She was adding up the score, and her arithmetic did not fail her. "And
that makes 387, Mr. Wickham," she said, and then she looked up with her
bright, piercing eyes, in time to see Laura fling herself
enthusiastically into Riatt's arms. She got up with a shrewd smile. "Let
me congratulate you, too, Mr. Riatt," she said. "I always like to see
people get what they deserve."

"Oh, Nancy, I'm sure you think I'm getting far more than I deserve," said
Christine.

"You haven't actually got it yet, darling," returned Mrs. Almar.

"That sounds almost like a threat, my dear."

"More in the line of a prophecy."

At this moment the footman created a diversion by announcing that the
sleigh was waiting to take Mr. Riatt to the train, and Riatt explained
that he had decided not to take the train that day. Then Christine, on
inquiring, found that Hickson was writing letters in the library, and
went away to talk to him. She had no fear of leaving Max; she knew he was
in safe hands; Laura would not allow Nancy an instant alone with him.
Nor, as a matter of fact, was Riatt himself eager to subject himself to
the cross-examination of that keen and contemptuous intelligence. Indeed
Nancy soon drifted out of the room, and Riatt found himself committed to
a long tête-à-tête with Laura on the subject of Christine's perfections,
and his supposed deceitfulness in pretending indifference. "Oh, you
protested too much, my dear Max," Laura insisted with the most irritating
exuberance. "I knew when you began to say that she was the last woman in
the world you would fall in love with, that your hour had come. No man