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Ladies Must Live written by Alice Duer Miller

A >> Alice Duer Miller >> Ladies Must Live




In the opera box, Riatt at once seated himself behind Christine. There is
no place like the opera for public devotion. Christine was resplendent in
black and gold with a huge black and gold fan that made the fans of the
temple dancers--the opera was "Aida"--look commonplace and ineffective.

Behind it she now murmured to Max:

"And what poisonous thing did dear Nancy tell you coming down?"

"Nothing--except what everyone has been telling me for the last few
days--that I seemed very much in love."

"And that annoyed you, I suppose."

"On the contrary. I was delighted to find I was such a good actor."

"People who pretend to be asleep sometimes end by actually doing it.
Pretending is rather dangerous sometimes."

"Yes, but you see I shan't have to pretend after to-morrow."

"Are you all packed and ready?"

"Mentally I am."

In the _entr'acte_ which followed quickly after their entrance, Christine
dismissed him very politely. "There," she said, "you don't have to stay
on duty all the time. You can go and stretch your legs, if you want."

He rose at once, and as he did so, Linburne slipped into his place.

Riatt had caught sight of Laura Ussher across the house, and knew his
duty demanded that he should go and say a word to his exuberant cousin
who, he supposed, regarded herself as the artificer of his happiness.

"Oh, my dear Max," she began, hastily bundling out an old friend who had
been reminiscing about the days of the de Rezskes, and waving Riatt into
place, "every one is so delighted at the engagement, and thinks you both
so fortunate. How happy she is, Max! She looks like a different person."

"I thought she looked rather tired this evening," answered Riatt, who
always found himself perverse in face of Laura's enthusiasm.

Mrs. Ussher raised her opera glass and studied Christine's profile, bent
slightly toward Linburne, who was talking with the immobility of feature
which many people use when saying things in public which they don't wish
overheard. "Oh, well, she doesn't look as brilliant as she did when _you_
were with her. But isn't that natural? I wonder why Nancy asked Lee
Linburne and where is that silly little wife of his. Oh, don't go, Max.
It's only the St. Anna attache; we met him on the coast last summer."

But Riatt insisted on making way for the South American diplomat, who was
standing courteously in the back of the box.

He wandered out into the corridors, not enough interested in any of his
recent acquaintances to go and speak to them. Two men coming up behind
him were talking; he could not help hearing their dialogue:

"Who's this fellow she's engaged to?"

"No one knows--a Western chap with a lot of money."

"Suppose she cares anything about him?"

"Oh, no, she's telling every one she doesn't. They say he's mad
about her."

"Ought to be, by Jove. I always thought the only man she ever
cared for--"

Riatt found himself straining his ears vainly to catch the name, but it
was drowned in other conversations that rose about him. He understood now
why Christine had been angry at his telling Dorothy that he was not in
love, for he found himself annoyed at the idea of her having told
everybody that she wasn't. But, it's a different thing, he thought, to
tell one intimate friend in confidence, or to give the news to every Tom,
Dick and Harry. Then the juster side of his nature reasserted itself, and
he saw that she was only laying the trail for the breaking of her
engagement. Yet this evidence of her good faith did not entirely allay
the irritation of his spirit.

When he went back to the box, Linburne was gone, and the man who had
replaced him, yielded to Riatt with the most submissive promptness. But
this time no easy interchange occurred between them.

About half past ten, Christine leaned over to her hostess, and said:
"Would you care at all if I deserted you, dear? I'm tired."

"Mind when I have my Roland to keep me company?" said Nancy. "One seems
to take one's husband to the opera this year."

At this point Linburne, who had been standing in the back of the box,
came forward and said: "Won't you take my car, Miss Fenimer? I'll go down
and find it for you."

A look that passed between them, a twinkle in Nancy's eyes, suddenly
convinced Riatt that the scheme was for Linburne to take Christine
home. He did not stop to ask why this idea was repugnant to him, but he
said firmly:

"I have a car of my own downstairs, and I'll take Miss Fenimer home." It
was of course a lie, as the simple taxicab was his only means of
vehicular locomotion, but a taxi, thank heaven, can always be obtained
quickly at the Metropolitan. Christine consented. Linburne stepped back.

They drove the few blocks in silence. He went up the steps of her house,
and when the door was opened he said: "May I come in for a few minutes? I
shan't have time to-morrow probably."

