told the man to drive to the restaurant of the hour. She was
very neatly and nicely dressed in a tailor-made costume for which she had
just paid twice as much as a native New York woman would have paid. In
fact she was an essentially neat and nice little person. They talked both
at once like two children about all the people at home, until they were
actually seated at table, and lunch was ordered. Then Riatt made up his
mind he must take the plunge.

"Dolly," he said, "do I look as if something tremendous had just
happened?"

"Don't tell me you've invented a submarine, or something?"

"No, this is something of a more personal nature."

"Oh, Max, you've fallen in love?"

A waiter rushing up with rolls and butter suggested that Madame probably
preferred fresh butter to salted, before Riatt answered: "No, that is
just what I haven't done--and that's the secret, Dolly. I'm not a bit in
love, but I am engaged to be married."

"Max! But why if--"

"I'll tell you on the second of March. It's a good story. You'll enjoy
it, but for the present, my dear, you must just accept the fact that I am
engaged, that I am neither wildly elated nor unduly depressed."

Miss Lane had grown extremely serious. "Who is she?" she asked.

"Her name is Christine Fenimer."

"I've seen her name in the papers."

"Who has not?" he returned bitterly.

"What is she like?"

Riatt felt some temptation to answer truthfully and say: "She is
designing, mercenary, hard-hearted and as beautiful as a goddess." But he
did not, and, as he paused he saw the head waiter spring forward from the
doorway, smiling and holding up a pencil to attract the attention of some
underling, and then he saw that Christine, Hickson and Mr. and Mrs.
Linburne were being ushered in. Christine approached, tall, beautiful,
conspicuous, and as divinely unconscious of it as Adam and Eve of their
nakedness; she moved between the tables, bowing here and there to people
she knew, not purposely ignoring all others, but seeming to find them
invisible as thin air. Riatt watched as if she were some great spectacle,
and was recalled only by hearing Dorothy's voice saying:

"What a lovely creature!"

"That is Miss Fenimer."

A sudden and deep flush spread over Miss Lane's face.

"And you have been telling me of your indifference to her?" she asked
bitterly. "How could any man be indifferent!"

"Good Heavens," cried Riatt fiercely. "All you women are alike! Beauty
isn't the only thing in the world for a man to love. There are such
things as truth and honor--"

"Yes, and old friendship, too," said Miss Lane, "but they don't always
amount to much."

"That is an unnecessary, unkind thing to say," he answered. "My
friendship for you means a good deal more to me than my engagement to
her."

"Max, I don't need to be consoled or soothed about your engagement," said
Miss Lane with a good deal of spirit. "As far as I am concerned you are
quite free not only to become engaged, but to have any feeling you like
for the lady you have chosen. I'm sure I congratulate you very heartily."

"You mean you don't believe a word of what I have been trying to
tell you."

"Oh, yes, I do. I believe you are engaged."

Perhaps it was as well that at this instant, Christine's eyes fell upon
her; she stared, then laughed, and pointed him out to Hickson, who
glanced at him coldly; he was evidently thinking that he would not have
taken another girl out to lunch the very day his engagement was
announced.

"I suppose I had better go and speak to them," Max said.

"I should think so," replied Dorothy tonelessly. "Who are the others?"

Riatt, not sorry for a moment's respite, entered into a detailed account
of Lee Linburne. He was the third generation of a great fortune,
augmenting rather than decreasing with years. He was but little over
thirty and had taken the whole field of amusement and sports as his own.
He played polo, had a racing stable and a racing yacht, had gone in
recently for flying (hence Riatt's connection with him), occasionally
financed a theatrical show, and now and then attended a directors'
meeting of some of his grandfather's companies. The result was that his
name was as widely known through the country as Abraham Lincoln's.
Dorothy knew as soon as she heard his name, that he had married a girl
from Pittsburg, and had gone through her native city in a private car on
his honeymoon three years before, and had stopped, she rather thought,
and had lunch with the Governor of the State.

On Hickson, Max touched more briefly.

When at last he did cross the room, Christine received him with the
utmost cordiality.

