I can't see why you object to being
engaged to me for a few weeks."

"How can I be sure you will keep your word?"

"I'll give it to you in writing," she returned. "Write: This is to
certify that I, Christine Fenimer, have enveigled the innocent and
unsuspecting youth--"

"I won't," said Riatt.

"I will then," she answered, and sitting down she wrote:

"This is to certify that I, Christine Fenimer, have speciously,
feloniously and dishonorably induced Mr. Max Riatt to make me an offer of
marriage, which I knew at the time he had no wish to fulfil, and I hereby
solemnly vow and swear to release him from same on or before the first
day of March of this year of grace. (Signed) CHRISTINE FENIMER."

"There," she said, "put that in your pocketbook, and for goodness' sake
don't let your pocket be picked between now and the first of March."

He took it and put it very carefully away, observing as he did so: "It's
a long time to the first of March."

"It mayn't seem as long as you think."

"Are you by any chance supposing," he asked with a directness he had
learnt from her own methods, "that by that time I may have fallen in love
with you?"

She did not hesitate at all. "Well, I think it is a possibility."

"Oh, anything's possible, but I can tell you this: Even if I were in love
with you, you are not the type of woman I should ever dream of marrying."

"What would you do?"

"If I saw the slightest chance of falling in love with you--which I
don't--I should try all the harder to free myself."

"I don't see how you could try any harder than you have. You begin to
make me suspicious."

"Miss Fenimer--"

"Christine, please."

"Christine, I am not the least bit in love with you."

"Quite sure that you're not whistling to keep your courage up?"

"Quite sure."

"Well," she said, "just to show my fair spirit, I'll tell you that I
entirely believe you. Shall I add it to the contract: And I credit his
repeated assertion that he is not and never will be in the least in love
with me? No, I think I'll omit the 'and never will be' clause."

"And may I ask one other question," he continued, ignoring her last
suggestion. "What did you mean when you told me that you had decided to
marry Hickson?"

"So I have. Don't you see? He and I are really engaged, but he doesn't
know it. You and I are not really engaged, and you _do_ know it."

"I wish I did," he returned gloomily.

"Oh, yes," she said, "you know it and I know