She became suddenly plaintive. “Of course I can see,” she said, “why any one shouldn’t want to be married, but I can’t see why you object to being engaged to me for a few weeks.”
“How can I be sure you will keep your word?”
“I’ll give it to you in writing,” she returned. “Write: This is to certify that I, Christine Fenimer, have enveigled the innocent and unsuspecting youth—”
“I won’t,” said Riatt.
“I will then,” she answered, and sitting down she wrote:
“This is to certify that I, Christine Fenimer, have speciously, feloniously and dishonorably induced Mr. Max Riatt to make me an offer of marriage, which I knew at the time he had no wish to fulfil, and I hereby solemnly vow and swear to release him from same on or before the first day of March of this year of grace. (Signed) Christine Fenimer.”
“There,” she said, “put that in your pocketbook, and for goodness’ sake don’t let your pocket be picked between now and the first of March.”
He took it and put it very carefully away, observing as he did so: “It’s a long time to the first of March.”
“It mayn’t seem as long as you think.”
“Are you by any chance supposing,” he asked with a directness he had learnt from her own methods, “that by that time I may have fallen in love with you?”