Ladies Must Live written by Alice Duer Miller

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"I have a piece of news for you, Christine."

"Good or bad?"

"Indifferent, I think you would say. It's a scientific discovery."

"An invention, Max? Could I understand it?"

"I think you can if you make an effort."

"What is it?"

He put his arms suddenly about her. "I find I'm in love with you," he
said, and added a moment later: "And just think that I've been engaged to
you so long and that's the first time I've kissed you."

Christine with her head still buried on his shoulders murmured, "But it
won't be the last."

Riatt's expression changed. "Not absolutely the last, perhaps," he
answered with something that just wasn't a sigh.

She looked up at him. "That piece of indifferent news of yours--" she
began.

"Didn't I describe it correctly?"

"It wasn't news to me."

"You mean you had already guessed that I loved you?"

"I've always known it."

"Always?"

"You can't think I would ever have let you go away at all, if I had not
felt sure. And if you hadn't loved me, I couldn't have brought you back."

"I came back because--"

"Because the Linburnes were getting a divorce, and because Laura
wrote you a letter. Do you fancy I had nothing to do with either of
those events?"

And Riatt found himself answering almost in the word of Cyrano:

"_Non, non, mon cher amour, je ne vous aimais pas_."

The days that followed were the happiest that Riatt had ever known. Only
those who have lived in a brief and agreeable present can understand the
fullness of joy that he was able to extract from it. If he had been
under sentence of death he could not have given less thought to the
future. He gave himself up wholly to the two excitements of making love
and losing money.

At first he prospered more at the former than the latter. For at first,
for some time after he had acquired the stock of the mine, the reports
from it grew more and more favorable and old friends came to him and
begged him to allow them to take up a little of it. His curt refusal to
all such propositions increased the impression that he knew he had a very
good thing and meant to keep it all for himself.

But he did not have very long to wait for the turn of the tide. Within a
few weeks he received a letter from Welsley, alarming only because its
intention was so obviously to allay alarm. It appeared that a liberal
revolution was threatened; the concession from the government then in
power would not bear the scrutiny of an impartial witness such as our own
State Department. If, in other words, the present government fell, the
concession would fall, too.

"However," Welsley wrote cheerfully, "though the revolution has the
support of the uneducated element of the population, which comprises most
of the people, as they have neither arms, ammunition nor money, they
can't do much, unless some fool in the north is induced to finance them.
You could help us a lot by looking about and seeing if there is any
danger of such a thing."

On receipt of this, Riatt instantly telegraphed to Welsley as follows:

"Count upon me. What is the name and address of the revolutionary
agent here?"

The next day in a back bedroom of a down-town hotel, $10,000 changed
hands between a slight, dark, very finished gentleman who spoke English
with the slightest possible accent, and a tall, fine-looking young
American whose name never appeared in the transaction. Within a month a
shipment of arms had been smuggled into a certain South American country,
with the result that the revolution was completely successful--as indeed
it deserved to be. One of the first acts of the new government was to
revoke the iniquitous concession of the San Pedro gold mine, made to "a
group of greedy North American capitalists by the former corrupt and evil
administration."

Riatt's bearing during this unhappy experience was universally praised.
As he went in and out of his broker's office, not a trace of anxiety
visible upon his countenance, men would nudge each other and whisper,
"Did you ever see such nerve? He stands to lose a million."

The only moment of regret that he suffered was when one day, when things
first began to look badly, he met Linburne and another man in Wall
Street, and there was something subtly insulting and triumphant in the
former's manner of condoling with him about the situation.

Rumors of it reached Christine. She liked the picture of Riatt's courage
and calm, and hated the danger of his losing money.

"You're not risking too much, are you, Max?" she asked.

"Wouldn't you enjoy love in a cottage, Christine?" he answered.

She tried to make it clear to him how little such a prospect would tempt
her, and gathered from the fact that he hardly listened to her reply that
he felt confident there was no real danger.

With the success of the revolution, Riatt realized that his holiday was
over, that he must tell Christine the truth and then retire to his old
home and begin a new method of life on his decreased income.

