“Where’s Max?”
Christine cast down her eyes with a sort of Paul-and-Virginia expression, as she answered: “Oh, he is sleeping in the tool-house!”
“Well, I call that damned nonsense,” said Ussher. “Let a man freeze to death! Upon my word, Christine, I thought you had more sense.” And he strode away to the back door. “Yes, here are his tracks, poor fellow.” Ussher went out after him, and Hickson turned back.
“But you think I was right, don’t you, Edward?” said Christine, for she had never failed to elicit commendation from Edward.
But now his brow was dark. “But, I say, Christine,” he said, “there’s one thing I don’t understand. These tracks of his footsteps in the snow.”
“He didn’t fly, Ned, even if he is an aviator.”
“Yes, but it didn’t stop snowing until four o’clock this morning.”
How irritating the weather always is, Christine thought. For though she was willing to use scandal as a weapon over Riatt, she was not sure that she wished to put it into Hickson’s hands.
She thought hard, and then said brightly:
“Oh, perhaps he came back for his breakfast before I was up.”