“It’s only a little way from here,” Christine answered, trying hard to think how far it really was. She did want to get her father’s coat, but she was not indifferent to the triumph of making Riatt late for dinner, and leaving Nancy Almar throughout the afternoon with no companion but Wickham or Jack Ussher.
The wind cut their faces, the horse pulled and pranced, the gaiety had gone out of their little expedition. They drove on a mile or so, and then Riatt stopped the horse.
“We’ve got to go back, Miss Fenimer,” he said firmly.
“Oh, please not, Mr. Riatt; we are almost there, and,” she added with a fine sense of filial obligation, “I really feel I must do as my father asked me.”
Riatt felt inclined to point out that she, with her muff held up to her face, was not making the greatest sacrifice to the ideal of duty.
“Have you any very clear idea where your house is?” he asked. His tone was not flattering, and Christine was quick to feel it.
“Do I know where I live five months of the year?” she returned. “Of course I do. It’s just over this next hill.”
The afternoon was turning out so perversely that she would hardly have been surprised to find that the house had disappeared from its accustomed place. But as they came over the crest, there it was, in a hollow between two hills, looking as summer houses do in winter, like a forlorn toy left out in the snow.
“But it’s shut up,” said Riatt. “There’s no one in it.”
“I have the keys to the back door.”