It was now early April--a warm advanced spring--when he decided that the
next day should see the end of his little drama. But, as we all know, it
sometimes happens that those who set a mine are the most startled by the
explosion; and Riatt, at an early breakfast (for he and Christine were
going into the country for the day), with a mind occupied with the
phrases in which he should bid her good-by and eyes lazily reading the
newspaper, was suddenly startled beyond words by a short paragraph on the
financial page. This stated in the baldest terms the failure of his
brokers at home.

There was no country expedition for Riatt that day. He rushed
down-town, leaving a short message for Christine, and by night he knew
the worst, knew that the liabilities of the firm far exceeded any
possible assets, knew positively that the comfortable sum he had
intended to preserve for himself had been swept away, knew that he now
really had to begin life over.

That night when he came back to his hotel, he understood for the first
time that he had throughout been cherishing an unrecognized hope; that he
had not been honest with himself, and that all the time beneath his great
scheme had lain the belief that when the truth was known Christine would
prefer him and his moderate income to Linburne and his wealth; that, in
short, the great scheme had been all the time not a method of freeing
himself, but a test of her affection.

Now any such possibility was over. Now he himself was facing the problem
of mere existence--at least he would be as soon as he had collected his
wits enough to face anything.

The next day, which was Sunday, he spent entirely with his lawyer. When
he came back to his hotel, between the entrance and the elevator a figure
rose in his path. It was Hickson.

"Riatt, I'm awfully sorry about this," he said.

"Thank you, Hickson. It's very decent of you to be," Max answered as
cordially as he could, but he was tired and wanted to be let alone, and
there was not as much real gratitude in his heart as there should have
been. He did not ask Ned to sit down until he had explained with his
accustomed simplicity that he had something of importance to say. Then
Riatt let him lead the way to one of those remote and stuffy
sitting-rooms in which all hotels abound. He saw at once that Hickson
found it difficult to say what he had come to say, but Riatt was in no
humor this time to help him out.

"I'm awfully sorry this has happened," Hickson went on, "not only on your
account, but on Christine's. I mean that I did begin to hope that life
with you meant peace and happiness for her--"

To cut him short, Riatt said quickly: "Now, of course, the marriage is
out of the question."

Hickson's face brightened, as if the difficult words had been said for
him. "You do feel that?" he said, nodding a little as if to encourage
his friend.

Max did not answer at first in words; he laughed rather bitterly, and
then after a pause he said, "Yes, Hickson, I do."

Ned was clearly relieved. "Of course," he said, "I did not know how that
would be. But I own it did occur to me. The world is very censorious of
poor Christine. Every one will say that she is the kind of woman who
can't stick to a man in adversity. Yes, I assure you, Riatt, lots of
these women who can't put down one of their motors without having nervous
prostration will pillory Christine for breaking her engagement,
unless--" he paused.

"I don't follow your idea, Ned."

Hickson sighed. "Why, as long as you recognize the impossibility of the
marriage, couldn't you in some way make it appear that the breaking of
the engagement came from you--as--if--"

"I see," said Riatt. There was a short silence, and then he asked in a
tone that sounded perfectly calm to Hickson: "Is this a message from
Christine?"

"Oh, no. Not a message from Christine, though she has been trying to
communicate with you for two days. She can't see why you won't even
answer her letters. I told her I would find you--"

"In fact, it _is_ a message, or at least you are her messenger?"

"No, Riatt, at least not from her. I have a message for you, but not
from her."

"From whom?"

"From Linburne. He has the greatest admiration for your power, abilities,
in spite of any differences you may have had. He wants to offer you a
position, only he felt awkward about doing it himself after what has
taken place. He asked me to speak to you. It's a good salary, only it
means going to Manchuria, no--"

"One moment," said Riatt. "These two messages, are they in any way
connected?"

"I don't understand."

"Linburne's offer is not by any chance the reward for my giving Christine
a suitable release?"

Hickson was really shocked. "How can you think such a thing, Riatt?"

"Where did you see Linburne?"

Hickson hesitated, but confessed after some protest that it had been at
Christine's house.

