“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: “I suppose Laura was suggesting that you marry me?” He nodded. “Laura’s a dear, but not always very wise. You see, she thinks we are both so wonderful, she can’t believe we wouldn’t make each other happy. And from her point of view, it is rather an obvious solution. You see, she does not know about that paragon in the Middle West.” “She existed only in my imagination.” “Oh, a dream-lady,” said Christine, and her eyes brightened a little. “No wonder you thought her too good for Ned. Well, that brings me to what I came to tell you. I have decided to marry Edward Hickson.”