"Do," said Christine. She went into the drawing-room and sank into a
chair. "Who ever heard of not saying good-by to one's fiancee?"

He saw that she was in her most teasing mood, and somehow this made him
more serious.

"Perhaps," he said rather stiffly, "you think I carry out your
instructions too exactly. Perhaps I show a more scrupulous devotion in
public than you meant."

"Oh, no. It looked so well."

"It would not have looked so well for Linburne to take you home."

She clapped her hands. "Excellent," she said, "but you know it is not
necessary to take that proprietary tone when we are alone."

"Even as a mere acquaintance I might offer you some advice," he said.

"I'm rather sleepy as it is," she returned, yawning slightly.

For the first time Riatt had a sense of crisis. He knew he must either
save her, or leave her. He could not give her a little sage advice and
abandon her. It would be like advising a starving man not to steal and
going away with your pockets full. He could not say, "Have nothing to do
with a selfish materialist like Linburne," when he knew better perhaps
than any one how empty of any ideality or hope her relation to Hickson
was bound to be. Yet on the other hand, he could not say, "Come to me,
instead." He despised her method of life, distrusted her character,
disliked her ideas, and was under no illusion as to her feeling for
himself. If he had come to her without money she would have laughed in
his face. What chance would either of them have under such circumstances?
It was simple madness to consider it. And why was he considering it? Just
because she looked lovely and wan, sunk in a deep chair in all her black
and gold finery, just because her face had the lines of an Italian saint
and her voice had strange and moving tones in it.

"Good-by," he said briefly.

She sprang up. "Good gracious," she said, "and are you going just like
that? You know it is customary to extract a promise to write. At least to
beg for a lock of the hair." (She drew out a golden lock, and let it
crinkle back into place again.) "Or do you think you will remember me
without it?"

"I'm not so sure I want to remember you."

"I hope you don't. It's the things you don't want to remember that you
never can get out of your head."

"Good-by," he said again.

"Haven't you one nice thing to say to me before you go?"

"Not one."

"Wouldn't you at least admit that I had enlarged your point of view?"

"Aren't you going to shake hands with me?" he said.

She shook her head, and began to approach him. He felt afterward as if he
had known exactly what she meant to do, and yet he seemed to lack all
power to prevent her--or perhaps it was will that was lacking. She came
up to him, very deliberately put her arms about his neck, and, almost as
tall as he, laid her head on his shoulder; and then murmured under his
chin: "But you must never, never come back."

He stood like a rock under her caress; he did not make any answer; he did
not attempt to undo the clasp of her arms. He was as impassive as a
hunted animal who, in some terrible danger, pretends to be already dead.

It was a matter of only a few seconds. Then she dropped her arms, and he
went away.




CHAPTER V


Running away is seldom a becoming gesture, yet it is one that should at
least bring relief; but as Riatt went westward, he was conscious of no
relief whatsoever. The day was bitter and gray, and, looking out of the
window, he felt that he was about as flat and dreary as the country
through which he was passing.

He sat a little while with the Lanes in their compartment.

"I suppose you'll be glad to get home and see George and Louise and the
children," said Mrs. Lane, referring to some cousins of Riatt's about
whom, it is to be feared, he had not thought for weeks.

Dorothy laughed. "What does he care for home-staying cousins when he is
leaving a lovely creature languishing for him in New York?" she said.

"I doubt if Christine does much languishing," he returned, though the
idea was not at all disagreeable to him.

"You two are the strangest lovers I ever knew," said Miss Lane.

Riatt wondered if that were an accurate description of them--lovers,
though strange ones.

He left his old friends presently and went and sat in the
observation-car. What, he wondered, had Christine meant by her last
words, about never coming back? Never come back to annoy with his
critical attitude? Never come back to watch her deterioration as
Hickson's wife? Or never come back to disturb her peace of mind and
heart by his mere presence? He debated all interpretations but the last
pleased him most.

A bride and groom were in the car. The girl was not in the least like
Christine. She was small and wore a pair of the most fantastic gray and
black boots that Riatt had ever seen; but she was very blond and very
much in love. Riatt hated both her and her husband. "People ought not to
be allowed to show their feelings like that," he said to himself, as he
kicked open the door leading to the back platform, with a violence that
was utterly unnecessary.