"But you don't understand, you really don't," he said. "She has been
distracted by your reverses, and not hearing from you she has turned to
me, to Jack Ussher, to any one who could give her news and help you, as
she imagined--"

"I understand quite enough," answered Riatt. "Thank Mr. Linburne for his
kind offer and say I have other plans; and tell Christine she can have
her absolution for nothing. I'll give her a letter that will put her
right with every one." And walking to a desk:

"My dear Christine," he wrote. "As you are aware, I have lost everything
I have in the world, and though I know that to a spirit like your own
poverty could not alter love, I must own that I, more experienced in
privation, find that the situation has had a somewhat chilling effect
upon my emotions. In short, my dear, I cannot begin life over again
hampered by a wife. Thanking you for the loyalty with which you have
stood by me in this crisis, and wishing you every happiness in the
future, believe me

"Sincerely yours,

"R.M. RIATT."

He handed the note to Hickson. "I think that, taken externally, will
effect a cure," he said. "Good night, Hickson. I'm dead tired, so you
won't mind my going to bed. Oh, and I'm off to-morrow, so I shan't see
you again. Good-by."

"Are you going home?" Hickson asked. But Max maintained a certain
vagueness as to his plans, which Hickson, having accomplished his
purpose, did not notice. He was very much pleased with the results of his
diplomacy. No one could say a word against Christine now. It wasn't her
fault if the engagement was broken. Riatt was a noble fellow--only, the
noblest sometimes forgot these simple, practical details.

The next day Riatt paid his bill at the hotel and went away without
leaving an address.

Few of us have driven past rows of suburban cottages, or through streets
lined by city flats, without considering how easy it would be to sink
one's identity and become part of a new unknown life. Riatt certainly had
often thought of such a possibility and now he put his plans into
operation. He took no great precautions against discovery, for he had no
notion that any one would be particularly interested in knowing his
whereabouts. But he allowed those at home to suppose he was working in
New York, as he suggested to those in New York that he had very naturally
gone home.

As a matter of fact, he had taken a position with a new company which was
constructing aeroplanes for the market, into which in past times he had
put a little money. He hired a small flat in Brooklyn, on the top floor,
so that he had a glimpse of the harbor from his sitting-room windows. He
spent the last of his ready money in buying out the dilapidated furniture
of his predecessor; and then with the assistance of the janitor's wife,
who gave him his breakfast and did what she called "redding up the
place," he began to live on the slim salary that his new job gave him.

Every afternoon he would take the new machines out and fly at sunset over
the sandy plains of Long Island, would dine cheaply at some neighboring
restaurant, and would return to his flat about ten, go to bed early and
be ready for work the next morning.

The only relaxation he allowed himself was the excitement of hating
Christine, to which he now devoted a great deal of time and thought. It
was the only thing that gave life any interest.

What was loss of money, after all, he said to himself, for an
able-bodied man? He could bear that well enough, if his life had not
been poisoned, if hope hadn't been taken from him. She had spoilt him
for everything else. His success, if ever he should succeed, would not
bring him what most men wanted of success--a companion and a home. He
had nothing to work for, and yet nothing to do except work. It was all
his own fault, he said; and blamed her all the more bitterly. He was
glad, he thought, that he had made it impossible for her to have a final
interview with him; and in his heart he could not forgive her for not
having overcome the obstacles to a meeting which he had set up in the
last frenzied days in New York.

"If I were of a revengeful disposition," he said to himself, "I should
ask nothing better than that she should marry Linburne"; and he concluded
that he was not revengeful because he found he did not want it. He made
up his mind after the most prolonged consideration that a woman such as
Christine exercised the maximum influence for evil; a thoroughly wicked
woman could not help inspiring distrust, but a nature like hers had
enough good to attach you and yet left you nothing to depend upon.

He read the papers, awaiting the announcement of her marriage, but found
no mention of her name except once, toward the end of May, a short
paragraph announcing that she had gone out of town for the season.

It was soon after he had read this that he came home earlier than usual
and let himself into his little flat. The day had been successful, a new
device in the engine was working well and the company had had a large
order from abroad. And as usual, with the prospect of success had come to
him a bitter sense of the emptiness of the future. He was thinking of
Christine, and when he turned the switch of the electric light, there she
was. She was sitting in a large shabby armchair, drawn close to the
window, so that she could look out at the river. She had taken off her
hat, and her hair shown particularly golden and her eyes looked brightly
blue in the sudden glare of light.

"You're dreadfully late," she said, quite as if she had charge of his
comings and goings. "I've been here hours and hours and hours."

Now that he actually saw her before him, it was neither love nor hate
that he felt, but an undefinable and overmastering emotion that seemed
to petrify him, so that he stood there quite silent with his hand on
the switch.

"Well," she went on, "aren't you surprised to see me?"

He bent his head.

"Can you guess why I have come?"

He shook his head.

She looked a little distressed at this. "Then perhaps I've made a mistake
in coming."

At this he spoke for the first time. "I should say that the chances were
that you had," he said, and his tone was not agreeable.

The edge of his words seemed to give her back all her confidence. "Now,
how strange that you should not know why I'm here! I've come, of course,
to return your pearls." He saw now, between the laces of her summer dress
that she was wearing them. "In common honesty I could hardly keep them."
She put up her hands to the clasp, but it did not yield at once to her
touch, and she looked up at him. "I think you'll have to undo it for me,"
she murmured, with bent head.

"I don't want them," he answered, with temper. "I never want to see
them again."

"Nor me, either, perhaps?"

"Nor you either--perhaps."

She rose and approached him. "I'll keep them on one condition, Max--that
you take permanent charge of both of us." Then seeing that she had
produced no change in his expression, she came very close indeed.
"There's no use in looking like a stone image, Max. It won't save you."

"Save me! And what is my danger?"

"I'm your danger, my dear."

"Not any longer, Christine."

"You mean you don't love me any more?"

"Not a bit."

At this she shifted her ground with admirable ease.

"In that case," she said cheerfully, "we can talk the whole subject over
quite dispassionately."

"Quite, if there were anything to talk over."

"Only first," she said, "aren't you going to ask me to stay to dinner?
It's very late, you know--"

"I don't dine here," he answered, "and I doubt if you would eat very much
at the restaurant where I take my meals."

"Well, would you mind my going into the kitchen and making myself a
cup of tea?"

He gave his consent, but evinced no intention of accompanying her. To see
her like this, in his own home, where he had so often imagined her being
and where she would never be again, was torture to him.

After an interval that seemed to him an eternity, she came back
flushed and triumphant, carrying a tray on which were tea, toast and
scrambled eggs.

"There," she said, "don't you think I've improved? Don't you think I'm
rather a good housewife?"

The element of pathos in her self-satisfaction was too much for him. "I'm
afraid I'm not in the mood either for comedy or for supper," he said.

Her face fell. "I thought you'd be so hungry," she observed gently. "But
no matter. Sit down and we'll talk."

"I know of nothing to talk about," he returned, but he dropped
reluctantly into a hard, stiff chair opposite her.

"I'll tell you what there is to talk about," said Christine. "Something
that has never been mentioned in all the discussions that have been
taking place. And that is my feelings."

"Your feelings," Riatt began, rather contemptuously, but she stopped him.

"No," she said, "you shan't say what you were going to. My feelings,
my feelings for you. You've told me that you did _not_ love me, that
you despised me, that you _did_ love me, but you've never asked how I
felt to you."

"But you've made it so clear. You felt that, in default of anything else,
I would do."

She leaned across the table and looked at him gravely. "Max," she said,
"I love you."

He made no motion, not even one of contempt, and so she got up, and
coming round the table, she knelt down beside him and put her arms
tightly about him. Still he did not move, except that his hands, which
had been hanging at his sides, now gripped the edges of the chair with
the rigidity of iron, and he said in a voice which sounded even in his
own ears like that of a total stranger:

"What folly this is, Christine!"

"Why is it folly?"

"If you had said this six weeks ago, while I still had enough money to--"

"If I had said it then you wouldn't have believed me." He looked at her;
it was true.

"But now," she went on rapidly, "you must believe me. If I come now to
live with you and work for you, no one can accuse me of mercenary
motives--not even you, Max. I shan't get anything from the bargain but
you, and that is all I want."

"This is madness," said Riatt, trying not very sincerely to free himself.

"Yes, of course it's mad, like all really logical things," she answered.
"But that's the way it's going to be. I love you, and I am going to stay
with you."

"I couldn't let you," he said. "I couldn't accept such a sacrifice."

