rivolous reply was properly ignored by both men, and Riatt went on:
"Don't you think you ought to consider the fact that Miss Fenimer and I
are engaged?"

"Miss Fenimer assures me she does not intend to marry you."

"And may I ask if you consider that she does intend to marry you--that is
if you should happen to become marriageable?"

"That is a question between her and me," returned Linburne.

Riatt laughed. "I see," he said. "The matrimonial plans of my future wife
are no affair of mine?" And for an instant he felt his most proprietary
rights were being invaded.

"Miss Fenimer is not your future wife."

"Well, Mr. Linburne, I hear you say so."

"You shall hear _her_ say so," answered Linburne. "Christine," he added
peremptorily, "tell Riatt what you have just been telling me."

There was a long painful silence. Both men stood looking intently at
Christine, who sat with her head erect, staring ahead of her like a
sphinx, but saying nothing. After a moment she glanced up at Max's face,
as if she expected to find there an answer to her problem. She did not
look at Linburne.

"Christine," said Max very gently, "what have you told Mr. Linburne?"

"She has told me everything," answered Linburne impetuously, and then
seeing by the glance that the two others exchanged that such was not the
case, his temper got the best of him.

"Do you mean you've been lying to me?" he asked.

"Just what did you tell him, Christine?" said Riatt, finding it easier
and easier to be calm and protecting as his adversary grew more violent.

Christine looked up at him with the innocence of a child. "I told him
that we did not love each other, and that our engagement was really
broken, but that no one was to know until March."

"Why did you tell him that?"

"It's the truth, Max--almost the truth."

"Almost the truth!" cried Linburne. "Do you want me to think you care
something for this man after all?"

"In the simple section of the country from which I come," observed Riatt,
"we often care a good deal for the people we marry."

Linburne turned on him. "Really, Mr. Riatt," he said, "you don't take an
idea very quickly. You have just heard Miss Fenimer say that she did not
love you and that she considered your engagement at an end."

"I heard her say she had told you that."

"You mean to imply that she said what was untrue?"

"I could answer your question better," said Riatt, "if I understood a
little more clearly what your co