Nor did things mend on his arrival at his home. His native town was
naturally interested in his engagement; it showed this interest by
keeping the idea continually before him. It assumed, of course, that he
was going to bring his bride home. The rising architect of the community
came to him with the assumption that he would wish to build her a more
suitable house than that of his father, which, large and comfortable, had
been constructed in the very worst taste of the early "eighties." No,
Riatt found himself saying with determination, his father's house would
be good enough for his wife. He thought the sentiment sounded rather
well, as he pronounced it. But this did not solve his difficulties, for
now it was but too evident that he must at least redecorate the old
house; and he found himself, he never knew exactly how, actually in
process of doing over a bedroom, bathroom and boudoir for Christine, just
exactly as if he had expected her ever to lay eyes on them.

Mrs. Lane came to him with the suggestion that he would wish Christine to
be one of the patronesses of the next winter's dances. The list was about
to be printed. Max hesitated. "It would be a little premature to put her
down as Mrs. Riatt, wouldn't it?" he objected. Mrs. Lane thought this was
merely superstitious, and ordered the cards so printed without consulting
him further.

Every one asked him what he heard from her, so that he actually stooped
once or twice to invent sentences from imaginary letters of hers. He even
went so far as to read the society columns of the New York newspapers, so
that he might not be caught in any absurd error about her whereabouts.
Such at least is the reason by which he explained his conduct to himself.

He was shocked to find that he was restless and dissatisfied. The only
occupation that seemed to give any relief was gambling; or, as a
mine-owning friend of his expressed it, in making "a less conservative
and more remunerative investment of his capital." He spent hours every
day hanging over the ticker in the office of Burney, Manders and
Company--and this young and eager firm of brokers made more money in
commissions during the first two weeks of his return than they had during
the whole year that preceded it.

On the whole he lost, and Welsley, his mining friend, seeing this began
to urge on him more and more the advisability of buying out the majority
of stock in a certain Spanish-American gold mine. At first he always made
the same answer: "You know as well as I do, Welsley, I would never put a
penny into any property I had not inspected."

But gradually a desire to inspect it grew up in his mind. What would suit
his plans better than a long trip, as soon as the breaking of his
engagement was announced? A week at sea, two or three days on a river,
and then sixty miles on mule-back over the mountains--there at least he
would not be troubled by accounts of Christine's wedding, or assertions
that she had looked brilliant at the opera.

He had been at home about two weeks, when her first letter came. So far
the only scrap of her handwriting that he possessed was the formal
release that she had given him the afternoon they became engaged, and
which, for safe keeping doubtless, he always carried in his pocketbook,
and which he sometimes found himself reading over--not as a proof that he
could get out of his engagement, but rather in an attempt to verify the
fact that he had ever got into it.

However unfamiliar with her writing, he had not the least doubt about the
letter from the first instant that he saw it. No one else could use such
absurd faint blue and white paper and such large square envelopes. As he
took it up, he said to himself that it had never occurred to him that she
would write, and yet he saw without any sense of inconsistency that he
had looked for this letter in every mail. And yet, so perverse is the
nature of mankind, that he opened it, not with pleasure, but with a
sudden return of all his old terror of being trapped.

"Dear Max," it said. "I have been pretending so often to write to you for
the benefit of my inquiring friends, that I think I may as well do it as
a tribute to truth.

"How foolish that was--the night you went away! One gets carried away
sometimes by the drama of a situation, without any relation to the facts,
and the idea of parting forever from one's fiance is rather dramatic,
isn't it? I cried all night, and rather enjoyed it. Then in the morning
when I woke up, everything seemed to have returned to the normal, and I
could not understand what had made me so silly.

"Don't suppose that because you have gone, I am therefore freed from the
disagreeable criticism of which you made such a speciality. Ned comes in
almost every day to tell me that he does not approve of my conduct. I am
not behaving, it appears, as an affianced bride should. Don't you like
to think of Ned so loyally protecting your interests in your absence?
His criticisms are, I suppose, based on the attentions of a nice little
boy just out of college, who calls me 'Helen,' and writes sonnets to me
which are to appear in the most literary of weeklies. Look out for them.
They are good, and may raise your low estimate of my charms. The best
one begins:

"When the blond wonder first on Paris dawned--

"Isn't that pretty?