"What luck to run across you, though of course this is the only place in
New York where one can get food that doesn't actually poison one. Last
week--do you remember, Lee? We dined somewhere or other with the
Petermans and nothing from the beginning of dinner to the end was fit to
eat. But, bless them, they did not know. Have you met Mrs. Linburne? Oh,
she knows all about _us_. In fact every one does, for I can't resist
wearing this." She moved her left hand on which his diamond shone like a
swollen star. "How did you find my father?"

"Most amiable," answered Riatt rather poisonously, and regretted the
poison when he saw the Linburnes exchange an amused glance. Of course
every one knew that Mr. Fenimer would present no obstacles.

"Who are you lunching with, Max? Is that your little secretary?"

The tone, very civil and friendly, made Max furious, as if any one that
Christine did not know was hardly worth inquiring about.

"No, it's Miss Lane--an old friend of mine. I think I must have spoken to
you about her."

"Oh, the perfect provider? Is that really she?" Christine craned her neck
openly to stare at her. "Why, she's rather nice looking--for a good
housekeeper, that is. You're dining with me to-night, aren't you?"

"No," answered Riatt, with a sudden inspiration of ill-humor. "I'm dining
with Miss Lane."

"Bring her, too! Won't she come?"

"I really can't say."

"You can ask her."

"To your house?"

Christine always knew when she was really beaten. She got up with a
sigh. "Take me over," she said to him, "and I'll ask her myself." And
she added to the Linburnes: "Out-of-town people are always so fussy
about little things."

Riatt did not know if this slightly contemptuous observation were meant
to apply to him or to Miss Lane; he hoped in his heart that Dorothy would
refuse the invitation. But he under-estimated Christine's powers. No one
could have been more persuasive, more meltingly sweet, and compellingly
cordial than she was, and it was soon arranged that he was to bring
Dorothy to dine that evening.

When it was over, and he was back again in his own seat, he could see, by
glancing at Christine that she was engaged in a long humorous account of
the incident, for her own table; and he could tell, even from that
distance, when he was supposed to be speaking, when Dorothy, and when
Christine was repeating her own words. Meanwhile Dorothy was saying:

"How charming and simple she is, Max. You always hear of these people as
being so artificial and elaborate."

"Oh, they're direct enough," returned Riatt bitterly.

The bitterness was so apparent that Dorothy could not ignore it. She
looked up at him for an instant and then she said seriously: "I believe I
know what the trouble with you is, Max. You can't believe that she loves
you for yourself. You're haunted by the dread that what you have has
something to do with it. Isn't that it?"

Max now made use of the well-known counter question as an escape from a
tight place.

"And what is your judgment on that point, Dolly?"

"She loves you," said Miss Lane, with conviction, and a moment afterward
she sighed.

"Without disputing your opinion," returned Riatt, "I should very much
like to know on what you base it."

"Oh, on a hundred things--on her look, her manner, her being so nice to
me--on woman's intuition in fact."

Riatt thought to himself that he had never had much confidence in the
intuition theory and now he had none.

They did not part at the termination of lunch. It was almost a duty,
Riatt considered, to show a stranger a few of the sights. Miss Lane, who
was extremely well-informed on all questions of art, suggested the
Metropolitan Museum; and after that they took a taxicab and drove along
the river and watched the winter sunset above the palisades; and then
they went and had tea at the Plaza, and by the time they returned to Mrs.
Lane it was almost the hour for dressing for dinner; and then Max sat
gossiping with Mrs. Lane, for whom he had always had the deepest
affection, until he knew he was going to be late.

They were late--a difficult thing to be in the Fenimer household. The
party, a small one, was waiting when Miss Lane and Mr. Riatt were ushered
in. Nancy was there, and Hickson, and Mr. Linburne without his wife this
time; and Mr. Fenimer himself, doing honor to his future son-in-law by
taking a meal at home.

Christine in a wonderful pink chiffon and lace tea-gown came forward to
greet Dorothy, rather than Max, to whom she gave merely an understanding
smile, while she held the girl's hand an instant.

"Max says this is your first visit to New York," she said, after she
had introduced her father and Nancy. "It is good of you to give us an
evening, when there are so many more amusing things to do, but Max
says we are as interesting as Bushmen or Hottentots. I hope you'll
find us so."

