After dinner he found that he and Mrs. Almar were to go in her tiny coupe, and the four others in Linburne’s large car.

“And so,” she observed as soon as they started, “the mouse preferred the trap after all?” And he could feel that she was laughing at him in the shadow.

“But feels none the less grateful for the kind intention to rescue him.”

“Oh, I don’t care much for the gratitude of a man in love with another woman.”

“You judge me to be very much in love?”

This general conviction on the part of the ladies of his acquaintance was growing monotonous.  Nancy continued: 

“But come back in two years, and we’ll talk of gratitude then.  In the meantime let us stick to the impersonal.  What do you think of Linburne?”

“I’ve had many opportunities of judging.  I’ve been nowhere for two days without meeting him.”

Mrs. Almar laughed with meaning.

“I wonder why that should be,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Riatt asked, but at that moment they drew up before the Thirty-ninth Street entrance, and the doorman, opening the motor’s door, shouted “Ten—­Forty-five”—­a cheerful lie he has been telling four times a week for many years.

In the opera box, Riatt at once seated himself behind Christine.  There is no place like the opera for public devotion.  Christine was resplendent in black and gold with a huge black and gold fan that made the fans of the temple dancers—­the opera was “Aida”—­look commonplace and ineffective.

Behind it she now murmured to Max: 

“And what poisonous thing did dear Nancy tell you coming down?”

“Nothing—­except what everyone has been telling me for the last few days—­that I seemed very much in love.”

“And that annoyed you, I suppose.”

“On the contrary.  I was delighted to find I was such a good actor.”

“People who pretend to be asleep sometimes end by actually doing it.  Pretending is rather dangerous sometimes.”

“Yes, but you see I shan’t have to pretend after to-morrow.”

“Are you all packed and ready?”

“Mentally I am.”

In the entr’acte which followed quickly after their entrance, Christine dismissed him very politely.  “There,” she said, “you don’t have to stay on duty all the time.  You can go and stretch your legs, if you want.”

He rose at once, and as he did so, Linburne slipped into his place.

Riatt had caught sight of Laura Ussher across the house, and knew his duty demanded that he should go and say a word to his exuberant cousin who, he supposed, regarded herself as the artificer of his happiness.

“Oh, my dear Max,” she began, hastily bundling out an old friend who had been reminiscing about the days of the de Rezskes, and waving Riatt into place, “every one is so delighted at the engagement, and thinks you both so fortunate.  How happy she is, Max!  She looks like a different person.”