"A sacrifice, Max. That's the first really stupid thing I ever heard you
say. It isn't a sacrifice; it's a result, a consequence of the fact that
I love you. It isn't a question of my doing it, or your letting me. It
simply can't be otherwise. The other things I used to value--parties and
pretty clothes and luxuries--they were a sort of game I played because I
did not know any other. But only part of me was alive then. I was like a
blind person; and they were my stick; but now that I can see, the stick
is just in my way. It isn't silly and romantic to believe in love, Max.
The hardest-headed, most practical people believe in it--every one who
has any sense really believes in it, when they find it. To be poor, to be
uncomfortable--it's a price, but a small one to pay for love. Isn't that
true--true, at least, as far as you're concerned?"

"Oh, yes, as far as I'm concerned--"

"Then what right have you to think it's not true to me? Don't be such a
moral snob, Max. If love's the best thing in the world for you, it's ever
so much more so for me--I need it more."

"Nobody could need it more than I do," he answered, suddenly clasping
her to him.

"It's the way it's going to be, anyhow," she murmured.

"I can't let you go," he said, as if arguing with an unseen auditor.

She nodded in a somewhat contracted space. "That's it," she announced.
"It has to be."

It was only a few days later that Nancy Almar, driving past a well-known
house-furnishing shop on her way home to tea, was surprised to observe
her brother standing, with a salesman at his elbow, in trancelike
contemplation of a small white enameled ice-box. With her customary
decision, Nancy ordered her chauffeur to stop, and entering the shop by
another door she stood close beside Hickson during his purchase of the
following articles: the ice-box, an improved coffee percolator and a
complete set of kitchen china of an extremely decorative pattern.

"Bless me, Ned," she said suddenly in his ear, "might one ask when you
are going to housekeeping, and with whom?"

There was no denying that Ned's start was guilty, and his manner confused
as he answered, "Oh, they're not for me--"

The salesman who, perhaps, lacked tact, or possibly only wanted to get
away to wait on another customer, said at this point:

"And the address, sir? I have the name--Mrs. Max Riatt."

"Riatt married!" cried Nancy. "But to whom? I thought he had nothing left
in the world."

"He hasn't," answered Ned, hastily scribbling the address on a card and
handing it to the man.

"Oh, then he's married some one who loves him for himself alone, I know.
That faithful sleek-headed girl from his home town. Won't Christine be
angry when she hears it! She always likes her old loves to pine a long
time before they console themselves. Let us go and tell her. Or is she
away still?"

A rather sad smile lit up Hickson's countenance as he followed his sister
to her motor. "I think she knows it," he said.

Nancy put her hand on his arm. "Oh, dear, darling Ned," she said. "Get in
and drive home with me and tell me all about it. I knew he really never
cared for Christine. She dazzled and distressed him in about equal
proportions. And yet I doubt if Miss--Whatever-Her-Name-Was--will be very
exciting--"

"It is not Miss Lane, who, by the way, I like and admire very much," said
Ned, firmly.

"Who is it? Some one I know?"

"Yes, you know her."

Something in his extreme solemnity transferred the idea to her.

"You don't mean that Christine--"

He nodded. "I was at their wedding yesterday."

"And where are they?"

"That's it, Nancy. They're living in a flat and they have no servant--"

His sister leaned back and laughed heartily, and then composing her
countenance with an effort, she said: "My poor dear! But it's really all
for the best. She won't stay with him six months."

"Nancy! She'll stay with him forever."

"Where is this flat?"

"I've promised not to tell. They don't want to be bothered by all of us."

"They want to conceal their deplorable situation, of course. Well, my
dear, I can wait. Six months from now I'll ask them to dine to meet
Linburne. Christine's dresses will be a little out of fashion, and
they'll come in a trolley car, and she'll have a veil over her head--"

"Six months from now Riatt may be on the way to making a nice little sum.
He has a very good thing, he thinks."

"He'd better be quick about it. A flat in summer! Oh, the cinders on the
window-sill, and the sun on the roof, and the knowledge that all of us
are going out of town to lawns and lakes--He'd better be quick, Ned."

The motor had stopped before the door of Nancy's little house which was
arrayed in its summer dress of red and white awnings, and red and white
window boxes. The footman had rung the bell, and was waiting with his eye
on the front door, so as to catch the right second for opening the door
of the motor.

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