The hope seemed unlikely to be fulfilled, for while the presence of Mr.
Fenimer, who was rather a stickler for etiquette, prevented the perfect
freedom that had reigned at the Usshers', the talk turned on people whom
Dorothy did not know, and it was so quick and allusive that no outsider
could have followed it. Hickson, soon appreciating something in Miss
Lane's situation not utterly unlike his own, was touched by her obvious
isolation, and tried to make up for the neglect of the others. Riatt,
sitting between Nancy and Christine, had little time left to him for
observation of any one else.

When dinner was over Christine instantly drew him away to her own little
sitting-room, on pretense of showing him some letter of congratulation
that she had received. But once there, she shut the door, and standing
before it, she said, with an air of the deepest feeling:

"You're in love with this girl."

Riatt, who had sunk comfortably down on a sofa by the fire, looked up
in surprise.

"And if I am?" he answered.

"You need not humiliate me by making it so evident," she retorted, and
almost stamped her foot. "Lunching with her in public, and taking her to
tea, as I was told, getting here so late for dinner--I wish you could
have heard the way Nancy and Lee Linburne were goading me before dinner
about it."

"My dear Christine," said Max, and he was amused to hear a tone of real
conjugal remonstrance in his voice, "you have lunched and dined in one
day with Hickson, and yet I don't feel I have any grounds of complaint."

"Every one knows how little I care for Ned," she answered, "but people
say you do care for this little Western mouse. I hate her. She's good and
nice, and the kind of a girl men think it wise to marry, and just as
different from me as she can be. I do hate her--and I hate myself too."
And she covered her face with her hands.

"Come here, Christine," said Riatt, without moving, and was rather
surprised when she obeyed. He made her sit down beside him, and
taking her hands from her face, was astonished to find that she was
really crying.

"Why, my dear child," he said, in the most paternal manner he could
manage. "What is this all about?" And it was quite in the same note that
Christine wept a moment on his shoulder. Then she raised her head, with a
return of her old brisk manner.

"I'm jealous," she said. "Oh, don't suppose one can't be jealous of
people one doesn't care for. I could be jealous of any one when Nancy
begins teasing me and making fun of me. And I'm jealous too, because I'm
sure she's a nice girl and I've made such a mess of my life, and I
deserve it all; but when you came in together, as if you had just been
happily married, and I looked at Ned and thought how wretched I'm always
going to be with him, and what silly things I shall undoubtedly do
before I die--"

"I hate to hear you talk like that."

"Why should you care? _She'll_ never do silly things--that's clear. Is
that why you love her?"

"As a matter of fact I am not in love with Miss Lane."

"My dear Max, there's really no reason why you should deceive me
about it."

"That's just what she said about you."

"You mean"--Christine sprang to her feet and gazed at him like an
outraged empress--"You mean that you told her that you didn't love me?"

"I most assuredly did."

"Max, how could you be so low, so despicable, so false?"

Riatt laughed. "Well, it certainly was not false, Christine," he said.
"It happens to be true, you know; and I felt I owed a measure of truth to
a very old and very real friendship. I told her nothing more than that--I
was engaged and not madly in love."

Christine threw up her hands. "The game is up," she said. "She'll tell
everybody, of course."

"She'll tell absolutely no one."

"Because she's perfect, I suppose?"

"Because she didn't for one moment believe me."

"Didn't believe we were engaged?"

"Didn't believe that any one could be engaged to so beautiful and
charming a person as you are and not be in love with her."

Christine's manner softened slightly. "She thinks me charming?"

"She thinks you irresistible, almost as irresistible as Laura thinks
you; and she is trying to find out why I am so eager to deceive her in
the matter."

Christine clapped her hands, and executed a few steps. "She's jealous,
too," she cried. "The perfect woman is jealous. I never thought of her
suffering, too."

"She is not jealous, but I suppose it may hurt her feelings a little that
I shouldn't--"

"Oh, nonsense, Max, she loves you. Do you think I could be deceived on
such a subject? She watches you all the time. She loves you. And I think
it would be very impertinent of her not to. I should think very poorly of
her if she didn't. Imagine what she must be undergoing at this moment, by
our prolonged absence."