"Write to me. At least send me a blank envelope that I may leave
ostentatiously on my desk.

"Yours at the moment,

"CHRISTINE."

Riatt's first thought on laying down the letter was: "Hickson never in
the world objected to any little poet just out of college, and she knows
it very well. It's Linburne he is worried about--Linburne, whose name she
does not even mention." And how absurd to attempt to make him believe she
had cried all night. That was simply an untruth. Yet oddly enough, it
came before his eyes in a more vivid picture than many a scene he had
actually witnessed.

A few minutes later he went to the club and looked up the literary weekly
of which she had spoken. There was no sonnet in it, but the issue of the
next week contained it. Riatt read it with an emotion he could not
mistake. It brought Christine like a visible presence before him. Also it
made him angry, to have to see her like this, through another man's eyes.
"Little whelp," he said, "to detail a woman's beauty in print like that!
What does he know about it anyhow? I don't believe for one second she
looked at him like that."

The sonnet ended:

She turned, a white embodiment of joy,
And looking on him, sealed the doom of Troy.

He was roused by a friendly shout in his ear. "Ho, ho, Max, reading
poetry, are you? What love does for the worst of us!" It was Welsley, who
snatched the paper out of his hand, running over the lines rapidly to
himself: "Hem, hem, 'carnation, alabaster, gold and fire.' Some queen,
that, eh? Have you had your dinner? Well, don't be cross. There's no
reason why you shouldn't read verse if you like. And this young man is
the latest thing. My wife says they are going to import him here to speak
to the Greek Study Club."

"I shall be curious to hear him, if the Greek Club will ask me," said
Max.

"Oh, you'll be in the East getting married," answered Welsley.

Strangely enough, it was with something like a pang that Max said to
himself that he wouldn't be.

"Carnation, alabaster, gold and fire."

It was not a bad line, he thought.

After dinner, he felt a little more amiable, and so he sat down and wrote
his first real letter to his fiancee.

"If we were really engaged, my dear Christine," he wrote, "you would have
had a night letter long before this, asking you to explain to me just how
it was that you did look on that amorous young poet. His verse is pretty
enough, though I can't say I exactly enjoyed it. However, my native town
thinks very highly of him, and intends to ask him to come and address one
of our local organizations. If so, I shall have an opportunity of
questioning him on the subject of the sources of his inspiration. 'Is
Helen a real person?' I shall ask. 'Not so very,' I can imagine his
replying. Ah, what would we both give to know?

"My friends here, stimulated by Dorothy Lane's ravishing description of
you, have asked many times to see your picture. I am ashamed of my own
carelessness in having gone away without obtaining one for exhibition
purposes. Will you send me one at once? One not already in circulation
among poets and painters. I will set it on my writing table, and allow my
eyes to stray sentimentally toward it whenever I have people to dinner.

"By the way, the day I left New York I told a florist to send you flowers
every day. We worked out quite an elaborate scheme for every day in the
week. Did he ever do it?

"Yours, at least in the sight of this company,

"MAX RIATT."

In answer to this, he was surprised by a telegram:

"So sorry for absurd mistake. Entirely misunderstood source of the
flowers. Enjoy them a great deal more now. Yes, they come regularly. A
thousand thanks. Am sending photograph by mail."

Riatt did not need to ask himself from whom she had imagined they came.
Not the poet, unless magazine rates were rising unduly. Nor Hickson, who
failed a little in such attentions. No, it was Linburne--and evidently
Linburne's attentions were taken so much as a matter of course, that she
had not even thanked him, nor had he noticed her omission.

He did not answer the telegram, nor did he acknowledge the photograph
but, true to his word, he established it at once on his desk in a frame
which he spent a long time in selecting. The picture represented
Christine at her most queenly and unapproachable. She wore the black and
gold dress, and the huge feather fan was folded across her bare arms.
Every time he looked at it, he remembered how those same arms had been
clasped round his own stiff and unbending neck. And sometimes he found
the thought distracted his attention from important matters.

It was about the middle of February when he received one morning a letter
from Nancy Almar. He knew _her_ handwriting. She was always sending him
little notes of one kind or another. This one was very brief.

"Clever mouse! So it knew a way to get out all the time!"

