“I thought she looked rather tired this evening,” answered Riatt, who always found himself perverse in face of Laura’s enthusiasm.

Mrs. Ussher raised her opera glass and studied Christine’s profile, bent slightly toward Linburne, who was talking with the immobility of feature which many people use when saying things in public which they don’t wish overheard.  “Oh, well, she doesn’t look as brilliant as she did when you were with her.  But isn’t that natural?  I wonder why Nancy asked Lee Linburne and where is that silly little wife of his.  Oh, don’t go, Max.  It’s only the St. Anna attache; we met him on the coast last summer.”

But Riatt insisted on making way for the South American diplomat, who was standing courteously in the back of the box.

He wandered out into the corridors, not enough interested in any of his recent acquaintances to go and speak to them.  Two men coming up behind him were talking; he could not help hearing their dialogue: 

“Who’s this fellow she’s engaged to?”

“No one knows—­a Western chap with a lot of money.”

“Suppose she cares anything about him?”

“Oh, no, she’s telling every one she doesn’t.  They say he’s mad about her.”

“Ought to be, by Jove.  I always thought the only man she ever cared for—­”

Riatt found himself straining his ears vainly to catch the name, but it was drowned in other conversations that rose about him.  He understood now why Christine had been angry at his telling Dorothy that he was not in love, for he found himself annoyed at the idea of her having told everybody that she wasn’t.  But, it’s a different thing, he thought, to tell one intimate friend in confidence, or to give the news to every Tom, Dick and Harry.  Then the juster side of his nature reasserted itself, and he saw that she was only laying the trail for the breaking of her engagement.  Yet this evidence of her good faith did not entirely allay the irritation of his spirit.

When he went back to the box, Linburne was gone, and the man who had replaced him, yielded to Riatt with the most submissive promptness.  But this time no easy interchange occurred between them.

About half past ten, Christine leaned over to her hostess, and said:  “Would you care at all if I deserted you, dear?  I’m tired.”

“Mind when I have my Roland to keep me company?” said Nancy.  “One seems to take one’s husband to the opera this year.”

At this point Linburne, who had been standing in the back of the box, came forward and said:  “Won’t you take my car, Miss Fenimer?  I’ll go down and find it for you.”

A look that passed between them, a twinkle in Nancy’s eyes, suddenly convinced Riatt that the scheme was for Linburne to take Christine home.  He did not stop to ask why this idea was repugnant to him, but he said firmly: 

“I have a car of my own downstairs, and I’ll take Miss Fenimer home.”  It was of course a lie, as the simple taxicab was his only means of vehicular locomotion, but a taxi, thank heaven, can always be obtained quickly at the Metropolitan.  Christine consented.  Linburne stepped back.