“They won’t and I don’t,” said Nancy, and moved rapidly to the door.

“One moment, Mrs. Almar,” said Riatt, firmly.  “You happen to be mistaken.  I did very definitely ask Miss Fenimer to marry me not ten minutes ago.”

“And do you renew that request?” said Christine.

“I do.”

Christine held out her hand with the gesture of a queen.  “And I very gratefully accept your generous offer,” she said.

“Well, heaven itself can’t save a fool,” said Mrs. Almar, and she went out of the room, and slammed the door after her.

As she went, Riatt actually flung the hand of his newly affianced wife from him.  “May I ask,” he said, “what you think you are doing?”

Christine had covered her face with her hands, and had sunk into a chair.  For an instant Riatt really thought that the strain of the situation had been too much for her; but on closer inspection he found that she was shaking with laughter.

“I can’t be sure which was funnier,” she gasped, “your face or Nancy’s.”

Riatt did not seem to feel mirthful.  “Do you take in,” he asked her sternly, “that you have just broken your word.”

“I’ve just plighted it, haven’t I?”

“You promised to refuse me.”

She sprang up.  “I did not.  I never said a word like it.  If a stenographer had been here, the record would bear me out.  You inferred it, I dare say.  Besides, what could I do?  Even Nancy herself told us no one would believe us unless I accepted you—­at least for a time.”

“For what time?”

“Oh, don’t let us cross bridges until we get to them.  We are hardly engaged yet—­Max!  I must practise calling you Max, mustn’t I?” In attempting to repress an irrepressible smile she developed an unknown dimple in her left cheek.  The sight of it made his tone particularly relentless as he answered: 

“If by the fifteenth of this month you have not broken this engagement, I’ll announce its termination myself.”

“And you,” she went on, as if he had not spoken, “must get into the habit of calling me Christine.”

“Listen to me,” he said, and he took her by the shoulders with a gesture that no one could have mistaken for a caress.  “I do not intend to marry you.”

“I see you feel no doubt of my wishes in the matter.”

“I wonder where I got the idea.”

“Be reassured,” she said, finding herself released.  “My intentions are honorable.  I would not marry any really nice man absolutely against his will.  Although I did say to myself the very first time I saw you, coming downstairs in that well-cut coat of yours—­or is it the shoulders?—­I did say:  ‘I could be happy with that man, happier, that is, than with Ned.’  You may think it isn’t much of a compliment, but Ned has a very nice disposition, nicer than yours.”

“And I should say it was the first requisite for your husband.”

She became suddenly plaintive.  “Of course I can see,” she said, “why any one shouldn’t want to be married, but I can’t see why you object to being engaged to me for a few weeks.”