“Oh, I suppose one of the grooms might have driven me over, but I should have hated that. There was no one else. Jack is much too selfish, and I wouldn’t have gone with that Wickham person for anything in the world, even if he had ever driven a sleigh, which I am sure he hasn’t.” “And how about Mr. Hickson?” Riatt asked. “Wasn’t he a possibility?” “What has Nancy Almar told you about her brother and me?” “Nothing but what he told me himself in every look and word--that he loves you.” Christine sighed. He smiled at her. “And you’re glad of it,” he said. “You mean I care for him?” “I don’t know anything about that, but you’re glad he cares for you.” “You’re utterly mistaken.” “How would you feel if another woman came and took him away from you to-morrow?” “Took him away from me?” cried Christine, in a tone of surprise that made Riatt laugh aloud. “That’s the wonderful thing about the so-called weaker sex,” he said. “Saying ‘no’ seems to have no terrors to them at all. The timidest girl will refuse a man with no more trouble and anxiety than she would expend on refusing a dinner invitation; whereas men, with all their vaunted courage, are absolutely at the mercy of a determined woman. I have a friend who has just married a girl--whom he three times explicitly refused--only because she asked him to.” Miss Fenimer looked at him thoughtfully. “Surely you exaggerate,” she said. He shook his head sadly. “I wish I did,” he returned, “but I assure you that is the great secret--that any man would rather marry any woman than refuse her to her face. You see, no graceful way for a man to say ‘no’ has ever been discovered.” “Why, you poor defenseless creatures!” said Christine. “I’ll teach you some ways immediately. I couldn’t bear to think of your going about a prey to the first woman who proposed to you. Let us begin our lessons immediately. Have I your attention?” “Completely.” “Let me see. In the first place there are several general types of proposal. There is the calmly rational, the passionate whirlwind, the dangerously controlled, or volcano under a sheet of ice--” she broke off. “I don’t know how women do it,” she said. “I only know about men.” He smiled, “But you admit to knowing all about them, I gather?” It would have been folly to deny it. “And then there’s the meltingly pathetic,” she went on. “I imagine that’s what women attempt oftenest. Let us begin with that. Now you are to suppose that I, with tears streaming down my face, have just confessed that I have always looked up to you as a sort of god, that I hardly dare--” “Wait, wait!” cried Riatt. “This is by far the most interesting part of the lesson, and you go so fast. I have no imagination. I don’t know how it would be, you must say all those things.” “Do I have to cry?” said Christine. Riatt debated the point. “No,” he answered at length, “I can imagine the tears, but everything else you must act out. Particularly that part about my seeming like a god to you.”