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.”