"Perhaps, we'd better be going back," said Riatt calmly.

Christine barred the door, spreading out both her arms.

"She thinks you're making love to me, Max."

"And yet, Christine, I'm not."

"But she doesn't know that; she doesn't know what an immovable
iceberg you are."

"No, indeed she doesn't."

Christine's manner again changed utterly. All the playfulness
disappeared. "You mean," she said, "that you're not cold and immovable
with her?"

"What's the use of my telling you anything, if you don't believe me?" The
idea of teasing Christine had never occurred to him before, but he
thought highly of it. She came toward him at once.

"Oh, Max, my dear," she said, "don't be horrid, when I'm having such a
wretched time anyhow. Don't you think you might _pretend_ to care for me
just a little?"

Riatt rose. "Yes, I do," he said, "and so I shall, in public."

Christine was all the gentle, wistful child immediately.

"Never when we're alone?" she asked.

Max lit a cigarette briskly. "I don't suppose we shall very often be
alone," he returned. "After all, why should we?"

She looked at him like a wounded bird: "No reason if you don't want to."

At this moment the door opened and her father came in.

"Come, come, my dear, this is no way to treat your guests," he said. "I
must really insist that you go back to the drawing-room. Upon my word,
Riatt, you ought not to keep her like this."

"It was a great temptation to have her a few minutes to myself, Mr.
Fenimer," said Max, and Christine grinned gratefully at him behind her
father's back.

"Very likely, very likely," said Mr. Fenimer crossly, "but I want to go
to the club, and how can I, unless she goes back? You can't think only of
yourself, my dear fellow."

Riatt admitted that this was true and he and Christine went back to the
drawing-room.

Very soon afterwards, he gave Dorothy a keen prolonged look, which she
did not misunderstand. She got up at once and said good night. In the
taxicab, he questioned her at once as to her impressions.

"I didn't like Mr. Linburne or Mrs. Almar at all, Max. She kept asking me
the greatest number of questions about you and the story of your life.
What interest has she in you, I wonder?"

"None," answered Riatt, but added rather quickly, "And what did you think
of Linburne?"

"I couldn't bear him, though I own he's nice looking. But he told
Mrs. Almar a story--I could not help hearing--I never heard such a
story in my life."

"I gather it did not shock Mrs. Almar."

"She knew it already. 'Lee,' she said, 'that story is so old that even my
husband knows it,' and every one laughed."

"I'm afraid you did not enjoy yourself."

"I like Mr. Hickson very much. And I thought Miss Fenimer more beautiful
than before. He was telling me what a wonderful nature she has. He said
he had never seen her out of temper."

"Yes, Hickson's crazy about her," said Riatt casually.

"Dear Max, why do you try to deceive yourself about your own
feeling for her?"

"Deceive myself," he said angrily. "If you knew the truth, my dear
Dolly!" His heart stood still. Deceive himself! What an insulting
phrase. He repressed a strong impulse to propose on the instant to
Dolly. That would show her how indifferent he was to Christine. It would
assure him, too.

Instead he formed a plan to go home with her and her mother, when
they went.

"When are you going back, Dolly?"

"The day after to-morrow."

"Any objections to my going, too?"

"Objections! Max, dear!"

He engaged his ticket at once at the hotel office. Having done so, he
felt tranquil and relieved, and perhaps the least little bit dull. The
clerk assured him he was fortunate to be able to get a berth at such
short notice. "Very fortunate," he agreed and was annoyed at a certain
cold ring in his voice.

The next day, true to his promise to show Christine all attentions that
the public could expect, he sent her a box of flowers, and at four he
stopped for her and they went and took a long walk together, hoping to
meet as many people whom they knew as possible.

"We won't walk in the Park," said Christine. "No one sees you there,
though of course if they do, it makes an impression. But, no; we'll stick
to Fifth Avenue, and study all the windows that have clothes or furniture
in them, as if our minds were entirely taken up with trousseaux and
house-furnishing."

She was true to her word, and not squeamish. Riatt found it rather
amusing to wander at her side, dressing her in imagination in every
garment that the windows so frankly displayed, and answering with real
interest her constant inquiry: "Do you think that would become me? Would
you like me in that? Do you prefer silk to batiste?"

They were standing in front of a stocking shop in which on a row of
composition legs which might have made a chorus envious, "new ideas in
hosiery" were romantically displayed, when Riatt decided to tell her of
his approaching departure. He chose the street, because he was well aware
that she would not approve of his plan, and he wished to avoid a
repetition of last evening's scene.

"I shall have to go away the day after to-morrow," he said, and glanced
quickly down on her to see how she would take it.

She was studying the stockings, and she drew away with her head at a
critical angle.

"It's a queer thing," she said, "that certain stripes do make the ankle
look large. Theoretically they ought to make it look slim, but you take
my word for it, Max, they don't."

"Nothing could make your ankles look anything but slim, Christine," he
replied politely.

"No, my ankles are rather good, aren't they?" she replied, and then as if
she had now disposed of the more serious topic, she added: "And so you
are going home? Well, you mayn't believe it, but I shall really miss you
a great deal. Oh, look at these jade flowers! They're really good."

Riatt looked at the pale lilac and pink blossoms starting from their icy
green leaves, but he hardly saw them. He was disgusted at the discovery
of an unexpected perversity in his nature. He found himself hardly
pleased at the absence of protest with which his announcement was
greeted. All her attention was absorbed by the jade.

"Wouldn't it look well on our drawing-room mantel-piece?" she said.

"I'll give it to you as a wedding present," he answered. "That is, if you
think Hickson would like it."

"I don't think he'll like anything you ever give me. He did not even like
my ring. He thinks the stone too large. By the way, I never properly
thanked you for the ring. It has been most splendidly persuasive. Even
Nancy grew pale when she saw the proof of your sincerity."

"Will it be sufficient even in the face of my continued absence?" he
asked, for it occurred to him that perhaps she had not understood that he
meant to remain in the West indefinitely.

"Oh, I think so," she answered, pleasantly. "You might write to me now
and then, and I'll show just a suitable paragraph here and there to an
intimate friend."

A new idea suddenly occurred to him. Had she any motive for desiring his
absence? Had some unexpected possibility cropped up? Did she want to get
rid of him? Not, he added, that he minded if she did, but it would be
rather interesting to know.

"I'm going a little earlier than I expected," he went on, "because the
Lanes are going, and I hate to make that long journey alone."

She nodded understandingly. "It will be much nicer for you to have them."

He looked at her coldly. It seemed to him he had never known a more
callous nature. And to think that the evening before she had actually
shed tears, simply because he took another girl to lunch! It caught his
attention, he said to himself, just as a study in human nature.

He did not see her the next day until evening. They were both to dine at
Nancy's--(thus had the proposed dinner with Mrs. Almar deteriorated) and
go afterward to the opera. Nancy of course would not have dreamed of
crowding three women into her box, so the party consisted of herself and
Christine, Riatt, Roland Almar--a pale, eager, little man, trying to
placate the world with smiles, and once again Linburne, whose handsome
dark head, and curved mouth, half cynical, half sensuous, began to weary
Riatt inexpressibly.

After dinner he found that he and Mrs. Almar were to go in her tiny
coupe, and the four others in Linburne's large car.

"And so," she observed as soon as they started, "the mouse preferred
the trap after all?" And he could feel that she was laughing at him in
the shadow.

"But feels none the less grateful for the kind intention to rescue him."

"Oh, I don't care much for the gratitude of a man in love with
another woman."

"You judge me to be very much in love?"

This general conviction on the part of the ladies of his acquaintance was
growing monotonous. Nancy continued:

"But come back in two years, and we'll talk of gratitude then. In the
meantime let us stick to the impersonal. What do you think of Linburne?"

"I've had many opportunities of judging. I've been nowhere for two days
without meeting him."

Mrs. Almar laughed with meaning.

"I wonder why that should be," she said.

"What do you mean?" Riatt asked, but at that moment they drew up before
the Thirty-ninth Street entrance, and the doorman, opening the motor's
door, shouted "Ten--Forty-five"--a cheerful lie he has been telling four
times a week for many years.

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