All day he speculated on the meaning of this strange message. Had Nancy
discovered some proof of the nature of his engagement? Had Christine been
moved by pity to tell Hickson the truth? On the whole he inclined to
think that this was the explanation.

The next day he knew he had been mistaken. He had a letter from Laura
Ussher--not the first in the series--urging him to come back at once.

"Max," she wrote, with a haste that made her almost indecipherable, "you
must come. What are you dreaming of--to leave a proud, beautiful,
impressionable creature like Christine the prey to so finished a villain
as Linburne? You are not so ignorant of the ways of the world as not to
know his intentions. Most people are saying you deserve everything that
is happening to you. I try to explain, but I know you saw enough while
you were here to be put upon your guard. Why don't you come? I must warn
you that if you do not come at once you need not come at all."

Riatt had just come in; it was late in the afternoon. The letters were
lying on his writing table; and as he finished this one, he raised his
eyes and looked at Christine's picture.

He did not believe Laura's over-wrought picture. Christine was no fool,
Linburne no villain. There was probably a little flirtation, and a good
deal of gossip. But that would all be put a stop to by the announcement
of Christine's engagement to Hickson. He did not even feel annoyed at his
cousin's suggestion that he did not know his way about the world. He knew
it rather better than she did, he fancied.

And having so disposed of his mail, he took up the evening paper which
lay beneath it, and read the first headline:

Mrs. Lee Linburne to seek divorce: Wife of well-known multimillionaire
now at Reno--

As he read this a blind rage swept over Riatt. He did not stop to inquire
why if he were willing to give Christine up to Hickson he was infuriated
at the idea of Linburne's marrying her; nor why, as he had allowed
himself to be made use of, he was angry to find that he had been far more
useful than he had supposed. He only knew that he was angry, and with an
anger that demanded instant action.

He looked at his watch. He had time to catch a train to Chicago. He went
upstairs and packed. He knew that what he was doing was foolish, that he
would poignantly regret it, but he never wavered an instant in his
intention.

He reached New York early in the afternoon. He had notified no one of his
departure, and he did not announce his arrival. He went straight to the
Fenimers' house--not indeed expecting to find Christine at home at that
hour, but resolved to await her return.

The young man at the door, who had known Riatt before, appeared confused,
but was decided.

Miss Fenimer, he insisted, was out.

Glancing past him Riatt saw a hat and stick on the hall table. He had no
doubt as to their owner.

"I'll wait then," he said, coming in, and handing his own things to the
footman, who seemed more embarrassed still.

Taking pity on him, Riatt said:

"You mean Miss Fenimer is at home, but has given orders that she won't
see any one?"

Such, the man admitted, was the case.

"She'll see me," Riatt answered, "take my name up."

The footman, looking still more wretched, obeyed. Riatt heard him go into
the little drawing-room overhead, and then there was a long pause. Once
he thought he heard a voice raised in anger. As may be imagined his own
anger was not appeased by this reception.

While he was waiting, the door of a room next the front-door opened and
Mr. Fenimer came out. His astonishment at seeing Riatt was so great that
with all his tact he could not repress an exclamation, which somehow did
not express pleasure.

"You here, my dear Riatt!" he said, grasping him cordially by the hand.
"Christine, I'm afraid--"

"I've sent up to see," said Max, curtly.

"Ah, well, my dear fellow," Mr. Fenimer went on easily, "come, you know,
a man really can't go off in the casual way you did and expect to find
everything just as he likes when he comes back. I have a word to say to
you myself. Shall we walk as far as the corner together?"

To receive his dismissal from Mr. Fenimer was something that Riatt had
never contemplated.

"I should prefer to wait until the footman comes down," he answered.

"No use, no use," said Mr. Fenimer, suddenly becoming jovial, "I happen
to know that Christine is out. Come back a little later--"

"And whose hat is that, then?" asked Max.

It had been carelessly left on its crown and the initials "L.L." were
plainly visible.

Mr. Fenimer could not on the instant think of an answer, and Riatt
decided to go upstairs unannounced.

As he opened the drawing-room door he heard Christine's voice saying:
"Thank you, I shall please myself, Lee, even without your kind
permission."

The doors in the Fenimer house opened silently, so that though Christine,
who was facing the door, saw him at once, Linburne, whose back was turned
to it, was unaware of his presence, and answered: