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diff --git a/4929.txt b/4929.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..7f401a6 --- /dev/null +++ b/4929.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9099 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig, by +David Graham Phillips + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig + +Author: David Graham Phillips + +Posting Date: February 22, 2011 [EBook #4929] +Release Date: January, 2004 +[This file was first posted on March 27, 2002] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES *** + + + + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + + + + + + + + +THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG + +A NOVEL + +BY DAVID GRAHAM PHILLIPS + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I.--MR. CRAIG ARRAYS HIMSELF + II.--IN THE BEST SOCIETY + III.--A DESPERATE YOUNG WOMAN + IV.--"HE ISN'T LIKE US" + V.--ALMOST HOOKED + VI.--MR. CRAIG IN SWEET DANGER + VII.--MRS. SEVERENCE IS ROUSED + VIII.--MR. CRAIG CONFIDES + IX.--SOMEWHAT CYCLONIC + X.--A BELATED PROPOSAL + XI.--MADAM BOWKER HEARS THE NEWS + XII.--PUTTING DOWN A MUTINY + XIII.--A MEMORABLE MEETING + XIV.--MAGGIE AND JOSH + XV.--THE EMBASSY GARDEN PARTY + XVI.--A FIGHT AND A FINISH + XVII.--A NIGHT MARCH +XVIII.--PEACE AT ANY PRICE + XIX.--MADAM BOWKER'S BLESSING + XX.--MR. CRAIG KISSES THE IDOL'S FOOT + XXI.--A SWOOP AND A SCRATCH + XXII.--GETTING ACQUAINTED +XXIII.--WHAT THE MOON SAW AND DID + XXIV.--"OUR HOUSE IS AFIRE" + XXV.--MRS. JOSHUA CRAIG + + + + +THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES OF JOSHUA CRAIG + + + + +CHAPTER I + +MR. CRAIG ARRAYS HIMSELF + + +It was one of the top-floor-rear flats in the Wyandotte, not merely +biggest of Washington's apartment hotels, but also "most +exclusive"--which is the elegant way of saying most expensive. The +Wyandotte had gone up before landlords grasped the obvious truth that in +a fire-proof structure locations farthest from noise and dust should and +could command highest prices; so Joshua Craig's flat was the cheapest in +the house. The ninety dollars a month loomed large in his eyes, focused +to little-town ideas of values; it was, in fact, small for shelter in +"the DE LUXE district of the de luxe quarter," to quote Mrs. Senator +Mulvey, that simple, far-Western soul, who, finding snobbishness to be +the chief distinguishing mark of the Eastern upper classes, assumed it +was a virtue, acquired it laboriously, and practiced it as openly and +proudly as a preacher does piety. Craig's chief splendor was a +sitting-room, called a parlor and bedecked in the red plush and +Nottingham that represent hotel men's probably shrewd guess at the +traveling public's notion of interior opulence. Next the sitting-room, +and with the same dreary outlook, or, rather, downlook, upon disheveled +and squalid back yards, was a dingy box of a bedroom. Like the parlor, +it was outfitted with furniture that had degenerated upward, floor by +floor, from the spacious and luxurious first-floor suites. Between the +two rooms, in dark mustiness, lay a bathroom with suspicious-looking, +wood-inclosed plumbing; the rusted iron of the tub peered through scuffs +and seams in the age-grayed porcelain. + +Arkwright glanced from the parlor where he was sitting into the gloom of +the open bathroom and back again. His cynical brown-green eyes paused +upon a scatter of clothing, half-hiding the badly-rubbed red plush of +the sofa--a mussy flannel nightshirt with mothholes here and there; +kneed trousers, uncannily reminiscent of a rough and strenuous wearer; a +smoking-jacket that, after a youth of cheap gayety, was now a frayed and +tattered wreck, like an old tramp, whose "better days" were none too +good. On the radiator stood a pair of wrinkled shoes that had never +known trees; their soles were curved like rockers. An old pipe clamored +at his nostrils, though it was on the table near the window, the full +length of the room from him. Papers and books were strewn about +everywhere. It was difficult to believe these unkempt and uncouth +surroundings, and the personality that had created them, were actually +being harbored behind the walls of the Wyandotte. + +"What a hole!" grumbled Arkwright. He was in evening clothes, so correct +in their care and in their carelessness that even a woman would have +noted and admired. "What a mess! What a hole!" + +"How's that?" came from the bedroom in an aggressive voice, so +penetrating that it seemed loud, though it was not, and much roughened +by open-air speaking. "What are you growling about?" + +Arkwright raised his tone: "Filthy hole!" said he. "Filthy mess!" + +Now appeared in the bedroom door a tall young man of unusual strength +and nearly perfect proportions. The fine head was carried commandingly; +with its crop of dark, matted hair it suggested the rude, fierce +figure-head of a Viking galley; the huge, aggressively-masculine +features proclaimed ambition, energy, intelligence. To see Josh Craig +was to have instant sense of the presence of a personality. The contrast +between him standing half-dressed in the doorway and the man seated in +fashionable and cynically-critical superciliousness was more than a +matter of exteriors. Arkwright, with features carved, not hewn as were +Craig's, handsome in civilization's over-trained, overbred extreme, had +an intelligent, superior look also. But it was the look of expertness in +things hardly worth the trouble of learning; it was aristocracy's +highly-prized air of the dog that leads in the bench show and tails in +the field. He was like a firearm polished and incrusted with gems and +hanging in a connoisseur's wall-case; Josh was like a battle-tested +rifle in the sinewy hands of an Indian in full war-paint. Arkwright +showed that he had physical strength, too; but it was of the kind got at +the gymnasium and at gentlemanly sport--the kind that wins only where +the rules are carefully refined and amateurized. Craig's figure had the +solidity, the tough fiber of things grown in the open air, in the cold, +wet hardship of the wilderness. + +Arkwright's first glance of admiration for this figure of the forest and +the teepee changed to a mingling of amusement and irritation. The +barbarian was not clad in the skins of wild beasts, which would have set +him off superbly, but was trying to get himself arrayed for a +fashionable ball. He had on evening trousers, pumps, black cotton socks +with just enough silk woven in to give them the shabby, shamed air of +having been caught in a snobbish pretense at being silk. He was +buttoning a shirt torn straight down the left side of the bosom from +collar-band to end of tail; and the bosom had the stiff, glassy glaze +that advertises the cheap laundry. + +"Didn't you write me I must get an apartment in this house?" demanded +he. + +"Not in the attic," rejoined Arkwright. + +"I can't afford anything better." + +"You can't afford anything so bad." + +"Bad!" + +Craig looked round as pleased as a Hottentot with a string of colored +glass beads. "Why, I've got a private sitting-room AND a private bath! I +never was so well-off before in my life. I tell you, Grant, I'm not +surprised any more that you Easterners get effete and worthless. I begin +to like this lolling in luxury, and I keep the bell-boys on the jump. +Won't you have something to drink?" + +Arkwright pointed his slim cane at the rent in the shirt. "What are you +going to do with that?" said he. + +"This? Oh!"--Josh thrust his thick backwoods-man's hand in the +tear--"Very simple. A safety-pin or so from the lining of the +vest--excuse me, waistcoat--into the edge of the bosom." + +"Splendid!" ejaculated Arkwright. "Superb!" + +Craig, with no scent for sarcasm so delicate, pushed on with enthusiasm: +"The safety-pin's the mainstay of bachelor life," said he rhetorically. +"It's his badge of freedom. Why, I can even repair socks with it!" + +"Throw that shirt away," said Arkwright, with a contemptuous switch of +his cane. "Put on another. You're not dressing for a shindy in a shack." + +"But it's the only one of my half-dozen that has a bang-up bosom." + +"Bang-up? That sheet of mottled mica?" + +Craig surveyed the shiny surface ruefully. "What's the matter with +this?" he demanded. + +"Oh, nothing," replied Arkwright, in disgust. "Only, it looks more like +something to roof a house with than like linen for a civilized man." + +Craig reared. "But, damn it, Grant, I'm not civilized. I'm a wild man, +and I'm going to stay wild. I belong to the common people, and it's my +game--and my preference, too--to stick to them. I'm willing to make +concessions; I'm not a fool. I know there was a certain amount of truth +in those letters you took the trouble to write me from Europe. I know +that to play the game here in Washington I've got to do something in +society. But"--here Josh's eyes flashed, and he bent on his friend a +look that was impressive--"I'm still going to be myself. I'll make 'em +accept me as I am. Dealing with men as individuals, I make them do what +_I_ want, make 'em like me as I am." + +"Every game has its own rules," said Arkwright. "You'll get on +better--quicker--go further--here if you'll learn a few elementary +things. I don't see that wearing a whole shirt decently done up is going +to compromise any principles. Surely you can do that and still be as +common as you like. The people look up to the fellow that's just a +little better dressed than they." + +Josh eyed Arkwright in the way that always made him wonder whether he +was in full possession of the secret of this strenuous young Westerner. +"But," said he, "they love and trust the man who will have nothing which +all may not have. The shirt will do for this evening." And he turned +back into the bedroom. + +Arkwright reflected somewhat uncomfortably. He felt that he himself was +right; yet he could not deny that "Josh's cheap demagoguery" sounded +fine and true. He soon forgot the argument in the study of his +surroundings. "You're living like a wild beast here, Josh," he presently +called out. "You must get a valet." + +A loud laugh was the reply. + +"Or a wife," continued Arkwright. Then, in the voice of one announcing +an inspiration, "Yes--that's it! A wife!" + +Craig reappeared. He had on his waistcoat and coat now, and his hair was +brushed. Arkwright could not but admit that the personality took the +edge off the clothes; even the "mottled mica"--the rent was completely +hid--seemed to have lost the worst of its glaze and stiffness. "You'll +do, Josh," said he. "I spoke too quickly. If I hadn't accidentally been +thrust into the innermost secrets of your toilet I'd never have +suspected." He looked the Westerner over with gentle, friendly +patronage. "Yes, you'll do. You look fairly well at a glance--and a +man's clothes rarely get more than that." + +Craig released his laugh upon his fastidious friend's judicial +seriousness. "The trouble with you, Grant, is you've never lived a human +life. You've always been sheltered and pampered, lifted in and out of +bed by valets, had a suit of clothes for every hour in the day. I don't +see how it is I happen to like you." And in Craig's face and voice there +was frankly the condescension of superior to undoubted inferior. + +Arkwright seemed to be wavering between resentment and amused disdain. +Then he remembered the circumstances of their first acquaintance--those +frightful days in the Arizona desert, without food, with almost no +water, and how this man had been absolute ruler of the party of lost and +dying men; how he had forced them to march on and on, with entreaties, +with curses, with blows finally; how he had brought them to safety--all +as a matter of course, without any vanity or boasting--had been leader +by divine right of strength of body and soul. Grant turned his eyes from +Craig, for there were tears in them. "I don't see why you like me, +either, Josh," said he. "But you do--and--damn it all, I'd die for you." + +"I guess you'll come pretty near dying of shame before this evening's +over," laughed Craig. "This is the first time in my life I ever was in a +fashionable company." + +"There's nothing to be frightened about," Grant assured him. + +"Frightened!" Josh laughed boisterously--Arkwright could have wished he +would temper that laugh. "I--frightened by a bunch of popinjays? You +see, it's not really in the least important whether they like me or +not--at least, not to me. I'll get there, anyhow. And when I do, I'll +deal with them according to their deserts. So they'd better hustle to +get solid with me." + +In the two years since he had seen Craig, Arkwright had almost forgotten +his habit of bragging and blowing about himself--what he had done, what +he was going to do. The newspapers, the clippings Josh sent him, had +kept him informed of the young Minnesotan's steady, rapid rise in +politics; and whenever he recalled the absurd boasting that had made him +feel Craig would never come to anything, he assumed it was a weakness of +youth and inexperience which had, no doubt, been conquered. But, no; +here was the same old, conceited Josh, as crudely and vulgarly +self-confident as when he was twenty-five and just starting at the law +in a country town. Yet Arkwright could not but admit there had been more +than a grain of truth in Craig's former self-laudations, that there was +in victories won a certain excuse for his confidence about the future. +This young man, not much beyond thirty, with a personality so positive +and so rough that he made enemies right and left, rousing the envy of +men to fear that here was an ambition which must be downed or it would +become a tyranny over them--this young man, by skill at politics and by +sympathetic power with people in the mass, had already compelled a +President who didn't like him to appoint him to the chief post under an +Attorney-General who detested him. + +"How are you getting on with the Attorney-General?" asked Arkwright, as +they set out in his electric brougham. + +"He's getting on with me much better," replied Craig, "now that he has +learned not to trifle with me." + +"Stillwater is said to be a pretty big man," said Arkwright warningly. + +"The bigger the man, the easier to frighten," replied Josh carelessly, +"because the more he's got to lose. But it's a waste of time to talk +politics to you. Grant, old man, I'm sick and worn out, and how +lonesome! I'm successful. But what of that, since I'm miserable? If it +wasn't for my sense of duty, by Heaven, I sometimes think I'd drop it +all and go back to Wayne." + +"Don't do that, Josh!" exclaimed Arkwright. "Don't let the country go +rolling off to ruin!" + +"Like all small creatures," said Craig, "you take serious matters +lightly, and light matters seriously. You were right a moment ago when +you said I needed a wife." + +"That's all settled," said Grant. "I'm going to get you one." + +"A woman doesn't need a man--if she isn't too lazy to earn a living," +pursued Craig. "But what's a man without a woman about?" + +"You want a wife, and you want her quick," said Arkwright. + +"You saw what a condition my clothes are in. Then, I need somebody to +talk with." + +"To talk to," corrected Grant. + +"I can't have you round all the time to talk to." + +"Heaven forbid!" cried Arkwright. "You never talk about anything but +yourself." + +"Some day, my boy," said Josh, with his grave good humor of the great +man tolerating the antics of a mountebank, "you'll appreciate it wasn't +the subject that was dull, but the ears. For the day'll come when +everybody'll be thinking and talking about me most of the time." + +Arkwright grinned. "It's lucky you don't let go before everybody like +that." + +"Yes, but I do," rejoined Craig. "And why not? They can't stop my going +ahead. Besides, it's not a bad idea"--he nodded, with that shrewdness +which was the great, deep-lying vein in his nature--"not at all a bad +idea, to have people think you a frank, loose-mouthed, damn fool--IF you +ain't. Ambition's a war. And it's a tremendous advantage to lead your +enemies to underestimate you. That's one reason why I ALWAYS win ... So +you're going TO TRY to get me a wife?" + +"I'm going to get you one--one of the sort you need. You need a woman +who'll tame you down and lick you into shape." + +Craig smiled scornfully. + +"One who'll know how to smooth the enemies you make with your +rough-and-tumble manners; one who'll win friends for you socially--" + +Josh made a vehement gesture of dissent. "Not on your life!" cried he. +"Of course, my wife must be a lady, and interested in my career. But +none of your meddling politicians in petticoats for me! I'll do my own +political maneuvering. I want a woman, not a bad imitation of a man." + +"Well, let that go," said Arkwright. "Also, she ought to be able to +supply you with funds for your political machinery." + +Josh sat up as if this were what he had been listening for. + +"That's right!" cried he. "Politics is hell for a poor man, nowadays. +The people are such thoughtless, short-sighted fools--" He checked +himself, and in a different tone went on: "However, I don't mean exactly +that--" + +"You needn't hedge, Josh, with me." + +"I don't want you to be thinking I'm looking for a rich woman." + +"Not at all--not at all," laughed his friend. + +"If she had too much money it'd be worse for my career than if she had +none at all." + +"I understand," said Arkwright. + +"Enough money to make me independent--if I should get in a tight place," +continued Josh. "Yes, I must marry. The people are suspicious of a +bachelor. The married men resent his freedom--even the happily married +ones. And all the women, married and single, resent his not +surrendering." + +"I never suspected you of cynicism." + +"Yes," continued Craig, in an instantly and radically changed tone, "the +people like a married man, a man with children. It looks respectable, +settled. It makes 'em feel he's got a stake in the country--a home and +property to defend. Yes, I want a wife." + +"I don't see why you've neglected it so long." + +"Too busy." + +"And too--ambitious," suggested Arkwright. + +"What do you mean?" demanded Josh, bristling. + +"You thought you'd wait to marry until you were nearer your final place +in the world. Being cut out for a king, you know--why, you thought you'd +like a queen--one of those fine, delicate ladies you'd read about." + +Craig's laugh might have been confession, it might have been mere +amusement. "I want a wife that suits me," said he. "And I'll get her." + +It was Arkwright's turn to be amused. "There's one game you don't in the +least understand," said he. + +"What game is that?" + +"The woman game." + +Craig shrugged contemptuously. "Marbles! Jacks!" Then he added: "Now +that I'm about ready to marry, I'll look the offerings over." He clapped +his friend on the shoulder. "And you can bet your last cent I'll take +what I want." + +"Don't be too sure," jeered Arkwright. + +The brougham was passing a street lamp that for an instant illuminated +Craig's face. Again Arkwright saw the expression that made him feel +extremely uncertain of the accuracy of his estimates of the "wild man's" +character. + +"Yes, I'll get her," said Josh, "and for a reason that never occurs to +you shallow people. I get what I want because what I want wants me--for +the same reason that the magnet gets the steel." + +Arkwright looked admiringly at his friend's strong, aggressive face. + +"You're a queer one, Josh," said he. "Nothing ordinary about you." + +"I should hope not!" exclaimed Craig. "Now for the plunge." + + + + +CHAPTER II + +IN THE BEST SOCIETY + + +Grant's electric had swung in at the end of the long line of carriages +of all kinds, from coach of ambassador and costly limousine of +multi-millionaire to humble herdic wherein poor, official grandee's wife +and daughter were feeling almost as common as if they had come in a +street car or afoot. Josh Craig, leaning from the open window, could see +the grand entrance under the wide and lofty porte-cochere--the women, +swathed in silk and fur, descending from the carriages and entering the +wide-flung doors of the vestibule; liveries, flowers, lights, sounds of +stringed instruments, intoxicating glimpses of magnificence at windows, +high and low. And now the electric was at the door. He and Arkwright +sprang out, hastened up the broad steps. His expression amused +Arkwright; it was intensely self-conscious, resolutely indifferent--the +kind of look that betrays tempestuous inward perturbations and +misgivings. "Josh is a good deal of a snob, for all his brave talk," +thought he. "But," he went on to reflect, "that's only human. We're all +impressed by externals, no matter what we may pretend to ourselves and +to others. I've been used to this sort of thing all my life and I know +how little there is in it, yet I'm in much the same state of +bedazzlement as Josh." + +Josh had a way of answering people's thoughts direct which Arkwright +sometimes suspected was not altogether accidental. He now said: "But +there's a difference between your point of view and mine. You take this +seriously through and through. I laugh at it in the bottom of my heart, +and size it up at its true value. I'm like a child that don't really +believe in goblins, yet likes the shivery effects of goblin stories." + +"I don't believe in goblins, either," said Arkwright. + +"You don't believe in anything else," said Josh. + +Arkwright steered him through the throng, and up to the hostess--Mrs. +Burke, stout, honest, with sympathy in her eyes and humor in the lines +round her sweet mouth. "Well, Josh," she said in a slow, pleasant +monotone, "you HAVE done a lot of growing since I saw you. I always knew +you'd come to some bad end. And here you are--in politics and in +society. Gus!" + +A tall, haughty-looking young woman, standing next her, turned and fixed +upon Craig a pair of deep, deep eyes that somehow flustered him. Mrs. +Burke presented him, and he discovered that it was her daughter-in-law. +While she was talking with Arkwright, he examined her toilette. He +thought it startling--audacious in its display of shoulders and +back--until he got over his dazed, dazzled feeling, and noted the other +women about. Wild horses could not have dragged it from him, but he felt +that this physical display was extremely immodest; and at the same time +that he eagerly looked his face burned. "If I do pick one of these," +said he to himself, "I'm jiggered if I let her appear in public dressed +this way. Why, out home women have been white-capped for less." + +Arkwright had drifted away from him; he let the crowd gently push him +toward the wall, into the shelter of a clump of palms and ferns. There, +with his hands in his pockets, and upon his face what he thought an +excellent imitation of Arkwright's easy, bored expression of +thinly-veiled cynicism, he surveyed the scene and tried to judge it from +the standpoint of the "common people." His verdict was that it was vain, +frivolous, unworthy, beneath the serious consideration of a man of +affairs such as he. But he felt that he was not quite frank, in fact was +dishonest, with himself in this lofty disdain. It represented what he +ought to feel, not what he actually was feeling. "At least," said he to +himself, "I'll never confess to any one that I'm weak enough to be +impressed by this sort of thing. Anyhow, to confess a weakness is to +encourage it ... No wonder society is able to suck in and destroy so +many fellows of my sort! If _I_ am tempted what must it mean to the +ordinary man?" He noted with angry shame that he felt a swelling of +pride because he, of so lowly an origin, born no better than the +machine-like lackeys, had been able to push himself in upon--yes, up +among--these people on terms of equality. And it was, for the moment, in +vain that he reminded himself that most of them were of full as lowly +origin as he; that few indeed could claim to be more than one generation +removed from jack-boots and jeans; that the most elegant had more +relations among the "vulgar herd" than they had among the "high folks." + +"What are you looking so glum and sour about?" asked Arkwright. + +He startled guiltily. So, his mean and vulgar thoughts had been +reflected in his face. "I was thinking of the case I have to try before +the Supreme Court next week," said he. + +"Well, I'll introduce you to one of the Justices--old Towler. He comes +of the 'common people,' like you. But he dearly loves fashionable +society--makes himself ridiculous going to balls and trying to flirt. +It'll do you no end of good to meet these people socially. You'll be +surprised to see how respectful and eager they'll all be if you become a +recognized social favorite. For real snobbishness give me your friends, +the common people, when they get up where they can afford to put on +airs. Why, even the President has a sneaking hankering after fashionable +people. I tell you, in Washington EVERYTHING goes by social favor, just +as it does in London--and would in Paris if fashionable society would +deign to notice the Republic." + +"Introduce me to old Towler," said Craig, curt and bitter. He was +beginning to feel that Arkwright was at least in part right; and it +angered him for the sake of the people from whom he had sprung, and to +whom he had pledged his public career. "Then," he went on, "I'm going +home. And you'll see me among these butterflies and hoptoads no more." + +"Can't trust yourself, eh?" suggested Arkwright. + +Craig flashed exaggerated scorn that was confession. + +"I'll do better than introduce you to Towler," proceeded Arkwright. +"I'll present you to his daughter--a dyed and padded old horror, but +very influential with her father and all the older crowd. Sit up to her, +Josh. You can lay the flattery on as thick as her paint and as high as +her topknot of false hair. If she takes to you your fortune's made." + +"I tell you, my fortune is not dependent on--" began Craig vehemently. + +"Cut it out, old man," interrupted Arkwright. "No stump speeches here. +They don't go. They bore people and create an impression that you're +both ridiculous and hypocritical." + +Arkwright left Josh with Towler's daughter, Mrs. Raymond, who was by no +means the horror Arkwright's language of fashionable exaggeration had +pictured, and who endured Craig's sophomoric eulogies of "your great and +revered father," because the eulogist was young and handsome, and +obviously anxious to please her. As Arkwright passed along the edge of +the dancers a fan reached out and touched him on the arm. He halted, +faced the double line of women, mostly elderly, seated on the +palm-roofed dais extending the length of that end of the ballroom. + +"Hel-LO!" called he. "Just the person I was looking for. How is Margaret +this evening?" + +"As you see," replied the girl, unfurling the long fan of eagle plumes +with which she had tapped him. "Sit down.... Jackie"--this to a rosy, +eager-faced youth beside her--"run away and amuse yourself. I want to +talk seriously to this elderly person." + +"I'm only seven years older than you," said Arkwright, as he seated +himself where Jackie had been vainly endeavoring to induce Miss +Severence to take him seriously. + +"And I am twenty-eight, and have to admit to twenty-four," said +Margaret. + +"Don't frown that way. It makes wrinkles; and what's more unsightly than +a wrinkled brow in a woman?" + +"I don't in the least care," replied the girl. "I've made up my mind to +stop fooling and marry." + +"Jackie?" + +"If I can't do better." She laughed a low, sweet laugh, like her voice; +and her voice suggested a leisurely brook flitting among mossy stones. +"You see, I've lost that first bloom of youth the wife-pickers prize so +highly. I'm not unsophisticated enough to please them. And I haven't +money enough to make them overlook such defects as maturity and +intelligence--in fact, I've no money at all." + +"You were never so good-looking in your life," said Grant. "I recall you +were rather homely as a child and merely nice and fresh-looking when you +came out. You're one of those that improve with time." + +"Thanks," said the girl dryly. She was in no mood for the barren blossom +of non-marrying men's compliments. + +"The trouble with you is the same as with me," pursued he. "We've both +spent our time with the young married set, where marriage is regarded as +a rather stupid joke. You ought to have stuck to the market-place until +your business was settled." + +She nodded a thoughtful assent. "Yes, that was my sad mistake," said +she. "However, I'm going to do my best to repair it." + +He reflected. "You must marry money," he declared, as if it were a +verdict. + +"Either some one who's got it or some one who can get it." + +"Some one who's got it, I'd advise." + +"Bad advice," commented the girl, her hazel eyes gazing dreamily, +languorously into the distance. She looked a woman on romance bent, a +woman without a mercenary thought in her head. "Very bad advice," she +went on. "Men who've got money may lose it and be unable to make any +more. What a helpless thing YOU'D be but for what you have inherited and +will inherit. Yet you're above the average of our sort." + +"Humph!" said Arkwright, with an irritated laugh. Humor at his expense +was a severe strain upon him. It always is to those whose sense of humor +is keen; for they best appreciate the sting that lies in the pleasantest +jest. + +"It would be wiser--if one dared be wise," pursued the girl, "to marry a +man who could get money. That kind of man is safest. Only death or +insanity can make him a disappointment." + +Arkwright eyed her curiously. "What a good head you've got on you, +Rita," said he. "Like your grandmother." + +The girl shivered slightly. "Don't SPEAK of her!" she exclaimed with an +uneasy glance around. And Grant knew he was correct in his suspicion as +to who was goading and lashing her to hasten into matrimony. + +"Well--have you selected your--" + +As Arkwright hesitated she supplied, "Victim." They laughed, she less +enthusiastically than he. "Though," she added, "I assure you, I'll make +him happy. It takes intelligence to make a man happy, even if he wants +the most unintelligent kind of happiness. And you've just admitted I'm +not stupid." + +Arkwright was studying her. He had a sly instinct that there was a +reason deeper than their old and intimate friendship for her reposing +this extreme of confidence in him. No doubt she was not without a vague +hope that possibly this talk might set him to thinking of her as a wife +for himself. Well, why not? He ought to marry, and he could afford it. +Where would he find a more ladylike person--or where one who was at the +same time so attractive? He studied, with a certain personal interest, +her delicate face, her figure, slim and gracefully curved, as her +evening dress fully revealed it. Yes, a charming, most ladylike figure. +And the skin of her face, of neck and shoulders, was beautifully white, +and of the texture suggesting that it will rub if too impetuously +caressed. Yes, a man would hesitate to kiss her unless he were well +shaved. At the very thought of kissing her Grant felt a thrill and a +glow she had never before roused in him. She had an abundance of +blue-black hair, and it and her slender black brows and long lashes gave +her hazel eyes a peculiar charm of mingled passion and languor. She had +a thin nose, well shaped, its nostrils very sensitive; slightly, +charmingly-puckered lips; a small, strong chin. Certainly she had +improved greatly in the two years since he had seen her in evening +dress. "Though, perhaps," reflected he, "I only think so because I used +to see her too much, really to appreciate her." + +"Well, why didn't you?" she was saying, idly waving her fan and gazing +vaguely around the room. + +"Why didn't I--what?" + +"You were trying to decide why you never fell in love with me." + +"So I was," admitted Arkwright. + +"Now if I had had lots of cash," mocked she. + +He reddened, winced. She had hit the exact reason. Having a great deal +of money, he wanted more--enough to make the grandest kind of splurge in +a puddle where splurge was everything. "Rather, because you are too +intelligent," drawled he. "I want somebody who'd fit into my melting +moods, not a woman who'd make me ashamed by seeming to sit in judgment +on my folly." + +"A man mustn't have too much respect for a woman if he's to fall utterly +in love with her--must he?" + +Arkwright smiled constrainedly. He liked cynical candor in men, but only +pretended to like it in women because bald frankness in women was now +the fashion. "See," said he, "how ridiculous I'd feel trying to say +sentimental things to you. Besides, it's not easy to fall in love with a +girl one has known since she was born, and with whom he's always been on +terms of brotherly, quite unsentimental intimacy." + +Rita gave him a look that put this suggestion out of countenance by +setting him to thrilling again. He felt that her look was artful, was +deliberate, but he could not help responding to it. He began to be a +little afraid of her, a little nervous about her; but he managed to say +indifferently, "And why haven't YOU fallen in love with ME?" + +She smiled. "It isn't proper for a well-brought-up girl to love until +she is loved, is it?" Her expression gave Grant a faint suggestion of a +chill of apprehension lest she should be about to take advantage of +their friendship by making a dead set for him. But she speedily +tranquilized him by saying: "No, my reason was that I didn't want to +spoil my one friendship. Even a business person craves the luxury of a +friend--and marrying has been my business," this with a slight curl of +her pretty, somewhat cruel mouth. "To be quite frank, I gave you up as a +possibility years ago. I saw I wasn't your style. Your tastes in women +are rather--coarse." + +Arkwright flushed. "I do like 'em a bit noisy and silly," he admitted. +"That sort is so--so GEMUTHLICH, as the Germans say." + +"Who's the man you delivered over to old Patsy Raymond? I see he's still +fast to her." + +"Handsome, isn't he?" + +"Of a sort." + +"It's Craig--the Honorable Joshua Craig--Assistant TO the +Attorney-General. He's from Minnesota. He's the real thing. But you'd +not like him." + +"He looks quite--tame, compared to what he was two years or so ago," +said Rita, her voice as indolent as her slowly-moving eagle feathers. + +"Oh, you've met him?" + +"No--only saw him. When I went West with the Burkes, Gus and the husband +took me to a political meeting--one of those silly, stuffy gatherings +where some blatant politician bellows out a lot of lies, and a crowd of +badly-dressed people listen and swallow and yelp. Your friend was one of +the speakers. What he said sounded--" Rita paused for a word. + +"Sounded true," suggested Grant. + +"Not at all. Nobody really cares anything about the people, not even +themselves. No, it sounded as if he had at least half-convinced himself, +while the others showed they were lying outright. We rather liked +him--at the safe distance of half the hall. He's the kind of man that +suggests--menageries--lions--danger if the bars break." + +"How women do like that in a man!" + +"Do you know him?" + +"Through and through. He's a fraud, of course, like all politicians. But +beneath the fraud there's a man--I think--a great, big man, strong and +sure of himself--which is what can't be said of many of us who wear +trousers and pose as lords of creation." + +The girl seemed to have ceased to listen, was apparently watching the +dancers, Arkwright continued to gaze at his friend, to admire the +impressive, if obviously posed, effect of his handsome head and +shoulders. He smiled with a tender expression, as one smiles at the +weakness of those one loves. Suddenly he said: "By Jove, Rita--just the +thing!" + +"What?" asked the girl, resuming the languid waving of her eagle fan. + +"Marry him--marry Josh Craig. He'll not make much money out of politics. +I doubt if even a woman could corrupt him that far. But you could take +him out of politics and put him in the law. He could roll it up there. +The good lawyers sell themselves dear nowadays, and he'd make a +killing." + +"This sounds interesting." + +"It's a wonder I hadn't thought of it before." + +The girl gave a curious, quiet smile. "I had," said she. + +"YOU had!" exclaimed Arkwright. + +"A woman always keeps a careful list of eligibles," explained she. "As +Lucy Burke told me he was headed for Washington, I put him on my list +that very night--well down toward the bottom, but, still, on it. I had +quite forgotten him until to-night." + +Arkwright was staring at her. Her perfect frankness, absolute +naturalness with him, unreserved trust of him, gave him a guilty feeling +for the bitter judgment on her character which he had secretly formed as +the result of her confidences. "Yet, really," thought he, "she's quite +the nicest girl I know, and the cleverest. If she had hid herself from +me, as the rest do, I'd never for one instant have suspected her of +having so much--so much--calm, good sense--for that's all it amounts +to." He decided it was a mistake for any human being in any +circumstances to be absolutely natural and unconcealingly candid. "We're +such shallow fakers," reflected he, "that if any one confesses to us +things not a tenth part as bad as what we privately think and do, why, +we set him--or her--especially her--down as a living, breathing atrocity +in pants or petticoats." + +Margaret was of the women who seem never to think of what they are +really absorbed in, and never to look at what they are really +scrutinizing. She disconcerted him by interrupting his reflections with: +"Your private opinion of me is of small consequence to me, Grant, beside +the relief and the joy of being able to say my secret self aloud. +Also"--here she grew dizzy at her own audacity in the frankness that +fools--"Also, if I wished to get you, Grant, or any man, I'd not be +silly enough to fancy my character or lack of it would affect him. That +isn't what wins men--is it?" + +"You and Josh Craig have a most uncomfortable way of answering people's +thoughts," said Arkwright. "Now, how did you guess I was thinking mean +things about you?" + +"For the same reason that Mr. Craig is able to guess what's going on in +your head." + +"And that reason is--" + +She laughed mockingly. "Because I know you, Grant Arkwright--you, the +meanest-generous man, and the most generous-mean man the Lord ever +permitted. The way to make you generous is to give you a mean impulse; +the way to make you mean is to set you to fearing you're in danger of +being generous." + +"There's a bouquet with an asp coiled in it," said Arkwright, pleased; +for with truly human vanity he had accepted the compliment and had +thrown away the criticism. "I'll go bring Josh Craig." + +"No, not to-night," said Miss Severence, with a sudden compression of +the lips and a stern, almost stormy contraction of the brows. + +"Please don't do that, Rita," cried Arkwright. "It reminds me of your +grandmother." + +The girl's face cleared instantly, and all overt signs of strength of +character vanished in her usual expression of sweet, reserved +femininity. "Bring him to-morrow," said she. "A little late, please. I +want others to be there, so that I can study him unobserved." She +laughed. "This is a serious matter for me. My time is short, and my list +of possible eligibles less extended than I could wish." And with a +satiric smile and a long, languorous, coquettish glance, she waved him +away and waved the waiting Jackie into his place. + +Arkwright found Craig clear of "Patsy" Raymond and against the wall near +the door. He was obviously unconscious of himself, of the possibility +that he might be observed. His eyes were pouncing from blaze of jewels +to white neck, to laughing, sensuous face, to jewels again or to lithe, +young form, scantily clad and swaying in masculine arm in rhythm with +the waltz. It gave Arkwright a qualm of something very like terror to +note the contrast between his passive figure and his roving eyes with +their wolfish gleam--like Blucher, when he looked out over London and +said: "God! What a city to sack!" + +Arkwright thought Josh was too absorbed to be aware of his approach; but +as soon as he was beside him Josh said: "You were right about that +apartment of mine. It's a squalid hole. Six months ago, when I got my +seventy-five hundred a year, I thought I was rich. Rich? Why, that woman +there has ten years' salary on her hair. All the money I and my whole +family ever saw wouldn't pay for the rings on any one of a hundred hands +here. It makes me mad and it makes me greedy." + +"'I warned you," said Arkwright. + +Craig wheeled on him. "You don't--can't--understand. You're like all +these people. Money is your god. But I don't want money, I want +power--to make all these snobs with their wealth, these millionaires, +these women with fine skins and beautiful bodies, bow down before +me--that's what I want!" + +Arkwright laughed. "Well, it's up to you, Joshua." + +Craig tossed his Viking head. "Yes, it's up to me, and I'll get what I +want--the people and I.... Who's THAT frightful person?" + +Into the room, only a few feet from them, advanced an old woman--very +old, but straight as a projectile. She carried her head high, and her +masses of gray-white hair, coiled like a crown, gave her the seeming of +royalty in full panoply. There was white lace over her black velvet at +the shoulders; her train swept yards behind her. She was bearing a cane, +or rather a staff, of ebony; but it suggested, not decrepitude, but +power--perhaps even a weapon that might be used to enforce authority +should occasion demand. In her face, in her eyes, however, there was +that which forbade the supposition of any revolt being never so remotely +possible. + +As she advanced across the ballroom, dancing ceased before her and +around her, and but for the noise of the orchestra there would have been +an awed and painful silence. Mrs. Burke's haughty daughter-in-law, with +an expression of eager desire to conciliate and to please, hastened +forward and conducted the old lady to a gilt armchair in the center of +the dais, across the end of the ballroom. It was several minutes before +the gayety was resumed, and then it seemed to have lost the abandon +which the freely-flowing champagne had put into it. + +"WHO is that frightful person?" repeated Craig. He was scowling like a +king angered and insulted by the advent of an eclipsing rival. + +"Grandma,"' replied Arkwright, his flippancy carefully keyed low. + +"I've never seen a more dreadful person!" exclaimed Craig angrily. "And +a woman, too! She's the exact reverse of everything a woman should +be--no sweetness, no gentleness. I can't believe she ever brought a +child into the world." + +"She probably doubts it herself," said Arkwright. + +"Why does everybody cringe before her?" + +"That's what everybody asks. She hasn't any huge wealth--or birth, +either, for that matter. It's just the custom. We defer to her here +precisely as we wear claw-hammer coats and low-neck dresses. Nobody +thinks of changing the custom." + +Josh's lip curled. "Introduce me to her," he said commandingly. + +Arkwright looked amused and alarmed. "Not to-night. All in good time. +She's the grandmother of a young woman I want you to meet. She's Madam +Bowker, and the girl's name is Severence." + +"I want to meet that old woman," persisted Josh. Never before had he +seen a human being who gave him a sense of doubt as to the superiority +of his own will. + +"Don't be in too big a hurry for Waterloo," jested Arkwright. "It's +coming toward you fast enough. That old lady will put you in your place. +After ten minutes of her, you'll feel like a schoolboy who has 'got his' +for sassing the teacher." + +"I want to meet her," repeated Craig. And he watched her every movement; +watched the men and women bowing deferentially about her chair; watched +her truly royal dignity, as she was graciously pleased to relax now and +then. + +"Every society has its mumbo-jumbo to keep it in order," said Arkwright. +"She's ours.... I'm dead tired. You've done enough for one night. It's a +bad idea to stay too long; it creates an impression of frivolity. Come +along!" + +Craig went, reluctantly, with several halts and backward glances at the +old lady of the ebon staff. + + + + +CHAPTER III + +A DESPERATE YOUNG WOMAN + + +The house where the Severances lived, and had lived for half a century, +was built by Lucius Quintus Severence, Alabama planter, suddenly and, +for the antebellum days, notably rich through a cotton speculation. When +he built, Washington had no distinctly fashionable quarter; the +neighborhood was then as now small, cheap wooden structures where dwelt +in genteel discomfort the families of junior Department clerks. Lucius +Quintus chose the site partly for the view, partly because spacious +grounds could be had at a nominal figure, chiefly because part of his +conception of aristocracy was to dwell in grandeur among the humble. The +Severence place, enclosed by a high English-like wall of masonry, filled +the whole huge square. On each of its four sides it put in sheepish and +chop-fallen countenance a row of boarding houses. In any other city the +neighborhood would have been intolerable because of the noise of the +rowdy children. But in Washington the boarding house class cannot afford +children; so, few indeed were the small forms that paused before the big +iron Severence gates to gaze into the mysterious maze of green as far as +might be--which was not far, because the walk and the branching drives +turn abruptly soon after leaving the gates. + +From earliest spring until almost Christmas that mass of green was sweet +with perfume and with the songs of appreciative colonies of bright +birds. In the midst of the grounds, and ingeniously shut in on all sides +from any view that could spoil the illusion of a forest, stood the +house, Colonial, creeper-clad, brightened in all its verandas and lawns +by gay flowers, pink and white predominating. The rooms were large and +lofty of ceiling, and not too uncomfortable in winter, as the family was +accustomed to temperatures below the average American indoors. In spring +and summer and autumn the rooms were delightful, with their +old-fashioned solid furniture, their subdued colors and tints, their +elaborate arrangements for regulating the inpour of light. All this +suggested wealth. But the Severances were not rich. They had about the +same amount of money that old Lucius Quintus had left; but, just as the +neighborhood seemed to have degenerated when in fact it had remained all +but unchanged, so the Severence fortune seemed to have declined, +altogether through changes of standard elsewhere. The Severances were no +poorer; simply, other people of their class had grown richer, enormously +richer. The Severence homestead, taken by itself and apart from its +accidental setting of luxurious grounds, was a third-rate American +dwelling-house, fine for a small town, but plain for a city. And the +Severence fortune by contrast with the fortunes so lavishly displayed in +the fashionable quarter of the capital, was a meager affair, just enough +for comfort; it was far too small for the new style of wholesale +entertainment which the plutocracy has introduced from England, where +the lunacy for aimless and extravagant display rages and ravages in its +full horror of witless vulgarity. Thus, the Severences from being +leaders twenty years before, had shrunk into "quiet people," were saved +from downright obscurity and social neglect only by the indomitable will +and tireless energy of old Cornelia Bowker. + +Cornelia Bowker was not a Severence; in fact she was by birth +indisputably a nobody. Her maiden name was Lard, and the Lards were +"poor white trash." By one of those queer freaks wherewith nature loves +to make mockery of the struttings of men, she was endowed with ambition +and with the intelligence and will to make it effective. Her first +ambition was education; by performing labors and sacrifices incredible, +she got herself a thorough education. Her next ambition was to be rich; +without the beauty that appeals to the senses, she married herself to a +rich New Englander, Henry Bowker. Her final and fiercest ambition was +social power. She married her daughter to the only son and namesake of +Lucius Quintus Severence. The pretensions of aristocracy would soon +collapse under the feeble hands of born aristocrats were it not for two +things--the passion of the masses of mankind for looking up, and the +frequent infusions into aristocratic veins of vigorous common blood. +Cornelia Bowker, born Lard, adored "birth." In fulfilling her third +ambition she had herself born again. From the moment of the announcement +of her daughter's engagement to Lucius Severence, she ceased to be Lard +or Bowker and became Severence, more of a Severence than any of the +veritable Severences. Soon after her son-in-law and his father died, she +became so much THE Severence that fashionable people forgot her origin, +regarded her as the true embodiment of the pride and rank of +Severence--and Severence became, thanks wholly to her, a synonym for +pride and rank, though really the Severences were not especially +blue-blooded. + +She did not live with her widowed daughter, as two establishments were +more impressive; also, she knew that she was not a livable person--and +thought none the worse of herself for that characteristic of strong +personalities. In the Severence family, at the homestead, there were, +besides five servants, but three persons--the widowed Roxana and her two +daughters, Margaret and Lucia--Lucia so named by Madam Bowker because +with her birth ended the Severence hopes of a son to perpetuate in the +direct line the family Christian name for its chief heir. From the side +entrance to the house extended an alley of trees, with white flowering +bushes from trunk to trunk like a hedge. At one end of the alley was a +pretty, arched veranda of the house, with steps descending; at the other +end, a graceful fountain in a circle, round which extended a stone +bench. Here Margaret was in the habit of walking every good day, and +even in rainy weather, immediately after lunch; and here, on the day +after the Burke dance, at the usual time, she was walking, as usual--up +and down, up and down, a slow even stride, her arms folded upon her +chest, the muscles of her mouth moving as she chewed a wooden tooth-pick +toward a pulp. As she walked, her eyes held steady like a soldier's, as +if upon the small of the back of an invisible walker in front of her. +Lucia, stout, rosy, lazy, sprawling upon the bench, her eyes opening and +closing drowsily, watched her sister like a sleepy, comfortable cat. The +sunbeams, filtering through the leafy arch, coquetted with Margaret's +raven hair, and alternately brightened and shadowed her features. There +was little of feminine softness in those unguarded features, much of +intense and apparently far from agreeable thought. It was one of her bad +days, mentally as well as physically--probably mentally because +physically. She had not slept more than two hours at most, and her eyes +and skin showed it. + +"However do you stand it, Rita!" said Lucia, as Margaret approached the +fountain for the thirty-seventh time. "It's so dull and tiring, to walk +that way." + +"I've got to keep my figure," replied Margaret, dropping her hands to +her slender hips, and lifting her shoulders in a movement that drew down +her corsets and showed the fine length of her waist. + +"That's nonsense," said Lucia. "All we Severences get stout as we grow +old. You can't hope to escape." + +"Grow old!" Margaret's brow lowered. Then she smiled satirically. "Yes, +I AM growing old. I don't dare think how many seasons out, and not +married, or even engaged. If we were rich, I'd be a young girl still. As +it is, I'm getting on.'" + +"Don't you worry about that, Rita," said Lucia. "Don't you let them +hurry you into anything desperate. I'm sure _I_ don't want to come out. +I hate society and I don't care about men. It's much pleasanter lounging +about the house and reading. No dressing--no fussing with clothes and +people you hate." + +"It isn't fair to you, Lucy," said Margaret. "I don't mind their +nagging, but I do mind standing in your way. And they'll keep you back +as long as I'm still on the market." + +"But I want to be kept back." Lucia spoke almost energetically, half +lifting her form whose efflorescence had a certain charm because it was +the over-luxuriance of healthy youth. "I shan't marry till I find the +right man. I'm a fatalist. I believe there's a man for me somewhere, and +that he'll find me, though I was hid--was hid--even here." And she gazed +romantically round at the enclosing walls of foliage. + +The resolute lines, the "unfeminine" expression disappeared from her +sister's face. She laughed softly and tenderly. "What a dear you are!" +she cried. + +"You can scoff all you please," retorted Lucia, stoutly. "I believe it. +We'll see if I'm not right.... How lovely you did look last night!... You +wait for your 'right man.' Don't let them hurry you. The most dreadful +things happen as the result of girls' hurrying, and then meeting him +when it's too late." + +"Not to women who have the right sort of pride." Margaret drew herself +up, and once more her far-away but decided resemblance to Grandmother +Bowker showed itself. "I'd never be weak enough to fall in love unless I +wished." + +"That's not weakness; it's strength," declared Lucia, out of the fulness +of experience gleaned from a hundred novels or more. + +Margaret shook her head uncompromisingly. "It'd be weakness for me." She +dropped upon the bench beside her sister. "I'm going to marry, and I'm +going to superintend your future myself. I'm not going to let them kill +all the fine feeling in you, as they've killed it in me." + +"Killed it!" said Lucia, reaching out for her sister's hand. "You can't +say it's dead, so long as you cry like you did last night, when you came +home from the ball." + +Margaret reddened angrily, snatched her hand away. "Shame on you!" she +cried. "I thought you were above spying." + +"The door was open between your bedroom and mine," pleaded Lucia. "I +couldn't help hearing." + +"You ought to have called out--or closed it. In this family I can't +claim even my soul as my own!" + +"Please, dear," begged Lucia, sitting up now and struggling to put her +arms round her sister, "you don't look on ME as an outsider, do you? +Why, I'm the only one in all the world who knows you as you are--how +sweet and gentle and noble you are. All the rest think you're cold and +cynical, and--" + +"So I am," said Margaret reflectively, "except toward only you. I'm +grandmother over again, with what she'd call a rotten spot." + +"That rotten spot's the real you," protested Lucia. + +Margaret broke away from her and resumed her walk. "You'll see," said +she, her face stern and bitter once more. + +A maidservant descended the steps. "Madam Bowker has come," announced +she, "and is asking for you, Miss Rita." + +A look that could come only from a devil temper flashed into Margaret's +hazel eyes. "Tell her I'm out." + +"She saw you from the window." + +Margaret debated. Said Lucia, "When she comes so soon after lunch she's +always in a frightful mood. She comes then to make a row because, +without her after-lunch nap, she's hardly human and can be more--more +fiendish." + +"I'll not see her," declared Margaret. + +"Oh, yes, you will," said Lucia. "Grandmother always has her way." + +Margaret turned to the maid. "Tell her I had just gone to my room with a +raging headache." + +The maid departed. Margaret made a detour, entered the house by the +kitchen door and went up to her room. She wrenched off blouse and skirt, +got into a dressing sacque and let down her thick black hair. The +headache was now real, so upsetting to digestion had been the advent of +Madam Bowker, obviously on mischief bent. "She transforms me into a +raging devil," thought Margaret, staring at her fiercely sullen +countenance in the mirror of the dressing table. "I wish I'd gone in to +see her. I'm in just the right humor." + +The door opened and Margaret whisked round to blast the intruder who had +dared adventure her privacy without knocking. There stood her +grandmother--ebon staff in gloved hand--erect, spare body in rustling +silk--gray-white hair massed before a sort of turban--steel-blue eyes +flashing, delicate nostrils dilating with the breath of battle. + +"Ah--Margaret!" said she, and her sharp, quarrel-seeking voice tortured +the girl's nerves like the point of a lancet. "They tell me you have a +headache." She lifted her lorgnon and scrutinized the pale, angry face +of her granddaughter. "I see they were telling me the truth. You are +haggard and drawn and distressingly yellow." + +The old lady dropped her lorgnon, seated herself. She held her staff out +at an angle, as if she were Majesty enthroned to pass judgment of life +and death. "You took too much champagne at those vulgar Burkes last +night," she proceeded. "It's a vicious thing for a girl to do--vicious +in every way. It gives her a reputation, for moral laxity which an +unmarried woman can ill-afford to have--unless she has the wealth that +makes men indifferent to character.... Why don't you answer?" + +Margaret shrugged her shoulders. "You know I detest champagne and never +drink it," said she. "And I don't purpose to begin, even to oblige you." + +"To oblige me!" + +"To give you pretext for contention and nagging and quarreling." + +Madam Bowker was now in the element she had been seeking--the stormy sea +of domestic wrangling. She struck out boldly, with angry joy. "I've long +since learned not to expect gratitude from you. I can't understand my +own weakness, my folly, in continuing to labor with you." + +"That's very simple," said Margaret. "I'm the one human being you can't +compel by hook or crook to bow to your will. You regard me as unfinished +business." + +Madam Bowker smiled grimly at this shrewd analysis. "I want to see you +married and properly settled in life. I want to end this disgrace. I +want to save you from becoming ridiculous and contemptible--an object of +laughter and of pity." + +"You want to see me married to some man I dislike and should soon hate." + +"I want to see you married," retorted the old lady. "I can't be held +responsible for your electing to hate whatever is good for you. And I +came to tell you that my patience is about exhausted. If you are not +engaged by the end of this season, I wash my hands of you. I have been +spending a great deal of money in the effort to establish you. You are a +miserable failure socially. You attach only worthless men. You drive +away the serious men." + +"Stupid, you mean." + +"I mean serious--the men looking for wives. Men who have something and +have a right to aspire to the hand of MY grandchild. The only men who +have a right to take the time of an unmarried woman. You either cannot, +or will not, exert yourself to please. You avoid young girls and young +men. You waste your life with people already settled. You have taken on +the full airs and speech of a married woman, in advance of having a +husband--and that is folly bordering on insanity. You have discarded +everything that men--marrying men--the right sort of men--demand in +maidenhood. I repeat, you are a miserable failure." + +"A miserable failure," echoed Margaret, staring dismally into the glass. + +"And I repeat," continued the old lady, somewhat less harshly, though +not less resolutely, "this season ends it. You must marry or I'll stop +your allowance. You'll have to look to your mother for your dresses and +hats and gee-gaws. When I think of the thousands of dollars I've wasted +on you--It's cheating--it's cheating! You have been stealing from me!" +Madam Bowker's tone was almost unladylike; her ebon staff was +flourishing threateningly. + +Margaret started up. "I warned you at the outset!" she cried. "I took +nothing from you that you didn't force on me. And now, when you've made +dress, and all that, a necessity for me, you are going to snatch it +away!" + +"Giving you money for dress is wasting it," cried the old lady. "What is +dress for? Pray why, do you imagine, have I provided you with three and +four dozen expensive dresses a year and hats and lingerie and everything +in proportion? Just to gratify your vanity? No, indeed! To enable you to +get a husband, one able to provide for you as befits your station. And +because I have been generous with you, because I have spared no expense +in keeping you up to your station, in giving you opportunity, you turn +on me and revile me!" + +"You HAVE been generous, Grandmother," said Margaret, humbly. There had +risen up before her a hundred extravagances in which the old lady had +indulged her--things quite unnecessary for show, the intimate luxuries +that contribute only indirectly to show by aiding in giving the feeling +and air of refinement. It was of these luxuries that Margaret was +especially fond; and her grandmother, with an instinct that those tastes +of Margaret's proved her indeed a lady--and made it impossible that she +should marry, or even think of marrying, "foolishly"--had been most +graciously generous in gratifying them. Now, these luxuries were to be +withdrawn, these pampered tastes were to be starved. Margaret collapsed +despairingly upon her table. "I wish to marry, Heaven knows! +Only--only--" She raised herself; her lip quivered--"Good God, +Grandmother, I CAN'T give myself to a man who repels me! You make me +hate men--marriage--everything of that kind. Sometimes I long to hide in +a convent!" + +"You can indulge that longing after the end of this season," said her +grandmother. "You'll certainly hardly dare show yourself in Washington, +where you have become noted for your dress.... That's what exasperates +me against you! No girl appreciates refinement and luxury more than you +do. No woman has better taste, could use a large income to better +advantage. And you have intelligence. You know you must have a competent +husband. Yet you fritter away your opportunities. A very short time, and +you'll be a worn, faded old maid, and the settled people who profess to +be so fond of you will be laughing at you, and deriding you, and pitying +you." + +Deriding! Pitying! + +"I've no patience with the women of that clique you're so fond of," the +old lady went on. "If the ideas they profess--the shallow frauds that +they are!--were to prevail, what would become of women of our station? +Women should hold themselves dear, should encourage men in that old-time +reverence for the sex and its right to be sheltered and worshiped and +showered with luxury. As for you--a poor girl--countenancing such low +and ruinous views--Is it strange I am disgusted with you? Have you no +pride--no self-respect?" + +Margaret sat motionless, gazing into vacancy. She could not but endorse +every word her grandmother was saying. She had heard practically those +same words often, but they had had no effect; now, toward the end of +this her least successful season, with most of her acquaintances married +off, and enjoying and flaunting the luxury she might have had--for, they +had married men, of "the right sort"--"capable husbands"--men who had +been more or less attentive to her--now, these grim and terrible axioms +of worldly wisdom, of upper class honor, from her grandmother sounded in +her ears like the boom of surf on reefs in the ears of the sailor. + +A long miserable silence; then, her grandmother: "What do you purpose to +do, Margaret?" + +"To hustle," said the girl with a short, bitter laugh. "I must rope in +somebody. Oh, I've been realizing, these past two months. I'm awake at +last." + +Madam Bowker studied the girl's face, gave a sigh of relief. "I feel +greatly eased," said she. "I see you are coming to your senses before +it's too late. I knew you would. You have inherited too much of my +nature, of my brain and my character." + +Margaret faced the old woman in sudden anger. "If you had made +allowances for that, if you had reasoned with me quietly, instead of +nagging and bullying and trying to compel, all this might have been +settled long ago." She shrugged her shoulders. "But that's past and +done. I'm going to do my best. Only--I warn you, don't try to drive me! +I'll not be driven!" + +"What do you think of Grant Arkwright?" asked her grandmother. + +"I intend to marry him," replied Margaret. + +The old lady's stern eyes gleamed delight. + +"But," Margaret hastened to add, "you mustn't interfere. He doesn't like +you. He's afraid of you. If you give the slightest sign, he'll sheer +off. You must let me handle him." + +"The insolent puppy," muttered Madam Bowker. "I've always detested him." + +"You don't want me to marry him?" + +"On the contrary," the old lady replied. "He would make the best +possible husband for you." She smiled like a grand inquisitor at +prospect of a pleasant day with rack and screw. "He needs a firm hand," +said she. + +Margaret burst out laughing at this implied compliment to herself; then +she colored as with shame and turned away. "What frauds we women are!" +she exclaimed. "If I had any sense of decency left, I'd be ashamed to do +it!" + +"There you go again!" cried her grandmother. "You can't be practical +five minutes in succession. Why should a woman be ashamed to do a man a +service in spite of himself? Men are fools where women are concerned. I +never knew one that was not. And the more sensible they are in other +respects, the bigger fools they are about us! Left to themselves, they +always make a mess of marriage. They think they know what they want, but +they don't. We have to teach them. A man needs a firm hand during +courtship, and a firmer hand after marriage. So many wives forget their +duty and relax. If you don't take hold of that young Arkwright, he'll no +doubt fall a victim to some unscrupulous hussy." + +Unscrupulous hussy! Margaret looked at herself in the mirror, met her +own eyes with a cynical laugh. "Well, I'm no worse than the others," she +added, half to herself. Presently she said, "Grant is coming this +afternoon. I look a fright. I must take a headache powder and get some +sleep." Her grandmother rose instantly. "Yes, you do look badly--for +you. And Arkwright has very keen eyes--thanks to those silly women of +your set who teach men things they have no business to know." She +advanced and kissed her granddaughter graciously on top of the head. "I +am glad to see my confidence in you was not misplaced, Margaret," said +she. "I could not believe I was so utterly mistaken in judgment of +character. I'll go to your mother and take her for a drive." + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +"HE ISN'T LIKE US" + + +Margaret continued to sit there, her elbows on the dressing-table, her +knuckles pressing into her cheeks, the hazel eyes gazing at their +reflection in the mirror. "What is it in me," she said to her image, +"that makes me less successful at drawing men to the point than so many +girls who are no better looking than I?" And she made an inventory of +her charms that was creditably free from vanity. "And men certainly like +to talk to me," she pursued. "The fish bite, but the hook doesn't hold. +Perhaps--probably--I'm not sentimental enough. I don't simper and +pretend innocence and talk tommy rot--and listen to it as if I were +eating honey." + +This explanation was not altogether satisfactory, however. She felt +that, if she had a certain physical something, which she must lack, +nothing else would matter--nothing she said or did. It was baffling; +for, there, before her eyes were precisely the charms of feature and +figure that in other women, in far less degree, had set men, many men, +quite beside themselves. Her lip curled, and her eyes laughed +satirically as she thought of the follies of those men--how they had let +women lead them up and down in public places, drooling and sighing and +seeming to enjoy their own pitiful plight. If that expression of satire +had not disappeared so quickly, she might have got at the secret of her +"miserable failure." For, it was her habit of facing men with only +lightly veiled amusement, or often frank ridicule, in her eyes, in the +curve of her lips, that frightened them off, that gave them the uneasy +sense that their assumptions of superiority to the female were being +judged and derided. + +But time was flying. It was after three; the headache was still pounding +in her temples, and her eyes did look almost as haggard and her skin +almost as sallow as her grandmother had said. She took an anti-pyrene +powder from a box in her dressing-table, threw off all her clothes, +swathed herself in a long robe of pale-blue silk. She locked the door +into the hall, and went into her bedroom, closed the door between. She +put the powder in water, drank it, dropped down upon a lounge at the +foot of her bed and covered herself. The satin pillow against her cheek, +the coolness and softness of the silk all along and around her body, +were deliciously soothing. Her blood beat less fiercely, and somber +thoughts drew slowly away into a vague cloud at the horizon of her mind. +Lying there, with senses soothed by luxury and deadened to pain by the +drug, she felt so safe, so shut-in against all intrusion. In a few hours +the struggle, the bitterness would begin again; but at least here was +this interval of repose, of freedom. Only when she was thus alone did +she ever get that most voluptuous of all sensations--freedom. Freedom +and luxury! "I'm afraid I can't eat my cake and have it, too," she mused +drowsily. "Well--whether or not I can have freedom, at least I MUST have +luxury. I'm afraid Grant can't give me nearly all I want--who could?... +If I had the courage--Craig could make more than Grant has, if he were +put to it. I'm sure he could. I'm sure he could do almost anything--but +be attractive to a woman. No, Craig is too strong a dose--besides, +there's the risk. Grant is safest. Better a small loaf than--than no +Paris dresses." + +Arkwright, entering Mrs. Severence's drawing-room with Craig at +half-past five, found a dozen people there. Most of them were of that +young married set which Margaret preferred, to the anger and disgust of +her grandmother and against the entreaties of her own common sense. "The +last place in the world to look for a husband," Madam Bowker had said +again and again, to both her daughter and her granddaughter. "Their talk +is all in ridicule of marriage, and of every sacred thing. And if there +are any bachelors, they have come--well, certainly not in search of +honorable wedlock." + +The room was noisily gay; but Margaret, at the tea-table in a rather +somber brown dress with a big brown hat, whose great plumes shadowed her +pale, somewhat haggard face, was evidently not in one of her sparkling +moods. The headache powder and the nap had not been successful. She +greeted Arkwright with a slight, absent smile, seemed hardly to note +Craig, as Arkwright presented him. + +"Sit down here beside Miss Severence," Grant said. + +"Yes, do," acquiesced Margaret; and Joshua thought her cold and haughty, +an aristocrat of the unapproachable type, never natural and never +permitting others to be natural. + +"And tell her all about yourself," continued Grant. + +"My friend Josh, here," he explained to Margaret, "is one of those +serious, absorbed men who concentrate entirely upon themselves. It isn't +egotism; it's genius." + +Craig was ruffled and showed it. He did not like persiflage; it seemed +an assault upon dignity, and in those early days in Washington he was +full of dignity and of determination to create a dignified impression. +He reared haughtily and looked about with arrogant, disdainful eyes. + +"Will you have tea?" said Miss Severence, as Arkwright moved away. + +"No, thanks," replied Craig. "Tea's for the women and the children." + +Miss Severence's expression made him still more uncomfortable. "Well," +said she, "if you should feel dry as you tell me about yourself, there's +whiskey over on that other table. A cigarette? No? I'm afraid I can't +ask you to have a cigar--" + +"And take off my coat, and put my feet up, and be at home!" said Craig. +"I see you think I'm a boor." + +"Don't you want people to think you a boor?" inquired she with ironic +seriousness. + +He looked at her sharply. "You're laughing at me," he said, calmly. +"Now, wouldn't it be more ladylike for you to try to put me at my ease? +I'm in your house, you know." + +Miss Severence flushed. "I beg your pardon," she said. "I did not mean +to offend." + +"No," replied Craig. "You simply meant to amuse yourself with me. And +because I don't know what to do with my hands and because my coat fits +badly, you thought I wouldn't realize what you were doing. You are very +narrow--you fashionable people. You don't even know that everybody ought +to be judged on his own ground. To size up a race-horse, you don't take +him into a drawing room. And it wouldn't be quite fair, would it, for me +to judge these drawing-room dolls by what they could do out among real +men and women? You--for instance. How would you show up, if you had to +face life with no husband and no money and five small children, as my +mother did? Well, SHE won out." + +Miss Severence was not attracted; but she was interested. She saw beyond +the ill-fitting frock-coat, and the absurd manner, thoroughly ill at +ease, trying to assume easy, nonchalant man-of-the-world airs. "I'd +never have thought of judging you except on your own ground," said she, +"if you hadn't invited the comparison." + +"You mean, by getting myself up in these clothes and coming here?" + +"Yes." + +"You're right, young lady," said Craig, clapping her on the arm, and +waving an energetic forefinger almost in her face. "And as soon as I can +decently get away, I'll go. I told Arkwright I had no business to come +here." + +Miss Severance colored, drew her arm away, froze. She detested all forms +of familiarity; physical familiarity she abhorred. "You have known Grant +Arkwright long?" she said, icily. + +"NOW, what have I done?" demanded Joshua. + +She eyed him with a lady's insolent tranquillity. "Nothing," replied +she. "We are all so glad Grant has come back." + +Craig bit his lip and his tawny, weather-beaten skin reddened. He stared +with angry envy at Arkwright, so evidently at ease and at home in the +midst of a group on the other side of the room. In company, practically +all human beings are acutely self-conscious. But self-consciousness is +of two kinds. Arkwright, assured that his manners were correct and +engaging, that his dress was all it should be, or could be, that his +position was secure and admired, had the self-consciousness of +self-complacence. Joshua's consciousness of himself was the extreme of +the other kind--like a rat's in a trap. + +"You met Mr. Arkwright out West--out where you live?" + +"Yes," said Craig curtly, almost surlily. + +"I was out there once," pursued the young woman, feeling that in her own +house she must do her best with the unfortunate young man. "And, +curiously enough, I heard you speak. We all admired you very much." + +Craig cheered up instantly; he was on his own ground now. "How long +ago?" he asked. + +"Three years; two years last September." + +"Oh, I was a mere boy then. You ought to hear me now." + +And Joshua launched forth into a description of his oratory, then +related how he had won over juries in several important cases. His arms, +his hands were going, his eyes were glistening, his voice had that rich, +sympathetic tone which characterizes the egotist when the subject is +himself. Miss Severence listened without comment; indeed, he was not +sure that she was listening, so conventional was her expression. But, +though she was careful to keep her face a blank, her mind was busy. +Surely not since the gay women of Barras's court laughed at the +megalomaniac ravings of a noisy, badly dressed, dirty young lieutenant +named Buonaparte, had there been a vanity so candid, so voluble, so +obstreperous. Nor did he talk of himself in a detached way, as if he +were relating the performances and predicting the glory of a human being +who happened to have the same name as himself. No, he thrust upon her in +every sentence that he, he himself and none other, had said and done all +these splendid startling things, would do more, and more splendid. She +listened, astounded; she wondered why she did not burst out laughing in +his very face, why, on the contrary, she seemed to accept to a +surprising extent his own estimate of himself. + +"He's a fool," thought she, "one of the most tedious fools I ever met. +But I was right; he's evidently very much of a somebody. However does he +get time to DO anything, when he's so busy admiring himself? How does he +ever contrive to take his mind off himself long enough to think of +anything else?" + +Nearly an hour later Arkwright came for him, cut him off in the middle +of an enthusiastic description of how he had enchained and enthralled a +vast audience in the biggest hall in St. Paul. "We must go, this +instant," said Arkwright. "I had no idea it was so late." + +"I'll see you soon again, no doubt, Mr. Craig," said Miss Severence, +polite but not cordial, as she extended her hand. + +"Yes," replied Craig, holding the hand, and rudely not looking at her +but at Arkwright. "You've interrupted us in a very interesting talk, +Grant." + +Grant and Margaret exchanged smiles, Margaret disengaged her hand, and +the two men went. As they were strolling down the drive, Grant said: +"Well, what did you think of her?" + +"A nobody--a nothing," was Craig's wholly unexpected response. +"Homely--at least insignificant. Bad color. Dull eyes. Bad manners. A +poor specimen, even of this poor fashionable society of yours. An +empty-head." + +"Well--well--WELL!" exclaimed Arkwright in derision. "Yet you and she +seemed to be getting on beautifully together." + +"I did all the talking." + +"You always do." + +"But it was the way she listened. I felt as if I were rehearsing in a +vacant room." + +"Humph," grunted Arkwright. + +He changed the subject. The situation was one that required thought, +plan. "She's just the girl for Josh," said he to himself. "And he must +take her. Of course, he's not the man for her. She couldn't care for +him, not in a thousand years. What woman with a sense of humor could? +But she's got to marry somebody that can give her what she must have.... +It's very important whom a man marries, but it's not at all important +whom a woman marries. The world wasn't made for them, but for US!" + +At Vanderman's that night he took Mrs. Tate in to dinner, but Margaret +was on his left. "When does your Craig make his speech before the +Supreme Court?" asked she. + +He inspected her with some surprise. "Tuesday, I think. Why?" + +"I promised him I'd go." + +"And will you?" + +"Certainly. Why not?" + +This would never do. Josh would get the impression she was running after +him, and would be more contemptuous than ever. "I shouldn't, if I were +you." + +"Why not?" + +"Well, he's very vain, as you perhaps discovered. He might +misunderstand." + +"And why should that disturb me?" asked she, tranquilly. "I do as I +please. I don't concern myself about what others think. Your friend +interests me. I've a curiosity to see whether he has improved in the +last two or three years as much as he says he has." + +"He told you all about himself?" + +"Everything--and nothing." + +"That's just it!" exclaimed Arkwright, misunderstanding her. "After he +has talked me into a state of collapse, every word about himself and his +career, I think it all over, and wonder whether there's anything to the +man or not. Sometimes I think there's a real person beneath that flow of +vanity. Then, again, I think not." + +"Whether he's an accident or a plan," mused the young woman; but she saw +that Arkwright did not appreciate the cleverness and the penetration of +her remark. Indeed, she knew in advance that he would not, for she knew +his limitations. "Now," thought she, "Craig would have appreciated +it--and clapped me on the arm--or knee." + +"Did you like Josh?" Grant was inquiring. + +"Very much, indeed." + +"Of course," said Arkwright satirically. + +"He has ability to do things. He has strength.... He isn't like us." + +Arkwright winced. "I'm afraid you exaggerate him, merely because he's +different." + +"He makes me feel an added contempt for myself, somehow. Doesn't he +you?" + +"I can't say he does," replied Arkwright, irritated. "I appreciate his +good qualities, but I can't help being offended and disturbed for him by +his crudities. He has an idea that to be polite and well-dressed is to +be weak and worthless. And I can't get it out of his head." + +Margaret's smile irritated him still further. "All great men are more or +less rude and crude, aren't they?" said she. "They are impatient of the +trifles we lay so much stress on." + +"So, you think Josh is a great man?" + +"I don't know," replied Margaret, with exasperating deliberateness. "I +want to find out." + +"And if you decide that he is, you'll marry him?" + +"Perhaps. You suggested it the other day." + +"In jest," said Arkwright, unaccountably angry with her, with himself, +with Joshua. "As soon as I saw him in your presence, I knew it wouldn't +do. It'd be giving a piece of rare, delicate porcelain to a grizzly as a +plaything." + +He was surprised at himself. Now that he was face to face with a +possibility of her adopting his own proposition, he disliked it +intensely. He looked at her; never had she seemed so alluring, so +representative of what he called distinction. At the very idea of such +refinement at the mercy of the coarse and boisterous Craig, his blood +boiled. "Josh is a fine, splendid chap, as a man among men," said he to +himself. "But to marry this dainty aristocrat to him--it'd be a damned +disgraceful outrage. He's not fit to marry among OUR women.... What a +pity such a stunning girl shouldn't have the accessories to make her +eligible." And he hastily turned his longing eyes away, lest she should +see and attach too much importance to a mere longing--for, he felt it +would be a pitiful weakness, a betrayal of opportunity, for him to +marry, in a mood of passion that passes, a woman who was merely well +born, when he had the right to demand both birth and wealth in his wife. + +"I've often thought," pursued Margaret, "that to be loved by a man of +the Craig sort would be--interesting." + +"While being loved by one of your own sort would be dull?" suggested +Arkwright with a strained smile. + +Margaret shrugged her bare white shoulders in an inflammatory assent. +"Will you go with me to the Supreme Court on Tuesday?" + +"Delighted," said Arkwright. And he did not realize that the deep-hidden +source of his enthusiasm was a belief that Josh Craig would make an ass +of himself. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +ALMOST HOOKED + + +In human affairs, great and small, there are always many reasons for +every action; then, snugly tucked away underneath all these reasons that +might be and ought to be and pretend to be but aren't, hides the real +reason, the real moving cause of action. By tacit agreement among human +beings there is an unwritten law against the exposing of this real +reason, whose naked and ugly face would put in sorry countenance +professions of patriotism or philanthropy or altruism or virtue of +whatever kind. Stillwater, the Attorney-General and Craig's chief, had a +dozen reasons for letting him appear alone for the Administration--that +is, for the people--in that important case. Each of these +reasons--except one--shed a pure, white light upon Stillwater's public +spirit and private generosity. That one was the reason supposed by Mrs. +Stillwater to be real. "Since you don't seem able to get rid of Josh +Craig, Pa," said she, in the seclusion of the marital couch, "we might +as well marry him to Jessie"--Jessie being their homeliest daughter. + +"Very well," said "Pa" Stillwater. "I'll give him a chance." + +Still, we have not got the real reason for Josh's getting what +Stillwater had publicly called "the opportunity of a lifetime." The +really real reason was that Stillwater wished, and calculated, to kill a +whole flock of birds with one stone. + +Whenever the people begin to clamor for justice upon their exploiters, +the politicians, who make themselves valuable to the exploiters by +cozening the people into giving them office, begin by denying that the +people want anything; when the clamor grows so loud that this pretense +is no longer tenable, they hasten to say, "The people are right, and +something must be done. Unfortunately, there is no way of legally doing +anything at present, and we must be patient until a way is discovered." +Way after way is suggested, only to be dismissed as "dangerous" or +"impractical" or "unconstitutional." The years pass; the clamor +persists, becomes imperious. The politicians pass a law that has been +carefully made unconstitutional. This gives the exploiters several years +more of license. Finally, public sentiment compels the right kind of +law; it is passed. Then come the obstacles to enforcement. More years of +delay; louder clamor. A Stillwater is put in charge of the enforcement +of the law; a case is made, a trial is had, and the evidence is so +incomplete or the people's lawyers so poorly matched against the lawyers +of the exploiters that the case fails, and the administration is able to +say, "You see, WE'VE done our best, but the rascals have escaped!" The +case against certain Western railway thieves had reached the stage at +which the only way the exploiters could be protected from justice was by +having a mock trial; and Stillwater had put Craig forward as the +conductor of this furious sham battle, had armed him with a poor gun, +loaded with blanks. "We'll lose the case," calculated Stillwater; "we'll +save our friends, and get rid of Craig, whom everybody will blame--the +damned, bumptious, sophomoric blow-hard!" + +What excuse did Stillwater make to himself for himself in this course of +seeming treachery and assassination? For, being a man of the highest +principles, he would not deliberately plan an assassination as an +assassination. Why, his excuse was that the popular clamor against the +men "who had built up the Western country" was wicked, that he was +serving his country in denying the mob "the blood of our best citizens," +that Josh Craig was a demagogue who richly deserved to be hoist by his +own petar. He laughed with patriotic glee as he thought how "Josh, the +joke" would make a fool of himself with silly, sophomoric arguments, +would with his rude tactlessness get upon the nerves of the finicky old +Justices of the Supreme Court! + +As Craig had boasted right and left of the "tear" he was going to make, +and had urged everybody he talked with to come and hear him, the small +courtroom was uncomfortably full, and not a few of the smiling, +whispering spectators confidently expected that they were about to enjoy +that rare, delicious treat--a conceited braggart publicly exposed and +overwhelmed by himself. Among these spectators was Josh's best friend, +Arkwright, seated beside Margaret Severence, and masking his +satisfaction over the impending catastrophe with an expression of +funereal somberness. He could not quite conceal from himself all these +hopes that had such an uncomfortable aspect of ungenerousness. So he +reasoned with himself that they really sprang from a sincere desire for +his friend's ultimate good. "Josh needs to have his comb cut," thought +he. "It's sure to be done, and he can bear it better now than later. The +lesson will teach him a few things he must learn. I only hope he'll be +able to profit by it." + +When Josh appeared, Grant and the others with firmly-fixed opinions of +the character of the impending entertainment were not a little +disquieted. Joshua Craig, who stepped into the arena, looked absolutely +different from the Josh they knew. How had he divested himself of that +familiar swaggering, bustling braggadocio? Where had he got this look of +the strong man about to run a race, this handsome face on which sat real +dignity and real power? Never was there a better court manner; the +Justices, who had been anticipating an opportunity to demonstrate, at +his expense, the exceeding dignity of the Supreme Court, could only +admire and approve. As for his speech, it was a straightway argument; +not a superfluous or a sophomoric word, not an attempt at rhetoric. His +argument--There is the logic that is potent but answerable; there is the +logic that is unanswerable, that gives no opportunity to any sane mind, +however prejudiced by association with dispensers of luxurious +hospitality, of vintage wines and dollar cigars, however enamored of +fog-fighting and hair-splitting, to refuse the unqualified assent of +conviction absolute. That was the kind of argument Josh Craig made. And +the faces of the opposing lawyers, the questions the Justices asked him +plainly showed that he had won. + +After the first ten minutes, when the idea that Craig could be or ever +had been laughable became itself absurd, Arkwright glanced uneasily, +jealously at Margaret. The face beneath the brim of her beautiful white +and pale pink hat was cold, conventional, was the face of a mere +listener. Grant, reassured, resumed his absorbed attention, was soon +completely swept away by his friend's exhibition of power, could hardly +wait until he and Margaret were out of the courtroom before exploding in +enthusiasm. "Isn't he a wonder?" he cried. "Why, I shouldn't have +believed it possible for a man of his age to make such a speech. He's a +great lawyer as well as a great orator. It was a dull subject, yet I was +fascinated. Weren't you?" + +"It was interesting--at times," said Margaret. + +"At times! Oh, you women!" + +At this scorn Margaret eyed his elegant attire, his face with its +expression of an intelligence concentrated upon the petty and the +paltry. Her eyes suggested a secret amusement so genuine that she could +not venture to reveal it in a gibe. She merely said: "I confess I was +more interested in him than in what he said." + +"Of course! Of course!" said Grant, all unconscious of her derision. +"Women have no interest in serious things and no mind for logic." + +She decided that it not only was prudent but also was more enjoyable to +keep to herself her amusement at his airs of masculine superiority. Said +she, her manner ingenuous: "It doesn't strike me as astonishing that a +man should make a sensible speech." + +Grant laughed as if she had said something much cleverer than she could +possibly realize. "That's a fact," admitted he. "It was simply supreme +common-sense. What a world for twaddle it is when common-sense makes us +sit up and stare.... But it's none the less true that you're prejudiced +against him." + +"Why do you say that?" + +"If you appreciated him you'd be as enthusiastic as I." There was in his +tone a faint hint of his unconscious satisfaction in her failure to +appreciate Craig. + +"You can go very far astray," said she, "you, with your masculine +logic." + +But Grant had guessed aright. Margaret had not listened attentively to +the speech because it interested her less than the man himself. She had +concentrated wholly upon him. Thus, alone of all the audience, she had +seen that Craig was playing a carefully-rehearsed part, and, himself +quite unmoved, was watching and profiting by every hint in the +countenance of his audience, the old Justices. It was an admirable piece +of acting; it was the performance of a genius at the mummer's art. But +the power of the mummer lies in the illusion he creates; if he does not +create illusion, as Craig did not for Margaret, he becomes mere +pantomimist and mouther. She had never given a moment's thought to +public life as a career; she made no allowances for the fact that a +man's public appearances, no matter how sincere he is, must always be +carefully rehearsed if he is to use his powers with unerring effect; she +was simply like a child for the first time at the theater, and, chancing +to get a glimpse behind the scenes, disgusted and angry with the players +because their performance is not spontaneous. If she had stopped to +reason about the matter she would have been less uncompromising. But in +the shock of disillusionment she felt only that the man was working upon +his audience like a sleight-of-hand performer; and the longer she +observed, and the stronger his spell over the others, the deeper became +her contempt for the "charlatan." He seemed to her like one telling a +lie--as that one seems, while telling it, to the hearer who is not +deceived. "I've been thinking him rough but genuine," said she to +herself. "He's merely rough." She had forgiven, had disregarded his rude +almost coarse manners, setting them down to indifference, the impatience +of the large with the little, a revolt from the (on the whole +preferable) extreme opposite of the mincing, patterned manners of which +Margaret herself was a-weary. "But he isn't indifferent at all," she now +felt. "He's simply posing. His rudenesses are deliberate where they are +not sheer ignorance. His manner in court showed that he knows how, in +the main." + +A rather superior specimen of the professional politician, but +distinctly of that hypocritical, slippery class. And Margaret's +conviction was strengthened later in the day when she came upon him at +tea at Mrs. Houghton's. He was holding forth noisily against "society," +was denouncing it as a debaucher of manhood and womanhood, a waster of +precious time, and on and on in that trite and tedious strain. +Margaret's lip curled as she listened. What did this fakir know about +manhood and womanhood? And could there be any more pitiful, more paltry +wasting of time than in studying out and performing such insincerities +as his life was made up of? True, Mrs. Houghton, of those funny, +fashionable New Yorkers who act as if they had only just arrived at the +estate of servants and carriages, and are always trying to impress even +passing strangers with their money and their grandeur--true, Mrs. +Houghton was most provocative to anger or amused disdain at the +fashionable life. But not even Mrs. Houghton seemed to Margaret so cheap +and pitiful as this badly-dressed, mussy politician, as much an actor as +Mrs. Houghton and as poor at the trade, but choosing low comedy for his +unworthy attempts where Mrs. Houghton was at least trying to be +something refined. + +With that instinct for hostility which is part of the equipment of every +sensitively-nerved man of action, Craig soon turned toward her, +addressed himself to her; and the others, glad to be free, fell away. +Margaret was looking her best. White was extremely becoming to her; +pink--pale pink--being next in order. Her dress was of white, with +facings of delicate pale pink, and the white plumes in her hat were +based in pale pink, which also lined the inside of the brim. She watched +him, and, now that it was once more his personality pitted directly and +wholly against hers, she, in spite of herself, began to yield to him +again her respect--the respect every intelligent person must feel for an +individuality that is erect and strong. But as she was watching, her +expression was that of simply listening, without comment or intention to +reply--an expression of which she was perfect mistress. Her hazel eyes, +set in dark lashes, her sensuous mouth, her pallid skin, smooth and +healthy, seemed the climax of allurement to which all the lines of her +delightful figure pointed. To another woman it would have been obvious +that she was amusing herself by trying to draw him under the spell of +physical attraction; a man would have thought her a mere passive +listener, perhaps one concealing boredom, would have thought her +movements to bring now this charm and now that to his attention were +simply movements of restlessness, indications of an impatience difficult +to control. He broke off abruptly. "What are you thinking?" he demanded. + +She gave no sign of triumph at having accomplished her purpose--at +having forced his thoughts to leave his pet subject, himself, and center +upon her. "I was thinking," said she reflectively, "what a brave +whistler you are." + +"Whistler?" + +"Whistling to keep up your courage. No, rather, whistling FOR courage. +You are on your knees before wealth and social position, and you wish to +convince yourself--and the world--that you despise them." + +"_I_? Wealth? Social position?" Craig exclaimed, or rather, blustered. +And, red and confused, he was at a loss for words. + +"Yes--you," asserted she, in her quiet, tranquil way. "Don't bluster at +me. You didn't bluster at the Court this morning." She laughed softly, +eyeing him with friendly sarcasm. "You see, I'm 'on to' you, Mr. Craig." + +Their eyes met--a resolute encounter. He frowned fiercely, and as his +eyes were keen and blue-green, and, backed by a tremendous will, the +odds seemed in his favor. But soon his frown relaxed; a smile replaced +it--a handsome acknowledgment of defeat, a humorous confession that she +was indeed "on to" him. "I like you," he said graciously. + +"I don't know that I can say the same of you," replied she, no answering +smile in her eyes or upon her lips, but a seriousness far more +flattering. + +"That's right!" exclaimed he. "Frankness--absolute frankness. You are +the only intelligent woman I have met here who seems to have any +sweetness left in her." + +"Sweetness? This is a strange place to look for sweetness. One might as +well expect to find it in a crowd of boys scrapping for pennies, or in a +pack of hounds chasing a fox." + +"But that isn't all of life," protested Craig. + +"It's all of life among our sort of people--the ambitious socially and +otherwise." + +Josh beamed upon her admiringly. "You'll do," approved he. "We shall be +friends. We ARE friends." + +The gently satiric smile her face had borne as she was talking became +personal to him. "You are confident," said she. + +He nodded emphatically. "I am. I always get what I want." + +"I'm sorry to say I don't. But I can say that at least I never take what +I don't want." + +"That means," said he, "you may not want my friendship." + +"Obviously," replied she. And she rose and put out her hand. + +"Don't go yet," cried he. "We are just beginning to get acquainted. The +other day I misjudged you. I thought you insignificant, not worth +while." + +She slid her hand into her ermine muff. She gave him an icy look, not +contemptuous but oblivious, and turned away. He stared after her. "By +Jove!" thought he, "THERE'S the real thing. There's a true aristocrat." +And he frankly paid aristocracy in thought the tribute he would with any +amount of fuming and spluttering have denied it in word. "Aristocracy +does mean something," reflected he. "There must be substance to what can +make ME feel quite put down." + +When he saw Arkwright he said patronizingly: "I like that little friend +of yours--that Miss What's-her-name." + +Grant suspected from his tone that this forgetfulness was an +affectation. "You know very well what her name is," said he irritably. +"What a cheap affectation." + +Josh countered and returned magnificently: "I remember her face +perfectly," said he. "One shares one's name with a great many people, so +it's unimportant. But one's face is one's own. I remember her face very +well indeed--and that gorgeous figure of hers." + +Grant was furious, thought Craig's words the limit of impertinent +free-spokenness. "Well, what of it?" said he savagely. + +"I like her," replied Josh condescendingly. "But she's been badly +brought up, and is full of foolish ideas, like all your women here. But +she's a thoroughbred." + +"Then you like her?" observed Arkwright without enthusiasm. + +"So-so. Of course, she isn't fit to be a wife, but for her type and as a +type she's splendid." + +Arkwright felt like kicking him and showed it. "What a bounder you are +at times, Josh," he snapped. + +Craig laughed and slapped him on the back. "There you go again, with +your absurd notions of delicacy. Believe me, Grant, you don't understand +women. They don't like you delicate fellows. They like a man--like me--a +pawer of the ground--a snorter--a warhorse that cries ha-ha among the +trumpets." + +"The worst thing about what you say," replied Arkwright sourly, "is that +it's the truth. I don't say the women aren't worthy of us, but I do say +they're not worthy of our opinion of them.... Well, I suppose you're +going to try to marry her"--this with a vicious gleam which he felt safe +in indulging openly before one so self-absorbed and so insensible to +subtleties of feeling and manner. + +"I think not," said Craig judicially. "She'd play hell with my politics. +It's bad enough to have fights on every hand and all the time abroad. +It'd be intolerable to have one at home--and I've got no time to train +her to my uses and purposes." + +Usually Craig's placid conviction that the universe existed for his +special benefit and that anything therein was his for the mere formality +of claiming it moved Arkwright to tolerant amusement at his lack of the +sense of proportion and humor. Occasionally it moved him to reluctant +admiration--this when some apparently absurd claim of his proved more or +less valid. Just now, in the matter of Margaret Severence, this +universal overlordship filled him with rage, the more furious that he +realized he could no more shake Josh's conviction than he could make the +Washington monument topple over into the Potomac by saying, "Be thou +removed." He might explain all the obvious reasons why Margaret would +never deign to condescend to him; Josh would dismiss them with a laugh +at Arkwright's folly. + +He hid his rage as best he could, and said with some semblance of genial +sarcasm: "So all you've got to do is to ask her and she's yours?" + +Craig gave him a long, sharp, searching look. "Old man," he said +earnestly, "do you want her?" + +"_I_!" exclaimed Arkwright angrily, but with shifting eyes and with +upper lip twitching guiltily. Then, satirically: "Oh, no; I'd not dare +aspire to any woman YOU had condescended to smile upon." + +"If you do I'll get her for you," pursued Craig, his hand seeking +Arkwright's arm to grip it. + +Arkwright drew away, laughed outright. "You ARE a joke!" he cried, +wholly cured of his temper by the preposterous offer. It would be absurd +enough for any one to imagine he would need help in courting any woman +he might fancy--he, one of the most eligible of American bachelors. It +passed the uttermost bounds of the absurd, this notion that he would +need help with a comparatively poor girl, many seasons out and eager to +marry. And then, climax of climaxes, that Josh Craig could help him! +"Yes, a joke," he repeated. + +"Oh, no doubt I do seem so to you," replied Josh unruffled. "People are +either awed or amused by what they're incapable of understanding. At +this stage of my career I'm not surprised to find they're amused. But +wait, my boy. Meanwhile, if you want that lady, all you've got to do is +to say the word. I'll get her for you." + +"Thanks; no," said Arkwright. "I'm rather shy of matrimony. I don't +hanker after the stupid joys of family life, as you do." + +"That's because of your ruinous, rotten training," Craig assured him. +"It has destroyed your power to appreciate the great fundamentals of +life. You think you're superior. If you only knew how shallow you are!" + +"I've a competent valet," said Arkwright. "And your idea of a wife seems +to be a sort of sublimated valet--and nurse." + +"I can conceive of no greater dignity than to take care of a real man +and his children," replied Craig. "However, the dignity of the service +depends upon the dignity of the person to whom it is rendered--and upon +the dignity of the person who renders it." + +Arkwright examined Craig's face for signs that this was the biting +sarcasm it would have seemed, coming from another. But Craig was +apparently merely making one of his familiar bumptious speeches. The +idea of a man of his humble origin proclaiming himself superior to an +Arkwright of the Massachusetts Arkwrights! + +"No, I'd not marry your Miss Severence," Craig continued. "I want a +wife, not a social ornament. I want a woman, not a toilette. I want a +home, not a fashionable hotel. I want love and sympathy and children. I +want substance, not shadow; sanity, not silliness." + +"And your socks darned and your shirts mended." + +"That, of course." Josh accepted these amendments with serene +seriousness. "And Miss Severence isn't fit for the job. She has some +brains--the woman kind of brains. She has a great deal of rudimentary +character. If I had the time, and it were worth while, I could develop +her into a real woman. But I haven't, and it wouldn't be worth while +when there are so many real women, ready made, out where I come from. +This girl would be exactly the wife for you, though. Just as she is, +she'd help you mince about from parlor to parlor, and smirk and jabber +and waste time. She's been educating for the job ever since she was +born." He laid his hand in gracious, kindly fashion on his friend's +shoulder. "Think it over. And if you want my help it's yours. I can show +her what a fine fellow you are, what a good husband you'd make. For you +are a fine person, old man; when you were born fashionable and rich it +spoiled a--" + +"A superb pram-trundler," suggested Arkwright. + +"Precisely. Be off now; I must work. Be off, and exhibit that wonderful +suit and those spotless white spats where they'll be appreciated." And +he dismissed the elegantly-dressed idler as a king might rid himself of +a favorite who threatened to presume upon his master's good humor and +outstay his welcome. But Arkwright didn't greatly mind. He was used to +Josh's airs. Also, though he would not have confessed it to his inmost +self, Josh's preposterous assumptions, by sheer force of frequent and +energetic reiteration, had made upon him an impression of possible +validity--not probable, but possible; and the possible was quite enough +to stir deep down in Arkwright's soul the all but universal deference +before power. It never occurred to him to suspect there might be design +in Craig's sweeping assertions and assumptions of superiority, that he +might be shrewdly calculating that, underneath the ridicule those +obstreperous vanities would create, there would gradually form and +steadily grow a conviction of solid truth, a conviction that Joshua +Craig was indeed the personage he professed to be--mighty, inevitably +prevailing, Napoleonic. + +This latent feeling of Arkwright's was, however, not strong enough to +suppress his irritation when, a few days later, he went to the +Severences for tea, and found Margaret and Josh alone in the garden, +walking up and down, engaged in a conversation that was obviously +intimate and absorbing. When he appeared on the veranda Joshua greeted +him with an eloquent smile of loving friendship. + +"Ah, there you are now!" he cried. "Well, little ones, I'll leave you +together. I've wasted as much time as I can spare to-day to frivolity." + +"Yes, hurry back to work," said Arkwright. "The ship of state's wobbling +badly through your neglect." + +Craig laughed, looking at Margaret. "Grant thinks that's a jest," said +he. "Instead, it's the sober truth. I am engaged in keeping my Chief in +order, and in preventing the President from skulking from the policies +he has the shrewdness to advocate but lacks the nerve to put into +action." + +Margaret stood looking after him as he strode away. + +"You mustn't mind his insane vanity," said Arkwright, vaguely uneasy at +the expression of her hazel eyes, at once so dark, mysterious, +melancholy, so light and frank and amused. + +"I don't," said she in a tone that seemed to mean a great deal. + +He, still more uneasy, went on: "A little more experience of the world +and Josh'll come round all right--get a sense of proportion." + +"But isn't it true?" asked Margaret somewhat absently. + +"What?" + +"Why, what he said as he was leaving. Before you came he'd been here +quite a while, and most of the time he talked of himself--" + +Arkwright laughed, but Margaret only smiled, and that rather +reluctantly. + +"And he was telling how hard a time he was having; what with +Stillwater's corruption and the President's timidity about really acting +against rich, people--something about criminal suits against what he +calls the big thieves--I didn't understand it, or care much about it, +but it gave me an impression of Mr. Craig's power." + +"There IS some truth in what he says," Arkwright admitted, with a +reluctance of which his pride, and his heart as well, were ashamed. +"He's become a burr, a thorn, in the Administration, and they're really +afraid of him in a way--though, of course, they have to laugh at him as +every one else does." + +"Of course," said Margaret absently. + +Arkwright watched her nervously. "You seem to be getting round to the +state of mind," said he, "where you'll be in danger of marrying our +friend Craig." + +Margaret, her eyes carefully away from him, laughed softly--a +disturbingly noncommittal laugh. + +"Of course, I'm only joking," continued Arkwright. "I know YOU couldn't +marry HIM." + +"Why not?" + +"Because you don't think he's sincere." + +Her silence made him feel that she thought this as weak as he did. + +"Because you don't love him." + +"No, I certainly don't love him," said Margaret. + +"Because you don't even like him." + +"What a strange way of advocating your friend you have." + +Arkwright flushed scarlet. "I thought you'd quite dismissed him as a +possibility," he stammered. + +"With a woman every man's a possibility so long as no man's a +certainty." + +"Margaret, you couldn't marry a man you didn't like?" + +She seemed to reflect. "Not if I were in love with another at the time," +she said finally. "That's as far as my womanly delicacy--what's left of +it after my years in society--can influence me. And it's stronger, I +believe, than the delicacy of most women of our sort." + +They were sitting now on the bench round the circle where the fountain +was tossing high its jets in play with the sunshine. She was looking +very much the woman of the fashionable world, and the soft grays, +shading into blues, that dominated her costume gave her an exceeding and +entrancing seeming of fragility. Arkwright thought her eyes wonderful; +the sweet, powerful yet delicate odor of the lilac sachet powder with +which her every garment was saturated set upon his senses like a +love-philter. + +"Yes, you are finer and nobler than most women," he said giddily. "And +that's why it distresses me to hear you talk even in jest, as if you +could marry Josh." + +"And a few weeks ago you were suggesting him as just the husband for +me." + +Arkwright was silent. How could he go on? How tell her why he had +changed without committing himself to her by a proposal? She was +fascinating--would be an ideal wife. With what style and taste she'd +entertain--how she'd shine at the head of his table! What a satisfaction +it would be to feel that his money was being so competently spent. +But--well, he did not wish to marry, not just yet; perhaps, somewhere in +the world, he would find, in the next few years, a woman even better +suited to him than Margaret. Marrying was a serious business. True, now +that divorce had pushed its way up and had become recognized by +fashionable society, had become an established social favorite, marriage +had been robbed of one of its terrors. But the other remained--divorce +still meant alimony. The woman who trapped an eligible never endangered +her hard-earned position; a man must be extremely careful or he would +find himself forced to hard choice between keeping on with a woman he +wished to be rid of and paying out a large part of his income in +alimony. It seemed far-fetched to think of these things in connection +with such a woman as Margaret. He certainly never could grow tired of +her, and her looks were of the sort that had staying power. Nor was she +in the least likely to be so ungrateful as to wish to be rid of him and +hold him up for alimony. Still--wouldn't it have been seemingly just as +absurd to consider in advance such sordid matters in connection with any +one of a dozen couples among his friends whose matrimonial enterprises +had gone smash? It was said that nowadays girls went to the altar +thinking that if the husbands they were taking proved unsatisfactory +they would soon be free again, the better off by the title of Mrs. and a +good stiff alimony and some invaluable experience. "I must keep my +head," thought he. "I must consider how I'd feel after the fatal cards +were out." + +"Yes, you were quite eager for me to marry him," persisted she. She was +watching his face out of the corner of her eye. + +"I admit it," said he huskily. "But we've both changed since then." + +"Changed?" said she, perhaps a shade too encouragingly. + +He felt the hook tickling his gills and darted off warily. "Changed +toward him, I mean. Changed in our estimate of his availability as a +husband for you." He rose; the situation was becoming highly perilous. +"I must speak to your mother and fly. I'm late for an appointment now." + +As he drove away ten minutes later he drew a long breath. "Gad!" said he +half aloud, "Rita'll never realize how close I was to proposing to-day. +She ALMOST had me.... Though why I should think of it that way I don't +know. It's damned low and indelicate of me. She ought to be my wife. I +love her as much as a man of experience can love a woman in advance of +trying her out thoroughly. If she had money I'd not be hesitating, I'm +afraid. Then, too, I don't think the moral tone of that set she and I +travel with is what it ought to be. It's all very well for me, +but--Well, a man ought to be ready for almost anything that might happen +if his wife went with that crowd--or had gone with it before he married +her. Not that I suspect Margaret, though I must say--What a pup this +sort of life does make of a man in some ways!... Yes, I almost leaped. +She'll never know how near I came to it.... Perhaps Josh's more than +half-right and I'm oversophisticated. My doubts and delays may cost me a +kind of happiness I'd rather have than anything on earth--IF it really +exists." There he laughed comfortably. "Poor Rita! If she only knew, how +cut up she'd be!" + +He might not have been so absolutely certain of her ignorance could he +have looked into the Severances' drawing-room just then. For Margaret, +after a burst of hysterical gayety, had gone to the far end of the room +on the pretext of arranging some flowers. And there, with her face +securely hid from the half-dozen round the distant tea-table, she was +choking back the sobs, was muttering: "I'll have to do it! I'm a +desperate woman--desperate!" + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +MR. CRAIG IN SWEET DANGER + + +It is a rash enterprise to open wide to the world the private doors of +the family, to expose intimate interiors all unconscious of outside +observation, and all unprepared for it. Such frankness tends to destroy +"sympathetic interest," to make delusion and illusion impossible; it +gives cynicism and his brother, pharisaism, their opportunity to simper +and to sneer. Still rasher is it to fling wide the doors of a human +heart, and, without any clever arrangement of lights and shades, reveal +in the full face of the sun exactly what goes on there. We lie to others +unconsciously; we lie to ourselves both consciously and unconsciously. +We admit and entertain dark thoughts, and at the first alarm of exposure +deny that we ever saw them before; we cover up our motives, forget where +we have hidden them, and wax justly indignant when they are dug out and +confronted with us. We are scandalized, quite honestly, when others are +caught doing what we ourselves have done. We are horrified and cry +"Monster!" when others do what we ourselves refrain from doing only +through lack of the bad courage. + +No man is a hero who is not a hero to his valet; and no woman a lady +unless her maid thinks so. Margaret Severence's new maid Selina was +engaged to be married; the lover had gone on a spree, had started a free +fight in the streets, and had got himself into jail for a fortnight. It +was the first week of his imprisonment, and Selina had committed a +series of faults intolerable in a maid. She sent Margaret to a ball with +a long tear in her skirt; she let her go out, open in the back, both in +blouse and in placket; she upset a cup of hot CAFE AU LAIT on her arm; +finally she tore a strap off a shoe as she was fastening it on +Margaret's foot. Though no one has been able to fathom it, there must be +a reason for the perversity whereby our outbursts of anger against any +seriously-offending fellow-being always break on some trivial offense, +never on one of the real and deep causes of wrath. Margaret, though +ignorant of her maid's secret grief and shame, had borne patiently the +sins of omission and commission, only a few of which are catalogued +above; this, though the maid, absorbed in her woe, had not even +apologized for a single one of them. On the seventh day of discomforts +and disasters Margaret lost her temper at the triviality of the ripping +off of the shoe-strap, and poured out upon Selina not only all her +resentment against her but also all that she had been storing up since +the beginning of the season against life and destiny. Selina sat on the +floor stupefied; Margaret, a very incarnation of fury, raged up and down +the room, venting every and any insult a naturally caustic wit +suggested. "And," she wound up, "I want you to clear out at once. I'll +send you your month's wages. I can't give you a character--except for +honesty. I'll admit, you are too stupid to steal. Clear out, and never +let me see you again." + +She swept from the room, drove away to lunch at Mrs. Baker's. She acted +much as usual, seemed to be enjoying herself, for the luncheon was very +good indeed, Mrs. Baker's chef being new from France and not yet grown +careless, and the company was amusing. At the third course she rose. +"I've forgotten something," said she. "I must go at once. No, no one +must be disturbed on my account. I'll drive straight home." And she was +gone before Mrs. Baker could rise from her chair. + +At home Margaret went up to her own room, through her bedroom to +Selina's--almost as large and quite as comfortable as her own and hardly +plainer. She knocked. As there was no answer, she opened the door. On +the bed, sobbing heart-brokenly, lay Selina, crushed by the hideous +injustice of being condemned capitally merely for tearing off a bit of +leather which the shoemaker had neglected to make secure. + +"Selina," said Margaret. + +The maid turned her big, homely, swollen face on the pillow, ceased +sobbing, gasped in astonishment. + +"I've come to beg your pardon," said Margaret, not as superior to +inferior, nor yet with the much-vaunted "just as if they were equals," +but simply as one human being to another. The maid sat up. One of her +braids had come undone and was hanging ludicrously down across her +cheek. + +"I insulted you, and I'm horribly ashamed." Wistfully: "Will you forgive +me?" + +"Oh, law!" cried the maid despairingly, "I'm dreaming." And she threw +herself down once more and sobbed afresh. + +Margaret knelt beside the bed, put her hand appealingly on the girl's +shoulder. "Can you forgive me, Selina?" said she. "There's no excuse for +me except that I've had so much hard luck, and everything seems to be +going to pieces under me." + +Selina stopped sobbing. "I told a story when I came to you and said I'd +had three years' experience," moaned she, not to be outdone in honorable +generosity. "It was only three months as lady's maid, and not much of a +lady, neither." + +"I don't in the least care," Margaret assured her. "I'm not strictly +truthful myself at times, and I do all sorts of horrid things." + +"But that's natural in a lady," objected Selina, "where there ain't no +excuse for me that have only my character." + +Margaret was careful not to let Selina see her smile in appreciation of +this unconsciously profound observation upon life and morals. "Never +mind," said she; "you're going to be a good maid soon. You're learning +quickly." + +"No, no," wailed Selina. "I'm a regular block-head, and my hands is too +coarse." + +"But you have a good heart and I like you," said Margaret. "And I want +you to forgive me and like me. I'm so lonely and unhappy. And I need the +love of one so close to me all the time as you are. It'd be a real +help." + +Selina began to cry again, and then Margaret gave way to tears; and, +presently, out came the dreadful story of the lover's fight and jailing; +and Margaret, of course, promised to see that he was released at once. +When she went to her own room, the maid following to help her efface the +very disfiguring evidence of their humble, emotional drama, Margaret had +recovered her self-esteem and had won a friend, who, if too stupid to be +very useful, was also too stupid to be unfaithful. + +As it was on the same day, and scarcely one brief hour later, it must +have been the very same Margaret who paced the alley of trimmed elms, +her eyes so stern and somber, her mouth and chin so hard that her +worshipful sister Lucia watched in silent, fascinated dread. At length +Margaret noted Lucia, halted and: "Why don't you read your book?" she +cried fiercely. "Why do you sit staring at me?" + +"What a temper you have got--what a NASTY temper!" Lucia was goaded into +retorting. + +"Haven't I, though!" exclaimed Margaret, as if she gloried in it. "Stop +that staring!" + +"I could see you were thinking something--something--TERRIBLE!" +explained Lucia. + +Margaret's face cleared before a satirical smile. "What a romancer you +are, Lucia." Then, with a laugh: "I'm taking myself ridiculously +seriously to-day. Temper--giving way to temper--is a sure sign of +defective intelligence or of defective digestion." + +"Is it about--about Mr. Craig?" + +Margaret reddened, dropped to the bench near her sister--evidence that +she was willing to talk, to confide--so far as she ever confided her +inmost self--to the one person she could trust. + +"Has he asked you to marry him?" + +"No; not yet." + +"But he's going to?" + +Margaret gave a queer smile. "He doesn't think so." + +"He wouldn't dare!" exclaimed Lucia. "Why, he's not in the same class +with you." + +"So! The little romancer is not so romantic that she forgets her +snobbishness." + +"I mean, he's so rude and noisy. I DETEST him!" + +"So do I--at times." + +Lucia looked greatly relieved. "I thought you were encouraging him. It +seemed sort of--of--cheap, unworthy of you, to care to flirt with a man +like that." + +Margaret's expression became strange indeed. "I am not flirting with +him," she said gravely. "I'm going to marry him." + +Lucia was too amazed to speak, was so profoundly shocked that her +usually rosy cheeks grew almost pale. + +"Yes, I shall marry him," repeated Margaret slowly. + +"But you don't love him!" cried Lucia. + +"I dislike him," replied Margaret. After a pause she added: "When a +woman makes up her mind to marry a man, willy-nilly, she begins to hate +him. It's a case of hunter and hunted. Perhaps, after she's got him, she +may change. But not till the trap springs--not till the game's bagged." + +Lucia shuddered. "Oh, Rita!" she cried. And she turned away to bury her +face in her arms. + +"I suppose I oughtn't to tell you these things," pursued Margaret; "I +ought to leave you your illusions as long as possible. But--why +shouldn't you know the truth? Perhaps, if we all faced the truth about +things, instead of sheltering ourselves in lies, the world would begin +to improve." + +"But I don't see why you chose him," persisted Lucia. + +"I didn't. Fate did the choosing." + +"But why not somebody like--like Grant Arkwright? Rita, I'm sure he's +fond of you." + +"So am I," said Rita. "But he's got the idea he would be doing me a +favor in marrying me; and when a man gets that notion it's fatal. +Also--He doesn't realize it himself, but I'm not prim enough to suit +him. He imagines he's liberal--that's a common failing among men. But a +woman who is natural shocks them, and they are taken in and pleased by +one who poses as more innocent and impossible than any human being not +perfectly imbecile could remain in a world that conceals nothing.... I +despise Grant--I like him, but despise him." + +"He IS small," admitted Lucia. + +"Small? He's infinitesimal. He'd be mean with his wife about money. He'd +run the house himself. He should have been a butler." + +"But, at least, he's a gentleman." + +"Oh, yes," said Margaret. "Yes, I suppose so. I despise him, while, in a +way, I respect Craig." + +"He has such a tough-looking skin," said Lucia. + +"I don't mind that in a man," replied Margaret. + +"His hands are like--like a coachman's," said Lucia. "Whenever I look at +them I think of Thomas." + +"No, they're more like the parrot's--they're claws.... That's why I'm +marrying him." + +"Because he has ugly hands?" + +"Because they're ugly in just that way. They're the hands of the man who +gets things and holds on to things. I'm taking him because he can get +for me what I need." Margaret patted her sister on the shoulder. "Cheer +up, Lucia! I'm lucky, I tell you. I'm getting, merely at the price of a +little lying and a little shuddering, what most people can't get at any +price." + +"But he hasn't any money," objected Lucia. + +"If he had, no doubt you'd find him quite tolerable. Even you--a young +innocent." + +"It does make a difference," admitted Lucia. "You see, people have to +have money or they can't live like gentlemen and ladies." + +"That's it," laughed Margaret. "What's a little thing like self-respect +beside ease and comfort and luxury? As grandmother said, a lady who'd +put anything before luxury has lost her self-respect." + +"Everybody that's nice ought to have money," declared Lucia. "Then the +world would be beautiful, full of love and romance, with everybody clean +and well-dressed and never in a hurry." + +But Margaret seemed not to hear. She was gazing at the fountain, her +unseeing eyes gloomily reflecting her thoughts. + +"If Mr. Craig hasn't got money why marry him?" asked her sister. + +"He can get it," replied Margaret tersely. "He's the man to trample and +crowd and clutch, and make everybody so uncomfortable that they'll +gladly give him what he's snatching for." She laughed mockingly. "Yes, I +shall get what I want"--then soberly--"if I can get him." + +"Get HIM! Why, he'll be delighted! And he ought to be." + +"No, he oughtn't to be; but he will be." + +"A man like him--marrying a lady! And marrying YOU!" Lucia threw her +arms round her sister's neck and dissolved in tears. "Oh, Rita, Rita!" +she sobbed. "You are the dearest, loveliest girl on earth. I'm sure +you're not doing it for yourself, at all. I'm sure you're doing it for +my sake." + +"You're quite wrong," said Rita, who was sitting unmoved and was looking +like her grandmother. "I'm doing it for myself. I'm fond, of luxury--of +fine dresses and servants and all that.... Think of the thousands, +millions of women who marry just for a home and a bare living!... No +doubt, there's something wrong about the whole thing, but I don't see +just what. If woman is made to lead a sheltered life, to be supported by +a man, to be a man's plaything, why, she can't often get the man she'd +most like to be the plaything of, can she?" + +"Isn't there any such thing as love?" Lucia ventured wistfully. +"Marrying for love, I mean." + +"Not among OUR sort of people, except by accident," Margaret assured +her. "The money's the main thing. We don't say so. We try not to think +so. We denounce as low and coarse anybody that does say so. But it's the +truth, just the same.... Those who marry for money regret it, but not so +much as those who marry only for love--when poverty begins to pinch and +to drag everything fine and beautiful down into the mud. Besides, I +don't love anybody--thank God! If I did, Lucia, I'm afraid I'd not have +the courage!" + +"I'm sure you couldn't!" cried Lucia, eager to save all possible +illusion about her sister. Then, remorseful for disloyal thoughts: "And, +if it wasn't right, I'm sure you'd not do it. You MAY fall in love with +him afterward." + +"Yes," assented Margaret, kissing Lucia on an impulse of gratitude. +"Yes, I may. I probably shall. Surely, I'm not to go through life never +doing anything I ought to do." + +"He's really handsome, in that bold, common way. And you can teach him." + +Margaret laughed with genuine mirth. "How surprised he'd be," she +exclaimed, "if he could know what's going on in my head!" + +"He'll be on his knees to you," pursued Lucia, wonderfully cheered up by +her confidence in the miracles Margaret's teaching would work. "And +he'll do whatever you say." + +"Yes, I'll teach him," said Margaret, herself more hopeful; for must +always improves with acquaintance. "I'll make him over completely. Oh, +he's not so bad as they think--not by any means." + +Lucia made an exaggerated gesture of shivering. + +"He gets on my nerves," said she. "He's so horribly abrupt and +ill-mannered." + +"Yes, I'll train him," said Margaret, musing aloud. "He doesn't +especially fret my nerves. A woman gets a good, strong nervous +system--and a good, strong stomach--after she has been out a few years." +She laughed. "And he thinks I'm as fine and delicate as--as--" + +"As you look," suggested Lucia. + +"As I look," accepted Margaret. "How we do deceive men by our looks! +Really, Lucia, HE'S far more sensitive than I--far more." + +"That's too silly!" + +"If I were a millionth part as coarse as he is he'd fly from me. Yet I'm +not flying from him." + +This was unanswerable. Lucia rejoined: "When are you going to--to do +it?" + +"Right away.... I want to get it over with. I can't stand the +suspense.... I can't stand it!" And Lucia was awed and silenced by the +sudden, strained look of anguish almost that made Margaret's face +haggard and her eyes wild. + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +MRS. SEVERENCE IS ROUSED + + +Craig swooped upon the Severences the next afternoon. His arrivals were +always swoopings--a swift descent on a day when he was not expected; or, +if the day was forearranged, then the hour would be a surprise. It was a +habit with him, a habit deliberately formed. He liked to take people +unawares, to create a flurry, reasoning that he, quick of eye and +determined of purpose, could not but profit by any confusion. He was +always in a hurry--that is, he seemed to be. In this also there was +deliberation. It does not follow because a man is in a hurry that he is +an important and busy person; no more does it follow that a man is an +inconsequential procrastinator if he is leisurely and dilatory. The +significance of action lies in intent. Some men can best gain their ends +by creating an impression that they are extremely lazy, others by +creating the impression that they are exceedingly energetic. The +important point is to be on the spot at the moment most favorable for +gaining the desired advantage; and it will be found that of the men who +get what they want in this world, both those who seem to hasten and +those who seem to lounge are always at the right place at the right +time. + +It best fitted Craig, by nature impatient, noisily aggressive, to adopt +the policy of rush. He arrived before time usually, fumed until he had +got everybody into that nervous state in which men, and women, too, will +yield more than they ever would in the kindly, melting mood. Though he +might stay hours, he, each moment, gave the impression that everybody +must speak quickly or he would be gone, might quickly be rid of him by +speaking quickly. Obviously, intercourse with him was socially +unsatisfactory; but this did not trouble him, as his theory of life was, +get what you want, never mind the way or the feelings of others. And as +he got by giving, attached his friends by self-interest, made people do +for him what it was just as well that they should do, the net result, +after the confusion and irritation had calmed, was that everybody felt, +on the whole, well content with having been compelled. It was said of +him that he made even his enemies work for him; and this was undoubtedly +true--in the sense in which it was meant as well as in the deeper sense +that a man's enemies, if he be strong, are his most assiduous allies and +advocates. It was also true that he did a great deal for people. Where +most men do favors only when the prospect of return is immediate, he +busied himself as energetically if returns seemed remote, even +improbable, as he did when his right hand was taking in with interest as +his left hand gave. It was his nature to be generous, to like to give; +it was also his nature to see that a reputation for real generosity and +kindness of heart was an invaluable asset, and that the only way to win +such a reputation was by deserving it. + +Craig arrived at the Severences at half-past four, when no one was +expected until five. "Margaret is dressing," explained Mrs. Severence, +as she entered the drawing-room. "She'll be down presently--if you care +to wait." This, partly because she hoped he would go, chiefly because he +seemed in such a hurry. + +"I'll wait a few minutes," said Craig in his sharp, irritating voice. + +And he began to tour the room, glancing at pictures, at articles on the +tables, mussing the lighter pieces of furniture about. Mrs. Severence, +pink-and-white, middle-aged, fattish and obviously futile, watched him +with increasing nervousness. He would surely break something; or, being +by a window when the impulse to depart seized him, would leap through, +taking sash, curtains and all with him. + +"Perhaps we'd better go outdoors," suggested she. She felt very +helpless, as usual. It was from her that Lucia inherited her laziness +and her taste for that most indolent of all the dissipations, the +reading of love stories. + +"Outdoors?" exploded Craig, wheeling on her, as if he had previously +been unconscious of her presence. "No. We'll sit here. I want to talk to +you." + +And he plumped himself into a chair near by, his claw-like hands upon +his knees, his keen eyes and beak-like nose bent toward her. Mrs. +Severence visibly shrank. She felt as if that handsome, predatory face +were pressed against the very window of her inmost soul. + +"You wish to talk to me," she echoed, with a feeble conciliatory smile. + +"About your daughter," said Craig, still more curt and aggressive. "Mrs. +Severence, your daughter ought to get married." + +Roxana Severence was so amazed that her mouth dropped open. "Married?" +she echoed, as if her ears had deceived her. + +The colossal impudence of it! This young man, this extremely common +young man, daring to talk to her about such a private matter! And she +had not yet known him a month; and only within the last fortnight had he +been making frequent visits--entirely on his own invitation, for she +certainly would not overtly provoke such a visitation as his coming +meant. Mrs. Severence would have been angry had she dared. But Craig's +manner was most alarming; what would--what would not a person so +indifferent to the decencies of life do if he were crossed? + +"She must get married," pursued Craig firmly. "Do you know why I've been +coming here these past two or three weeks?" + +Mrs. Severence was astounded anew. The man was actually about to propose +for her daughter! This common man, with nothing! + +"It's not my habit to make purposeless visits," continued he, +"especially among frivolous, idle people like you. I've been coming here +to make a study of your daughter." + +He paused. Mrs. Severence gave a feeble, frightened smile, made a sound +that might have been mirth and again might have been the beginnings of a +hastily-suppressed call for help. + +"And," Craig went on energetically, "I find that she is a very superior +sort of person. In another environment she might have been a big, strong +woman. She's amazing, considering the sickly, sycophantic atmosphere +she's been brought up in. Now, I want to see her married. She's +thoroughly discontented and unhappy. She's becoming sour and cynical. WE +must get her married. It's your duty to rouse yourself." + +Mrs. Severence did rouse herself just at this moment. Cheeks aflame and +voice trembling, she stood and said: + +"You are very kind, Mr. Craig, to offer to assist me in bringing up my +family. Surely--such--such interest is unusual on brief and very slight +acquaintance." She rang the bell. "I can show my appreciation in only +one way." The old butler, Williams, appeared. "Williams, show this +gentlemen out." And she left the room. + +Williams, all frigid dignity and politeness, stood at the large entrance +doors, significantly holding aside one curtain. Craig rose, his face +red. "Mrs. Severence isn't very well," said he noisily to the servant, +as if he were on terms of closest intimacy with the family. "Tell +Margaret I'll wait for her in the garden." And he rushed out by the +window that opened on the veranda, leaving the amazed butler at the +door, uncertain what to do. + +Mrs. Severence, ascending the stairs in high good humor with herself at +having handled a sudden and difficult situation as well as she had ever +read of its being handled in a novel, met her daughter descending. + +"Sh-h!" said she in a whisper, for she had not heard the front door +close. "He may not be gone. Come with me." + +Margaret followed her mother into the library at the head of the stairs. + +"It was that Craig man," explained Mrs. Severence, when she had the door +closed. "What DO you think he had the impudence to do?" + +"I'm sure I can't imagine," said Margaret, impatient. + +"He proposed for you!" + +Margaret reflected a brief instant. "Nonsense!" she said decisively. +"He's not that kind. You misunderstood him." + +"I tell you he did!" cried her mother. "And I ordered him out of the +house." + +"What?" screamed Margaret, clutching her mother's arm. "WHAT?" + +"I ordered him out of the house," stammered her mother. + +"I wish you'd stick to your novels and let me attend to my own affairs," +cried Margaret, pale with fury. "Is he gone?" + +"I left Williams attending to it. Surely, Rita--" + +But Margaret had flung the door open and was darting down the stairs. +"Where is he?" she demanded fiercely of Williams, still in the +drawing-room doorway. + +"In the garden, ma'am," said Williams. "He didn't pay no attention." + +But Margaret was rushing through the drawing-room. At the French windows +she caught sight of him, walking up and down in his usual quick, alert +manner, now smelling flowers, now staring up into the trees, now +scrutinizing the upper windows of the house. She drew back, waited until +she had got her breath and had composed her features. Then, with the +long skirts of her graceful pale-blue dress trailing behind her, and a +big white sunshade open and resting upon her shoulder, she went down the +veranda steps and across the lawn toward him. He paused, gazed at her in +frank--vulgarly frank--admiration; just then, it seemed to her, he never +said or did or looked anything except in the vulgarest way. + +"You certainly are a costly-looking luxury," said he loudly, when there +were still a dozen yards between them. "Oh, there's your mother at the +window, upstairs--her bedroom window." + +"How did you know it was her bedroom?" asked Margaret. + +"While I was waiting for you to come down one day I sent for one of the +servants and had him explain the lay of the house." + +"Really!" said Margaret, satirical and amused. "I suppose there was no +mail on the table or you'd have read that while you waited?" + +"There you go, trying to say clever, insulting things. Why not be frank? +Why not be direct?" + +"Why should I, simply because YOU wish it? You don't half realize how +amusing you are." + +"Oh, yes, I do," retorted he, with a shrewd, quick glance from those +all-seeing eyes of his. + +"Half, I said. You do half realize. I told you once before that I knew +what a fraud you were." + +"I play my game in my own way," evaded he; "and it seems to be doing +nicely, thank you." + +"But the further you go, the harder it'll be for you to progress." + +"Then the harder for those opposing me. I don't make it easy for those +who are making it hard for me. I get 'em so busy nursing their own +wounds that they've no longer time to bother me. I've told you before, +and I tell you again, I shall go where I please." + +"Let me see," laughed Margaret; "it was Napoleon--wasn't it?--who used +to talk that way?" + +"And you think I'm imitating him, eh?" + +"You do suggest it very often." + +"I despise him. A wicked, little, dago charlatan who was put out of +business as soon as he was really opposed. No!--no Waterloo for me!... +How's your mother? She got sick while I was talking to her and had to +leave the room." + +"Yes, I know," said Margaret. + +"You ought to make her take more exercise. Don't let her set foot in a +carriage. We are animals, and nature has provided that animals shall +walk to keep in health. Walking and things like that are the only sane +modes of getting about. Everything aristocratic is silly. As soon as we +begin to rear and strut we stumble into our graves--But it's no use to +talk to you about that. I came on another matter." + +Margaret's lips tightened; she hastily veiled her eyes. + +"I've taken a great fancy to you," Craig went on. "That's why I've +wasted so much time on you. What you need is a husband--a good husband. +Am I not right?" + +Margaret, pale, said faintly: "Go on." + +"You know I'm right. Every man and every woman ought to marry. A +home--children--THAT'S life. The rest is all incidental--trivial. Do you +suppose I could work as I do if it wasn't that I'm getting ready to be a +family man? I need love--sympathy--tenderness. People think I'm hard and +ambitious. But they don't know. I've got a heart, overflowing with +tenderness, as some woman'll find out some day. But I didn't come to +talk about myself." + +Margaret made a movement of surprise--involuntary, startled. + +"No, I don't always talk about myself," Craig went on; "and I'll let you +into a secret. I don't THINK about myself nearly so much as many of +these chaps who never speak of themselves. However, as I was saying, I'm +going to get you a husband. Now, don't you get sick, as your mother did. +Be sensible. Trust me. I'll see you through--and that's more than any of +these cheap, shallow people round you would do." + +"Well?" said Margaret. + +"You and Grant Arkwright are going to marry. Now don't pretend--don't +protest. It's the proper thing and it must be done. You like him?" + +As Craig was looking sharply at her she felt she must answer. She made a +vague gesture of assent. + +"Of course!" said Craig. "If you and he led a natural life you'd have +been married long ago. Now, I'm going to dine with him to-night. I'll +lay the case before him. He'll be out here after you to-morrow." + +Margaret trembled with anger. Two bright spots burned in her cheeks. +"You wouldn't dare!" she exclaimed breathlessly. "No, not even you!" + +"And why not?" demanded Craig calmly. "Do you suppose I'm going to stand +idly by, and let two friends of mine, two people I'm as fond of as I am +of you two creatures, make fools of yourselves? No. I shall bring you +together." + +Margaret rose. "If you say a word to Grant I'll never speak to you +again. And I assure you I shouldn't marry HIM if he were the last man on +earth." + +"If you only knew men better!" exclaimed Craig earnestly. His eyes +fascinated her, and his sharp, penetrating voice somehow seemed to reach +to her very soul and seize it and hold it enthralled. "My dear child, +Grant Arkwright is one man in a million. I've been with him in times +that show men's qualities. Don't judge men by what they are ordinarily. +They don't reveal their real selves. Wait till a crisis comes--then you +see manhood or lack of it. Life is bearable, at the worst, for any of us +in the routine. But when the crisis comes we need, not only all our own +strength, but all we can rally to our support. I tell you, Miss +Severence, Grant is one of the men that can be relied on. I despise his +surface--as I do yours. But it's because I see the man--the +manhood--beneath that surface, that I love him. And I want him to have a +woman worthy of him. That means YOU. You, too, have the soul that makes +a human being--a real aristocrat--of the aristocracy, of strong and +honest hearts." + +Craig's face was splendid, was ethereal in its beauty, yet flashing with +manliness. He looked as she had seen him that night two years before, +when he had held even her and her worldly friends spellbound, had made +them thrill with ideas of nobility and human helpfulness foreign to +their everyday selves. She sat silent when he had finished, presently +drew a long breath. + +"Why aren't you always like that?" she exclaimed half to herself. + +"You'll marry Grant?" + +She shook her head positively. "Impossible." + +"Why not?" + +"Impossible," she repeated. "And you mustn't speak of it to me--or to +him. I appreciate your motive. I thank you--really, I do. It makes me +feel better, somehow, to have had any one think so well of me as you do. +And Grant ought to be proud of your friendship." + +Their eyes met. She flushed to the line of her hair and her glance fell, +for she felt utterly ashamed of herself for the design upon him which +she had been harboring. "Let us go in and join the others," said she +confusedly. And her color fled, returned in a flood. + +"No, I'm off," replied he, in his ordinary, sharp, bustling way. "I'm +not defeated. I've done well--very well, for a beginning." And he gave +her hand his usual firm, uncomfortable clasp, and rushed away. + +She walked up and down full fifteen minutes before she went toward the +house. At the veranda Lucia intercepted her. "Did he?" she asked +anxiously. + +Margaret looked at her vaguely, then smiled. "No, he did not." + +"He didn't?" exclaimed Lucia, at once disappointed and relieved. + +"Not yet," said Margaret. She laughed, patted Lucia's full-blown cheek. +"Not quite yet." And she went on in to tea, humming to herself gayly; +she did not understand her own sudden exceeding high spirits. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +MR. CRAIG CONFIDES + + +Craig did not leave Margaret more precipitately than he had intended; +that would have been impossible, as he always strove to make his +departures seem as startling and mysterious as a dematerialization. But +he did leave much sooner than he had intended, and with only a small +part of what he had planned to say said. He withdrew to think it over; +and in the long walk from the Severences to his lodgings in the +Wyandotte he did think it over with his usual exhaustive thoroughness. + +He had been entirely sincere in his talk with Margaret. He was a shrewd +judge both of human nature and of situations, and he saw that a marriage +between Margaret and Grant would be in every way admirable. He +appreciated the fine qualities of both, and realized that they would +have an uncommonly good chance of hitting it off tranquilly together. Of +all their qualities of mutual adaptability the one that impressed him +most deeply was the one at which he was always scoffing--what he called +their breeding. Theoretically, and so far as his personal practice went, +he genuinely despised "breeding"; but he could not uproot a most +worshipful reverence for it, a reverence of which he was ashamed. He had +no "breeding" himself; he was experiencing in Washington a phase of life +which was entirely new to him, and it had developed in him the snobbish +instincts that are the rankest weeds in the garden of civilization. +Their seeds fly everywhere, are sown broadcast, threaten the useful +plants and the flowers incessantly, contrive to grow, to flourish even, +in the desert places. Craig had an instinct against this plague; but he +was far too self-confident to suspect that it could enter his own gates +and attack his own fields. He did not dream that the chief reason why he +thought Grant and Margaret so well suited to each other was the reason +of snobbishness; that he was confusing their virtues with their vices; +and was admiring them for qualities which were blighting their +usefulness and even threatening to make sane happiness impossible for +either. It was not their real refinement that he admired, and, at times, +envied; it was their showy affectations of refinement, those gaudy +pretenses that appeal to the crude human imagination, like uniforms and +titles. + +It had not occurred to him that Margaret might possibly be willing to +become his wife. He would have denied it as fiercely to himself as to +others, but at bottom he could not have thought of himself as at ease in +any intimate relation with her. He found her beautiful physically, but +much too fine and delicate to be comfortable with. He could be brave, +bold, insolent with her, in an impersonal way; but personally he could +not have ventured the slightest familiarity, now that he really +appreciated "what a refined, delicate woman is." + +But the easiest impression for a woman to create upon a man--or a man +upon a woman--is the impression of being in love. We are so conscious of +our own merits, we are so eager to have them appreciated, that we will +exaggerate or misinterpret any word or look, especially from a person of +the opposite sex, into a tribute to them. When Craig pleaded for Grant +and Margaret, moved by his eloquent sincerity, dropped her eyes and +colored in shame for her plans about him, in such black contrast with +his frank generosity, he noted her change of expression, and instantly +his vanity flashed into his mind: "Can it be that she loves me?" + +The more he reflected upon it the clearer it became to him that she did. +Yes, here was being repeated the old story of the attraction of +extremes. "She isn't so refined that appreciation of real manhood has +been refined out of her," thought he. "And why shouldn't she love me? +What does all this nonsense of family and breeding amount to, anyway?" +His mind was in great confusion. At one moment he was dismissing the +idea of such delicateness, such super-refined super-sensitiveness being +taken with a man of his imperfect bringing-up and humble origin. The +next moment his self-esteem was bobbing again, was jauntily assuring him +that he was "a born king" and, therefore, would naturally be discovered +and loved by a truly princess--"And, by Heaven, she IS a princess of the +blood royal! Those eyes, those hands, those slender feet!" Having no +great sense of humor he did not remind himself here how malicious nature +usually deprives royalty of the outward marks of aristocracy to bestow +them upon peasant. + +At last he convinced himself that she was actually burning with love for +him, that she had lifted the veil for an instant--had lifted it +deliberately to encourage him to speak for himself. And he was not +repelled by this forwardness, was, on the contrary, immensely flattered. +It is the custom for those of high station to reassure those of lower, +to make them feel that they may draw near without fear. A queen seeking +a consort among princes always begins the courting. A rich girl willing +to marry a poor man lets him see she will not be offended if he offers +to add himself to her possessions. Yes, it would be quite consistent +with sex-custom, with maidenly modesty, for a Severence to make the +first open move toward a Josh Craig. + +"But do I want her?" + +That was another question. He admired her, he would be proud to have +such a wife. "She's just the sort I need, to adorn the station I'm going +to have." But what of his dreams of family life, of easy, domestic +undress, which she would undoubtedly find coarse and vulgar? "It would +be like being on parade all the time--she's been used to that sort of +thing her whole life, but it'd make me miserable." Could he afford a +complete, a lifelong sacrifice of comfort to gratify a vanity? + +He had devoted much thought to the question of marriage. On the one hand +he wanted money; for in politics, with the people so stupid and so +fickle, a man without an independence, at least, would surely find +himself, sooner or later, in a position where he must choose between +retiring and submitting himself to some powerful interest--either a +complete sale, or a mortgage hardly less galling to pride, no less +degrading to self-respect. On the other hand he wanted a home--a wife +like his mother, domestic, attentive, looking out for his comfort and +his health, herself taking care of the children. And he had arrived at a +compromise. He would marry a girl out West somewhere, a girl of some +small town, brought up somewhat as he had been brought up, not shocked +by what Margaret Severance would regard as his vulgarities--a woman with +whom he felt equal and at ease. He would select such a woman, provided, +in addition, with some fortune--several hundred thousands, at least, +enough to make him independent. Such had been his plan. But now that he +had seen Margaret, had come to appreciate her through studying her as a +possible wife for his unattached friend Arkwright, now that he had +discovered her secret, her love for him--how could he fit her into his +career? Was it possible? Was it wise? + +"The best is none too good for me," said he to himself swaggeringly. No +doubt about it--no, indeed, not the slightest. But--well, everybody +wouldn't realize this, as yet. And it must be admitted that those mere +foppish, inane nothings did produce a seeming of difference. Indeed, it +must even be admitted that the way Margaret had been brought up would +make it hard for her, with her sensitive, delicate nerves, to bear with +him if she really knew him. A hot wave passed over his body at the +thought. "How ashamed I'd be to have her see my wardrobe. I really must +brace up in the matter of shirts, and in the quality of underclothes and +socks." No, she probably would be shocked into aversion if she really +knew him--she, who had been surrounded by servants in livery all her +life; who had always had a maid to dress her, to arrange a delicious +bath for her every morning and every evening, to lay out, from a vast +and thrilling store of delicate clothing, the fresh, clean, fine, +amazingly costly garments that were to have the honor and the pleasure +of draping that aristocratic body of hers. "Why, her maid," thought he, +"is of about the same appearance and education as my aunts. Old Williams +is a far more cultured person than my uncles or brothers-in-law." Of +course, Selina and Williams were menials, while his male kin were men +and his female relatives women, "and all of them miles ahead of anything +in this gang when it comes to the real thing--character." Still, so far +as appearances went--"I'm getting to be a damned, cheap snob!" cried he +aloud. "To hell with the whole crowd! I want nothing to do with them!" + +But Margaret, in her beautiful garments, diffusing perfume just as her +look and manner diffused the aroma of gentle breeding--The image of her +was most insidiously alluring; he could not banish it. "And, damn it +all, isn't she just a human being? What's become of my common-sense that +I treat these foolish trifles as if they were important?" + +Grant Arkwright came while the debate was still on. He soon noted that +something was at work in Josh's mind to make him so silent and glum, so +different from his usual voluble, flamboyant self. "What's up, Josh? +What deviltry are you plotting now to add to poor old Stillwater's +nervous indigestion?" + +"I'm thinking about marriage," said Craig, lighting a cigarette and +dropping into the faded magnificence of an ex-salon chair. + +"Good business!" exclaimed Arkwright. + +"It's far more important that you get married than that I do," explained +Craig. "At present you don't amount to a damn. You're like one of those +twittering swallows out there. As a married man you'd at least have the +validity that attaches to every husband and father." + +"If I could find the right girl," said Grant. + +"I thought I had found her for you," continued Craig. "But, on second +thoughts, I've about decided to take her for myself." + +"Oh, you have?" said Arkwright, trying to be facetious of look and tone. + +"Yes," said Josh, in his abrupt, decisive way. He threw the cigarette +into the empty fireplace and stood up. "I think I'll take your advice +and marry Miss Severance." + +"Really!" mocked Grant; but he was red with anger, was muttering under +his breath, "Insolent puppy!" + +"Yes, I think she'll do." Craig spoke as if his verdict were probably +overpartial to her. "It's queer about families and the kind of children +they have. Every once in a while you'll find a dumb ass of a man whose +brain will get to boiling with liquor or some other ferment, and it'll +incubate an idea, a real idea. It's that way about paternity--or, +rather, maternity. Now who'd think that inane, silly mother of +Margaret's could have brought such a person as she is into the world?" + +"Mrs. Severence is a very sweet and amiable LADY," said Grant coldly. + +"Pooh!" scoffed Craig. "She's a nothing--a puff of wind--a nit. Such as +she, by the great gross, wouldn't count one." + +"I doubt if it would be--wise--politically, I mean--for you to marry a +woman of--of the fashionable set." Grant spoke judicially, with +constraint in his voice. + +"You're quite right there," answered Craig promptly. "Still, it's a +temptation.... I've been reconsidering the idea since I discovered that +she loves me." + +Grant leaped to his feet. "Loves you!" he shouted. Josh smiled calmly. +"Loves me," said he. "Why not, pray?" + +"I--I--I--don't know," answered Grant weakly. + +"Oh, yes, you do. You think I'm not good enough for her--as if this were +not America, but Europe." And he went on loftily: "You ought to consider +what such thoughts mean, as revelations of your own character, Grant." + +"You misunderstood me entirely," protested Grant, red and guilty. +"Didn't I originally suggest her to you?" + +"But you didn't really mean it," retorted Craig with a laugh which Grant +thought the quintessence of impertinence. "You never dreamed she'd fall +in love with me." + +"Josh," said Grant, "I wish you wouldn't say that sort of thing. It's +not considered proper in this part of the country for a gentleman to +speak out that way about women." + +"What's there to be ashamed of in being in love? Besides, aren't you my +best friend, the one I confide everything to?" + +"You confide everything to everybody." + +Craig looked amused. "There are only two that can keep a secret," said +he, "nobody and everybody. I trust either the one or the other, and +neither has ever betrayed me." + +"To go back to the original subject: I'd prefer you didn't talk to me in +that way about that particular young lady." + +"Why?... Because you're in love with her, yourself?" + +Grant silently stared at the floor. + +"Poor old chap," said Craig sympathetically. + +Arkwright winced, started to protest, decided it was just as well to let +Craig think what he pleased at that juncture. + +"Poor old chap!" repeated Josh. "Well, you needn't despair. It's true +she isn't in love with you and is in love with me. But if I keep away +from her and discourage her it'll soon die out. Women of that sort of +bringing up aren't capable of any enduring emotion--unless they have +outside aid in keeping it alive." + +"No, thank you," said Arkwright bitterly. "I decline to be put in the +position of victim of your generosity. Josh, let me tell you, your +notion that she's in love with you is absurd. I'd advise you not to go +round confiding it to people, in your usual fashion. You'll make +yourself a laughing stock." + +"I've told no one but you," protested Craig. + +"Have you seen any one else since you got the idea?" + +"No, I haven't," he admitted with a laugh. "Now that you've told me the +state of your heart I'll not speak of her feeling for me. I give you my +word of honor on that. I understand how a chap like you, full of false +pride, would be irritated at having people know he'd married a woman who +was once in love with some one else. For of course you'll marry her." + +"I'm not sure of that. I haven't your sublime self-confidence, you +know." + +"Oh, I'll arrange it," replied Craig, full of enthusiasm. "In fact, I +had already begun, this very afternoon, when she let me see that she +loved me and, so, brought me up standing." + +"Damn it, man, DON'T say that!" cried Grant, all afire. "I tell you it's +crazy, conceited nonsense." + +"All right, all right, old chap," soothed Josh. + +And it frenzied Arkwright to see that he said this merely to spare the +feelings of an unrequited lover, not at all because he had begun to +doubt Margaret's love. "Come down to dinner and let's talk no more about +it," said Grant, with a great effort restraining himself. "I tell you, +Josh, you make it mighty hard sometimes for me to remember what I owe +you." + +Craig wheeled on him with eyes that flashed and pierced. "My young +friend," said he, "you owe me nothing. And let me say to you, once for +all, you are free to break with me at any instant--you or any other man. +Whenever I find I'm beginning to look on a man as necessary to me I drop +him--break with him. I am necessary to my friends, not they to me. I +like you, but be careful how you get impertinent with me." + +Craig eyed him fiercely and steadily until Arkwright's gaze dropped. +Then he laughed friendly. "Come along, Grant," said he. "You're a good +fellow, and I'll get you the girl." And he linked his arm in Arkwright's +and took up another phase of himself as the topic of his monologue. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +SOMEWHAT CYCLONIC + + +Margaret, on the way home afoot from the White House, where she had been +lunching with the President's niece, happened upon Craig standing with +his hands behind his back before the statue of Jackson. He was gazing up +at the fierce old face with an expression so animated that passers-by +were smiling broadly. She thought he was wholly absorbed; but when she +was about half-way across his range of vision he hailed her. "I say, +Miss Severence!" he cried loudly. + +She flushed with annoyance. But she halted, for she knew that if she did +not he would only shout at her and make a scene. + +"I'll walk with you," said he, joining her when he saw she had no +intention of moving toward him. + +"Don't let me draw you from your devotions," protested she. "I'm just +taking a car, anyhow." + +"Then I'll ride home with you and walk back. I want to talk with a +woman--a sensible woman--not easy to find in this town." + +Margaret was disliking him, his manner was so offensively familiar and +patronizing--and her plans concerning him made her contemptuous of +herself, and therefore resentful against him. "I'm greatly flattered," +said she. + +"No, you're not. But you ought to be. I suppose if you had met that old +chap on the pedestal there when he was my age you'd have felt toward him +much as you do toward me." + +"And I suppose he'd have been just about as much affected by it as you +are." + +"Just about. It was a good idea, planting his statue there to warn the +fellow that happens to be in the White House not to get too cultured. +You know it was because the gang that was in got too refined and forgot +whom this country belonged to that old Jackson was put in office. The +same thing will happen again." + +"And you'll be the person?" suggested Margaret with a smile of raillery. + +"If I show I'm fit for the job," replied Craig soberly. It was the first +time she had ever heard him admit a doubt about himself. "The question +is," he went on, "have I got the strength of character and the +courage?... What do you think?" + +"I don't know anything about it," said Margaret with polite +indifference. "There comes my car. I'll not trouble you to accompany +me." She put out her hand. "Goodby." She did not realize it, or intend +it, but she had appealed to one of his powerful instincts, a powerful +instinct in all predatory natures--the instinct to pursue whatever seems +to be flying. + +He shook his head at the motorman, who was bringing the car to a halt; +the car went on. He stood in front of her. Her color was high, but she +could not resist the steady compulsion of his eyes. "I told you I wanted +to talk with you," said he. "Do you know why I was standing before that +statue?" + +"I do not," Margaret answered coldly. + +"I was trying to get the courage to ask you to be my wife." + +She gave a queer laugh. "Well, you seem to have got what you sought," +said she. He had, as usual, taken her wholly unawares. + +"Not so fast," replied Craig. "I haven't asked you yet." + +Margaret did not know whether she most wished to laugh or to burst out +in anger. "I'm sure I don't care anything about it, one way or the +other," said she. + +"Why say those insincere things--to ME?" he urged. She had begun to +walk, and he was keeping pace with her. "Jackson," he proceeded, "was a +man of absolute courage. He took the woman he wanted--defied public +opinion to do it--and it only made him the more popular. I had always +intended to strengthen myself by marrying. If I married you I'd weaken +myself politically, while if I married some Western girl, some daughter +of the people, I'd make a great popular stroke." + +"Well--do it, then," said Margaret. "By all means do it." + +"Oh, but there's you," exclaimed Craig. "What'd I do about you?" + +"That's true," said Margaret mockingly. "But what am I to stand between +a man and ambition?" + +"I say that to myself," replied Craig. "But it's no use." His eyes +thrilled her, his voice seemed to melt her dislike, her resolve, as he +said: "There you are, and there you stay, Margaret. And you're not at +all fit to be my wife. You haven't been brought up right. You ought to +marry some man like Grant. He's just the man for you. Why did you ever +fall in love with me?" + +She stopped short, stared at him in sheer amazement. "I!" exclaimed she. +"I--in love with YOU!" + +He halted before her. "Margaret," he said tenderly, "can you deny it?" + +She flushed; hung her head. The indignant denial died upon her lips. + +He sighed. "You see, it is fate," said he. "But I'll manage it somehow. +I'll win out in spite of any, of every handicap." + +She eyed him furtively. Yes, if she wished to make a marriage of +ambition she could not do better. All Washington was laughing at him; +but she felt she had penetrated beneath the surface that excited their +mirth--had seen qualities that would carry him wherever he wished to +go--wherever she, with her grandmother's own will, wished him to go. + +"And," pursued he, "I'm far too rough and coarse for you--you, the +quintessence of aristocracy." + +She flushed with double delight--delight at this flattery and the deeper +delight a woman feels when a man shows her the weakness in himself by +which she can reach and rule him. + +"I'm always afraid of offending your delicacy," he went fatuously on. +"You're the only person I ever felt that way about. Absolutely the only +one. But you've got to expect that sort of thing in a man who prevails +in such a world as this. When men get too high-toned and aristocratic, +too fussy about manners and dress, along come real men to ride them down +and under. But I'll try to be everything you wish--to you. Not to the +others. That would defeat our object; for I'm going to take my wife +high--very high." + +Yes, he would indeed take her high--very high. Now that what she wanted, +what she must have, was offering, how could she refuse? They were +crossing another square of green. He drew--almost dragged--her into one +of the by-paths, seized her in his arms, kissed her passionately. "I +can't resist you--I can't!" he cried. + +"Don't--don't!" she murmured, violently agitated. "Some one might see!" + +"Some one is seeing, no doubt," he said, his breath coming quickly, a +look that was primeval, ferocious almost, in his eyes as they devoured +her. And, despite her protests and struggles, she was again in those +savage arms of his, was again shrinking and burning and trembling under +his caresses. She flung herself away, sank upon a bench, burst out +crying. + +"What is it, Margaret?" he begged, alarmed, yet still looking as if he +would seize her again. + +"I don't know--I don't know," she replied. + +Once more she tried to tell him that she did not love him, but the words +would not come. She felt that he would not believe her; indeed, she was +not sure of her own heart, of the meaning of those unprecedented +emotions that had risen under his caresses, and that stirred at the +memory of them. "Perhaps I am trying to love him," she said to herself. +"Anyhow, I must marry him. I can trifle with my future no longer. I must +be free of this slavery to grandmother. I must be free. He can free me, +and I can manage him, for he is afraid of me." + +"Did I hurt you?" Craig was asking. + +She nodded. + +"I am so sorry," he exclaimed. "But when I touched you I +forgot--everything!" + +She smiled gently at him. "I didn't dream you cared for me," she said. + +He laughed with a boisterousness that irritated her. "I'd never have +dared tell you," replied he, "if I hadn't seen that you cared for me." + +Her nerves winced, but she contrived to make her tone passable as she +inquired: "Why do you say that?" + +"Oh--the day in the garden--the day I came pleading for Grant. I saw it +in your eyes--You remember." + +Margaret could not imagine what he had misinterpreted so flatteringly to +himself. But what did it matter? How like ironic fate, to pierce him +with a chance shaft when all the shafts she had aimed had gone astray! + +She was startled by his seizing her again. At his touch she flamed. +"Don't!" she cried imperiously. "I don't like it!" + +He laughed, held her the more tightly, kissed her half a dozen times +squarely upon the lips. "Not that tone to me," said he. "I shall kiss +you when I please." + +She was furiously angry; but again her nerves were trembling, were +responding to those caresses, and even as she hated him for violating +her lips, she longed for him to continue to violate them. She started +up. "Let us go," she cried. + +He glanced at his watch. "I'll have to put you in a car," said he. "I +forgot all about my appointment." And he fumed with impatience while she +was adjusting her hat and veil pushed awry by his boisterous +love-making. "It's the same old story," he went on. "Woman weakens man. +You are a weakness with me--one that will cost me dear." + +She burned with a sense of insult. She hated him, longed to pour out +denunciations, to tell him just what she thought of him. She felt a +contempt for herself deeper than her revulsion against him. In silence +she let him hurry her along to a car; she scarcely heard what he was +saying--his tactless, angry outburst against himself and her for his +tardiness at that important appointment. She dropped into the seat with +a gasp of relief. She felt she must--for form's sake--merely for form's +sake--glance out of the window for the farewell he would be certain to +expect; she must do her part, now that she had committed herself. She +glanced; he was rushing away, with never a backward look--or thought. It +was her crowning humiliation. "I'll make him pay for all this, some +day!" she said to herself, shaking with anger, her grandmother's own +temper raging cyclonically within her. + + + + +CHAPTER X + +A BELATED PROPOSAL + + +Her mood--outraged against Craig, sullenly determined to marry him, +angry with her relatives, her mother no less than her grandmother, +because they were driving her to these desperate measures--this mood +persisted, became intenser, more imperious in its demand for a sacrifice +as the afternoon wore on. When Grant Arkwright came, toward six o'clock, +she welcomed him, the first-comer bringing her the longed-for chance to +discharge the vials of her wrath. And she noted with pleasure that he, +too, was in a black humor. Before she could begin he burst forth: + +"What's this that Josh Craig has been telling me? He seems to have gone +stark mad!" + +Margaret eyed him with icy disdain. "If there is any quality that can be +called the most repulsive," said she, "it is treachery. You've fallen +into a way of talking of your friend Craig behind his back that's +unworthy--perhaps not of you, but certainly of the person you pose as +being." + +"Did you propose to him this afternoon?" demanded Grant. + +Margaret grew cold from head to foot. "Does he say I did?" she succeeded +in articulating. + +"He does. He was so excited that he jumped off a car and held me an hour +telling me, though he was late for one of those important conferences +he's always talking about." + +Margaret had chosen her course. "Did he ask you to run and tell me he +had told you?" inquired she, with the vicious gleam of a vicious temper +in her fine hazel eyes. + +"No," admitted Grant. "I suppose I've no right to tell you. But it was +such an INFERNAL lie." + +"Did you tell him so?" + +Arkwright grew red. + +"I see you did not," said Margaret. "I knew you did not. Now, let me +tell you, I don't believe Craig said anything of the kind. A man who'd +betray a friend is quite capable of lying about him." + +"Margaret! Rita Severence!" Grant started up, set down his teacup, stood +looking down at her, his face white to the lips. "Your tone is not jest; +it is insult." + +"It was so intended." Margaret's eyes were upon him, her grandmother's +own favorite expression in them. Now that she was no longer a +matrimonial offering she felt profoundly indifferent to eligible men, +rejoiced in her freedom to act toward them as she wished. "I do not +permit any one to lie to me about the man I have engaged to marry." + +"What!" shouted Grant. "It was TRUE?" + +"Go out into the garden and try to calm yourself, Grant," said the girl +haughtily. "And if you can't, why--take yourself off home. And don't +come back until you are ready to apologize." + +"Rita, why didn't you give me a hint? I'd have married you myself. I'm +willing to do it.... Rita, will you marry me?" + +Margaret leaned back upon the sofa and laughed until his blood began to +run alternately hot and cold. + +"I beg your pardon," he stammered. "I did not realize how it sounded. +Only--you know how things are with our sort of people. And, as men go, I +can't help knowing I'm what's called a catch, and that you're looking +for a suitable husband.... As it's apparently a question of him or me, +and as you've admitted you got him by practically proposing--...Damn +it all, Rita, I want you, and I'm not going to let such a man as he is +have you. I never dreamed you'd bother with him seriously or I'd not +have been so slow." + +Margaret was leaning back, looking up at him. "I've sunk even lower than +I thought," she said, bringing to an end the painful silence which +followed this speech. + +"What do you mean, Rita?" + +She laughed cynically, shrugged her shoulders. First, Craig's impudent +assumption that she loved him, and his rude violation of her lips; now, +this frank insolence of insult, the more savage that it was +unconscious--and from the oldest and closest of her men friends. If one +did not die under such outrages, but continued to live and let live, one +could save the situation only by laughing. So, Margaret laughed--and +Arkwright shivered. + +"For God's sake, Rita!" he cried. "I'd not have believed that lips so +young and fresh as yours could utter such a cynical sound." + +She looked at him with disdainful, derisive eyes. "It's fortunate for me +that I have a sense of humor," said she. "And for you," she added. + +"But I am in earnest, I mean it--every word I said." + +"That's just it," replied she. "You meant it--every word." + +"You will marry me?" + +"I will not." + +"Why?" + +"For several reasons. For instance, I happen to be engaged to another +man." + +"That is--nothing." He snapped his fingers. + +She elevated her brows. "Nothing?" + +"He'd not keep his promise to you if--In fact, he was debating with me +whether or not he'd back down." + +"Either what you say is false," said she evenly, "or you are betraying +the confidence of a friend who trusted in your honor." + +"Oh, he said it, all right. You know how he is about confidences." + +"No matter." + +Margaret rose slowly, a gradual lifting of her long, supple figure. +Grant watching, wondered why he had never before realized that the +sensuous charm of her beauty was irresistible. "Where were my eyes?" he +asked himself. "She's beyond any of the women I've wasted so much time +on." + +She was saying with quiet deliberateness: "A few days ago, Grant, I'd +have jumped at your offer--to be perfectly frank. Why shouldn't I be +frank! I'm sick of cowardly pretenses and lies. I purpose henceforth to +be myself--almost." A look within and a slightly derisive smile. +"Almost. I shall hesitate and trifle no longer. I shall marry your +friend Craig." + +"You'll do nothing of the kind," raged Arkwright. "If you make it +necessary I'll tell him why you're marrying him." + +"You may do as you like about that," replied she. "He'll probably +understand why you are trying to break off our engagement." + +"You're very confident of your power over him," taunted he. + +She saw again Craig's face as he was kissing her. "Very," replied she. + +"You'll see. It's a mere physical attraction." + +She smiled tantalizingly, her long body displayed against the +window-casing, her long, round arms bare below the elbows, her hazel +eyes and sensuous lips alluring. "You, yourself, never thought of +proposing to me until I had made myself physically attractive to you," +said she. "Now--have I power over you, or not?" + +She laughed as his color mounted, and the look she had seen in Craig's +eyes blazed out in his. + +"How little physical charm you have for me," she went on. "Beside Craig +you're like an electric fan in competition with a storm-wind. Now, +Craig--" She closed her eyes and drew a long breath. + +Arkwright gnawed his lip. "What a--a DEVIL you ARE!" he exclaimed. + +"I wonder why it is a woman never becomes desirable to some men until +they find she's desired elsewhere," she went on reflectively. "What a +lack of initiative. What timidity. What an absence of originality. If I +had nothing else against you, Grant, I'd never forgive you for having +been so long blind to my charms--you and these other men of our set +who'll doubtless be clamorous now." + +"If you'd been less anxious to please," suggested he bitterly, "and more +courageous about being your own real self, you'd not have got yourself +into this mess." + +"Ah--but that wasn't my fault," replied she absently. "It was the fault +of my training. Ever since I can remember I've been taught to be on my +guard, lest the men shouldn't like me." In her new freedom she looked +back tranquilly upon the struggle she was at last emancipated from, and +philosophized about it. "What a mistake mothers make in putting worry +about getting a husband into their daughters' heads. Believe me, Grant, +that dread makes wretched what ought to be the happiest time of a girl's +life." + +"Rita," he pleaded, "stop this nonsense, and say you'll marry me." + +"No, thanks," said she. "I've chosen. And I'm well content." + +She gave him a last tantalizing look and went out on the veranda, to go +along it to the outdoor stairway. Arkwright gazed after her through a +fierce conflict of emotions. Was she really in earnest? Could it be +possible that Josh Craig had somehow got a hold over her? "Or, is it +that she doesn't trust me, thinks I'd back down if she were to throw him +over and rely on me?" No, there was something positively for Craig in +her tone and expression. She was really intending to marry him. Grant +shuddered. "If she only realized what marrying a man of that sort +means!" he exclaimed, half aloud. "But she doesn't. Only a woman who has +been married can appreciate what sort of a hell for sensitive nerves and +refined tastes marriage can be made." + +"Ah--Mr. Arkwright!" + +At this interruption in a woman's voice--the voice he disliked and +dreaded above all others--he startled and turned to face old Madam +Bowker in rustling black silk, with haughty casque of gray-white hair +and ebon staff carried firmly, well forward. Grant bowed. "How d'ye do, +Mrs. Bowker?" said he with respectful deference. What he would have +thought was the impossible had come to pass. He was glad to see her. +"She'll put an end to this nonsense--this nightmare," said he to +himself. + +Madam Bowker had Williams, the butler, and a maid-servant in her train. +She halted, gazed round the room; she pointed with the staff to the +floor a few feet from the window and a little back. "Place my chair +there," commanded she. + +The butler and the maid hastened to move a large carved and gilded chair +to the indicated spot. Madam Bowker seated herself with much ceremony. + +"Now!" said she. "We will rearrange the room. Bring that sofa from the +far corner to the other side of this window, and put the tea-table in +front of it. Put two chairs where the sofa was; arrange the other +chairs--" And she indicated the places with her staff. + +While the room was still in confusion Mrs. Severence entered. "What is +it, Mamma?" she asked. + +"Simply trying to make this frightful room a little less frightful." + +"Don't you think the pictures should be rehung to suit the new +arrangement, ma'am?" suggested Arkwright. + +Madam Bowker, suspicious of jest, looked sharply at him. He seemed +serious. "You are right," said she. + +"But people will be coming in a few minutes," pleaded Roxana. + +"Then to-morrow," said Madam Bowker reluctantly. "That will do, +Williams--that will do, Betty. And, Betty, you must go at once and make +yourself neat. You've had on that cap two days." + +"No, indeed, ma'am!" protested Betty. + +"Then it was badly done up. Roxana, how can you bear to live in such a +slovenly way?" + +"Will you have tea now, Mamma?" was Roxana's diplomatic reply. + +"Yes," answered the old lady. + +"Tea, Mr. Arkwright?" + +"Thanks, no, Mrs. Severence. I'm just going. I merely looked in to--to +congratulate Rita." + +Madam Bowker clutched her staff. "To congratulate my granddaughter? Upon +what, pray?" + +Arkwright simulated a look of surprise. "Upon her engagement." + +"Her WHAT?" demanded the old lady, while Roxana sat holding a lump of +sugar suspended between bowl and cup. + +"Her engagement to Josh Craig." + +"No such thing!" declared the old lady instantly. "Really, sir, it is +disgraceful that MY granddaughter's name should be associated in ANY +connection with such a person." + +Here Margaret entered the room by the French windows by which she had +left. She advanced slowly and gracefully, amid a profound silence. Just +as she reached the tea-table her grandmother said in a terrible voice: +"Margaret!" + +"Yes, Grandmother," responded Margaret smoothly, without looking at her. + +"Mr. Arkwright here has brought in a scandalous story about your being +engaged to that--that Josh person--the clerk in one of the departments. +Do you know him?" + +"Yes, Grandma. But not very well." + +Madam Bowker glanced triumphantly at Arkwright; he was gazing amazedly +at Margaret. + +"You see, Grant," said Roxana, with her foolish, pleasant laugh, "there +is nothing in it." + +"In what?" asked Margaret innocently, emptying the hot water from her +cup. + +"In the story of your engagement, dear," said her mother. + +"Oh, yes, there is," replied Margaret with a smiling lift of her brows. +"It's quite true." Then, suddenly drawing herself up, she wheeled on +Grant with a frown as terrible as her grandmother's own. "Be off!" she +said imperiously. + +Arkwright literally shrank from the room. As he reached the door he saw +her shiver and heard her mutter, "Reptile!" + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +MADAM BOWKER HEARS THE NEWS + + +In the midst of profound hush Madam Bowker was charging her heavy +artillery, to train it upon and demolish the engagement certainly, and +probably Margaret, too. Just as she was about to open fire callers were +ushered in. As luck had it they were the three Stillwater girls, hastily +made-over Westerners, dressed with great show of fashion in what +purported to be imported French hats and gowns. An expert eye, however, +would instantly have pierced the secret of this formidable array of +plumes and furbelows. The Stillwaters fancied they had exquisite taste +and real genius in the art of dress. Those hats were made at home, were +adaptations of the imported hats--adaptations of the kind that "see" the +original and "go it a few better." As for the dresses, the Stillwaters +had found one of those treasures dear to a certain kind of woman, had +found a "woman just round the corner, and not established yet"--"I +assure you, my dear, she takes a mental picture of the most difficult +dress to copy, and you'd never know hers from the original--and SO +reasonable!" + +In advance came Molly Stillwater, the youngest and prettiest and the +most aggressively dressed because her position as family beauty made it +incumbent upon her to lead the way in fashion. As soon as the greetings +were over--cold, indeed, from Madam Bowker, hysterical from +Roxana--Molly gushed out: "Just as we left home, Josh Craig came tearing +in. If possible, madder than a hatter--yes--really--" Molly was still +too young to have learned to control the mechanism of her mouth; thus, +her confused syntax seemed the result of the alarming and fascinating +contortions of her lips and tongue--"and, when we told him where we were +going he shouted out, 'Give Rita my love.'" + +Margaret penetrated to the purpose to anger her against Craig. Was not +Craig intended by Mrs. Stillwater for Jessie, the eldest and only +serious one of the three? And was not his conduct, his hanging about +Margaret and his shying off from Jessie, thoroughly up on public +questions and competent to discuss them with anybody--was not his +conduct most menacing to her plans? Mrs. Stillwater, arranging for +matrimony for all her daughters, had decided that Jess was hopeless +except as a "serious woman," since she had neither figure nor face, nor +even abundant hair, which alone is enough to entangle some men. So, Jess +had been set to work at political economy, finance, at studying up the +political situations; and, if started right and not interfered with, she +could give as good account of her teaching as any phonograph. + +Margaret welcomed Molly's message from Craig with a sweet smile. An +amused glance at the thunderous face of her grandmother, and she said, +"Perhaps it would interest you, dear, to know that he and I are +engaged." + +What could Madam Bowker say? What could she do? Obviously, nothing. The +three Stillwaters became hysterical. Their comments and congratulations +were scraps of disjointed nonsense, and they got away under cover of +more arrivals, in as great disorder as if the heavy guns Madam Bowker +had stacked to the brim for Margaret had accidentally discharged into +them. Madam Bowker could wait no longer. "Margaret," said she, "help me +to my carriage." + +Mrs. Severence gave her difficult daughter an appealing glance, as if +she feared the girl would cap the climax of rebellion by flatly +refusing; but Margaret said sweetly: + +"Yes, Grandma." + +The two left the room, the old lady leaning heavily on her granddaughter +and wielding her ebony staff as if getting her arm limbered to use it. +In the hall, she said fiercely, "To your room," and waved her staff +toward the stairway. + +Margaret hesitated, shrugged her shoulders. She preceding, and Madam +Bowker ascending statelily afterward, they went up and were presently +alone in Margaret's pretty rose and gold boudoir, with the outer door +closed. + +"Now!" exclaimed Madam Bowker. + +"Not so loud, please," suggested the tranquil Margaret, "unless you wish +Selina to hear." She pointed to the door ajar. "She's sewing in there." + +"Send the woman away," commanded the old lady. + +But Margaret merely closed the door. "Well, Grandmother?" + +"Sit at this desk," ordered the old lady, pointing with the ebony staff, +"and write a note to that man Craig, breaking the engagement. Say you +have thought it over and have decided it is quite impossible. And +to-morrow morning you go to New York with me." + +Margaret seated herself on the lounge instead. "I'll do neither," said +she. + +The old lady waved the end of her staff in a gesture of lofty disdain. +"As you please. But, if you do not, your allowance is withdrawn." + +"Certainly," said Margaret. "I assumed that." + +Madam Bowker gazed at her with eyes like tongues of flame. "And how do +you expect to live?" she inquired. + +"That is OUR affair," replied the girl. "You say you are done with me. +Well, so am I done with you." + +It was, as Margaret had said, because she was not afraid of her +grandmother that that formidable old lady respected her; and as she was +one of those who can give affection only where they give respect, she +loved Margaret--loved her with jealous and carping tenacity. The girl's +words of finality made her erect and unyielding soul shiver in a sudden +dreary blast of loneliness, that most tragic of all the storms that +sweep the ways of life. It was in the tone of the anger of love with the +beloved that she cried, "How DARE you engage yourself to such a person!" + +"You served notice on me that I must marry," replied the girl, her own +tone much modified. "He was the chance that offered." + +"The chance!" Madam Bowker smiled with caustic scorn, "He's not a +chance." + +"You ordered me to marry. I am marrying. And you are violating your +promise. But I expected it." + +"My promise? What do you mean?" + +"You told me if I'd marry you'd continue my allowance after marriage. +You even hinted you'd increase it." + +"But this is no marriage. I should consider a connection between such a +man and a Severence as a mere vulgar intrigue. You might as well run +away with a coachman. I have known few coachmen so ill-bred--so +repellent--as this Craig." + +Margaret laughed cheerfully. "He isn't what you'd call polished, is he?" + +Her grandmother studied her keenly. "Margaret," she finally said, "this +is some scheme of yours. You are using this engagement to help you to +something else." + +"I refused Grant Arkwright just before you came." + +"You--refused--Arkwright?" + +"My original plan was to trap Grant by making him jealous of Craig. But +I abandoned it." + +"And why?" + +"A remnant of decency." + +"I doubt it," said the old lady. + +"So should I in the circumstances. We're a pretty queer lot, aren't we? +You, for instance--on the verge of the grave, and breaking your promise +to me as if a promise were nothing." + +Mrs. Bowker's ebon staff twitched convulsively and her terrible eyes +were like the vent-holes of internal fires; but she managed her rage +with a skill that was high tribute to her will-power. "You are right in +selecting this clown--this tag-rag," said she. "You and he, I see, are +peculiarly suited to each other.... My only regret is that in my blind +affection I have wasted all these years and all those thousands of +dollars on you." Madam Bowker affected publicly a fine scorn of money +and all that thereto appertained; but privately she was a true +aristocrat in her reverence and consideration for that which is the bone +and blood of aristocracy. + +"Nothing so stupid and silly as regret," said Margaret, with placid +philosophy of manner. "I, too, could think of things I regret. But I'm +putting my whole mind on the future." + +"Future!" Madam Bowker laughed. "Why, my child, you have no future. +Within two years you'll either be disgracefully divorced, or the wife of +a little lawyer in a little Western town." + +"But I'll have my husband and my children. What more can a woman ask?" + +The old lady scrutinized her granddaughter's tranquil, delicate face in +utter amazement. She could find nothing on which to base a hope that the +girl was either jesting or posing. "Margaret," she cried, "are you +CRAZY?" + +"Do you think a desire for a home, and a husband who adores one, and +children whom one adores is evidence of insanity?" + +"Yes, you are mad--quite mad!" + +"I suppose you think that fretting about all my seasons without an offer +worth accepting has driven me out of my senses. Sometimes I think so, +too." And Margaret lapsed into abstracted, dreamy silence. + +"Do you pretend that you--you--care for--this person?" inquired the old +lady. + +"I can't discuss him with you, Grandmother," replied the girl. "You know +you have washed your hands of me." + +"I shall never give up," cried the old lady vehemently, "until I rescue +you. I'll not permit this disgrace. I'll have him driven out of +Washington." + +"Yes, you might try that," said Margaret. "I don't want him to stay +here. I am sick--sick to death--of all this. I loathe everything I ever +liked. It almost seems to me I'd prefer living in a cabin in the +back-woods. I've just wakened to what it really means--no love, no +friendship, only pretense and show, rivalry in silly extravagance, +aimless running to and fro among people that care nothing for one, and +that one cares nothing for. If you could see it as I see it you'd +understand." + +But Madam Bowker had thought all her life in terms of fashion and +society. She was not in the least impressed. "Balderdash!" said she with +a jab at the floor with the ebony staff. "Don't pose before me. You know +very well you're marrying this man because you believe he will amount to +a great deal." + +Margaret beamed upon her grandmother triumphantly, as if she had stepped +into a trap that had been set for her. "And your only reason for being +angry," cried she, "is that you don't believe he will." + +"I know he won't. He can't. Stillwater has kept him solely because that +unspeakable wife of his hopes to foist their dull, ugly eldest girl on +him." + +"You think a man as shrewd as Stillwater would marry his daughter to a +nobody?" + +"It's useless for you to argue, Margaret," snapped the old lady. "The +man's impossible--for a Severence. I shall stop the engagement." + +"You can't," rejoined Margaret calmly. "My mind is made up. And along +with several other qualities, Grandmother, dear, I've inherited your +will." + +"Will without wit--is there anything worse? But I know you are not +serious. It is merely a mood--the result of a profound discouragement. +My dear child, let me assure you it is no unusual thing for a girl of +your position, yet without money, to have no offers at all. You should +not believe the silly lies your girlfriends tell about having bushels of +offers. No girl has bushels of offers unless she makes herself common +and familiar with all kinds of men--and takes their loose talk +seriously. Most men wouldn't dare offer themselves to you. The impudence +of this Craig! You should have ordered him out of your presence." + +Margaret, remembering how Craig had seized her, smiled. + +"I admit I have been inconsiderate in urging you so vigorously," +continued her grandmother. "I thought I had observed a tendency to +fritter. I wished you to stop trifling with Grant Arkwright--or, rather, +to stop his trifling with you. Come, now, my dear, let me put an end to +this engagement. And you will marry Grant, and your future will be +bright and assured." + +Margaret shook her head. "I have promised," said she, and her expression +would have thrilled Lucia. + +Madam Bowker was singularly patient with this evidence of +sentimentalism. "That's fine and noble of you. But you didn't realize +what a grave step you were taking, and you--" + +"Yes, but I did. If ever anything was deliberate on a woman's part, that +engagement was." A bright spot burned in each of the girl's cheeks. "He +didn't really propose. I pretended to misunderstand him." + +Her grandmother stared. + +"You needn't look at me like that," exclaimed Margaret. "You know very +well that Grandfather Bowker never would have married you if you hadn't +fairly compelled him. I heard him tease you about it once when I was a +little girl." + +It was Madam Bowker's turn to redden. She deigned to smile. "Men are so +foolish," observed she, "that women often have to guide them. There +would be few marriages of the right sort if the men were not managed." + +Margaret nodded assent. "I realize that now," said she. Earnestly: +"Grandmother, try to make the best of this engagement of mine. When a +woman, a woman as experienced and sensible as I am, makes up her mind a +certain man is the man for her, is it wise to interfere?" + +Madam Bowker, struck by the searching wisdom of this remark, was +silenced for the moment. In the interval of thought she reflected that +she would do well to take counsel of herself alone in proceeding to +break this engagement. "You are on the verge of making a terrible +misstep, child," said she with a gentleness she had rarely shown even to +her favorite grandchild. "I shall think it over, and you will think it +over. At least, promise me you will not see Craig for a few days." + +Margaret hesitated. Her grandmother, partly by this unusual gentleness, +partly by inducing the calmer reflection of the second thought, had +shaken her purpose more than she would have believed possible. "If I've +made a mistake," said she, "isn't seeing him the best way to realize +it?" + +"Yes," instantly and emphatically admitted the acute old lady. "See him, +by all means. See as much of him as possible. And in a few days you will +be laughing at yourself--and very much ashamed." + +"I wonder," said Margaret aloud, but chiefly to herself. + +And Madam Bowker, seeing the doubt in her face, only a faint reflection +of the doubt that must be within, went away content. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +PUTTING DOWN A MUTINY + + +Margaret made it an all but inflexible rule not to go out, but to rest +and repair one evening in each week; that was the evening, under the +rule, but she would have broken the rule had any opportunity offered. Of +course, for the first time since the season began, no one sent or +telephoned to ask her to fill in at the last moment. She half-expected +Craig, though she knew he was to be busy; he neither came nor called up. +She dined moodily with the family, sat surlily in a corner of the +veranda until ten o'clock, hid herself in bed. She feared she would have +a sleepless night. But she had eaten no dinner; and, as indigestion is +about the only thing that will keep a healthy human being awake, she +slept dreamlessly, soundly, not waking until Selina slowly and softly +opened the inner blinds of her bedroom at eight the next morning. + +There are people who are wholly indifferent about their surroundings, +and lead the life dictated by civilized custom only because they are +slaves of custom, Margaret was not one of these. She not only adopted +all the comforts and luxuries that were current, she also spent much +tune in thinking out new luxuries, new refinements upon those she +already had. She was through, and through the luxurious idler; she made +of idling a career--pursued it with intelligent purpose where others +simply drifted, yawning when pastimes were not provided for them. She +was as industrious and ingenious at her career as a Craig at furthering +himself and his ideas in a public career. + +Like the others of her class she left the care of her mind to chance. As +she had a naturally good mind and a bird-like instinct for flitting +everywhere, picking out the food from the chaff, she made an excellent +showing even in the company of serious people. But that was accident. +Her person was her real care. To her luxurious, sensuous nature every +kind of pleasurable physical sensation made keen appeal, and she strove +in every way to make it keener. She took the greatest care of her +health, because health meant beauty and every nerve and organ in +condition to enjoy to its uttermost capacity. + +Because of this care it was often full three hours and half between the +entrance of Selina and her own exit, dressed and ready for the day. And +those three hours and a half were the happiest of her day usually, +because they were full of those physical sensations in which she most +delighted. Her first move, after Selina had awakened her, was to spend +half an hour in "getting the yawns out." She had learned this +interesting, pleasant and amusing trick from a baby in a house where she +had once spent a week. She would extend herself at full length in the +bed, and then slowly stretch each separate muscle of arm and leg, of +foot and hand, of neck and shoulders and waist. This stretching process +was accompanied by a series of prolonged, profound, luxurious yawns. + +The yawning exercise completed, she rose and took before a long mirror a +series of other exercises, some to strengthen her waist, others to keep +her back straight and supple, others to make firm the contour of her +face and throat. A half-hour of this, then came her bath. This was no +hurried plunge, drying and away, but a long and elaborate function at +which Selina assisted. There had to be water of three temperatures; a +dozen different kinds of brushes, soaps, towels and other apparatus +participated. When it was finished Margaret's skin glowed and shone, was +soft and smooth and exhaled a delicious odor of lilacs. During the +exercises Selina had been getting ready the clothes for the +day--everything fresh throughout, and everything delicately redolent of +the same essence of lilacs with which Selina had rubbed her from hair to +tips of fingers and feet. The clothes were put on slowly, for Margaret +delighted in the feeling of soft silks and laces being drawn over her +skin. She let Selina do every possible bit of work, and gave herself up +wholly to the joy of being cared for. + +"There isn't any real reason why I shouldn't be doing this for you, +instead of your doing it for me--is there, Selina?" mused she aloud. + +"Goodness gracious, Miss Rita!" exclaimed Selina, horrified. "I wouldn't +have it done for anything. I was brought up to be retiring about +dressing. It was my mother's dying boast that no man, nor no woman, had +ever seen her, a grown woman, except fully dressed." + +"Really?" said Margaret absently. She stood up, surveyed herself in the +triple mirror--back, front, sides. "So many women never look at +themselves in the back," observed she, "or know how their skirts hang +about the feet. I believe in dressing for all points of view." + +"You certainly are just perfect," said the adoring Selina, not the least +part of her admiring satisfaction due to the fact that the toilette was +largely the creation of her own hands. "And you smell like a real +lady--not noisy, like some that comes here. I hate to touch their wraps +or to lay 'em down in the house. But you--It's one of them smells that +you ain't sure whether you smelt it or dreamed it." + +"Pretty good, Selina!" said Margaret. She could not but be pleased with +such a compliment, one that could have been suggested only by the truth. +"The hair went up well this morning, didn't it?" + +"Lovely--especially in the back. It looks as if it had been marcelled, +without that common, barbery stiffness-like." + +"Yes, the back is good. And I like this blouse. I must wear it oftener." + +"You can't afford to favor it too much, Miss Rita. You know you've got +over thirty, all of them beauties." + +"Some day, when I get time, we must look through my clothes. I want to +give you a lot of them.... What DOES become of the time? Here it is, +nearly eleven. See if breakfast has come up. I'll finish dressing +afterward if it has." + +It had. It was upon a small table in the rose and gold boudoir. And the +sun, shining softly in at the creeper-shaded window, rejoiced in the +surpassing brightness and cleanness of the dishes of silver and thinnest +porcelain and cut glass. Margaret thought eating in bed a "filthy, +foreign fad," and never indulged in it. She seated herself lazily, drank +her coffee, and ate her roll and her egg slowly, deliberately, reading +her letters and glancing at the paper. A charming picture she made--the +soft, white Valenciennes of her matinee falling away from her throat and +setting off the clean, smooth healthiness of her skin, the blackness of +her vital hair; from the white lace of her petticoat's plaited flounces +peered one of her slim feet, a satin slipper upon the end of it. At the +top of the heap of letters lay one she would have recognized, she +thought, had she never seen the handwriting before. + +"Sure to be upsetting," reflected she; and she laid it aside, glancing +now and then at the bold, nervous, irregular hand and speculating about +the contents and about the writer. + +She had gone to bed greatly disturbed in mind as to whether she was +doing well to marry the obstreperous Westerner. "He fascinates me in a +wild, weird sort of a way when I'm with him," she had said to herself +before going to sleep, "and the idea of him is fascinating in certain +moods. And it is a temptation to take hold of him and master and train +him--like broncho-busting. But is it interesting enough for--for +marriage? Wouldn't I get horribly tired? Wouldn't Grant and humdrum be +better? less wearying?" And when she awakened she found her problem all +but solved. "I'll send him packing and take Grant," she found herself +saying, "unless some excellent reason for doing otherwise appears. +Grandmother was right. Engaging myself to him was a mood." Once more she +was all for luxury and ease and calmness, for the pleasant, soothing, +cut-and-dried thing. "A cold bath or a rough rub-down now and then, once +in a long while, is all very well. It makes one appreciate comfort and +luxury more. But that sort of thing every day--many times each day--" +Margaret felt her nerves rebelling as at the stroking of velvet the +wrong way. + +She read all her other letters, finished her toilette, had on her hat, +and was having Selina put on her boots when she opened Craig's letter +and read: + +"I must have been out of my mind this afternoon. You are wildly +fascinating, but you are not for me. If I led you to believe that I +wished to marry you, pray forget it. We should make each other unhappy +and, worse still, uncomfortable. + +"Do I make myself clear? We are not engaged. I hope you will marry +Arkwright; a fine fellow, in every way suited to you, and, I happen to +know, madly in love with you. Please try to forgive me. If you have any +feeling for me stronger than friendship you will surely get over it. + +"Anyhow, we couldn't marry. That is settled. + +"Let me have an answer to this. I shall be upset until I hear." No +beginning. No end. Just a bald, brutal casting-off. A hint--more than a +hint--of a fear that she would try to hold him in spite of himself. She +smiled--small, even teeth clenched and eyelids contracted cruelly--as +she read a second time, with this unflattering suggestion obtruding. The +humiliation of being jilted! And by such a man!--the private shame--the +public disgrace--She sprang up, crunching her foot hard down upon one of +Selina's hands. "What is it?" said she angrily, at her maid's cry of +pain. + +"Nothing, Miss," replied Selina, quickly hiding the wounded hand. "You +moved so quick I hadn't time to draw away. That was all." + +"Then finish that boot!" + +Selina had to expose the hand, Margaret looked down at it indifferently, +though her heel had torn the skin away from the edge of the palm and had +cut into the flesh. + +"Hurry!" she ordered fiercely, as Selina fumbled and bungled. + +She twitched and frowned with impatience while Selina finished buttoning +the boot, then descended and called Williams. "Get me Mr. Craig on the +telephone," she said. + +"He's been calling you up several times to-day, ma'am,--" + +"Ah!" exclaimed Margaret, eyes flashing with sudden delight. + +"But we wouldn't disturb you." + +"That was right," said Margaret. She was beaming now, was all sunny good +humor. Even her black hair seemed to glisten in her simile. So! He had +been calling up! Poor fool, not to realize that she would draw the +correct inference from this anxiety. + +"Shall I call him?" "No. I'll wait. Probably he'll call again soon. I'll +be in the library." + +She had not been roaming restlessly about there many minutes before +Williams appeared "He's come, himself, ma'am," said he. "I told him I +didn't know whether you'd be able to see him or not." + +"Thank you, Williams," said Margaret sweetly. "Order the carriage to +come round at once. Leave Mr. Craig in the drawing-room. I'll speak to +him on the way out." + +She dashed upstairs. "Selina! Selina!" she called. And when Selina came: +"Let me see that hand. I hurt you because I got news that went through +me like a knife. You understand, don't you?" + +"It was nothing, Miss Rita," protested Selina. "I'd forgot it myself +already." + +But Margaret insisted on assuring herself with her own eyes, got blood +on her white gloves, had to change them. As she descended she was +putting on the fresh pair--a new pair. How vastly more than even the +normal is a man's disadvantage in a "serious" interview with a woman if +she is putting on new gloves! She is perfectly free to seem occupied or +not, as suits her convenience; and she can, by wrestling with the +gloves, interrupt him without speech, distract his attention, fiddle his +thoughts, give him a sense of imbecile futility, and all the time offer +him no cause for resentment against her. He himself seems in the wrong; +she is merely putting On her gloves. + +She was wrong in her guess that Arkwright had been at him. He had simply +succumbed to his own fears and forebodings, gathered in force as soon as +he was not protected from them by the spell of her presence. The mystery +of the feminine is bred into men from earliest infancy, is intensified +when passion comes and excites the imagination into fantastic activity +about women. No man, not the most experienced, not the most depraved, is +ever able wholly to divest himself of this awe, except, occasionally, in +the case of some particular woman. Awe makes one ill at ease; the woman +who, by whatever means, is able to cure a man of his awe of her, to make +him feel free to be himself, is often able to hold him, even though he +despises her or is indifferent to her; on the other hand, the woman who +remains an object of awe to a man is certain to lose him. He may be +proud to have her as his wife, as the mother of his children, but he +will seek some other woman to give her the place of intimacy in his +life. + +At the outset on an acquaintance between a man and a woman his awe for +her as the embodiment of the mystery feminine is of great advantage to +her; it often gets him for her as a husband. In this particular case of +Margaret Severence and Joshua Craig, while his awe of her was an +advantage, it was also a disadvantage. It attracted him; it perilously +repelled him. He liked to release his robust imagination upon those +charms of hers--those delicate, refined beauties that filled him with +longings, delicious in their intensity, longings as primeval in kind as +well as in force as those that set delirious the savage hordes from the +German forests when they first poured down over the Alps and beheld the +jewels and marbles and round, smooth, soft women of Italy's ancient +civilization. But at the same time he had the unmistakable, the +terrifying feeling of dare-devil sacrilege. What were his coarse hands +doing, dabbling in silks and cobweb laces and embroideries? Silk +fascinated him; but, while he did not like calico so well, he felt at +home with it. Yes, he had seized her, had crushed her madly in the +embrace of his plowman arms. But that seemed now a freak of courage, a +drunken man's deed, wholly beyond the nerve of sobriety. + +Then, on top of all this awe was his reverence for her as an aristocrat, +a representative of people who had for generations been far removed +above the coarse realities of the only life he knew. And it was this +adoration of caste that determined him. He might overcome his awe of her +person and dress, of her tangible trappings; but how could he ever hope +to bridge the gulf between himself and her intangible superiorities? He +was ashamed of himself, enraged against himself for this feeling of worm +gazing up at star. It made a mockery of all his arrogant, noisy +protestations of equality and democracy. + +"The fault is not in my ideas," thought he; "THEY'RE all right. The +fault's in me--damned snob that I am!" + +Clearly, if he was to be what he wished, if he was to become what he had +thought he was, he must get away from this sinister influence, from this +temptation that had made him, at first onset, not merely stumble, but +fall flat and begin to grovel. "She is a superior woman--that is no snob +notion of mine," reflected he. "But from the way I falter and get weak +in the knees, she ought to be superhuman--which she isn't, by any means. +No, there's only one thing to do--keep away from her. Besides, I'd feel +miserable with her about as my wife." My wife! The very words threw him +into a cold sweat. + +So the note was written, was feverishly dispatched. + +No sooner was it sent than it was repented. "What's the matter with me?" +demanded he of himself, as his courage came swaggering back, once the +danger had been banished. "Why, the best is not too good for me. She is +the best, and mighty proud she ought to be of a man who, by sheer force +of character, has lifted himself to where I am and who, is going to be +what I shall be. Mighty proud! There are only two realities--money and +brains. I've certainly got more brains than she or any of her set; as +for money, she hasn't got that. The superiority is all on my side. I'm +the one that ought to feel condescending." + +What had he said in his note? Recalling it as well as he could--for it +was one, the last, of more than a dozen notes he had written in two +hours of that evening--recalling phrases he was pretty sure he had put +into the one he had finally sent, in despair of a better, it seemed to +him he had given her a wholly false impression--an impression of her +superiority and of his fear and awe. That would never do. He must set +her right, must show her he was breaking the engagement only because she +was not up to his standard. Besides, he wished to see her again to make +sure he had been victimized into an engagement by a purely physical, +swiftly-evanescent imagining. Yes, he must see her, must have a look at +her, must have a talk with her. + +"It's the only decent, courageous thing to do in the circumstances. +Sending that note looked like cowardice--would be cowardice if I didn't +follow it up with a visit. And whatever else I am, surely I'm not a +coward!" + +Margaret had indulged in no masculine ingenuities of logic. Woman-like, +she had gone straight to the practical point: Craig had written instead +of coming--he was, therefore, afraid of her. Having written he had not +fled, but had come--he was, therefore, attracted by her still. Obviously +the game lay in her own hands, for what more could woman ask than that a +man be both afraid and attracted? A little management and she not only +would save herself from the threatened humiliation of being +jilted--jilted by an uncouth nobody of a Josh Craig!--but also would +have him in durance, to punish his presumption at her own good pleasure +as to time and manner. If Joshua Craig, hardy plodder in the arduous +pathway from plowboy to President, could have seen what was in the mind +so delicately and so aristocratically entempled in that graceful, +slender, ultra-feminine body of Margaret Severence's, as she descended +the stairs, putting fresh gloves upon her beautiful, idle hands, he +would have borrowed wings of the wind and would have fled as from a +gorgon. + +But as she entered the room nothing could have seemed less formidable +except to the heart. Her spring dress--she was wearing it for the first +time--was of a pale green, suggesting the draperies of islands of +enchantment. Its lines coincided with the lines of her figure. Her hat, +trimmed to match, formed a magic halo for her hair; and it, in turn, was +the entrancing frame in which her small, quiet, pallid face was +set--that delicate, sensitive face, from which shone, now softly and now +brilliantly, those hazel eyes a painter could have borrowed for a wood +nymph. In the doorway, before greeting him, she paused. + +"Williams," she called, and Craig was thrilled by her "high-bred" +accent, that seemed to him to make of the English language a medium +different from the one he used and heard out home. + +"Yes, ma'am," came the answer in the subtly-deferential tone of the +aristocracy of menialdom, conjuring for Craig, with the aid of the woman +herself and that aristocratic old room, a complete picture of the life +of upper-class splendor. + +"Did you order the carriage, as I asked?" + +"Yes, ma'am; it's at the door." + +"Thank you." And Margaret turned upon an overwhelmed and dazzled Craig. +He did not dream that she had calculated it all with a view to +impressing him--and, if he had, the effect would hardly have been +lessened. Whether planned or not, were not toilette and accent, and +butler and carriage, all realities? Nor did he suspect shrewd +calculations upon snobbishness when she said: "I was in such haste to +dress that I hurt my poor maid's hand as she was lacing my boot"--she +thrust out one slender, elegantly-clad foot--"no, buttoning it, I mean." +Oh, these ladies, these ladies of the new world--and the old--that are +so used to maids and carriages and being waited upon that they no more +think of display in connection with them than one would think of +boasting two legs or two eyes! + +The advantage from being in the act of putting on gloves began at the +very outset. It helped to save her from deciding a mode of salutation. +She did not salute him at all. It made the meeting a continuation, +without break, of their previous meeting. + +"How do you like my new dress?" she asked, as she drew the long part of +her glove up her round, white arm. + +"Beautiful," he stammered. + +From the hazel eyes shot a shy-bold glance straight into his; it was as +if those slim, taper fingers of hers had twanged the strings of the lyre +of his nerves. "You despise all this sort of trumpery, don't you?" + +"Sometimes a man says things he don't mean," he found tongue to utter. + +"I understand," said she sympathetically, and he knew she meant his +note. But he was too overwhelmed by his surroundings, by her envelope of +aristocracy, too fascinated by her physical charm, too flattered by +being on such terms with such a personage, to venture to set her right. +Also, she gave him little chance; for in almost the same breath she went +on: "I've been in such moods!--since yesterday afternoon--like the +devils in Milton, isn't it?--that are swept from lands of ice to lands +of fire?--or is it in Dante? I never can remember. We must go straight +off, for I'm late. You can come, too--it's only a little meeting about +some charity or other. All rich people, of course--except poor me. I'm +sure I don't know why they asked me. I can give little besides advice. +How handsome you are to-day, Joshua!" + +It was the first time she had called him by his first name. She repeated +it--"Joshua--Joshua"--as when one hits upon some particularly sweet and +penetrating chord at the piano, and strikes it again, and yet again. + +They were in the carriage, being whirled toward the great palace of Mrs. +Whitson, the latest and grandest of plutocratic monuments that have +arisen upon the ruins of the old, old-fashioned American Washington. And +she talked incessantly--a limpid, sparkling, joyous strain. And either +her hand sought his or his hers; at any rate, he found himself holding +her hand. They were almost there before he contrived to say, very +falteringly: "You got my note?" + +She laughed gayly. "Oh, yes--and your own answer to it, Joshua--my +love"--the "my love" in a much lower, softer tone, with suggestion of +sudden tears trembling to fall. + +"But I meant it," he said, though in tones little like any he was used +to hearing from his own lips. But he would not dare look himself in the +face again if he did not make at least a wriggle before surrendering. + +"We mean many things in as many moods," said she. "I knew it was only a +mood. I knew you'd come. I've such a sense of implicit reliance on you. +You are to me like the burr that shields the nut from all harm. How +secure and cozy and happy the nut must feel in its burr. As I've walked +through the woods in the autumn I've often thought of that, and how, if +I ever married--" + +A wild impulse to seize her and crush her, as one crushes the ripe berry +for its perfume and taste, flared in his eyes. She drew away to check +it. "Not now," she murmured, and her quick breath and flush were not +art, but nature. "Not just now--Joshua." + +"You make me--insane," he muttered between his teeth. "God!--I DO love +you!" + +They were arrived; were descending. And she led him, abject and in +chains, into the presence of Mrs. Whitson and the most fashionable of +the fashionable set. "So you've brought him along?" cried Mrs. Whitson. +"Well, I congratulate you, Mr. Craig. It's very evident you have a +shrewd eye for the prizes of life, and a strong, long reach to grasp +them." + +Craig, red and awkward, laughed hysterically, flung out a few +meaningless phrases. Margaret murmured: "Perhaps you'd rather go?" She +wished him to go, now that she had exhibited him. + +"Yes--for Heaven's sake!" he exclaimed. He was clutching for his +braggart pretense of ease in "high society" like a drowning man scooping +armsful of elusive water. + +She steered her captive in her quiet, easeful manner toward the door, +sent him forth with a farewell glance and an affectionate interrogative, +"This afternoon, at half-past four?" that could not be disobeyed. + +The mutiny was quelled. The mutineer was in irons. She had told him she +felt quite sure about him; and it was true, in a sense rather different +from what the words had conveyed to him. But it was of the kind of +security that takes care to keep the eye wakeful and the powder dry. She +felt she did not have him yet where she could trust him out of her sight +and could herself decide whether the engagement was to be kept or +broken. + +"Why, my dear," said Mrs. Whitson, "he positively feeds out of your +hand! And such a wild man he seemed!" + +Margaret, in the highest of high spirits, laughed with pleasure. + +"A good many," pursued Mrs. Whitson, "think you are throwing yourself +away for love. But as I size men up--and my husband says I'm a wonder at +it--I think he'll be biggest figure of all at one end of Pennsylvania +Avenue or the other. Perhaps, first one end, then at the other." + +"I'm glad to hear you say that," cried Margaret, with the keen +enthusiasm with which, in time of doubt, we welcome an ally to our own +private judgment. "But," she hastened to add, with veiled eye and +slightly tremulous lip, "I'm ready to take whatever comes." + +"That's right! That's right!" exclaimed Mrs. Whitson, a tender and +dreamy sentimentalist except in her own affairs. "Love is best!" + +"Love is best," echoed Margaret. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +A MEMORABLE MEETING + + +In that administration the man "next" the President was his Secretary of +the Treasury, John Branch, cold and smooth and able, secreting, in his +pale-gray soul, an icy passion for power more relentless than heat ever +bred. To speak of him as unscrupulous would be like attributing moral +quality to a reptile. For him principle did not exist, except as an +eccentricity of some strangely-constructed men which might be used to +keep them down. Life presented itself to him as a series of mathematical +problems, as an examination in mathematics. To pass it meant a diploma +as a success; to fail to pass meant the abysmal disgrace of obscurity. +Cheating was permissible, but not to get caught at it. Otherwise Branch +was the most amiable of men; and why should he not have been, his +digestion being good, his income sufficient, his domestic relations +admirable, and his reputation for ability growing apace? No one +respected him, no one liked him; but every one admired him as an +intellect moving quite unhampered of the restraints of conscience. In +person he was rather handsome, the weasel type of his face being well +concealed by fat and by judicious arrangements of mustache and +side-whiskers. By profession he was a lawyer, and had been most +successful as adviser to wholesale thieves on depredations bent or in +search of immunity for depredations done. It was incomprehensible to him +why he was unpopular with the masses. It irritated him that they could +not appreciate his purely abstract point of view on life; it irritated +him because his unpopularity with them meant that there were limits, and +very narrow ones, to his ambition. + +It was to John Branch that Madam Bowker applied when she decided that +Joshua Craig must be driven from Washington. She sent for him, and he +came promptly. He liked to talk to her because she was one of the few +who thoroughly appreciated and sympathized with his ideas of success in +life. Also, he respected her as a personage in Washington, and had it in +mind to marry his daughter, as soon as she should be old enough, to one +of her grandnephews. + +"Branch," said the old lady, with an emphatic wave of the ebony staff, +"I want that Craig man sent away from Washington." + +"Josh, the joke?" said Branch with a slow, sneering smile that had an +acidity in it interesting in one so even as he. + +"That's the man. I want you to rid us of him. He has been paying +attention to Margaret, and she is encouraging him." + +"Impossible!" declared Branch. "Margaret is a sensible girl and Josh has +nothing--never will have anything." + +"A mere politician!" declared Madam Bowker. "Like hundreds of others +that wink in with each administration and wink out with it. He will not +succeed even at his own miserable political game--and, if he did, he +would still be poor as poverty." + +"I don't think you need worry about him and Margaret. I repeat, she is +sensible--an admirable girl--admirably brought up. She has distinction. +She has the right instincts." + +Madam Bowker punctuated each of these compliments with a nod of her +haughty head. "But," said she, "Craig has convinced her that he will +amount to something." + +"Ridiculous!" scoffed Branch, with an airy wave of the hand. But there +was in his tone a concealment that set the shrewd old lady furtively to +watching him. + +"What do they think of him among the public men?" inquired she. + +"He's laughed at there as everywhere." + +Her vigilance was rewarded; as Branch said that, malignance hissed, ever +so softly, in his suave voice, and the snake peered furtively from his +calm, cold eyes. Old Madam Bowker had not lived at Washington's great +green tables for the gamblers of ambition all those years without +learning the significance of eyes and tone. For one politician to speak +thus venomously of another was sure sign that that other was of +consequence; for John Branch, a very Machiavelli at self-concealment and +usually too egotistic to be jealous, thus to speak, and that, without +being able to conceal his venom--"Can it be possible," thought the old +lady, "that this Craig is about to be a somebody?" Aloud she said: "He +is a preposterous creature. The vilest manners I've seen in three +generations of Washington life. And what vanity, what assumptions! The +first time I met him he lectured me as if I were a schoolgirl--lectured +me about the idle, worthless life he said I lead. I decided not to +recognize him next time I saw him. Up he came, and without noticing that +I did not speak he poured out such insults that I was answering him +before I realized it." + +"He certainly is a most exasperating person." + +"So Western! The very worst the West ever sent us. I don't understand +how he happened to get about among decent people. Oh, I remember, it was +Grant Arkwright who did it. Grant picked him up on one of his shooting +trips." + +"He is insufferable," said Branch. + +"You must see that the President gets rid of him. I want it done at +once. I assure you, John, my alarm is not imaginary. Margaret is very +young, has a streak of sentimentality in her. Besides, you know how weak +the strongest women are before a determined assault. If the other sex +wasn't brought up to have a purely imaginary fear of them I don't know +what would become of the world." + +Branch smiled appreciatively but absently. "The same is true of men," +said he. "The few who amount to anything--at least in active life--base +their calculations on the timidity and folly of their fellows rather +than upon their own abilities. About Craig--I'd like to oblige you, +but--well, you see, there is--there are certain political exigencies--" + +"Nonsense!" interrupted the old lady. "I know the relative importance of +officials. A mere understrapper like Craig is of no importance." + +"The fact is," said Branch with great reluctance, "the President has +taken a fancy to Craig." + +Branch said it as if he hardly expected to be believed--and he wasn't. +"To be perfectly frank," he went on, "you know the President, how easily +alarmed he is. He's afraid Craig may, by some crazy turn of this crazy +game of politics, develop into a Presidential possibility. Of course, +it's quite absurd, but--" + +"The more reason for getting rid of him." + +"The contrary. The President probably reasons that, if Craig has any +element of danger in him the nearer he keeps him to himself the better. +Craig, back in the West, would be free to grow. Here the President can +keep him down if necessary. And I think our friend Stillwater will +succeed in entangling him disastrously in some case sooner or later." +There Branch laughed pleasantly, as at the finding of the correct +solution to a puzzling problem in analytics or calculus. + +"What a cowardly, shadow-fighting, shadow-dodging set you men are!" +commented Madam Bowker. Though she did not show it, as a man certainly +would, her brain was busy with a wholly different phase of the matter +they were discussing. + +"Isn't Stillwater going to retire?" she asked presently. + +Branch startled. "Where did you hear that?" he demanded. + +The old lady smiled. "There are no secrets in Washington," said she. +"Who will be his successor?" + +Branch's cold face showed annoyance. "You mustn't speak of it," replied +he, "but the President is actually thinking of appointing Craig--in case +the vacancy should occur. Of course, I am trying to make him see the +folly of such a proceeding, but--You are right. Men are cowards. That +insufferable upstart is actually bullying the President into a state of +terror. Already he has compelled him to prosecute some of our best +friends out in the Western country, and if the Courts weren't with us--" +Branch checked himself abruptly. It was not the first time he had caught +himself yielding to Washington's insidious custom of rank gossip about +everything and everybody; but it was about his worst offense in that +direction. "I'm getting to be as leaky as Josh Craig is--as he SEEMS to +be," he muttered, so low, however, that not even her sharp ears caught +it. + +"So it is to be Attorney-General Craig," said the old lady, apparently +abstracted but in reality catlike in watchfulness, and noting with +secret pleasure Branch's anger at this explicit statement of the triumph +of his hated rival. + +"Isn't it frightful?" said Branch. "What is the country coming to?" + +But she had lost interest in the conversation. She rid herself of Branch +as speedily as the circumstances permitted. She wished to be alone, to +revolve the situation slowly from the new viewpoint which Branch, +half-unconsciously and wholly reluctantly, had opened up. She had lived +a long time, had occupied a front bench overlooking one of the world's +chief arenas of action. And, as she had an acute if narrow mind, she had +learned to judge intelligently and to note those little signs that are, +to the intelligent, the essentials, full of significance. She had +concealed her amazement from Branch, but amazed she was, less at his +news of Craig as a personage full of potentiality than at her own +failure, through the inexcusable, manlike stupidity of personal pique, +to discern the real man behind his mannerisms. "No wonder he has pushed +so far, so fast," reflected she; for she appreciated that in a man of +action manners should always be a cloak behind which his real campaign +forms. It must be a fitting cloak, it should be a becoming one; But +always a cloak. "He fools everybody, apparently," thought she. "The +results of his secret work alarm them; then, along he comes, with his +braggart, offensive manners, his childish posings, his peacock vanity, +and they are lulled into false security. They think what he did was an +accident that will not happen again. Why, he fooled even ME!" + +That is always, with every human being, the supreme test, necessarily. +Usually it means nothing. In this case of Cornelia Bowker it meant a +great deal; for Cornelia Bowker was not easily fooled. The few who +appear in the arena of ambition with no game to play, with only +sentiment and principle to further, the few who could easily have fooled +her cynical, worldly wisdom could safely be disregarded. She felt it was +the part of good sense to look the young man over again, to make sure +that the new light upon him was not false light. "He may be a mere +accident in spite of his remarkable successes," thought she. "The same +number sometimes comes a dozen times in succession at roulette." She +sent her handy man, secretary, social manager and organizer, MAITRE +D'HOTEL, companion, scout, gossip, purveyor of comfort, J. Worthington +Whitesides, to seek out Craig and to bring him before her forthwith. + +As Mr. Whitesides was a tremendous swell, in dress, in manner and in +accent, Craig was much impressed when he came into his office in the +Department of Justice. Whitesides' manner, the result of Madam Bowker's +personal teaching, was one of his chief assets in maintaining and +extending her social power. It gave the greatest solemnity and dignity +to a summons from her, filled the recipient with pleasure and with awe, +prepared him or her to be duly impressed and in a frame of mind suitable +to Madam Bowker's purposes. + +"I come from Madam Bowker," he explained to Craig, humbly conscious of +his own disarray and toiler's unkemptness. "She would be greatly obliged +if you will give her a few minutes of your time. She begs you to excuse +the informality. She has sent me in her carriage, and it will be a great +satisfaction to her if you will accompany me." + +Craig's first impulse of snobbish satisfaction was immediately followed +by misgivings. Perhaps this was not the formal acceptance of the +situation by the terrible old woman as he had, on the spur, fancied. +Perhaps she had sent for him to read him the riot act. Then he +remembered that he was himself in doubt as to whether he wished to marry +the young woman. All his doubts came flooding back, and his +terrors--for, in some of its aspects, the idea of being married to this +delicate flower of conventionality and gentle breeding was literally a +terror to him. If he went he would be still further committing himself; +all Washington would soon know of the journey in the carriage of Madam +Bowker, the most imposing car of state that appeared in the streets of +the Capital, a vast, lofty affair, drawn by magnificent horses, the +coachman and footman in costly, quiet livery, high ensconced. + +"No, thanks," said Josh, in his most bustlingly-bounderish manner. "Tell +the old lady I'm up to my neck in work." + +Mr. Whitesides was taken aback, but he was far too polished a gentleman +to show it. "Perhaps later?" he suggested. + +"I've promised Margaret to go out there later. If I get through here in +time I'll look in on Mrs. Bowker on the way. But tell her not to wait at +home for me." + +Mr. Whitesides bowed, and was glad when the outer air was blowing off +him the odor of this vulgar incident. "For," said he to himself, "there +are some manners so bad that they have a distinct bad smell. He is 'the +limit!' The little Severence must be infernally hard-pressed to think of +taking him on. Poor child! She's devilish interesting. A really handsome +bit, and smart, too--excellent ideas about dress. Yet somehow she's +been marooned, overlooked, while far worse have been married well. +Strange, that sort of thing. Somewhat my own case. I ought to have been +able to get some girl with a bunch, yet I somehow always just failed to +connect--until I got beyond the marrying age. Devilish lucky for me, +too. I'm no end better off." And Mr. Whitesides, sitting correctly upon +Madam Bowlder's gray silk cushions, reflected complacently upon his +ample salary, his carefully built-up and most lucrative commissions, his +prospects for a "smashing-good legacy when her majesty deigns to pass +away." + +At four Madam Bowker, angry yet compelled to a certain respect, heard +with satisfaction that Craig had come. "Leave me, Whitesides," said she. +"I wish to be quite alone with him throughout." + +Thus Craig, entering the great, dim drawing-room, with its panel +paintings and its lofty, beautifully-frescoed ceiling, found himself +alone with her. She was throned upon a large, antique gold chair, ebony +scepter in one hand, the other hand white and young-looking and in fine +relief against the black silk of her skirt; she bent upon him a keen, +gracious look. Her hazel eyes were bright as a bird's; they had the +advantage over a bird's that they saw--saw everything in addition to +seeming to see. + +Looking at him she saw a figure whose surfaces were, indeed, not +extraordinarily impressive. Craig's frame was good; that was apparent +despite his clothes. He had powerful shoulders, not narrow, yet neither +were they of the broad kind that suggest power to the inexpert and +weakness and a tendency to lung trouble to the expert. His body was a +trifle long for his arms and legs, which were thick and strong, like a +lion's or a tiger's. He had a fine head, haughtily set; his eyes +emphasized the impression of arrogance and force. He had the leader's +beaklike nose, a handsome form of it, like Alexander's, not like +Attila's. The mouth was the orator's--wide, full and flexible of lips, +fluent. It was distinctly not an aristocratic mouth. It suggested common +speech and common tastes--ruddy tastes--tastes for quantity rather than +for quality. His skin, his flesh were also plainly not aristocratic; +they lacked that fineness of grain, that finish of surface which are got +only by eating the costly, rare, best and best-prepared food. His hair, +a partially disordered mop over-hanging his brow at the middle, gave him +fierceness of aspect. The old lady had more than a suspicion that the +ferocity of that lock of hair and somewhat exaggerated forward thrust of +the jaw were pose--in part, at least, an effort to look the valiant and +relentless master of men--perhaps concealing a certain amount of +irresolution. Certainly those eyes met hers boldly rather than +fearlessly. + +She extended her hand. He took it, and with an effort gave it the +politician's squeeze--the squeeze that makes Hiram Hanks and Bill Butts +grin delightedly and say to each other: "B'gosh, he ain't lost his +axe-handle grip yet, by a durn sight, has he?--dog-gone him!" + +Madam Bowker did not wince, though she felt like it. Instead she +smiled--a faint, derisive smile that made Craig color uncomfortably. + +"You young man," said she in her cool, high-bred tones, "you wish to +marry my granddaughter." + +Craig was never more afraid nor so impressed in his life. But there was +no upflaming of physical passion here to betray him into yielding before +her as he had before her granddaughter. "I do not," replied he +arrogantly. "Your granddaughter wants to marry me." + +Madam Bowker winced in spite of herself. A very sturdy-appearing +specimen of manhood was this before her; she could understand how her +granddaughter might be physically attracted. But that rude accent, that +common mouth, those uncouth clothes, hand-me-downs or near it, that +cheap look about the collar, about the wrists, about the ankles-- + +"We are absolutely unsuited to each other--in every way," continued +Craig. "I tell her so. But she won't listen to me. The only reason I've +come here is to ask you to take a hand at trying to bring her to her +senses." + +The old lady, recovered from her first shock, gazed at him admiringly. +He had completely turned her flank, and by a movement as swift as it was +unexpected. If she opposed the engagement he could hail her as an ally, +could compel her to contribute to her own granddaughter's public +humiliation. On the other hand, if she accepted the engagement he would +have her and Margaret and all the proud Severence family in the position +of humbly seeking alliance with him. Admirable! No wonder Branch was +jealous and the President alarmed. "Your game," said she pleasantly, "is +extremely unkempt, but effective. I congratulate you. I owe you an +apology for having misjudged you." + +He gave her a shrewd look. "I know little Latin and less Greek," said +he, "but, 'timeo Danaos dona ferentes.' And I've got no game. I'm +telling you the straight truth, and I want you to help save me from +Margaret and from myself. I love the girl. I honestly don't want to make +her wretched. I need a sock-darner, a wash-counter, a pram-pusher, for a +wife, as Grant would say, not a dainty piece of lace embroidery. It +would soon be covered with spots and full of holes from the rough wear +I'd give it." + +Madam Bowker laughed heartily. "You are--delicious," said she. "You +state the exact situation. Only I don't think Rita is quite so fragile +as you fancy. Like all persons of common origin, Mr. Craig, you +exaggerate human differences. They are not differences of kind, but of +degree." + +Craig quivered and reddened at "common origin," as Madam Bowker expected +and hoped. She had not felt that she was taking a risk in thus hardily +ignoring her own origin; Lard had become to her, as to all Washington, +an unreality like a shadowy reminiscence of a possible former sojourn on +earth. "I see," pursued she, "that I hurt your vanity by my frankness--" + +"Not at all! Not at all!" blustered Joshua, still angrier--as Madam +Bowker had calculated. + +"Don't misunderstand me," pursued she tranquilly. "I was simply stating +a fact without aspersion. It is the more to your credit that you have +been able to raise yourself up among us--and so very young! You are not +more than forty, are you?" + +"Thirty-four," said Craig surlily. He began to feel like a cur that is +getting a beating from a hand beyond the reach of its fangs. "I've had a +hard life--" + +"So I should judge," thrust the old lady with gentle sympathy. It is not +necessary to jab violently with a red-hot iron in order to make a deep +burn. + +"But I am the better for it," continued Craig, eyes flashing and orator +lips in action. "And you and your kind--your granddaughter +Margaret--would be the better for having faced--for having to face--the +realities of life instead of being pampered in luxury and uselessness." + +"Then why be resentful?" inquired she. "Why not merely pity us? Why this +heat and seeming jealousy?" + +"Because I love your granddaughter," replied Craig, the adroit at +debate. "It pains, it angers me to see a girl who might have been a +useful wife, a good mother, trained and set to such base uses." + +The old lady admired his skillful parry. "Let us not discuss that," said +she. "We look at life from different points of view. No human being can +see beyond his own point of view. Only God sees life as a whole, sees +how its seeming inconsistencies and injustices blend into a harmony. +Your mistake--pardon an old woman's criticism of experience upon +inexperience--your mistake is that you arrogate to yourself divine +wisdom and set up a personal opinion as eternal truth." + +"That is very well said, admirably said," cried Craig. Madam Bowker +would have been better pleased with the compliment had the tone been +less gracious and less condescending. + +"To return to the main subject," continued she. "Your hesitation about +my granddaughter does credit to your manliness and to your sense. I have +known marriages between people of different station and rank to turn out +well--again--" + +"That's the second or third time you've made that insinuation," burst +out Craig. "I must protest against it, in the name of my father and +mother, in the name of my country, Mrs. Bowker. It is too ridiculous! +Who are you that you talk about rank and station? What is Margaret but +the daughter of a plain human being of a father, a little richer than +mine and so a little nearer opportunities for education? The claims to +superiority of some of the titled people on the other side are silly +enough when one examines them--the records of knavery and thievery and +illegitimacy and insanity. But similar claims over here are laughable at +a glance. The reason I hesitate to marry your daughter is not to her +credit, or to her parents' credit--or to yours." + +Madam Bowker was beside herself with rage at these candid insults, flung +at her with all Craig's young energy and in his most effective manner; +for his crudeness disappeared when he spoke thus, as the blackness and +roughness of the coal vanish in the furnace heat, transforming it into +beauty and grace of flames. + +"Do I make myself clear?" demanded Craig, his eyes flashing superbly +upon her. + +"You certainly do," snapped the old lady, her dignity tottering and a +very vulgar kind of human wrath showing uglily in her blazing eyes and +twitching nose and mouth and fingers. + +"Then let us have no more of this caste nonsense," said the young man. +"Forbid your granddaughter to marry or to see me. Send or take her away. +She will thank you a year from now. My thanks will begin from the moment +of release." + +"Yes, you have made yourself extremely clear," said Madam Bowker in a +suffocating voice. To be thus defied, insulted, outraged, in her own +magnificent salon, in her own magnificent presence! "You may be sure you +will have no further opportunity to exploit your upstart insolence in my +family. Any chance you may have had for the alliance you have so +cunningly sought is at an end." And she waved her ebony scepter in +dismissal, ringing the bell at the same time. + +Craig drew himself up, bowed coldly and haughtily, made his exit in +excellent style; no prince of the blood, bred to throne rooms, no +teacher of etiquette in a fashionable boarding-school could have done +better. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +MAGGIE AND JOSH + + +Wrath is a baseless flame in the intelligent aged; also, Margaret's +grandmother was something more than a mere expert in social craft, would +have been woman of the world had not circumstances compressed her to its +petty department of fashionable society. Before Craig had cleared the +front door she was respecting him, even as she raged against him. +Insolent, impudent, coarsely insulting--yes, all these. But very much a +man, a masculine force; with weaknesses, it was true, and his full +measure of the low-sprung's obsequious snobbishness; but, for all that, +strong, persistent, concentrated, one who knew the master-art of making +his weaknesses serve as pitfalls into which his enemies were lured, to +fall victim to his strength. + +"Yes, he will arrive," reflected Madam Bowker. "Branch will yet have to +serve him. Poor Branch! What a misery for a man to be born with a +master's mind but with the lack of will and courage that keeps a man a +servant. Yes, Craig will arrive!... What a pity he has no money." + +But, on second thought, that seemed less a disadvantage. If she should +let him marry Margaret they would be dependent upon her; she could +control them--him--through holding the purse strings. And when that +remote time came at which it would please God to call her from her +earthly labors to their eternal reward, she could transfer the control +to Margaret. "Men of his origin are always weak on the social side," she +reflected. "And it wouldn't be in nature for a person as grasping of +power as he is not to be eager about money also." + +With the advent of plutocratic fashion respect for official position had +dwindled at Washington. In Rome in the days when the imperators became +mere creatures of the army, the seat of fashion and of power was +transferred to the old and rich families aloof from the government and +buying peace and privilege from it. So Washington's fashionable society +has come to realize, even more clearly than does the rest of the +country, that, despite spasmodic struggles and apparent spurts of +reaction, power has passed to the plutocracy, and that officialdom is, +as a rule, servant verging toward slave. Still, form is a delusion of +tenacious hold upon the human mind. The old lady's discoveries of +Craig's political prospects did not warm her toward him as would news +that he was in the way of being vastly rich; but she retained enough of +the fading respect for high-titled office to feel that he was not the +quite impossibility she had fancied, but was fit to be an aspirant for +an aristocratic alliance. + +"If Margaret doesn't fall in love with him after she marries him," +reflected she, "all may be well. Of course, if she does she'll probably +ruin him and herself, too. But I think she'll have enough sense of her +position, of how to maintain it for herself, and for him and her +children, not to be a fool." + +Meanwhile Craig was also cooling down. He had meant every word he +said--while he was saying it. Only one self-convinced could have been so +effective. But, sobering off from his rhetorical debauch in the quiet +streets of that majestic quarter, he began to feel that he had gone +farther, much farther, than he intended. + +"I don't see how, in self-respect, I could have said less," thought he. +"And surely the old woman isn't so lost to decency that she can't +appreciate and admire self-respect." + +Still he might have spoken less harshly; might have been a little +considerate of the fact that he was not making a stump speech, but was +in the drawing-room of a high-born, high-bred lady. "And gad, she IS a +patrician!" + +His eyes were surveying the splendid mansions round about--the beautiful +window-gardens--the curtains at the windows, which he had learned were +real lace, whatever that might be, and most expensive. Very fine, that +way of living! Very comfortable, to have servants at beck and call, and +most satisfactory to the craving for power--trifles, it is true, but +still the substantial and tangible evidence of power. "And it impresses +the people, too. We're all snobs at bottom. We're not yet developed +enough to appreciate such a lofty abstraction as democracy." + +True, Margaret was not rich; but the old grandmother was. Doubtless, if +he managed her right, she would see to it that he and Margaret had some +such luxury as these grandly-housed people--"but not too much, for that +would interfere with my political program." He did not protest this +positively; the program seemed, for the moment, rather vague and not +very attractive. The main point seemed to be money and the right sort of +position among the right sort of people. He shook himself, scowled, +muttered: "I am a damn fool! What do _I_ amount to except as I rise in +politics and stay risen? I must be mighty careful or I'll lose my point +of view and become a wretched hanger-on at the skirts of these fakers. +For they are fakers--frauds of the first water! Take their accidental +money away from them and they'd sink to be day laborers, most of +them--and not of much account there." + +He was sorely perplexed; he did not know what to do--what he ought to +do--even what he wanted to do. One thing seemed clear--that he had gone +further than was necessary in antagonizing the old woman. Whether he +wanted to marry the girl or not, he certainly did not wish, at this +stage of the game, to make it impossible. The wise plan was to leave the +situation open in every direction, so that he could freely advance or +freely retreat as unfolding events might dictate. So he turned in the +direction of the Severence house, walked at his usual tearing pace, +arrived there somewhat wilted of collar and exceedingly dusty of shoe +and trouser-leg. + +Greater physical contrast could hardly have been than that between him +and Margaret, descending to him in the cool garden where he was mopping +himself and dusting his shoes, all with the same handkerchief. She was +in a graceful walking costume of pale blue, scrupulously neat, perfect +to the smallest detail. As she advanced she observed him with eyes that +nothing escaped; and being in one of her exquisite moods, when the +senses are equally quick to welcome the agreeable or to shrink from the +disagreeable, she had a sense of physical repugnance. He saw her the +instant she came out of the house. Her dress, its harmony with her +delicateness of feature and coloring, the gliding motion of her form +combined to throw him instantly into a state of intoxication. He rushed +toward her; she halted, shivered, shrank. "Don't--look at me like that!" +she exclaimed half under her breath. + +"And why not? Aren't you mine?" And he seized her, enwrapped her in his +arms, pressed his lips firmly upon her hair, her cheek--upon her lips. +There he lingered; her eyes closed, her form, he felt, was yielding +within his embrace as though she were about to faint. + +"Don't--please," she murmured, when he let her catch her breath. +"I--I--can't bear it." + +"Do you love me?" he cried passionately. + +"Let me go!" She struggled futilely in his plowman arms. + +"Say you love me!" + +"If you don't let me go I shall hate you!" + +"I see I shall have to kiss you until you do love me." + +"Yes--yes--whatever you wish me to say," she cried, suddenly freeing +herself by dodging most undignifiedly out of his arms. + +She stood a little way from him, panting, as was he. She frowned +fiercely, then her eyes softened, became tender--just why she could not +have explained. "What a dirty boy it is!" she said softly. "Go into the +house and ask Williams to take you where you can make yourself +presentable." + +"Not I," said he, dropping into a seat. "Come, sit here beside me." + +She laughed; obeyed. She even made several light passes at his wet mop +of hair. She wondered why it was that she liked to touch him, where a +few minutes before she had shrunk from it. + +"I've just been down telling that old grandmother of yours what I +thought of her," said he. + +She startled. "How did you happen to go there?" she exclaimed. She +forgot herself so completely that she added imperiously: "I wanted you +to keep away from her until I was ready for you to go." + +"She sent for me," apologized he. "I went. We came together with a bang. +She told me I wanted to marry you; I told her YOU wanted to marry ME. +She told me I was low; I told her she was a fraud. She said I was +insolent; I said good-afternoon. If I hadn't marched out rather quickly +I guess she'd have had me thrown out." + +Margaret was sitting stone-still, her hands limp in her lap. + +"So you see it's all up," continued he, with a curious air of bravado, +patently insincere. "And it's just as well. You oughtn't to marry me. +It's a crime for me to have permitted things to go this far." + +"Perhaps you are right," replied she slowly and thoughtfully. "Perhaps +you are right." + +He made one of his exclamatory gestures, a swift jerk around of the head +toward her. He had all he could do to restrain himself from protesting, +without regard to his pretenses to himself and to her. "Do you mean +that, Maggie?" he asked with more appeal in his voice than he was +conscious of. + +"Never call me that again!" she cried. "It's detestable--so common!" + +He drew back as if she had struck him. "I beg your pardon," he said with +gentle dignity. "I shall not do it again. Maggie was my mother's +name--what she was always called at home." + +She turned her eyes toward him with a kind of horror in them. "Oh, +forgive me!" she begged, her clasped hands upon his arm. "I didn't mean +it at all--not at all. It is I that am detestable and common. I spoke +that way because I was irritated about something else." She laid one +hand caressingly against his cheek. "You must always call me +Maggie--when--when "--very softly--"you love me very, very much. I like +you to have a name for me that nobody else has." + +He seized her hands. "You DO care for me, don't you?" he cried. + +She hesitated. "I don't quite know," said she. Then, less seriously: +"Not at all, I'm sure, when you talk of breaking the engagement. I WISH +you hadn't seen grandmother!" + +"I wish so, too," confessed he. "I made an ass of myself." + +She glanced at him quickly. "Why do you say that?" + +"I don't know," he stammered confusedly. How could he tell her? + +"A moment ago you seemed well pleased with what you'd done." + +"Well, I guess I went too far. I wasn't very polite." + +"You never are." + +"I'm going to try to do better.... No, I don't think it would be wise +for me to go and apologize to her." + +She was looking at him strangely. "Why are you so anxious to conciliate +her?" + +He saw what a break he had made, became all at once red and +inarticulate. + +"What is she to you?" persisted the girl. + +"Nothing at all," he blustered. "I don't care--THAT"--he snapped his +fingers--"for her opinion. I don't care if everybody in the world is +against our marrying. I want just you--only you." + +"Obviously," said she with a dry laugh that was highly disconcerting to +him. "I certainly have no fortune--or hope of one, so far as I know." + +This so astounded, so disconcerted him that he forgot to conceal it. +"Why, I thought--your grandmother--that is--" He was remembering, was +stammering, was unable to finish. + +"Go on," she urged, obviously enjoying his hot confusion. + +He became suddenly angry. "Look here, Margaret," he cried, "you don't +suspect me of--" + +She put her fingers on his lips and laughed quietly at him. "You'd +better run along now. I'm going to hurry away to grandmother, to try to +repair the damage you did." She rose and called, "Lucia! Lucia!" The +round, rosy, rather slovenly Miss Severence appeared in the little +balcony--the only part of the house in view from where they sat. + +"Telephone the stables for the small victoria," called Margaret. + +"Mother's out in it," replied Lucia. + +"Then the small brougham." + +"I want that. Why don't you take the electric?" + +"All right." + +Lucia disappeared. Margaret turned upon the deeply-impressed Craig. +"What's the matter?" asked she, though she knew. + +"I can't get used to this carriage business," said he. "I don't like it. +Where the private carriage begins just there democracy ends. It is the +parting of the ways. People who are driving have to look down; people +who aren't have to look up." + +"Nonsense!" said Margaret, though it seemed to her to be the truth. + +"Nonsense, of course," retorted Craig. "But nonsense rules the world." +He caught her roughly by the arm. "I warn you now, when we--" + +"Run along, Josh," cried she, extricating herself and laughing, and with +a wave of the hand she vanished into the shrubbery. As soon as she was +beyond the danger of having to continue that curious conversation she +walked less rapidly. "I wonder what he really thinks," she said to +herself. "I wonder what I really think. I suspect we'd both be amazed at +ourselves and at each other if we knew." + +Arrived at her grandmother's she had one more and huger cause for +wonder. There were a dozen people in the big salon, the old lady +presiding at the tea-table in high good humor. "Ah--here you are, +Margaret," cried she. "Why didn't you bring your young man?" + +"He's too busy for frivolity," replied Margaret. + +"I saw him this afternoon," continued Madam Bowker, talking aside to her +alone when the ripples from the new stone in the pond had died away. +"He's what they call a pretty rough customer. But he has his good +points." + +"You liked him better?" said the astonished Margaret. + +"I disliked him less," corrected the old lady. "He's not a man any +one"--this with emphasis and a sharp glance at her +granddaughter--"likes. He neither likes nor is liked. He's too much of +an ambition for such petty things. People of purpose divide their +fellows into two classes, the useful and the useless. They seek allies +among the useful, they avoid the useless." + +Margaret laughed. + +"Why do you laugh, child? Because you don't believe it?" + +Margaret sighed. "No, because I don't want to believe it." + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +THE EMBASSY GARDEN PARTY + + +Craig dined at the Secretary of State's that night, and reveled in the +marked consideration every one showed him. He knew it was not because of +his political successes, present and impending; in the esteem of that +fashionable company his success with Margaret overtopped them. And while +he was there, drinking more than was good for him and sharing in the +general self-complacence, he thought so himself. But waking up about +three in the morning, with an aching head and in the depths of the +blues, the whole business took on again its grimmest complexion. "I'll +talk it over again with Grant," he decided, and was at the Arkwright +house a few minutes after eight. + +It so happened that Grant himself was wakeful that morning and had got +up about half-past seven. When Craig came he was letting his valet dress +him. He sent for Craig to come up to his dressing-room. "You can talk to +me while Walter shaves me," said Grant from the armchair before his +dressing table. He was spread out luxuriously and Josh watched the +process of shaving as if he had never seen it before. Indeed, he never +had seen a shave in such pomp and circumstance of silver and gold, of +ivory and cut glass, of essence and powder. + +"That's a very ladylike performance for two men to be engaged in," said +he. + +"It's damn comfortable," answered Grant lazily. + +"Where did you get that thing you've got on?" + +"This gown? Oh, Paris. I get all my things of that sort there. Latterly +I get my clothes there, too." + +"I like that thing," said Craig, giving it a patronizing jerk of his +head. "It looks cool and clean. Linen and silk, isn't it? Only I'd +choose a more serviceable color than white. And I'd not have a pink silk +lining and collar in any circumstances." + +He wandered about the room. + +"Goshalimity!" he exclaimed, peering into a drawer. "You must have a +million neckties. And"--he was at the partly open door of a huge +closet--"here's a whole roomful of shirts--and another of clothes." He +wheeled abruptly upon the smiling, highly-flattered tenant of the +armchair. "Grant, how many suits have you got?" + +"Blest if I know. How many, Walter?" + +"I really cannot say, sir. I know 'em all, but I never counted 'em. +About seventy or eighty, I should say, not counting extra trousers." + +Craig looked astounded. "And how many shirts, Walter?" + +"Oh, several hundred of them, sir. Mr. Grant's most particular about his +linen." + +"And here are boots and shoes and pumps and gaiters and Lord knows what +and what not--enough to stock a shoe-store. And umbrellas and +canes--Good God, man! How do you carry all that stuff round on your +mind?" + +Grant laughed like a tickled infant. All this was as gratifying to his +vanity as applause to Craig's. "Walter looks after it," said he. + +Craig lapsed into silence, stared moodily out of the window. The idea of +his thinking of marrying a girl of Grant's class! What a ridiculous, +loutish figure he would cut in her eyes! Why, not only did he not have +the articles necessary to a gentleman's wardrobe, he did not even know +the names of them, nor their uses! It was all very well to pretend that +these matters were petty. In a sense they were. But that sort of trifles +played a most important part in life as it was led by Margaret +Severence. She'd not think them trifles. She was probably assuming that, +while he was not quite up to the fashionable standard, still he had a +gentleman's equipment of knowledge and of toilet articles. "She'd think +me no better than a savage--and, damn it! I'm not much above the savage +state, as far as this side of life is concerned." + +Grant interrupted his mournful musings with: "Now, if you'll excuse me, +I'll have my bath." + +And, Walter following, he went in at a door to the right, through which +Craig had a glimpse of marble walls and floor, of various articles of +more than Roman luxury. The moments dragged away until half an hour had +passed. + +"What the devil!" Josh called out. "What are you doing all this time?" + +"Massage," responded Grant. "You can come in." + +Craig entered the marble chamber, seated himself on a corner of the +warmed marble couch on which Grant lay luxuriating in Walter's powerful +massage. "Do you go through this thing often?" demanded he. + +"Every morning--except when I'm roughing it. You ought to take massage, +Josh. It's great for the skin." + +Craig saw that it was. His own skin, aside from his hands and face, was +fairly smooth and white; but it was like sandpaper, he thought, beside +this firm, rosy covering of the elegant Arkwright's elegant body. "Get +through here and send Walter away," he said harshly. "I want to talk to +you. If you don't I'll burst out before him. I can't hold in any +longer." + +"Very well. That'll do, Walter," acquiesced Grant. "And please go and +bring us some breakfast. I'll finish dressing afterward." + +As soon as the door closed on the valet, Craig said, "Grant, I've got +myself into a frightful mess. I want you to help me out of it." + +Grant's eyes shifted. He put on his white silk pajamas, thrust his feet +into slippers, tossed the silk-lined linen robe about his broad, too +square shoulders, and led the way into the other room. Then he said: "Do +you mean Margaret Severence?" + +"That's it!" exclaimed Craig, pacing the floor. "I've gone and got +myself engaged--" + +"One minute," interrupted Arkwright in a voice so strange that Joshua +paused and stared at him. "I can't talk to you about that." + +"Why not?" + +"For many reasons. The chief one--Fact is, Josh, I've acted like a +howling skunk about you with her. I ran you down to her; tried to get +her myself." + +Craig waved his hand impatiently. "You didn't succeed, did you? And +you're ashamed of it, aren't you? Well, if I wasted time going round +apologizing for all the things I'd done that I'm ashamed of I'd have no +time left to do decently. So that's out of the way. Now, help me." + +"What a generous fellow you are!" + +"Generous? Stuff! I need you. We're going to stay friends. You can do +what you damn please--I'll like you just the same. I may swat you if you +get in my way; but as soon as you were out of it--and that'd be mighty +soon and sudden, Grant, old boy--why, I'd be friends again. Come, tell +me how I'm to get clear of this engagement." + +"I can't talk about it to you." + +"Why not?" + +"Because I love her." + +Craig gasped: "Do you mean that?" + +"I love her--as much as I'm capable of loving anybody. Didn't I tell you +so?" + +"I believe you did say something of the kind," admitted Craig. "But I +was so full of my own affairs that I didn't pay much attention to it. +Why don't you jump in and marry her?" + +"She happens to prefer you." + +"Yes, she does," said Craig with a complacence that roiled Arkwright. "I +don't know what the poor girl sees in me, but she's just crazy about +me." + +"Don't be an ass, Josh!" cried Grant in a jealous fury. + +Craig laughed pleasantly. "I'm stating simple facts." Then, with abrupt +change to earnestness, "Do you suppose, if I were to break the +engagement, she'd take it seriously to heart?" + +"I fancy she could live through it if you could. She probably cares no +more than you do." + +"There's the worst of it. I want her, Grant. When I'm with her I can't +tolerate the idea of giving her up. But how in the mischief can I marry +HER? I'm too strong a dose for a frail, delicate little thing like her." + +"She's as tall as you are. I've seen her play athletes to a standstill +at tennis." + +"But she's so refined, so--" + +"Oh, fudge!" muttered Arkwright. Then louder: "Didn't I tell you not to +talk to me about this business?" + +"But I've got to do it," protested Craig. "You're the only one I can +talk to--without being a cad." + +Arkwright looked disgusted. "You love the girl," he said bitterly, "and +she wants you. Marry her." + +"But I haven't got the money." + +Craig was out with the truth at last. "What would we live on? My salary +is only seventy-five hundred dollars. If I get the Attorney-Generalship +it'll be only eight thousand, and I've not got twenty thousand dollars +besides. As long as I'm in politics I can't do anything at the law. All +the clients that pay well are clients I'd not dare have anything to do +with--I may have to prosecute them. Grant, I used to think Government +salaries were too big, and I used to rave against office-holders +fattening on the people. I was crazy. How's a man to marry a LADY and +live like a GENTLEMAN on seven or eight thousand a year? It can't be +done." + +"And you used to rave against living like a gentleman," thrust Grant +maliciously. + +Craig reddened. "There it is!" he fairly shouted. "I'm going to the +devil. I'm sacrificing all my principles. That's what this mixing with +swell people and trying to marry a fashionable lady is doing for me!" + +"You're broadening out, you mean. You're losing your taste for +tommy-rot." + +"Not at all," said Craig surlily and stubbornly. "I'll tell you what I'm +going to do. I'm going to see the girl to-day and put the whole case +before her. And I want you to back me up." + +"I'll do nothing of the sort," cried Grant. "How can you ask such a +thing of ME?" + +"Yes, you must go with me to-day." + +"I've got an engagement--garden-party at the British Embassy." + +"Going there, are you?... Um!... Well, we'll see." + +The breakfast came and Craig ate like a ditch-digger--his own breakfast +and most of Grant's. Grant barely touched the food, lit a cigarette, sat +regarding the full-mouthed Westerner gloomily. "What DID Margaret see in +this man?" thought Grant. "True, she doesn't know him as well as I do; +but she knows him well enough. Talk about women being refined! Why, +they've got ostrich stomachs." + +"Do you know, Grant," said Craig thickly, so stuffed was his mouth, "I +think your refined women like men of my sort. I know I can't bear +anything but refined women. Now, you--you've got an ostrich stomach. +I've seen you quite pleased with women I'd not lay my finger on. Yet +most people'd say you were more sensitive than I. Instead, you're much +coarser--except about piffling, piddling, paltry non-essentials. You +strain at a gnat and swallow a camel. I shouldn't be a bit surprised if +Margaret had penetrated the fact that your coarseness is in-bred while +mine is near surface. Women have a surprising way of getting at the +bottom of things. I'm a good deal like a woman in that respect myself." + +Grant thrust a cigar upon him, got him out of the room and on the way +out of the house as quickly as possible. "Insufferable egotist!" he +mumbled, by way of a parting kick. "Why do I like him? Damned if I +believe I do!" + +He did not dress until late that afternoon, but lay in his rooms, very +low and miserable. When he issued forth it was to the garden-party--and +immediately he ran into Margaret and Craig, apparently lying in wait for +him. "Here he is!" exclaimed Josh, slapping him enthusiastically on the +back. "Grant, Margaret wants to talk with you. I must run along." And +before either could speak he had darted away, plowing his way rudely +through the crowd. + +Margaret and Grant watched his progress--she smiling, he surly and +sneering. "Yet you like him," said Margaret. + +"In a way, yes," conceded Arkwright. "He has a certain sort of +magnetism." He pulled himself up short. "This morning," said he, "I +apologized to him for my treachery; and here I am at it again." + +"I don't mind," said Margaret. "It's quite harmless." + +"That's it!" exclaimed Grant in gloomy triumph. "You can't care for me +because you think me harmless." + +"Well, aren't you?" + +"Yes," he admitted, "I couldn't give anybody--at least, not a blase +Washington society girl--anything approaching a sensation. I understand +the mystery at last." + +"Do you?" said Margaret, with a queer expression in her eyes. "I wish I +did." + +Grant reflected upon this, could make nothing of it. "I don't believe +you're really in love with him," he finally said. + +"Was that what you told him you wished to talk to me about?" + +"I didn't tell him I wanted to talk with you," protested Grant. "He +asked me to try to persuade you not to marry him." + +"Well--persuade!" + +"To explain how coarse he is." + +"How coarse is he?" + +"To dilate on the folly of your marrying a poor man with no money +prospects." + +"I'm content with his prospects--and with mine through him." + +"Seven or eight thousand a year? Your dresses cost much more than that." + +"No matter." + +"You must be in love with him!" + +"Women take strange fancies." + +"What's the matter, Rita? What have you in the back of your mind?" + +She looked straight at him. "Nothing about YOU. Not the faintest, little +shadow of a regret." And her hazel eyes smiled mirth of the kind that is +cruelest from woman to man. + +"How exasperating you are!" + +"Perhaps I've caught the habit from my man." + +"Rita, you don't even like me any more." + +"No--candidly--I don't." + +"I deserve it." + +"You do. I can never trust you again." + +He shrugged his shoulders; but he could not pretend that he was +indifferent. "It seems to me, if Josh forgave me you might." + +"I do--forgive." + +"But not even friendship?" + +"Not EVEN friendship." + +"You are hard." + +"I am hard." + +"Rita! For God's sake, don't marry that man! You don't love him--you +know you don't. At times you feel you can hardly endure him. You'll be +miserable--in every way. And I--At least I can give you material +happiness." + +She smiled--a cold, enigmatic smile that made her face seem her +grandmother's own peering through a radiant mask of youth. She glanced +away, around--"Ah! there are mamma and Augusta Burke." And she left him +to join them. + +He wandered out of the garden, through the thronged corridors, into the +street, knocking against people, seeing no one, not heeding the frequent +salutations. He went to the Wyandotte, to Craig's tawdry, dingy +sitting-room, its disorder now apparently beyond possibility of +righting. Craig, his coat and waistcoat off, his detachable cuffs on the +floor, was burrowing into masses of huge law-books. + +"Clear out," said he curtly; "I'm busy." + +Grant plumped himself into a chair. "Josh," cried he desperately, "you +must marry that girl. She's just the one for you. I love her, and her +happiness is dear to me." + +Craig gave him an amused look. "However did she persuade you to come +here and say that?" he inquired. + +"She didn't persuade me. She didn't mention it. All she said was that +she had wiped me off the slate even as a friend." + +Craig laughed uproariously. "THAT was how she did it--eh? She's a deep +one." + +"Josh," said Arkwright, "you need a wife, and she's it." + +"Right you are," exclaimed Craig heartily. "I'm one of those +surplus-steam persons--have to make an ass of myself constantly, +indulging in the futility of blowing off steam. Oughtn't to do it +publicly--creates false impression. Got to have a wife--no one else but +a wife always available and bound to be discreet. Out with you. I'm too +busy to talk--even about myself." + +"You will marry her?" + +"Like to see anybody try to stop me!" + +He pulled Arkwright from the chair, thrust him into the hall, slammed +the door. And Arkwright, in a more hopeful frame of mind, went home. +"I'll do my best to get back her respect--and my own," said he. "I've +been a dog, and she's giving me the whipping I deserve." + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +A FIGHT AND A FINISH + + +In his shrewd guess at Margaret's reason for dealing so summarily with +Arkwright, Craig was mistaken, as the acutest of us usually are in +attributing motives. He had slowly awakened to the fact that she was not +a mere surface, but had also the third dimension--depth, which +distinguishes persons from people. Whenever he tried to get at what she +meant by studying what she did, he fell into the common error of judging +her by himself, and of making no allowance for the sweeter and brighter +side of human nature, which was so strong in her that, in happier +circumstances, the other side would have been mere rudiment. + +Her real reason for breaking with Grant was a desire to be wholly +honorable with Craig. She resolved to burn her bridges toward Arkwright, +to put him entirely out of her mind--as she had not done theretofore; +for whenever she had grown weary of Craig's harping on her being the +aggressor in the engagement and not himself, or whenever she had become +irritated against him through his rasping mannerisms she had straightway +begun to revolve Arkwright as a possible alternative. Craig's +personality had such a strong effect on her, caused so many moods and +reactions, that she was absolutely unable to tell what she really +thought of him. Also, when she was so harassed by doubt as to whether +the engagement would end in marriage or in a humiliation of jilting, +when her whole mind was busy with the problem of angling him within the +swoop of the matrimonial net, how was she to find leisure to examine her +heart? Whether she wanted him or simply wanted a husband she could not +have said. + +She felt that his eccentric way of treating the engagement would justify +her in keeping Arkwright in reserve. But she was finding that there were +limits to her ability to endure her own self-contempt, and she +sacrificed Grant to her outraged self-respect. Possibly she might have +been less conscientious had she not come to look on Grant as an +exceedingly pale and shadowy personality, a mere vague expression of +well-bred amiability, male because trousered, identifiable chiefly by +the dollar mark. + +Her reward seemed immediate. There came a day when Craig was all +devotion, was talking incessantly of their future, was never once +doubtful or even low-spirited. It was simply a question of when they +would marry--whether as soon as Stillwater fixed his date for retiring, +or after Craig was installed. She had to listen patiently to hours on +hours of discussion as to which would be the better time. She had to +seem interested, though from the viewpoint of her private purposes +nothing could have been less important. She had no intention of +permitting him to waste his life and hers in the poverty and uncertainty +of public office, struggling for the applause of mobs one despised as +individuals and would not permit to cross one's threshold. But she had +to let him talk on and on, and yet on. In due season, when she was ready +to speak and he to hear, she would disclose to him the future she had +mapped out for him, not before. He discoursed; she listened. At +intervals he made love in his violent, terrifying way; she endured, now +half-liking it, now half-hating it and him, but always enduring, +passive, as became a modest, inexperienced maiden, and with never a +suggestion of her real thoughts upon her surface. + +It was the morning after one of these outbursts of his, one of unusual +intensity, one that had so worn upon her nerves that, all but revolted +by the sense of sick satiety, she had come perilously near to indulging +herself in the too costly luxury of telling him precisely what she +thought of him and his conduct. She was in bed, with the blinds just up, +and the fair, early-summer world visioning itself to her sick heart like +Paradise to the excluded Peri at its barred gate. "And if he had given +me half a chance I'd have loved him," she was thinking. "I do believe in +him, and admire his strength and his way of never accepting defeat. But +how can I--how CAN I--when he makes me the victim of these ruffian moods +of his? I almost think the Frenchman was right who said that every man +ought to have two wives.... Not that at times he doesn't attract me that +way. But because one likes champagne one does not wish it by the cask. A +glass now and then, or a bottle--perhaps--" Aloud: "What is it, Selina?" + +"A note for you, ma'am, from HIM. It's marked important and immediate. +You told me not to disturb you with those marked important, nor with +those marked immediate. But you didn't say what to do about those marked +both." + +"The same," said Margaret, stretching herself out at full length, and +snuggling her head into the softness of her perfumed hair. "But now that +you've brought it thus far, let me have it." + +Selina laid it on the silk and swansdown quilt and departed. Margaret +forgot that it was there in thinking about a new dress she was planning, +an adaptation of a French model. As she turned herself it fell to the +floor. She reached down, picked it up, opened it, read: + +"It's no use. Fate's against us. I find the President is making my +marriage the excuse for not appointing me. How lucky we did not announce +the engagement. This is a final good-by. I shall keep out of your way. +It's useless for you to protest. I am doing what is best for us both. +Thank me, and forget me." + +She leaped from the bed with one bound, and, bare of foot and in her +nightgown only, rushed to the telephone. She called up the Arkwrights, +asked for Grant. "Wake him," she said. "If he is still in bed tell him +Miss Severence wishes to speak to him at once." + +Within a moment Grant's agitated voice was coming over the wire: "Is +that you, Rita? What is the matter?" + +"Come out here as soon as you can. How long will it be?" + +"An hour. I really must shave." + +"In an hour, then. Good-by." + +Before the end of the hour she was pacing her favorite walk in the +garden, impatiently watching the point where he would appear. At sight +of her face he almost broke into a run. "What is it, Margaret?" he +cried. + +"What have you been saying to Josh Craig?" she demanded. + +"Nothing, I swear. I've been keeping out of his way. He came to see me +this morning--called me a dozen times on the telephone, too. But I +refused him." + +She reflected. "I want you to go and bring him here," she said +presently. "No matter what he says, bring him." + +"When?" + +"Right away." + +"If I have to use force." And Grant hastened away. + +Hardly had he gone when Williams appeared, carrying a huge basket of +orchids. "They just came, ma'am. I thought you'd like to see them." + +"From Mr. Arkwright?" + +"No, ma'am; Mr. Craig." + +"Craig?" ejaculated Margaret. + +"Yes, Miss Rita." + +"Craig," repeated Margaret, but in a very different tone--a tone of +immense satisfaction and relief. She waved her hand with a smile of +amused disdain. "Take them into the house, but not to my room. Put them +in Miss Lucia's sitting-room." + +Williams had just gone when into the walk rushed Grant and Craig. Their +faces were so flurried, so full of tragic anxiety that Margaret, +stopping short, laughed out loud. "You two look as if you had come to +view the corpse." + +"I passed Craig on his way here," explained Grant, "and took him into my +machine." + +"I was not on my way here," replied Josh loftily. "I was merely taking a +walk. He asked me to get in and brought me here in spite of my +protests." + +"You were on the road that leads here," insisted Arkwright with much +heat. + +"I repeat I was simply taking a walk," insisted Craig. He had not once +looked at Margaret. + +"No matter," said Margaret in her calm, distant way. "You may take him +away, Grant. And"--here she suddenly looked at Craig, a cold, haughty +glance that seemed to tear open an abysmal gulf between them--"I do not +wish to see you again. I am done with you. I have been on the verge of +telling you so many times of late." + +"Is THAT what you sent Grant after me to tell me?" + +"No," answered she. "I sent him on an impulse to save the engagement. +But while he was gone it suddenly came over me that you were +right--entirely right. I accept your decision. You're afraid to marry me +because of your political future. I'm afraid to marry you because of my +stomach. You--nauseate me. I've been under some kind of hideous spell. +I'm free of it now. I see you as you are. I am ashamed of myself." + +"I thought so! I knew it would come!" exclaimed Arkwright triumphantly. + +Craig, who had been standing like a stock, suddenly sprang into action. +He seized Arkwright by the throat and bore him to the ground. "I've got +to kill something," he yelled. "Why not you?" + +This unexpected and vulgar happening completely upset Margaret's pride +and demolished her dignified pose. She gazed in horror at the two men +struggling, brute-like, upon the grass. Her refined education had made +no provision for such an emergency. She rushed forward, seized Craig by +the shoulders. "Get up!" she cried contemptuously, and she dragged him +to his feet. She shook him fiercely. "Now get out of here; and don't you +dare come back!" + +Craig laughed loudly. A shrewd onlooker might have suspected from his +expression that he had deliberately created a diversion of confusion, +and was congratulating himself upon its success. "Get out?" cried he. +"Not I. I go where I please and stay as long as I please." + +Arkwright was seated upon the grass, readjusting his collar and tie. +"What a rotten coward you are!" he said to Craig, "to take me off guard +like that." + +"It WAS a low trick," admitted Josh, looking down at him genially. "But +I'm so crazy I don't know what I'm doing." + +"Oh, yes, you do; you wanted to show off," answered Grant. + +But Craig had turned to Margaret again. "Read that," he commanded, and +thrust a newspaper clipping into her hand. It was from one of the +newspapers of his home town--a paper of his own party, but unfriendly to +him. It read: + +"Josh Craig's many friends here will be glad to hear that he is catching +on down East. With his Government job as a stepping-stone he has sprung +into what he used to call plutocratic society in Washington, and is +about to marry a young lady who is in the very front of the push. He +will retire from politics, from head-hunting among the plutocrats, and +will soon be a plutocrat and a palace-dweller himself. Success to you, +Joshua. The 'pee-pul' have lost a friend--in the usual way. As for us, +we've got the right to say, 'I told you so,' but we'll be good and +refrain." + +"The President handed me that last night," said Craig, when he saw that +her glance was on the last line. "And he told me he had decided to ask +Stillwater to stay on." + +Margaret gave the clipping to Grant. "Give it to him," she said and +started toward the house. + +Craig sprang before her. "Margaret," he cried, "can you blame me?" + +"No," said she, and there was no pose in her manner now; it was +sincerely human. "I pity you." She waved him out of her path and, with +head bent, he obeyed her. + +The two men gazed after her. Arkwright was first to speak: "Well, you've +got what you wanted." + +Craig slowly lifted his circled, bloodshot eyes to Arkwright. "Yes," +said he hoarsely, "I've got what I wanted." + +"Not exactly in the way a gentleman would like to get it," pursued +Grant. "But YOU don't mind a trifle of that sort." + +"No," said Craig, "I don't mind a trifle of that sort. 'Bounder +Josh'--that's what they call me, isn't it?" + +"When they're frank they do." + +Craig drew a long breath, shook himself like a man gathering himself +together after a stunning blow. He reflected a moment. "Come along, +Grant. I'm going back in your machine." + +"The driver'll take you," replied Arkwright stiffly. "I prefer to walk." + +"Then we'll walk back together." + +"We will not!" said Arkwright violently. "And after this morning the +less you say to me the better pleased I'll be, and the less you'll +impose upon the obligation I'm under to you for having saved my life +once." + +"You treacherous hound," said Craig pleasantly. "Where did you get the +nerve to put on airs with me? What would you have done to her in the +same circumstances? Why, you'd have sneaked and lied out of it. And you +dare to scorn me because I've been frank and direct! Come! I'll give you +another chance. Will you take me back to town in your machine?" + +A pause, Craig's fierce gaze upon Grant, Grant's upon the ground. Then +Grant mumbled surlily: "Come on." + +When they were passing the front windows of the house Craig assumed that +Margaret was hiding somewhere there, peering out at them. But he was +wrong. She was in her room, was face down upon her bed, sobbing as if +her first illusion had fallen, had dashed to pieces, crushing her heart +under it. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +A NIGHT MARCH + + +Arkwright saw no one but his valet-masseur for several days; on the left +side of his throat the marks of Craig's fingers showed even above the +tallest of his extremely tall collars. From the newspapers he gathered +that Margaret had gone to New York on a shopping trip--had gone for a +stay of two or three weeks. When the adventure in the garden was more +than a week into the past, as he was coming home from a dinner toward +midnight he jumped from his electric brougham into Craig's arms. + +"At last!" exclaimed Josh, leading the way up the Arkwright steps and +ringing the bell. Grant muttered a curse under his breath. When the man +had opened the door, "Come in," continued Josh loudly and cheerily, +leading the way into the house. + +"You'd think it was his house, by gad!" muttered Grant. + +"I've been walking up and down before the entrance for an hour. The +butler asked me in, but I hate walls and roof. The open for me--the +wide, wide open!" + +"Not so loud," growled Arkwright. "The family's in bed. Wait till we get +to my part of the house." + +When they were there, with doors closed and the lights on, Craig exhaled +his breath as noisily as a blown swimmer. "What a day! What a day!" he +half-shouted, dropping on the divan and thrusting his feet into the rich +and rather light upholstery of a near-by chair. + +Grant eyed the feet gloomily. He was proud of his furniture and as +careful of it as any old maid. + +"Go ahead, change your clothes," cried Josh. "I told your motorman not +to go away." + +"What do you mean?" Arkwright demanded, his temper boiling at the rim of +the pot. + +"I told him before you got out. You see, we're going to New York +to-night--or rather this morning. Train starts at one o'clock. I met old +Roebuck at the White House to-night--found he was going by special +train--asked him to take us." + +"Not I," said Arkwright. "No New York for me. I'm busy to-morrow. +Besides, I don't want to go." + +"Of course you don't," laughed Craig, and Arkwright now noted that he +was in the kind of dizzy spirits that most men can get only by drinking +a very great deal indeed. "Of course you don't. No more do I. But I've +got to go--and so have you." + +"What for?" + +"To help me get married." + +Grant could only gape at him. + +"Don't you know Margaret has gone to New York?" + +"I saw it in the paper, but--" + +"Now, don't go back a week to ancient history." + +"I don't believe it," foamed Grant, so distracted that he sprang up and +paced the floor, making wild gestures with his arms and head. + +Craig watched, seemed hugely amused. "You'll see, about noon to-morrow. +You've got to put in the morning shopping for me. I haven't got--You +know what sort of a wardrobe mine is. Wardrobe? Hand satchel! +Carpet-bag! Rag-bag! If I took off my shoes you'd see half the toes of +one foot and all the heel of the other. And only my necktie holds this +collar in place. Both buttonholes are gone. As for my underclothes--but +I'll spare you these." + +"Yes, do," said Grant with a vicious sneer. + +"Now, you've got to buy me a complete outfit." Craig drew a roll of +bills from his pocket, counted off several, threw them on the table. +"There's four hundred dollars, all I can afford to waste at present. +Make it go as far as you can. Get a few first-class things, the rest +decent and substantial, but not showy. I'll pay for the suits I've got +to get. They'll have to be ready-made--and very good ready-made ones a +man can buy nowadays. We'll go to the tailor's first thing--about seven +o'clock in the morning, which'll give him plenty of time for +alterations." + +"I won't!" exploded Grant, stopping his restless pacing and slamming +himself on to a chair. + +"Oh, yes, you will," asserted Craig, with absolute confidence. "You're +not going back on me." + +"There's nothing in this--nothing! I've known Rita Severence nearly +twenty years, and I know she's done with you." + +Craig sprang to his feet, went over and laid his heavy hand heavily upon +Arkwright's shoulder. "And," said he, "you know me. Did I ever say a +thing that didn't prove to be true, no matter how improbable it seemed +to you?" + +Arkwright was silent. + +"Grant," Craig went on, and his voice was gentle and moving, "I need +you. I must have you. You won't fail me, will you, old pal?" + +"Oh, hell!--I'll go," said Grant in a much-softened growl. "But I know +it's a wild-goose chase. Still, you do need the clothes. You're a +perfect disgrace." + +Craig took away his hand and burst into his noisy, boyish laughter, so +reminiscent of things rural and boorish, of the coarse, strong spirits +of the happy-go-lucky, irresponsibles that work as field hands and +wood-haulers. "By cracky, Grant, I just got sight of the remnants of +that dig I gave you. It was a beauty, wasn't it?" + +Arkwright moved uneasily, fumbled at his collar, tried to smile +carelessly. + +"I certainly am the luckiest devil," Craig went on. "Now, what a stroke +pushing you over and throttling you was!" And he again laughed loudly. + +"I don't follow you," said Grant sourly. + +"What a vanity box you are! You can't take a joke. Now, they're always +poking fun at me--pretty damn nasty! some of it--but don't I always look +cheerful?" + +"Oh--YOU!" exclaimed Grant in disgust. + +"And do you know why?" demanded Craig, giving him a rousing slap on the +knee. "When I find it hard to laugh I begin to think of the greatest +joke of all--the joke I'll have on these merry boys when the cards are +all played and I sweep the tables. I think of that, and, by gosh, I +fairly roar!" + +"Do you talk that way to convince yourself?" + +Craig's eyes were suddenly shrewd. "Yes," said he, "and to convince you, +and a lot of other weak-minded people who believe all they hear. You'll +find out some day that the world thinks with its ears and its mouth, my +boy. But, as I say, who but I could have tumbled into such luck as came +quite accidentally out of that little 'rough-house' of mine at your +expense?" + +"Don't see it," said Grant. + +"Why, can't you see that it puts you out of business with Margaret? +She's not the sort of woman to take to the fellow that shows he's the +weaker." + +"Well, I'll be--damned!" gasped Arkwright. "You HAVE got your nerve! To +say such a thing to a man you've just asked a favor of." + +"Not at all," cried Craig airily. "Facts are facts. Why deny them?" + +Arkwright shrugged his shoulders. "Well, let it pass.... Whether it's +settled me with her or not, it somehow--curiously enough--settled her +with me. Do you know, Josh, I've had no use for her since. I can't +explain it." + +"Vanity," said Craig. "You are vain, like all people who don't talk +about themselves. The whole human race is vain--individually and +collectively. Now, if a man talks about himself as I do, why, his vanity +froths away harmlessly. But you and your kind suffer from ingrowing +vanity. You think of nothing but yourselves--how you look--how you +feel--how you are impressing others--what you can get for +yourself--self--self--self, day and night. You don't like Margaret any +more because she saw you humiliated. Where would I be if I were like +that? Why, I'd be dead or hiding in the brush; for I've had nothing but +insults, humiliations, sneers, snubs, all my life. Crow's my steady +diet, old pal. And I fatten and flourish on it." + +Grant was laughing, with a choke in his throat. "Josh," said he, "you're +either more or less than human." + +"Both," said Craig. "Grant, we're wasting time. Walter!" That last in a +stentorian shout. + +The valet appeared. "Yes, Mr. Craig." + +"Pack your friend Grant, here, for two days in New York. He's going +to-night and--I guess you'd better come along." + +Arkwright threw up his hands in a gesture of mock despair. "Do as he +says, Walter. He's the boss." + +"Now you're talking sense," said Craig. "Some day you'll stand before +kings for this--or sit, as you please." + +On their way out Josh fished from the darkness under the front stairs a +tattered and battered suitcase and handed it to Walter. "It's my little +all," he explained to Grant. "I've given up my rooms at the Wyandotte. +They stored an old trunkful or so for me, and I've sent my books to the +office." + +"Look here, Josh," said Grant, when they were under way; "does Margaret +know you're coming?" + +"Does Margaret know I'm coming?" repeated Joshua mockingly. "Does +Margaret know her own mind and me?... Before I forget it here's a list I +wrote out against a lamp-post while I was waiting for you to come home. +It's the things I must have, so far as I know. The frills and froth you +know about--I don't." + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +PEACE AT ANY PRICE + + +Miss Severance, stepping out of a Waldorf elevator at the main floor, +shrank back wide-eyed. "You?" she gasped. + +Before her, serene and smiling and inflexible, was Craig. None of the +suits he had bought at seven that morning was quite right for immediate +use; so there he was in his old lounge suit, baggy at knees and elbows +and liberally bestrewn with lint. Her glance fell from his mussy collar +to his backwoodsman's hands, to his feet, so cheaply and shabbily shod; +the shoes looked the worse for the elaborate gloss the ferry bootblack +had put upon them. She advanced because she could not retreat; but never +had she been so repelled. + +She had come to New York to get away from him. When she entered the +train she had flung him out of the window. "I WILL NOT think of him +again," she had said to herself. But--Joshua Craig's was not the sort of +personality that can be banished by an edict of will. She could think +angrily of him, or disdainfully, or coldly, or pityingly--but think she +must. And think she did. She told herself she despised him; and there +came no echoing protest or denial from anywhere within her. She said she +was done with him forever, and well done; her own answer to herself +there was, that while she was probably the better off for having got out +of the engagement, still it must be conceded that socially the manner of +her getting out meant scandal, gossip, laughter at her. Her cheeks +burned as her soul flamed. + +"The vulgar boor!" she muttered. + +Was ever woman so disgraced, and so unjustly? What had the gods against +her, that they had thus abased her? How Washington would jeer! How her +friends would sneer! What hope was there now of her ever getting a +husband? She would be an object of pity and of scorn. It would take more +courage than any of the men of her set had, to marry a woman rejected by +such a creature--and in such circumstances! + +"He has made everybody think I sought him. Now, he'll tell everybody +that he had to break it off--that HE broke it off!" + +She ground her teeth; she clenched her hands; she wept and moaned in the +loneliness of her bed. She hated Craig; she hated the whole world; she +loathed herself. And all the time she had to keep up appearances--for +she had not dared tell her grandmother--had to listen while the old lady +discussed the marriage as an event of the not remote future. + +Why had she not told her grandmother? Lack of courage; hope that +something would happen to reveal the truth without her telling. HOPE +that something would happen? No, fear. She did not dare look at the +newspapers. But, whatever her reason, it was not any idea that possibly +the engagement might be resumed. No, not that. "Horrible as I feel," +thought she, "I am better off than in those weeks when that man was +whirling me from one nightmare to another. The peace of desolation is +better than that torture of doubt and repulsion. Whatever was I thinking +of to engage myself to such a man? to think seriously of passing my life +with him? Poor fool that I was, to rail against monotony, to sigh for +sensations! Well, I have got them." + +Day and night, almost without ceasing, her thoughts had boiled and +bubbled on and on, like a geyser ever struggling for outlet and ever +falling vainly back upon itself. + +Now--here he was, greeting her at the elevator car, smiling and +confident, as if nothing had happened. She did not deign even to stare +at him, but, with eyes that seemed to be simply looking without seeing +any especial object, she walked straight on. "I'm in luck," cried he, +beside her. "I had only been walking up and down there by the elevators +about twenty minutes." + +She made no reply. At the door she said to the carriage-caller: + +"A cab, please--no, a hansom." + +The hansom drove up; its doors opened. Craig pushed aside the carriage +man, lifted her in with a powerful upward swing of his arm against her +elbow and side--so powerful that she fell into the seat, knocking her +hat awry and loosening her veil from the brim so that it hung down +distressfully across her eyes and nose. "Drive up Fifth Avenue to the +Park," said Craig, seating himself beside her. "Now, please don't cry," +he said to her. + +"Cry?" she exclaimed. Her dry, burning eyes blazed at him. + +"Your eyes were so bright," laughed he, "that I thought they were full +of tears." + +"If you are a gentleman you will leave this hansom at once." + +"Don't talk nonsense," said he. "You know perfectly well I'll not leave. +You know perfectly well I'll say what I've got to say to you, and that +no power on earth can prevent me. That's why you didn't give way to your +impulse to make a scene when I followed you into this trap." + +She was busy with her hat and veil. + +"Can I help you?" said he with a great show of politeness that was +ridiculously out of harmony with him in every way. That, and the +absurdity of Josh Craig, of all men, helping a woman in the delicate +task of adjusting a hat and veil, struck her as so ludicrous that she +laughed hysterically; her effort to make the laughter appear an outburst +of derisive, withering scorn was not exactly a triumph. + +"Well," she presently said, "what is it you wish to say? I have very +little time." + +He eyed her sharply. "You think you dislike me, don't you?" said he. + +"I do," replied she, her tone as cutting as her words were curt. + +"How little that amounts to! All human beings--Grant, you, I, all of us, +everybody--are brimful of vanity. It slops over a little one way and we +call it like. It slops over the other way and we call it +dislike--hate--loathing--according to the size of the slop. Now, I'm not +here to deal with vanity, but with good sense. Has it occurred to you in +the last few days that you and I have got to get married, whether we +will or no?" + +"It has not," she cried with frantic fury of human being cornered by an +ugly truth. + +"Oh, yes, it has. For you are a sensible woman--entirely too sensible +for a woman, unless she marries an unusual man like me." + +"Is that a jest?" she inquired in feeble attempt at sarcasm. + +"Don't you know I have no sense of humor? Would I do the things I do and +carry them through if I had?" + +In spite of herself she admired this penetration of self-analysis. In +spite of herself the personality beneath his surface, the personality +that had a certain uncanny charm for her, was subtly reasserting its +inexplicable fascination. + +"Yes, we've got to marry," proceeded he. "I have to marry you because I +can't afford to let you say you jilted me. That would make me the +laughing-stock of my State; and I can't afford to tell the truth that I +jilted you because the people would despise me as no gentleman. And, +while I don't in the least mind being despised as no gentleman by +fashionable noddle-heads or by those I trample on to rise, I do mind it +when it would ruin me with the people." + +Her eyes gleamed. So! She had him at her mercy! + +"Not so fast, young lady," continued he in answer to that gleam. "It is +equally true that you've got to marry me." + +"But I shall not!" she cried. "Besides, it isn't true." + +"It IS true," replied he. "You may refuse to marry me, just as a man may +refuse to run when the dynamite blast is going off. Yes, you can refuse, +but--you'd not be your grandmother's granddaughter if you did." + +"Really!" She was so surcharged with rage that she was shaking with it, +was tearing up her handkerchief in her lap. + +"Yes, indeed," he assured her, tranquil as a lawyer arguing a commercial +case before a logic-machine of a judge. "If you do not marry me all your +friends will say I jilted you. I needn't tell you what it would mean in +your set, what it would mean as to your matrimonial prospects, for you +to have the reputation of having been turned down by me--need I?" + +She was silent; her head down, her lips compressed, her fingers fiercely +interlaced with the ruins of her handkerchief. + +"It is necessary that you marry," said he summing up. "It is wisest and +easiest to marry me, since I am willing. To refuse would be to inflict +an irreparable injury upon yourself in order to justify a paltry whim +for injuring me." + +She laughed harshly. "You are frank," said she. + +"I am paying you the compliment of frankness. I am appealing to your +intelligence, where a less intelligent man and one that knew you less +would try to gain his point by chicane, flattery, deception." + +"Yes--it is a compliment," she answered. "It was stupid of me to sneer +at your frankness." + +A long silence. He lighted a cigarette, smoked it with deliberation +foreign to his usual self but characteristic of him when he was closely +and intensely engaged; for he was like a thoroughbred that is all fret +and champ and pawing and caper until the race is on, when he at once +settles down into a calm, steady stride, with all the surplus nervous +energy applied directly and intelligently to the work in hand. She was +not looking at him, but she was feeling him in every atom of her body, +was feeling the power, the inevitableness of the man. He angered her, +made her feel weak, a helpless thing, at his mercy. True, it was his +logic that was convincing her, not his magnetic and masterful will; but +somehow the two seemed one. Never had he been so repellent, never had +she felt so hostile to him. + +"I will marry you," she finally said. "But I must tell you that I do not +love you--or even like you. The reverse." + +His face, of the large, hewn features, with their somehow pathetic +traces of the struggles and sorrows of his rise, grew strange, almost +terrible. "Do you mean that?" he said, turning slowly toward her. + +She quickly shifted her eyes, in which her dislike was showing, shifted +them before he could possibly have seen. And she tried in vain to force +past her lips the words which she believed to be the truth, the words +his pathetic, powerful face told her would end everything. Yes, she knew +he would not marry her if she told him the truth about her feelings. + +"Do you mean that?" he repeated, stern and sharp, yet sad, wistfully +sad, too. + +"I don't know what I mean," she cried, desperately afraid of him, afraid +of the visions the idea of not marrying him conjured. "I don't know what +I mean," she repeated. "You fill me with a kind of--of--horror. You draw +me into your grasp in spite of myself--like a whirlpool--and rouse all +my instinct to try and save myself. Sometimes that desire becomes a +positive frenzy." + +He laughed complacently. "That is love," said he. + +She did not resent his tone or dispute his verdict externally. "If it is +love," replied she evenly, "then never did love wear so strange, so +dreadful a disguise." + +He laid his talon-hand, hardened and misshapen by manual labor, but if +ugly, then ugly with the majesty of the twisted, tempest-defying oak, +over hers. "Believe me, Margaret, you love me. You have loved me all +along.... And I you." + +"Don't deceive yourself," she felt bound to say, "I certainly do not +love you if love has any of its generally accepted meanings." + +"I am not the general sort of person," said he. "It is not strange that +I should arouse extraordinary feelings, is it? Driver"--he had the trap +in the roof up and was thrusting through it a slip of paper--"take us to +that street and number." + +She gasped with a tightening at the heart. "I must return to the hotel +at once," she said hurriedly. + +He fixed his gaze upon her. "We are going to the preacher's," said he. + +"The preacher's?" she murmured, shrinking in terror. + +"Grant is waiting for us there"--he glanced at his watch--"or, rather, +will be there in about ten minutes. We are a little earlier than I +anticipated." + +She flushed crimson, paled, felt she would certainly suffocate with +rage. + +"Before you speak," continued he, "listen to me. You don't want to go +back into that torment of doubt in which we've both been hopping about +for a month, like a pair of damned souls being used as tennis balls by +fiends. Let's settle the business now, and for good and all. Let us have +peace--for God's sake, peace! I know you've been miserable. I know I've +been on the rack. And it's got to stop. Am I not right?" + +She leaned back in her corner of the cab, shut her eyes, said no +more--and all but ceased to think. What was there to say? What was there +to think? When Fate ceases to tolerate our pleasant delusion of free +will, when it openly and firmly seizes us and hurries us along, we do +not discuss or comment. We close our minds, relax and submit. + +At the parsonage he sprang out, stood by to help her descend, +half-dragged her from the cab when she hesitated. He shouted at the +driver: "How much do I owe you, friend?" + +"Six dollars, sir." + +"Not on your life!" shouted Craig furiously. He turned to Margaret, +standing beside him in a daze. "What do you think of THAT! This fellow +imagines because I've got a well-dressed woman along I'll submit. But +I'm not that big a snob." He was looking up at the cabman again. "You +miserable thief!" he exclaimed. "I'll give you three dollars, and that's +too much by a dollar." + +"Don't you call me names!" yelled the cabman, shaking his fist with the +whip in it. + +"The man's drunk," cried Josh to the little crowd of people that had +assembled. Margaret, overwhelmed with mortification, tugged at his +sleeve. "The man's not overcharging much--if any," she said in an +undertone. + +"You're saying that because you hate scenes," replied Josh loudly. "You +go on into the house. I'll take care of this hound." + +Margaret retreated within the parsonage gate; her very soul was sick. +She longed for the ground to open and swallow her forever. It would be +bad enough for a man to make such an exhibition at any time; but to make +it when he was about to be married!--and in such circumstances!--to +squabble and scream over a paltry dollar or so! + +"Here's a policeman!" cried Craig. "Now, you thief, we'll see!" + +The cabman sprang down from his seat. "You damn jay!" he bellowed. "You +don't know New York cabfares. Was you ever to town before--eh?" + +Craig beckoned the policeman with vast, excited gestures. Margaret fled +up the walk toward the parsonage door, but not before she heard Craig +say to the policeman: + +"I am Joshua Craig, assistant to the Attorney-General of the United +States. This thief here--" And so on until he had told the whole story. +Margaret kept her back to the street, but she could hear the two +fiercely-angry voices, the laughter of the crowd. At last Craig joined +her--panting, flushed, triumphant. "I knew he was a thief. Four dollars +was the right amount, but I gave him five, as the policeman said it was +best to quiet him." + +He gave a jerk at the knob of parsonage street bell as if he were +determined to pull it out; the bell within rang loudly, angrily, like +the infuriate voice of a sleeper who has been roused with a thundering +kick. "This affair of ours," continued Craig, "is going to cost money. +And I've been spending it to-day like a drunken sailor. The more careful +I am, the less careful I will have to be, my dear." + +The door opened--a maid, scowling, appeared. + +"Come on," cried Joshua to Margaret. And he led the way, brushing the +maid aside as she stood her ground, attitude belligerent, but expression +perplexed. To her, as he passed, Craig said: "Tell Doctor Scones that +Mr. Craig and the lady are here. Has Mr. Arkwright come?" + +By this time he was in the parlor; a glance around and he burst out: + +"Late, by jiminy! And I told him to be here ahead of time." + +He darted to the window. "Ah! There he comes!" He wheeled upon Margaret +just as she dropped, half-fainting, into a chair. "What's the matter, +dear?" He leaped to her side. "No false emotions, please. If you could +weather the real ones what's the use of getting up ladylike excitement +over--" + +"For God's sake!" exclaimed Margaret, "sit down and shut up! If you +don't I shall scream--scream--SCREAM!" + +The maid gaped first at one, then at the other, left them reluctantly to +admit Arkwright. As she opened the door she had to draw back a little. +There was Craig immediately behind her. He swept her aside, flung the +door wide. "Come on! Hurry!" he cried to Grant. "We're waiting." And he +seized him by the arm and thrust him into the parlor. At the same +instant the preacher entered by another door. Craig's excitement, far +from diminishing, grew wilder and wilder. The preacher thought him +insane or drunk. Grant and Margaret tried in vain to calm him. Nothing +would do but the ceremony instantly--and he had his way. Never was there +a more undignified wedding. When the responses were all said and the +marriage was a fact accomplished, so far as preacher could accomplish +it, Craig seemed suddenly to subside. + +"I should like to go into the next room for a moment," said the pallid +and trembling Margaret. + +"Certainly," said Doctor Scones sympathetically, and, with a fierce +scowl at the groom, he accompanied the bride from the room. + +"What a mess you have made!" exclaimed Arkwright indignantly. "You've +been acting like a lunatic." + +"It wasn't acting--altogether," laughed Josh, giving Grant one of those +tremendous slaps on the back. "You see, it was wise to give her +something else to think about so she couldn't possibly hesitate or bolt. +So I just gave way to my natural feelings. It's a way I have in +difficult situations." + +Grant's expression as he looked at him was a mingling of admiration, +fear and scorn. "You are full of those petty tricks," said he. + +"Why petty? Is it petty to meet the requirements of a situation? The +situation was petty--the trick had to be. Besides, I tell you, it wasn't +a trick. If I hadn't given my nerves an outlet I might have balked or +bolted myself. I didn't want to have to think any more than she." + +"You mustn't say those things to me," objected his friend. + +"Why not? What do I care what you or any one else thinks of ME? And what +could you do except simply think? Old pal, you ought to learn not to +judge me by the rules of your little puddle. It's a ridiculous habit." +He leaped at the door where Margaret had disappeared and rapped on it +fiercely. + +"Yes--yes--I'm coming," responded a nervous, pleading, agitated voice; +and the door opened and Margaret appeared. + +"What shall we do now?" she said to Craig. Grant saw, with an amazement +he could scarcely conceal, that for the time, at least, she was quite +subdued, would meekly submit to anything. + +"Go to your grandmother," said Craig promptly. "You attend to the +preacher, Grant. Twenty-five's enough to give him." + +Margaret's cheeks flamed, her head bowed. Grant flushed in sympathy with +her agony before this vulgarity. And a moment later he saw Margaret +standing, drooping and resigned, at the curb, while Craig excitedly +hailed a cab. "Poor girl!" he muttered, "living with that +nightmare-in-breeches will surely kill her--so delicate, so refined, so +sensitive!" + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +MADAM BOWKER'S BLESSING + + +"If you like I'll go up and tell your grandmother," said Craig, breaking +the silence as they neared the hotel. But Margaret's brain had resumed +its normal function, was making up for the time it had lost. With the +shaking off of the daze had come amazement at finding herself married. +In the same circumstances a man would have been incapacitated for +action; Craig, who had been so reckless, so headlong a few minutes +before, was now timid, irresolute, prey to alarms. But women, beneath +the pose which man's resolute apotheosis of woman as the embodiment of +unreasoning imagination has enforced upon them, are rarely so +imaginative that the practical is wholly obscured. Margaret was +accepting the situation, was planning soberly to turn it to the best +advantage. Obviously, much hung upon this unconventional, this +vulgarly-sensational marriage being diplomatically announced to the +person from whom she expected to get an income of her own. "No," said +she to Joshua, in response to his nervously-made offer. "You must wait +down in the office while I tell her. At the proper time I'll send for +you." + +She spoke friendlily enough, with an inviting suggestion of their common +interests. But Craig found it uncomfortable even to look at her. Now +that the crisis was over his weaknesses were returning; he could not +believe he had dared bear off this "delicate, refined creature," this +woman whom "any one can see at a glance is a patrician of patricians." +That kind of nervousness as quickly spreads through every part, moral, +mental and physical, of a man not sure of himself as a fire through a +haystack. He could not conceal his awe of her. She saw that something +was wrong with him; being herself in no "patrician" mood, but, on the +contrary, in a mood that was most humanly plebeian, she quite missed the +cause of his clumsy embarrassment and constraint; she suspected a sudden +physical ailment. "It'll be some time, I expect," said she. "Don't +bother to hang around. I'll send a note to the desk, and you can +inquire--say, in half an hour or so." + +"Half an hour!" he cried in dismay. Whatever should he do with himself, +alone with these returned terrors, and with no Margaret there to make +him ashamed not to give braver battle to them. + +"An hour, then." + +She nodded, shook hands with a blush and a smile, not without its gleam +of appreciation of the queerness of the situation. He lifted his hat, +made a nervous, formal bow and turned away, though no car was there. As +the elevator was starting up with her he came hurrying back. + +"One moment," he said. "I quite forgot." + +She joined him and they stood aside, in the shelter of a great +wrap-rack. "You can tell your grandmother--it may help to smooth things +over--that my appointment as Attorney-General will be announced day +after to-morrow." + +"Oh!" exclaimed she, her eyes lighting up. + +He went on to explain. "As you know, the President didn't want to give +it to me. But I succeeded in drawing him into a position where he either +had to give it to me or seem to be retiring me because I had so +vigorously attacked the big rascals he's suspected of being privately +more than half in sympathy with." + +"She'll be delighted!" exclaimed Margaret. + +"And you?" he asked with awkward wistfulness. + +"I?" said she blushing and dropping her glance. "Is it necessary for you +to ask?" + +She went back to the elevator still more out of humor with herself. She +had begun their married life with what was very nearly a--well, it +certainly was an evasion; for she cared nothing about his political +career, so soon to end. However, she was glad of the appointment, +because the news of it would be useful in calming and reconciling her +grandmother. Just as her spirits began to rise it flashed into her mind: +"Why, that's how it happens I'm married! If he hadn't been successful in +getting the office he wouldn't have come.... He maneuvered the President +into a position where he had to give him what he wanted. Then he came +here and maneuvered me into a position where _I_ had to give him what he +wanted. Always his 'game!' No sincerity or directness anywhere in him, +and very little real courage." Here she stopped short in the full swing +of pharisaism, smiled at herself in dismal self-mockery. "And what am +_I_ doing? Playing MY 'game.' I'm on my way now to maneuver my +grandmother. We are well suited--he and I. In another walk of life we +might have been a pair of swindlers, playing into each other's hands.... +And yet I don't believe we're worse than most people. Why, most people +do these things without a thought of their being--unprincipled. And, +after all, I'm not harming anybody, am I? That is, anybody but myself." + +She had her campaign carefully laid out; she had mapped it in the cab +between the parsonage and the hotel. "Grandmother," she began as the old +lady looked up with a frown because of her long, unexpected absence, "I +must tell you that just before we left Washington Craig broke the +engagement." + +Madam Bowker half-started from her chair. "Broke the engagement!" she +cried in dismay. + +"Abruptly and, apparently, finally. I--I didn't dare tell you before." + +She so longed for sympathy that she half-hoped the old lady would show +signs of being touched by the plight which that situation meant. But no +sign came. Instead, Madam Bowker pierced her with wrathful eyes and said +in a furious voice: "This is frightful! And you have done nothing?" She +struck the floor violently with her staff. "He must be brought to a +sense of honor--of decency! He must! Do you hear? It was your fault, I +am sure. If he does not marry you are ruined!" + +"He came over this morning," pursued Margaret. "He wanted to marry me at +once." + +"You should have given him no chance to change his mind again," cried +Madam Bowker. "What a trifler you are! No seriousness! Your intelligence +all in the abstract; only folly and fritter for your own affairs. You +should have given him no chance to change!" + +Margaret closed in and struck home. "I didn't," said she tersely. "I +married him." + +The old lady stared. Then, as she realized how cleverly Margaret had +trapped her, she smiled a grim smile of appreciation and forgiveness. +"Come and kiss me," said she. "You will do something, now that you have +a chance. No woman has a chance--no LADY--until she is a Mrs. It's the +struggle to round that point that wrecks so many of them." + +Margaret kissed her. "And," she went on, "he has been made +Attorney-General." + +Never, never had Margaret seen such unconcealed satisfaction in her +grandmother's face. The stern, piercing eyes softened and beamed +affection upon the girl; all the affection she had deemed it wise to +show theretofore always was tempered with sternness. "What a pity he +hasn't money," said she. "Still, it can be managed, after a fashion." + +"We MUST have money," pursued the girl. "Life with him, without it, +would be intolerable. Poor people are thrown so closely together. He is +too much for my nerves--often." + +"He's your property now," Madam Bowker reminded her. "You must not +disparage your own property. Always remember that your husband is your +property. Then your silly nerves will soon quiet down." + +"We must have money," repeated Margaret. "A great deal of money." + +"You know I can't give you a great deal," said the old lady +apologetically. "I'll do my best.... Would you like to live with me?" + +There was something so fantastic in the idea of Joshua Craig and Madam +Bowker living under the same roof, and herself trying to live with them, +that Margaret burst out laughing. The old lady frowned; then, +appreciating the joke, she joined in. "You'll have to make up your mind +to live very quietly. Politics doesn't pay well--not Craig's branch of +it, except in honor. He will be very famous." + +"Where?" retorted Margaret disdainfully. "Why, with a lot of people who +aren't worth considering. No, I am going to take Joshua out of +politics." + +The old lady looked interest and inquiry. + +"He has had several flattering offers to be counsel to big corporations. +The things he has done against them have made them respect and want him. +I'm going to get him to leave politics and practice law in New York. +Lawyers there--the shrewd ones, like him--make fortunes. He can still +speak occasionally and get all the applause he wants. Joshua loves +applause." + +The old lady was watching her narrowly. + +"Don't you think I'm right, Grandma? I'm telling you because I want your +opinion." + +"Will he do it?" + +Margaret laughed easily. "He's afraid of me. If I manage him well he'll +do whatever I wish. I can make him realize he has no right to deprive +myself and him of the advantages of my station." + +"Um--um," said the old lady, half to herself. "Yes--yes--perhaps. +Um--um--" + +"He will be much more content once he's settled in the new line. +Politics as an end is silly--what becomes of the men who stick to it? +But politics as a means is sensible, and Joshua has got out of it about +all he can get--about all he needs." + +"He hopes to be President." + +"So do thousands of other men. And even if he should get it how would we +live--how would _I_ live--while we were waiting--and after it was over? +I detest politics--all those vulgar people." Margaret made a disdainful +mouth. "It isn't for our sort of people--except, perhaps, the diplomatic +posts, and they, of course, go by 'pull' or purchase. I like the life +I've led--the life you've led. You've made me luxurious and lazy, +Grandma.... Rather than President I'd prefer him to be ambassador to +England, after a while, when we could afford it. We could have a great +social career." + +"You think you can manage him?" repeated Madam Bowker. + +She had been simply listening, her thoughts not showing at the surface. +Her tone was neither discouraging nor encouraging, merely interrogative. +But Margaret scented a doubt. "Don't you think so?" she said a little +less confidently. + +"I don't know.... I don't know.... It will do no harm to try." + +Margaret's expression was suddenly like a real face from which a mask +has dropped. "I must do it, Grandma. If I don't I shall--I shall HATE +him! I will not be his servant! When I think of the humiliations he has +put upon me I--I almost hate him now!" + +Madam Bowker was alarmed, but was too wise to show it. She laughed. "How +seriously you take yourself, child," said she. "All that is very young +and very theatrical. What do birth and breeding mean if not that one has +the high courage to bear what is, after all, the lot of most women, and +the high intelligence to use one's circumstances, whatever they may be, +to accomplish one's ambitions? A lady cannot afford to despise her +husband. A lady is, first of all, serene. You talk like a Craig rather +than like a Severance. If he can taint you this soon how long will it be +before you are at his level? How can you hope to bring him up to yours?" + +Margaret's head was hanging. + +"Never again let me hear you speak disrespectfully of your husband, my +child," the old lady went on impressively. "And if you are wise you will +no more permit yourself to harbor a disrespectful thought of him than +you would permit yourself to wear unclean underclothes." + +Margaret dropped down at her grandmother's knee, buried her face in her +lap. "I don't believe I can ever love him," she murmured. + +"So long as you believe that, you never can," said Madam Bowker; "and +your married life will be a failure--as great a failure as mine was--as +your mother's was. If I had only known what I know now--what I am +telling you--" Madam Bowker paused, and there was a long silence in the +room. "Your married life, my dear," she went on, "will be what you +choose to make of it. You have a husband. Never let yourself indulge in +silly repinings or ruinous longings. Make the best of what you have. +Study your husband, not ungenerously and superciliously, but with eyes +determined to see the virtues that can be developed, the faults that can +be cured, and with eyes that will not linger on the faults that can't be +cured. Make him your constant thought and care. Never forget that you +belong to the superior sex." + +"I don't feel that I do," said Margaret. "I can't help feeling women are +inferior and wishing I'd been a man." + +"That is because you do not think," replied Madam Bowker indulgently. +"Children are the center of life--its purpose, its fulfillment. All +normal men and women want children above everything else. Our only title +to be here is as ancestors--to replace ourselves with wiser and better +than we. That makes woman the superior of man; she alone has the power +to give birth. Man instinctively knows this, and it is his fear of +subjection to woman that makes him sneer at and fight against every +effort to develop her intelligence and her independence. If you are a +true woman, worthy of your race and of your breeding, you will never +forget your superiority--or the duties it imposes on you--what you owe +to your husband and to your children. You are a married woman now. +Therefore you are free. Show that you deserve freedom and know how to +use it." + +Margaret listened to the old woman with a new respect for her--and for +herself. "I'll try, Grandmother," she said soberly. "But--it won't be +easy." A reflective silence, and she repeated, "No, not easy." + +"Easier than to resist and repine and rage and hunt another man who, on +close acquaintance, would prove even less satisfactory," replied her +grandmother. "Easy--if you honestly try." She looked down at the girl +with the sympathy that goes out to inexperience from those who have +lived long and thoughtfully and have seen many a vast and fearful bogy +loom and, on nearer view, fade into a mist of fancy. "Above all, child, +don't waste your strength on imaginary griefs and woes--you'll have none +left for the real trials." + +Margaret had listened attentively; she would remember what the old lady +had said--indeed, it would have been hard to forget words so direct and +so impressively uttered. But at the moment they made small impression +upon her. She thought her grandmother kindly but cold. In fact, the old +lady was giving her as deep commiseration as her broader experience +permitted in the circumstances, some such commiseration as one gives a +child who sees measureless calamity in a rainy sky on a long-anticipated +picnic morning. + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +MR. CRAIG KISSES THE IDOL'S FOOT + + +Grant Arkwright reached the Waldorf a little less than an hour after he +had seen the bride and groom drive away from Doctor Scones'. He found +Craig pacing up and down before the desk, his agitation so obvious that +the people about were all intensely and frankly interested. "You look as +if you were going to draw a couple of guns in a minute or so and shoot +up the house," said he, putting himself squarely before Josh and halting +him. + +"For God's sake, Grant," cried Joshua, "see how I'm sweating! Go +upstairs--up to their suite, and find out what's the matter." + +"Go yourself," retorted Grant. + +Craig shook his head. He couldn't confess to Arkwright what was really +agitating him, why he did not disregard Margaret's injunction. + +"What're you afraid of?" + +Josh scowled as Grant thus unconsciously scuffed the sore spot. "I'm not +afraid!" he cried aggressively. "It's better that you should go. Don't +haggle--go!" + +As Grant could think of no reason why he shouldn't, and as he had the +keenest curiosity to see how the "old tartar" was taking it, he went. +Margaret's voice came in response to his knock. "Oh, it's you," said she +in a tone of relief. + +Her face was swollen and her eyes red. She looked anything but lovely. +Grant, however, was instantly so moved that he did not notice her +homeliness. Also, he was one of those unobservant people who, having +once formed an impression of a person, do not revise it except under +compulsion; his last observation of Margaret had resulted in an +impression of good looks, exceptional charm. He bent upon her a look in +which understanding sympathy was heavily alloyed with the longing of the +covetous man in presence of his neighbor's desirable possessions. But he +discreetly decided that he would not put into words--at least, not just +yet--his sympathy with her for her dreadful, her tragic mistake. No, it +would be more tactful as well as more discreet to pretend belief that +her tears had been caused by her grandmother. He glanced round. + +"Where's Madam Bowker?" inquired he. "Did she blow up and bolt?" + +"Oh, no," answered Margaret, seating herself with a dreary sigh. "She's +gone to her sitting-room to write with her own hand the announcement +that's to be given out. She says the exact wording is very important." + +"So it is," said Grant. "All that's said will take its color from the +first news." + +"No doubt." Margaret's tone was indifferent, absent. + +Arkwright hesitated to introduce the painful subject, the husband; yet +he had a certain malicious pleasure in doing it, too. "Josh wants to +come up," said he. "He's down at the desk, champing and tramping and +pawing holes in the floor." And he looked at her, to note the impression +of this vivid, adroitly-reminiscent picture. + +"Not yet," said Margaret curtly and coldly. All of a sudden she buried +her face in her hands and burst into tears. + +"Rita--dear Rita!" exclaimed Grant, his own eyes wet, "I know just how +you feel. Am I not suffering, too? I thought I didn't care, but I did--I +do. Rita, it isn't too late yet--" + +She straightened; dried her eyes. "Stop that, Grant!" she said +peremptorily. "Stop it!" + +His eyes sank. "I can't bear to see you suffer." + +"You don't mean a word of what you've just said," she went on. "You are +all upset, as I am. You are his friend and mine." Defiantly: "And I love +him, and you know I do." + +It was the tone of one giving another something that must be repeated by +rote. "That's it," said he, somewhat sullenly, but with no hint of +protest. "I'm all unstrung, like you, and like him." + +"And you will forget that you saw me crying." + +"I'll never think of it again." + +"Now go and bring him, please." + +He went quickly toward the door. + +"Grant!" she cried. As he turned she rose, advanced with a friendly +smile and put out her hand for his. "Thank you," she said. "You have +shown yourself OUR best friend." + +"I meant to be," he answered earnestly, as he pressed her hand. "When I +pull myself together I think you'll realize I'm some decenter than I've +seemed of late." + +Madam Bowker came just as he returned with Craig. So all attention was +concentrated upon the meeting of the two impossibilities. The old lady +took her new relative's hand with a gracious, queenly smile--a smile +that had the effect both of making him grateful and of keeping him "in +his place." Said she, "I have been writing out the announcement." + +"Thank you," was Joshua's eager, respectful reply. + +She gave him the sheet of notepaper she was carrying in her left hand. +It was her own private paper, heavy, quiet, rich, engraved with +aristocratic simplicity, most elegant; and most elegant was the +handwriting. "This," said she, "is to be given out in addition to the +formal notice which Grant will send to the newspapers." + +Craig read: + +"Mrs. Bowker announces the marriage of her granddaughter, Margaret +Severence, and Joshua Craig, of Wayne, Minnesota, and Washington, by the +Reverend Doctor Scones, at the Waldorf, this morning. Only a few +relatives and Mr. Craig's friend, Mr. Grant Arkwright, were present. The +marriage occurred sooner than was expected, out of consideration for +Mrs. Bowker, as she is very old, and wished it to take place before she +left for her summer abroad." + +Craig lifted to the old lady the admiring glance of a satisfied expert +in public opinion. Their eyes met on an equality; for an instant he +forgot that she figured in his imagination as anything more than a human +being. "Splendid!" cried he, with hearty enthusiasm. "You have covered +the case exactly. Grant, telephone for an Associated Press reporter and +give him this." + +"I'll copy it off for him," said Grant. + +Madam Bowker and Craig exchanged amused glances. "You'll give it to him +in Madam Bowker's handwriting," ordered Craig. "You told Scones to keep +his mouth shut, when you paid him?" + +The other three looked conscious, and Margaret reddened slightly at this +coarse brusqueness of phrase. "Yes," said Grant. "He'll refuse to be +interviewed. I'll go and attend to this." + +"We're having a gala lunch, at once--in the apartment," said the old +lady. "So, come back quickly." + +When he was gone she said to the two: "And now what are your plans?" + +"We have none," said Craig. + +"I had thought--" began Margaret. She hesitated, colored, went on: +"Grandmother, couldn't you get the Millicans' camp in the Adirondacks? I +heard Mrs. Millican say yesterday they had got it all ready and had +suddenly decided to go abroad instead." + +"Certainly," said the old lady. "I'll telephone about it at once, and +I'll ask the Millicans to lunch with us to-day." + +She left them alone. Craig, eyeing his bride covertly, had a sense of +her remoteness, her unattainability. He was like a man who, in an hour +of rashness and vanity, has boasted that he can attain a certain +mountain peak, and finds himself stalled at its very base. He decided +that he must assert himself; he tried to nerve himself to seize her in +his old precipitate, boisterous fashion. He found that he had neither +the desire to do so nor the ability. He had never thought her so full of +the lady's charm. That was just the trouble--the lady's charm, not the +human being's; not the charm feminine for the male. + +"I hope you'll be very patient with me," said she, with a wan smile. "I +am far from well. I've been debating for several days whether or not to +give up and send for the doctor." + +He did not see her real motive in thus paving the way for the formation +of the habit of separate lives; he eagerly believed her, was grateful to +her, was glad she was ill. So quaint is the interweaving of thought, +there flashed into his mind at that moment: "After all, I needn't have +blown in so much money on trousseau. Maybe I can get 'em to take back +those two suits of twenty-dollar pajamas. Grant went in too deep." This, +because the money question was bothering him greatly, the situation that +would arise when his savings should be gone; for now it seemed to him he +would never have the courage to discuss money with her. If she could +have looked in upon his thoughts she would have been well content; there +was every indication of easy sailing for her scheme to reconstruct his +career. + +"When do you think of starting for the Adirondacks?" he asked, with a +timidity of preliminary swallowing and blushing that made her turn away +her face to hide her smile. How completely hers was the situation! She +felt the first triumphant thrill of her new estate. + +"To-night," she replied. "We can't put it off." + +"No, we can't put it off," assented he, hesitation in his voice, gloom +upon his brow. "Though," he added, "you don't look at all well." With an +effort: "Margaret, are you glad--or sorry?" + +"Glad," she answered in a firm, resolute tone. It became a little hard +in its practicality as she added: "You were quite right. We took the +only course." + +"You asked me to be a little patient with you," he went on. + +She trembled; her glance fluttered down. + +"Well--I--I--you'll have to be a little patient with me, too." He was +red with embarrassment. She looked so still and cold and repelling that +he could hardly muster voice to go on: "You can't but know, in a general +sort of way, that I'm uncouth, unaccustomed to the sort of thing you've +had all your life. I'm going to do my best, Margaret. And if you'll help +me, and be a little forbearing, I think--I hope--you'll soon find +I'm--I'm--oh, you understand." + +She had given a stealthy sigh of relief when she discovered that he was +not making the protest she had feared. "Yes, I understand," replied she, +her manner a gentle graciousness, which in some moods would have sent +his pride flaring against the very heavens in angry scorn. But he +thought her most sweet and considerate, and she softened toward him with +pity. It was very, pleasant thus to be looked up to, and, being human, +she felt anything but a lessened esteem for her qualities of +delicateness and refinement, of patrician breeding, when she saw him +thus on his knees before them. He had invited her to look down on him, +and she was accepting an invitation which it is not in human nature to +decline. + +There was one subject she had always avoided with him--the subject of +his family. He had not exactly avoided it, indeed, had spoken +occasionally of his brothers and sisters, their wives and husbands, +their children. But his reference to these humble persons, so far +removed from the station to which he had ascended, had impressed her as +being dragged in by the ears, as if he were forcing himself to pretend +to himself and to her that he was not ashamed of them, when in reality +he could not but be ashamed. She felt that now was the time to bring up +this subject and dispose of it. + +Said she graciously: "I'm sorry your father and mother aren't living. +I'd like to have known them." + +He grew red. He was seeing a tiny, unkempt cottage in the outskirts of +Wayne, poor, even for that modest little town. He was seeing a bent, +gaunt old laborer in jeans, smoking a pipe on the doorsill; he was +seeing, in the kitchen-dining-room-sitting-room-parlor, disclosed by the +open door, a stout, aggressive-looking laborer's wife in faded calico, +doing the few thick china dishes in dented dishpan on rickety old table. +"Yes," said he, with not a trace of sincerity in his ashamed, +constrained voice, "I wish so, too." + +She understood; she felt sorry for him, proud of herself. Was it not +fine and noble of her thus to condescend? "But there are your brothers +and sisters," she went graciously on. "I must meet them some time." +"Yes, some time," said he, laboriously pumping a thin, watery pretense +of enthusiasm into his voice. + +She had done her duty by his dreadful, impossible family. She passed +glibly to other subjects. He was glad she had had the ladylike tact not +to look at him during the episode; he wouldn't have liked any human +being to see the look he knew his face was wearing. + +In the press of agitating events, both forgot the incident--for the +time. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +A SWOOP AND A SCRATCH + + +When Molly Stillwater heard that Margaret and her "wild man" had gone +into the woods for their honeymoon she said: "Rita's got to tame him and +train him for human society. So she's taken him where there are no +neighbors to hear him scream as--as--" Molly cast about in her stock of +slang for a phrase that was vigorous enough--"as she 'puts the boots' +to him." + +It was a shrewd guess; Margaret had decided that she could do more +toward "civilizing" him in those few first weeks and in solitude than in +years of teaching at odd times. In China, at the marriage feast, the +bride and the groom each struggle to be first to sit on the robe of the +other; the idea is that the winner will thenceforth rule. As the Chinese +have been many ages at the business of living, the custom should not be +dismissed too summarily as mere vain and heathenish superstition. At any +rate, Margaret had reasoned it out that she must get the advantage in +the impending initial grapple and tussle of their individualities, or +choose between slavery and divorce. With him handicapped by awe of her, +by almost groveling respect for her ideas and feelings in all man and +woman matters, domestic and social, it seemed to her that she could be +worsted only by a miracle of stupidity on her part. + +Never had he been so nearly "like an ordinary man--like a gentleman"--as +when they set out for the Adirondacks. She could scarcely believe her +own eyes, and she warmed to him and felt that she had been greatly +overestimating her task. He had on one of the suits he had bought ready +made that morning. It was of rough blue cloth--dark blue--most becoming +and well draped to show to advantage his lithe, powerful frame, its +sinews so much more manly-looking than the muscularity of artificially +got protuberances usually seen in the prosperous classes in our Eastern +cities. Grant had selected the suit, had selected all the suits, and had +superintended the fittings. Grant had also selected the negligee shirt +and the fashionable collar, and the bright, yet not gaudy, tie, and +Grant had selected the shoes that made his feet look like feet; and +Grant had conducted him to a proper barber, who had reduced the mop of +hair to proportion and order, and had restored its natural color and +look of vitality by a thorough shampooing. In brief, Grant had taken a +gloomy pleasure in putting his successful rival through the machine of +civilization and bringing him out a city man, agreeable to sight, smell +and touch. + +"Now," said he, when the process was finished, "for Heaven's sake try to +keep yourself up to the mark. Take a cold bath every morning and a warm +bath before dinner." + +"I have been taking a cold bath every day since I got my private +bathroom," said Joshua, with honest pride. + +"Then you're just as dirty as the average Englishman. He takes a cold +bath and fancies he's clean, when in fact he's only clean-looking. Cold +water merely stimulates. It takes warm water and soap to keep a man +clean." + +"I'll bear that in mind," said Craig, with a docility that flattered +Grant as kindly attentions from a fierce-looking dog flatter the timid +stranger. + +"And you must take care of your clothes, too," proceeded the arbiter +elegantiarum. "Fold your trousers when you take them off, and have them +pressed. Get your hair cut once a week--have a regular day for it. Trim +your nails twice a week. I've got you a safety razor. Shave at least +once a day--first thing after you get out of bed is the best time. And +change your linen every day. Don't think because a shirt isn't downright +dirty that you can pass it off for fresh." + +"Just write those things down," said Josh. "And any others of the same +kind you happen to think of. I hate to think what a state I'd be in if I +hadn't you. Don't imagine I'm not appreciating the self-sacrifice." + +Grant looked sheepish. But he felt that his shame was unwarranted, that +he really deserved Craig's tactless praise. So he observed virtuously: +"That's where we men are beyond the women. Now, if it were one woman +fixing up another, the chances are a thousand to one she'd play the cat, +and get clothes and give suggestions that'd mean ruin." + +It may not speak well for Arkwright's capacity for emotion, but it +certainly speaks well for his amiability and philanthropy that doing +these things for Craig had so far enlisted him that he was almost as +anxious as the fluttered and flustered bridegroom himself for the +success of the adventure. He wished he could go along, in disguise, as a +sort of valet and prime minister--to be ever near Josh to coach and +advise and guide him. For it seemed to him that success or failure in +this honeymooning hung upon the success or failure of Craig in +practising the precepts that for Grant and his kind take precedence of +the moral code. He spent an earnest and exhausting hour in neatly and +carefully writing out the instructions, as Craig had requested. He +performed this service with a gravity that would move some people to the +same sort of laughter and wonder that is excited by the human doings of +a trained chimpanzee. But Craig--the wild man, the arch foe of +effeteness, the apostle of the simple life of yarn sock and tallowed +boot and homespun pants and hairy jaw--Craig accepted the service with +heartfelt thanks in his shaking voice and moist eye. + +Thus the opening of the honeymoon was most auspicious. Craig, too much +in awe of Margaret to bother her, and busy about matters that concerned +himself alone, was a model of caution, restraint and civility. Margaret, +apparently calm, aloof and ladylike, was really watching his discreet +conduct as a hawk watches a sheltered hen; she began to indulge in +pleasant hopes that Joshua's wild days had come to an abrupt end. Why, +he was even restrained in conversation; he did not interrupt her often, +instantly apologized and forebore when he did; he poured out none of his +wonted sophomoric diatribes, sometimes sensible, more often inane, as +the prattle of a great man in his hour of relaxation is apt to be. She +had to do most of the talking--and you may be sure that she directed her +conversation to conveying under an appearance of lightness many valuable +lessons in the true wisdom of life as it is revealed only to the +fashionable idle. She was careful not to overdo, not to provoke, above +all not to put him at his ease. + +Her fiction of ill health, of threatened nervous prostration, also +served to free her from an overdose of his society during the long and +difficult days in that eventless solitude. He was all for arduous tramps +through the woods, for excursions in canoe under the fierce sun. She +insisted on his enjoying himself--"but I don't feel equal to any such +exertion. I simply must rest and take care of myself." She was somewhat +surprised at his simplicity in believing her health was anything but +robust, when her appearance gave the lie direct to her hints and +regrets. While he was off with one of the guides she stayed at camp, +reading, working at herself with the aid of Selina, revolving and +maturing her plans. + +When she saw him she saw him at his best. He showed up especially well +at swimming. She was a notable figure herself in bathing suit, and could +swim in a nice, ladylike way; but he was a water creature--indeed, +seemed more at home in the water than on land. She liked to watch his +long, strong, narrow body cut the surface of the transparent lake with +no loss of energy in splashing or display--as easy and swift as a fish. +She began to fear she had made a mistake in selecting a place for her +school for a husband, "He's in his element--this wilderness," thought +she, "not mine. I'll take him back with everything still to be done." + +And, worst of all, she found herself losing her sense of proportion, her +respect for her fashionable idols. Those vast woods, that infinite +summer sky--they were giving her a new and far from practical point of +view--especially upon the petty trickeries and posturings of the +ludicrously self-important human specks that crawl about upon the earth +and hastily begin to act queer and absurd as soon as they come in sight +of each other. She found herself rapidly developing that latent +"sentimentality" which her grandmother had so often rebuked and warned +her against--which Lucia had insisted was her real self. Her +imagination beat the bars of the cage of convention in which she had +imprisoned it, and cried out for free, large, natural emotions--those +that make the blood leap and the flesh tingle, that put music in the +voice and softness in the glance and the intense joy of life in the +heart. And she began to revolve him before eyes that searched hopefully +for possibilities of his giving her precisely what her nerves craved. + +"It would be queer, wouldn't it," she mused--she was watching him +swim--"if it should turn out that I had come up here to learn, instead +of to teach?" + +And he--In large presences he was always at his best--in the large +situations of affairs, in these large, tranquillizing horizons of +nature. He, too, began to forget that she was a refined, delicate, +sensitive lady, with nerves that writhed under breaks in manners and +could in no wise endure a slip in grammar, unless, of course, it was one +of those indorsed by fashionable usage. His health came flooding and +roaring back in its fullness; and day by day the difficulty of +restraining himself from loud laughter and strong, plebeian action +became more appalling to him. He would leave the camp, set off at a run +as soon as he got safely out of sight; and, when he was sure of +seclusion in distance, he would "cut loose"--yell and laugh and caper +like a true madman; tear off his superfluous clothes, splash and thresh +in some lonely lake like a baby whale that has not yet had the primary +lessons in how to behave. When he returned to camp, subdued in manner, +like a bad boy after recess, he was, in fact, not one bit subdued +beneath the surface, but the more fractious for his outburst. Each day +his animal spirits surged higher; each day her sway of awe and respect +grew more precarious. She thought his increasing silence, his really +ridiculous formality of politeness, his stammering and red-cheeked dread +of intrusion meant a deepening of the sense of the social gulf that +rolled between them. She recalled their conversation about his +relatives. "Poor fellow!" thought she. "I suppose it's quite impossible +for people of my sort to realize what a man of his birth and bringing up +feels in circumstances like these." Little did she dream, in her +exaltation of self-complacence and superiority, that the "poor fellow's" +clumsy formalities were the thin cover for a tempest of wild-man's wild +emotion. + +Curiously, she "got on" his nerves before he on hers. It was through her +habit of rising late and taking hours to dress. Part of his code of +conduct--an interpolation of his own into the Arkwright manual for a +honeymooning gentleman--was that he ought to wait until she was ready to +breakfast, before breakfasting himself. Several mornings she heard +tempestuous sounds round the camp for two hours before she emerged from +her room. She knew these sounds came from him, though all was quiet as +soon as she appeared; and she very soon thought out the reason for his +uproar. Next, his anger could not subdue itself beyond surliness on her +appearing, and the surliness lasted through the first part of breakfast. +Finally, one morning she heard him calling her when she was about +half-way through her leisurely toilette: "Margaret! MARGARET!" + +"Yes--what is it?" + +"Do come out. You're missing the best part of the day." + +"All right--in a minute." + +She continued with, if anything, a slackening of her exertions; she +appeared about an hour after she had said "in a minute." He was ready to +speak, and speak sharply. But one glance at her, at the exquisite +toilette--of the woods, yet of the civilization that dwells in palaces +and reposes languidly upon the exertions of menials--at her cooling, +subduing eyes, so graciously haughty--and he shut his lips together and +subsided. + +The next morning it was a knock at her door just as she was waking--or +had it waked her? "Yes--what is it?" + +"Do come out! I'm half starved." + +The voice was pleading, not at all commanding, not at all the +aggressive, dictatorial voice of the Josh Craig of less than a month +before. But it was distinctly reminiscent of that Craig; it was plainly +the first faint murmur, not of rebellion, but of the spirit of +rebellion. Margaret retorted with an icily polite, "Please don't wait +for me." + +"Yes, I'll wait. But be as quick as you can." + +Margaret neither hastened nor dallied. She came forth at the end of an +hour and a half. Josh, to her surprise, greeted her as if she had not +kept him waiting an instant; not a glance of sullenness, no suppressed +irritation in his voice. Next morning the knock was a summons. + +"Margaret! I say, Margaret!" came in tones made bold and fierce by +hunger. "I've been waiting nearly two hours." + +"For what?" inquired she frigidly from the other side of the door. + +"For breakfast." + +"Oh! Go ahead with it. I'm not even up yet." + +"You've been shut in there ten hours." + +"What of it?" retorted she sharply. "Go away, and don't bother me." + +He had put her into such an ill humor that when she came out, two hours +later, her stormy brow, her gleaming hazel eyes showed she was "looking +for trouble." He was still breakfastless--he well knew how to manipulate +his weaknesses so that his purposes could cow them, could even use them. +He answered her lowering glance with a flash of his blue-green eyes like +lightning from the dark head of a thunder-cloud. "Do you know it is nine +o'clock?" demanded he. + +"So early? I try to get up late so that the days won't seem so long." + +He abandoned the field to her, and she thought him permanently beaten. +She had yet to learn the depths of his sagacity that never gave battle +until the time was auspicious. + +Two mornings later he returned to the attack. + +"I see your light burning every night until midnight," said he--at +breakfast with her, after the usual wait. + +"I read myself to sleep," explained she. + +"Do you think that's good for you?" + +"I don't notice any ill effects." + +"You say your health doesn't improve as rapidly as you hoped." + +Check! She reddened with guilt and exasperation. "What a sly trick!" +thought she. She answered him with a cold: "I always have read myself to +sleep, and I fancy I always shall." + +"If you went to sleep earlier," observed he, his air unmistakably that +of the victor conscious of victory, "you'd not keep me raging round two +or three hours for breakfast." + +"How often I've asked you not to wait for me! I prefer to breakfast +alone, anyhow. It's the dreadful habit of breakfasting together that +causes people to get on together so badly." + +"I'd not feel right," said he, moderately, but firmly, "if I didn't see +you at breakfast." + +She sat silent--thinking. He felt what she was thinking--how common this +was, how "middle class," how "bourgeois," she was calling it. +"Bourgeois" was her favorite word for all that she objected to in him, +for all she was trying to train out of him by what she regarded as most +artistically indirect lessons. He felt that their talk about his family, +what he had said, had shown he felt, was recurring to her. He grew red, +burned with shame from head to foot. + +"What a fool, what a pup I was!" he said to himself. "If she had been a +real lady--no, by gad--a real WOMAN--she'd have shown that she despised +me." + +Again and again that incident had come back to him. It had been, +perhaps, the most powerful factor in his patience with her airs and +condescensions. He felt that it, the lowest dip of his degradation in +snobism, had given her the right to keep him in his place. It seemed to +him one of those frightful crimes against self-respect which can never +be atoned, and, bad as he thought it from the standpoint of good sense +as to the way to get on with her, he suffered far more because it was +such a stinging, scoffing denial of all his pretenses of personal pride. +"Her sensibilities have been too blunted by association with those +Washington vulgarians," he reasoned, "for her to realize the enormity of +my offense, but she realizes enough to look down at me more +contemptuously every time she recalls it." However, the greater the +blunder the greater the necessity of repairing. He resolutely thrust his +self-abasing thoughts to the background of his mind, and began afresh. + +"I'm sure," said he, "you'd not mind, once you got used to it." + +She was startled out of her abstraction. "Used to--what?" she inquired. + +"To getting up early." + +"Oh!" She gave a relieved laugh. "Still harping on that. How persistent +you are!" + +"You could accomplish twice as much if you got up early and made a right +start." + +She frowned slightly. "Couldn't think of it," said she, in the tone of +one whose forbearance is about at an end. "I hate the early morning." + +"We usually hate what's best for us. But, if we're sensible, we do it +until it becomes a habit that we don't mind--or positively like." + +This philosophy of the indisputable and the sensible brimmed the +measure. "What would you think of me," said she, in her pleasantest, +most deliberately irritating way in the world, "if I were to insist that +you get up late and breakfast late? You should learn to let live as well +as to live. You are too fond of trying to compel everybody to do as you +wish." + +"I make 'em see that what I wish is what they ought. That's not +compelling." + +"It's even more unpopular." + +"I'm not looking for popularity, but for success." + +"Well, please don't annoy me in the mornings hereafter." + +"You don't seem to realize you've renounced your foolish idlers and all +their ways, and have joined the working classes." His good humor had +come back with breakfast; he had finished two large trout, much bread +and marmalade and coffee--and it had given her a pleasure that somehow +seemed vulgar and forbidden to see him eat so vastly, with such obvious +delight. As he made his jest about her entry into the working +classes--she who suggested a queen bee, to employ the labors of a whole +army of willing toilers, while she herself toiled not--he was tilted +back at his ease, smoking a cigarette and watching the sunbeams sparkle +in the waves of her black hair like jewels showered there. "You're +surely quite well again," he went on, the trend of his thought so hidden +that he did not see it himself. + +"I don't feel especially well," said she, instantly on guard. + +He laughed. "You'd not dare say that to yourself in the mirror. You have +wonderful color. Your eyes--there never was anything so clear. You were +always straight--that was one of the things I admired about you. But +now, you seem to be straight without the slightest effort--the natural +straightness of a sapling." + +This was most agreeable, for she loved compliments, liked to discover +that the charms which she herself saw in herself were really there. But +encouraging such talk was not compatible with the course she had laid +out for herself with him. She continued silent and cold. + +"If you'd only go to sleep early, and get up early, and drop all that +the railway train carried us away from, you'd be as happy as the birds +and the deer and the fish." + +"I shall not change my habits," said she tartly. "I hope you'll drop the +subject." + +He leaned across the table toward her, the same charm now in his face +and in his voice that had drawn her when she first heard him in public +speech. "Let's suppose I'm a woodchopper, and you are my wife. We've +never been anywhere but just here. We're going to live here all our +lives--just you and I--and no one else--and we don't want any one else. +And we love each other--" + +It was very alluring, but there was duty frowning upon her yielding +senses. "Please don't let that smoke drift into my face," said she +crossly. "It's choking me." + +He flung away the cigarette. "Beg pardon," he muttered, between anger +and humility. "Thought you didn't mind smoking." + +She was ashamed of herself, and grew still angrier. "If you'd only think +about some one beside yourself once in a while," said she. "You quite +wear people out, with your everlasting thinking and talking about +yourself." + +"You'd better stop that midnight reading," flared he. "Your temper is +going to the devil." + +She rose with great dignity; with an expression that seemed to send him +tumbling and her soaring she went into the house. + +In some moods he would have lain where he fell for quite a while. But +his mood of delight in her charms as a woman had completely eclipsed his +deference for her charms as a lady. He hesitated only a second, then +followed her, overtook her at the entrance to her room. She, hearing him +coming, did not face about and put him back in his place with one +haughty look. Instead, she in impulsive, most ill-timed panic, quickened +her step. When the woman flees, the man, if there be any manhood in him, +pursues. He caught her, held her fast. + +"Let me go!" she cried, not with the compelling force of offended +dignity, but with the hysterical ineffectiveness of terror. "You are +rough. You hurt." + +He laughed, turned her about in his arms until she was facing him. "The +odor of those pines, out there," he said, "makes me drunk, and the odor +of your hair makes me insane." And he was kissing her--those fierce, +strong caresses that at once repelled and compelled her. + +"I hate you!" she panted. "I hate you!" + +"Oh, no, you don't," retorted he. "That isn't what's in your eyes." And +he held her so tightly that she was almost crying out with pain. + +"Please--please!" she gasped. And she wrenched to free herself. One of +his hands slipped, his nail tore a long gash in her neck; the blood +spurted out, she gave a loud cry, an exaggerated cry--for the pain, +somehow, had a certain pleasure in it. He released her, stared vacantly +at the wound he had made. She rushed into her room, slammed the door and +locked it. + +"Margaret!" he implored. + +She did not answer; he knew she would not. He sat miserably at her door +for an hour, then wandered out into the woods, and stayed there until +dinner-time. + +When he came in she was sitting by the lake, reading a French novel. To +him, who knew only his own language, there was something peculiarly +refined and elegant about her ability at French; he thought, as did she, +that she spoke French like a native, though, in fact, her accent was +almost British, and her understanding of it was just about what can be +expected in a person who has never made a thorough study of any +language. As he advanced toward her she seemed unconscious of his +presence. But she was seeing him distinctly, and so ludicrous a figure +of shy and sheepish contrition was he making that she with difficulty +restrained her laughter. He glanced guiltily at the long, red scratch on +the pallid whiteness of her throat. + +"I'm ashamed of myself," said he humbly. "I'm not fit to touch a person +like you. I--I--" + +She was not so mean as she had thought she would be. "It was nothing," +said she pleasantly, if distantly. "Is dinner ready?" + +Once more she had him where she wished--abject, apologetic, conscious of +the high honor of merely being permitted to associate with her. She +could relax and unbend again; she was safe from his cyclones. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +GETTING ACQUAINTED + + +Her opportunity definitely to begin her campaign to lift him up out of +politics finally came. She had been doing something in that direction +almost every day. She must be careful not to alarm his vanity of being +absolute master of his own destiny. The idea of leaving politics and +practising law in New York, must seem to originate and to grow in his +own brain; she would seem to be merely assenting. Also, it was a +delicate matter because the basic reason for the change was money; and +it was her cue as a lady, refined and sensitive and wholly free from +sordidness, so to act that he would think her loftily indifferent to +money. She had learned from dealing with her grandmother that the way to +get the most money was by seeming ignorant of money values, a cover +behind which she could shame Madam Bowker into giving a great deal more +than she would have given on direct and specific demand. For instance, +she could get more from the old lady than could her mother, who +explained just what she wanted the money for and acted as if the giving +were a great favor. No, she must never get with him on a footing where +he could discuss money matters frankly with her; she must simply make +him realize how attractive luxury was, how necessary it was to her, how +confidently she looked to him to provide it, how blindly, in her +ignorance of money and all sordid matters, she trusted to him to +maintain her as a wife such as she must be maintained. She knew she did +not understand him thoroughly--"we've been so differently brought up." +But she felt that the kind of life that pleased her and dazzled him must +be the kind he really wished to lead--and would see he wished to lead, +once he extricated himself, with her adroit assistance, from the kind of +life to which his vociferous pretenses had committed him. + +Whether her subtleties in furtherance of creating a sane state of mind +in him had penetrated to him, she could not tell. In the earliest step +of their acquaintance she had studied him as a matrimonial possibility, +after the habit of young women with each unattached man they add to +their list of acquaintances. And she had then discovered that whenever +he was seriously revolving any matter he never spoke of it; he would be +voluble about everything and anything else under the sun, would seem to +be unbosoming himself of his bottommost secret of thought and action, +but would not let escape so much as the smallest hint of what was really +engaging his whole mind. It was this discovery that had set her to +disregarding his seeming of colossal, of fatuous egotism, and had +started her toward an estimate of him wholly different from the current +estimate. Now, was he thinking of their future, or was it some other +matter that occupied his real mind while he talked on and on, usually of +himself? She could not tell; she hoped it was, but she dared not try to +find out. + +They were at their mail, which one of the guides had just brought. He +interrupted his reading to burst out: "How they do tempt a man! Now, +there's"--and he struck the open letter in his hand with a flourishing, +egotistic gesture--"an offer from the General Steel Company. They want +me as their chief counsel at fifty thousand a year and the privilege of +doing other work that doesn't conflict." + +Fifty thousand a year! Margaret discreetly veiled her glistening eyes. + +"It's the fourth offer of the same sort," he went on, "since we've been +up here--since it was given out that I'd be Attorney-General as soon as +old Stillwater retires. The people pay me seventy-five hundred a year. +They take all my time. They make it impossible for me to do anything +outside. They watch and suspect and grumble. And I could be making my +two hundred thousand a year or more." + +He was rattling on complacently, patting himself on the back, and, in +his effort to pose as a marvel of patriotic self-sacrifice, carefully +avoiding any suggestion that mere money seemed to him a very poor thing +beside the honor of high office, the direction of great affairs, the +flattering columns of newspaper praise and censure, the general +agitation of eighty millions over him. "Sometimes I'm almost tempted to +drop politics," he went on, "and go in for the spoils. What do you +think?" + +She was taken completely off guard. She hadn't the faintest notion that +this was his way of getting at her real mind. But she was too feminine +to walk straight into the trap. "I don't know," said she, with +well-simulated indifference, as if her mind were more than half on her +own letter. "I haven't given the matter any thought." Carelessly: "Where +would we live if you accepted this offer?" + +"New York, of course. You prefer Washington, don't you?" + +"No, I believe I'd like New York better. I've a great many friends +there. While there isn't such a variety of people, the really nice New +Yorkers are the most attractive people in America. And one can live so +well in New York." + +"I'd sink into a forgotten obscurity," pursued the crafty Joshua. "I'd +be nothing but a corporation lawyer, a well-paid fetch-and-carry for the +rich thieves that huddle together there." + +"Oh, you'd be famous wherever you are, I'm sure," replied she with +judicious enthusiasm. "Besides, you'd have fame with the real people." + +His head reared significantly. But, to draw her on, he said: "That's +true. That's true," as if reflecting favorably. + +"Yes, I think I'd like New York," continued she, all unsuspicious. "I +don't care much for politics. I hate to think of a man of your abilities +at the mercy of the mob. In New York you could make a really great +career." + +"Get rich--be right in the social swim--and you too," suggested he. + +"It certainly is very satisfactory to feel one is of the best people. +And I'm sure you'd not care to have me mix up with all sorts, as +politicians' wives have to do." + +He laughed at her--the loud, coarse Josh Craig outburst. "You're stark +mad on the subject of class distinctions, aren't you?" said he. "You'll +learn some day to look on that sort of thing as you would on an attempt +to shovel highways and set up sign-posts in the open sea. Your kind of +people are like the children that build forts out of sand at the +seashore. Along comes a wave and washes it all away.... You'd be willing +for me to abandon my career and become a rich nonentity in New York?" + +His tone was distinctly offensive. "I don't look at it in that way," +said she coldly. "Really, I care nothing about it." And she resumed the +reading of her letter. + +"Do you expect me to believe," demanded he, excited and angry--"do you +expect me to believe you've not given the subject of our future a +thought?" + +She continued reading. Such a question in such a tone called for the +rebuke of an ignoring silence. Also, deep down in her nature, down where +the rock foundations of courage should have been but were not, there had +begun an ominous trembling. + +"You know what my salary is?" + +"You just mentioned it." + +"You know it's to be only five hundred dollars a year more after +January?" + +"I knew the Cabinet people got eight thousand." She was gazing dreamily +out toward the purple horizon, seemed as far as its mountains from +worldliness. + +"Hadn't you thought out how we were to live on that sum? You are aware +I've practically nothing but my salary." + +"I suppose I ought to think of those things--ought to have thought of +them," replied she with a vague, faint smile. "But really--well, we've +been brought up rather carelessly--I suppose some people would call it +badly--and--" + +"You take me for a fool, don't you?" he interrupted roughly. + +She elevated her eyebrows. + +"I wish I had a quarter for every row between your people and your +grandmother on the subject of money. I wish I had a dollar for every row +you and she have had about it." + +He again vented his boisterous laugh; her nerves had not been so rasped +since her wedding day. "Come, Margaret," he went on, "I know you've been +brought up differently from me. I know I seem vulgar to you in many +ways. But because I show you I appreciate those differences, don't +imagine I'm an utter ass. And I certainly should be if I didn't know +that your people are human beings." + +She looked guilty as well as angry now. She felt she had gone just the +one short step too far in her aristocratic assumptions. + +He went on in the tone of one who confidently expects that there will be +no more nonsense: "When you married me you had some sort of idea how +we'd live." + +"I assumed you had thought out those things or you'd not have married +me," cried she hotly. In spite of her warnings to herself she couldn't +keep cool. His manner, his words were so inflammatory that she could not +hold herself from jumping into the mud to do battle with him. She +abandoned her one advantage--high ground; she descended to his level. +"You knew the sort of woman I was," she pursued. "You undertook the +responsibility. I assume you are man enough to fulfill it." + +He felt quite at home with her now. "And you?" rasped he. "What +responsibility did YOU undertake?" + +She caught her breath, flamed scarlet. + +"Now let us hear what wife means in the dictionary of a lady. Come, +let's hear it!" + +She was silent. + +"I'm not criticising," he went on; "I'm simply inquiring. What do you +think it means to be a wife?" + +Still she could think of no answer. + +"It must mean something," urged he. "Tell me. I've got to learn some +time, haven't I?" + +"I think," said she, with a tranquil haughtiness which she hoped would +carry off the weakness of the only reply she could get together on such +short notice, "among our sort of people the wife is expected to attend +to the social part of the life." + +He waited for more--waited with an expression that suggested thirst. But +no more came. "Is that all?" he inquired, and waited again--in vain. +"Yes?... Well, tell me, where in thunder does the husband come in? He +puts up the cash for the wife to spend in dressing and amusing +herself--is that all?" + +"It is generally assumed," said she, since she had to say something or +let the case go against her by default, "that the social side of life +can be very useful in furthering a man." + +He vented a scornful sound that was like a hoot. "In furthering a +lick-spittle--yes. But not a MAN!" + +"Our ideas on some subjects are hopelessly apart." + +She suddenly realized that this whole conversation had been deliberately +planned by him; that he had, indeed, been debating within himself their +future life, and that he had decided that the time was ripe for a frank +talk with her. It angered her that she had not realized this sooner, +that she had been drawn from her position, had been forced to discuss +with him on his own terms and at his own time and in his own manner. She +felt all the fiery indignation of the schemer who has been outwitted. + +"Your tone," said she, all ice, "makes it impossible for a well-bred +person to discuss with you. Let us talk of something else, or of nothing +at all." + +"No. Let's thresh it out now that we've begun. And do try to keep your +temper. There's no reason for anger. We've got to go back to +civilization. We've got to live after we get there. We want to live +comfortably, as satisfactorily for both as our income permits. Now, what +shall we do? How shall we invest our eight thousand a year--and whatever +your grandmother allows you? I don't need much. I'll turn the salary +over to you. You're entirely welcome to all there is above my board and +clothes." + +This sounded generous and, so, irritated Margaret the more. "You know +very well we can't live like decent people on twelve or fifteen thousand +a year in Washington." + +"You knew that before you married me. What did you have in mind?" + +Silence. + +"Why do you find it difficult to be frank with me?" + +His courteous, appealing tone and manner made it impossible to indulge +in the lie direct or the lie evasive. She continued silent, raging +inwardly against him for being so ungenerous, so ungentlemanly as to put +her in such a pitiful posture, one vastly different from that she had +prearranged for herself when "the proper time" came. + +"You had something in mind," he persisted. "What is it?" + +"Grandmother wishes us to live with her," she said with intent to flank. + +"Would you like that?" he inquired; and her very heart seemed to stand +still in horror at his tone. It was a tone that suggested that the idea +was attractive! + +She debated. He must be "bluffing"--he surely must. She rallied her +courage and pushed on: "It's probably the best we can do in the +circumstances. We'd have almost nothing left after we'd paid our rent if +we set up for ourselves. Even if I were content to pinch and look a +frump and never go out, you'd not tolerate it." + +"Nothing could be more galling," said he, after reflecting, "than what +people would say if we lived off your grandmother. No, going there is +unthinkable. I like her, and we'd get on well together--" + +Margaret laughed. "Like two cats drowning in a bag." + +"Not at all," protested he sincerely. "Your grandmother and I understand +each other--better than you and I--at least, better than you understand +me. However, I'll not permit our being dependents of hers." + +Margaret had a queer look. Was not her taking enough money from the old +lady to pay all her personal expenses--was not that dependence? + +"We'll return to that later," continued he, and she had an uncomfortable +sense that he was answering her thought. "To go back to your idea in +marrying me. You expected me to leave politics." + +"Why do you think that?" exclaimed she. + +"You told me." + +"_I_!" + +"You, yourself. Have you not said you could not live on what I get as a +public man, and that if I were a gentleman I'd not expect you to?" + +Margaret stared foolishly at this unescapable inference from her own +statements and admissions during his cross-examination. She began to +feel helpless in his hands--and began to respect him whom she could not +fool. + +"I know," he went on, "you're too intelligent not to have appreciated +that either we must live on my salary or I must leave public life." + +He laughed--a quiet, amused laugh, different from any she had ever heard +from him. Evidently, Joshua Craig in intimacy was still another person +from the several Joshua Craigs she already knew. "And," said he, in +explanation of his laughter, "I thought you married me because I had +political prospects. I fancied you had real ambition.... I might have +known! According to the people of your set, to be in that set is to have +achieved the summit of earthly ambition--to dress, to roll about in +carriages, to go from one fussy house to another, from one showy +entertainment to another, to eat stupid dinners, and caper or match +picture cards afterward, to grin and chatter, to do nothing useful or +even interesting--" He laughed again, one of his old-time, boisterous +outbursts. But it seemed to her to fit in, to be the laughter of +mountain and forest and infinity of space at her and her silly friends. +"And you picture ME taking permanent part in that show, or toiling to +find you the money to do it with. ME!... Merely because I've been, for a +moment, somewhat bedazzled by its cheap glitter." + +Margaret felt that he had torn off the mask and had revealed his true +self. But greater than her interest in this new personality was her +anger at having been deceived--self-deceived. "You asked me how I'd like +to live," cried she, color high and eyes filled with tears of rage. "I +answered your question, and you grow insulting." + +"I'm doing the best I know how," said he. + +After a moment she got herself under control. "Then," asked she, "what +have you to propose?" + +"I can't tell you just now," replied he, and his manner was most +disquieting. "To-morrow--or next day." + +"Don't you think I'm right about it being humiliating for us to go back +to Washington and live poorly?" + +"Undoubtedly. I've felt that from the beginning." + +"Then you agree with me?" + +"Not altogether," said he. And there was a quiet sternness in his smile, +in his gentle tone, that increased her alarms. "I've been hoping, +rather," continued he, "that you'd take an interest in my career." + +"I do," cried she. + +"Not in MY career," replied he, those powerful, hewn features of his sad +and bitter. "In your own--in a career in which I'd become as +contemptible as the rest of the men you know--a poor thing like Grant +Arkwright. Worse, for I'd do very badly what he has learned to do well." + +"To be a well-bred, well-mannered gentleman is no small achievement," +said she with a sweetness that was designed to turn to gall after it +reached him. + +He surveyed her tranquilly. She remembered that look; it was the same he +had had the morning he met her at the Waldorf elevator and took her away +and married her. She knew that the crisis had come and that he was +ready. And she? Never had she felt less capable, less resolute. + +"I've been doing a good deal of thinking--thinking about us--these last +few days--since I inflicted that scratch on you," said he. "Among other +things, I've concluded you know as little about what constitutes a real +gentleman as I do; also, that you have no idea what it is in you that +makes you a lady--so far as you are one." + +She glanced at him in fright, and that expression of hers betrayed the +fundamental weakness in her--the weakness that underlies all character +based upon the achievements of others, not upon one's own. Margaret was +three generations away from self-reliance. Craig's speech sounded like a +deliberate insult, deliberate attempt to precipitate a quarrel, an +estrangement. There had been nothing in her training to prepare her for +such a rude, courage-testing event as that. + +"Do you remember--it was the day we married--the talk we had about my +relatives?" + +She colored, was painfully embarrassed, strove in vain to conceal it. +"About your relatives?" she said inquiringly. + +He made an impatient gesture. "I know you remember. Well, if I had been +a gentleman, or had known what gentleman meant, I'd never have said--or, +rather, looked what I did then. If you had known what a gentleman is, if +you had been a lady, you'd have been unable to go on with a man who had +shown himself such a blackguard." + +"You are unjust to us both," she eagerly interrupted. "Joshua--you--" + +"Don't try to excuse me--or yourself," said he peremptorily. "Now, you +thought what I showed that day--my being ashamed of honester, +straighter--more American--people than you or I will ever be--you +thought that was the real me. Thank God, it wasn't. But"--he pointed a +fascinating forefinger at her--"it was the me I'd be if you had your +way." + +She could not meet his eyes. + +"I see you understand," said he earnestly. "That's a good sign." + +"Yes, I do understand," said she. Her voice was low and her head was +still hanging. "I'm glad you've said this. I--I respect you for it." + +"Don't fret about me," said he curtly. "Fret about your own melancholy +case. What do your impulses of decent feeling amount to, anyway? An inch +below the surface you're all for the other sort of thing--the cheap and +nasty. If you could choose this minute you'd take the poorest of those +drawing-room marionettes before the finest real man, if he didn't know +how to wear his clothes or had trouble with his grammar." + +She felt that there was more than a grain of truth in this; at any rate, +denial would be useless, as his tone was the tone of settled conviction. + +"We've made a false start," proceeded he. He rose, lighted a cigarette. +"We're going to start all over again. I'll tell you what I'm going to do +about it in a day or two." + +And he strolled away to the landing. She saw him presently enter a +canoe; under his powerful, easy stroke it shot away, to disappear behind +the headland. She felt horribly lonely and oppressed--as if she would +never see him again. "He's quite capable of leaving me here to find my +way back to Washington alone--quite capable!" And her lip curled. + +But the scorn was all upon the surface. Beneath there was fear and +respect--the fear and respect which those demoralized by unearned luxury +and by the purposeless life always feel when faced by strength and +self-reliance in the crises where externals avail no more than its paint +and its bunting a warship in battle. She knew she had been treating him +as no self-respecting man who knew the world would permit any woman to +treat him. She knew her self-respect should have kept her from treating +him thus, even if he, in his ignorance of her world and awe of it, would +permit. But more than from shame at vain self-abasement her chagrin came +from the sense of having played her game so confidently, so carelessly, +so stupidly that he had seen it. She winced as she recalled how shrewdly +and swiftly he had got to the very bottom of her, especially of her +selfishness in planning to use him with no thought for his good. Yet so +many women thus used their husbands; why not she? "I suppose I began too +soon.... No, not too soon, but too frigidly." The word seemed to her to +illuminate the whole situation. "That's it!" she cried. "How stupid of +me!" + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +WHAT THE MOON SAW AND DID + + +Physical condition is no doubt the dominant factor in human thought and +action. State of soul is, as Doctor Schulze has observed, simply the +egotistic human vanity for state of body. If the health of the human +race were better, if sickness, the latent and the revealed together, +were not all but universal, human relations would be wonderfully +softened, sweetened and simplified. Indigestion, with its various +ramifications, is alone responsible for most of the crimes, catastrophes +and cruelties, public and private discord; for it tinges human thought +and vision with pessimistic black or bloody red or envious green or +degenerate yellow instead of the normal, serene and invigorating white. +All the world's great public disturbers have been diseased. As for +private life, its bad of all degrees could, as to its deep-lying, +originating causes, be better diagnosed by physician than by +psychologist. + +Margaret, being in perfect physical condition, was deeply depressed for +only a short time after the immediate cause of her mood ceased to be +active. An hour after Joshua had revealed himself in thunder and +lightning, and had gone, she was almost serene again, her hopefulness of +healthy youth and her sense of humor in the ascendent. Their stay in the +woods was drawing to an end. Soon they would be off for Lenox, for her +Uncle Dan's, where there would be many people about and small, perhaps +no, opportunity for direct and quick action and result. She reviewed her +conduct and felt that she had no reason to reproach herself for not +having made an earlier beginning in what she now saw should have been +her tactics with her "wild man." How could she, inexpert, foresee what +was mockingly obvious to hindsight? Only by experiment and failure is +the art of success learned. Her original plan had been the best +possible, taking into account her lack of knowledge of male nature and +the very misleading indications of his real character she had got from +him. In her position would not almost any one have decided that the +right way to move him was by holding him at respectful distance and by +indirect talk, with the inevitable drift of events doing the principal +work--gradually awakening him to the responsibilities and privileges +which his entry into a higher social station implied? + +But no time must now be lost; the new way, which experience had +revealed, must be taken forthwith and traveled by forced marches. Before +they left the woods she must have led him through all the gradations of +domestic climate between their present frosty if kindly winter, and +summer, or, at least, a very balmy spring. From what she knew of his +temperament she guessed that once she began to thaw he would forthwith +whirl her into July. She must be prepared to accept that, +however--repellent though the thought was--she assured herself it was +most repellent. She prided herself on her skill at catching and checking +herself in self-deception; but it somehow did not occur to her to +contrast her rather listless previous planning with the energy and +interest she at once put into this project for supreme martyrdom, as she +regarded it. + +When he came back that evening she was ready. But not he; he stalked in, +sulking and blustering, tired, ignoring her, doing all the talking +himself, and departing for bed as soon as dinner was over. She felt as +if he had repulsed her, though, in fact, her overtures were wholly +internal and could not, by any chance, have impressed him. Bitter +against him and dreading the open humiliation she would have to endure +before she could make one so self-absorbed see what she was about, she +put out her light early, with intent to rise when he did and be at +breakfast before he could finish. She lay awake until nearly dawn, then +fell into a deep sleep. When she woke it was noon; she felt so greatly +refreshed that her high good humor would not suffer her to be deeply +resentful against him for this second failure. "No matter," reflected +she. "He might have suspected me if I'd done anything so revolutionary +as appear at breakfast. I'll make my beginning at lunch." + +She was now striving, with some success, to think of him as a tyrant +whom she, luckless martyr, must cajole. "I'm going the way of all the +married women," thought she. "They soon find there's no honorable way to +get their rights from their masters, find they simply have to degrade +themselves." Yes, he was forcing her to degrade herself, to simulate +affection when the reverse was in her heart. Well, she would make him +pay dearly for it--some day. Meanwhile she must gain her point. "If I +don't, I'd better not have married. To be Mrs. is something, but not +much if I'm the creature of his whims." + +She put off lunch nearly an hour; but he did not come, did not reappear +until dinner was waiting. "I've been over to town," he explained, "doing +a lot of telegraphing that was necessary." He was in vast spirits, +delighted with himself, volubly boastful, so full of animal health and +life and of joy in the prospect of food and sleep that mental worries +were as foreign to him as to the wild geese flying overhead. + +He snuffed the air in which the odor of cooking was mingled deliciously +with the odor of the pines. "If they don't hurry up dinner," said he, +"I'll rush in and eat off the stove. We used to at home sometimes. It's +great fun." + +She smiled tolerantly. "I've missed you," said she, and she was telling +herself that this statement of a literal truth was the quintessence of +hypocritical cajolery. "You might have taken me along." + +He gave her a puzzled look. "Oh," said he finally, "you've been thinking +over what I said." + +This was disconcerting; but she contrived to smile with winning +frankness. "Yes," replied she. "I've been very wrong, I see." She felt +proud of the adroitness of this--an exact truth, yet wholly misleading. + +His expression told her that he was congratulating himself on his wisdom +and success in having given her a sharp talking to; that he was thinking +it had brought her to her senses, had restored her respect for him, had +opened the way for her love for him to begin to show itself--that love +which he so firmly believed in, egotist that he was! Could anything be +more infuriating? Yet--after all, what difference did it make, so long +as he yielded? And once she had him enthralled, then--ah, yes--THEN! +Meanwhile she must remember that the first principle of successful +deception is self-deception, and must try to convince herself that she +was what she was pretending to be. + +Dinner was served, and he fell to like a harvest hand. As he had the +habit, when he was very hungry, of stuffing his mouth far too full for +speech, she was free to carry out her little program of encouraging talk +and action. As she advanced from hesitating compliment to flattery, to +admiring glances, to lingering look, she marveled at her facility. "I +suppose ages and ages of dreadful necessity have made it second nature +to every woman, even the best of us," reflected she. If he weren't a +handsome, superior man she might be finding it more difficult; also, no +doubt the surroundings, so romantic, so fitting as background for his +ruggedness, were helping her to dexterity and even enthusiasm. + +It was amusing, how she deceived herself--for the harmless +self-deceptions of us chronic mummers are always amusing. The fact was, +this melting and inviting mood had far more of nature and sincerity in +it than there had been in her icy aloofness. Icy aloofness, except in +the heroines of aristocratic novels, is a state of mind compatible only +with extreme stupidity or with some one of those organic diseases that +sour the disposition. Never had she been in such health as in that camp, +never so buoyant, never had merely being alive been so deliciously +intoxicating; the scratch he had made on her throat had healed in +twenty-four hours, had all but disappeared in seventy-two. Never had she +known to such a degree what a delight a body can be, the sense of its +eagerness to bring to the mind all the glorious pleasures of the senses. +Whatever disinclination she had toward him was altogether a prompting of +class education; now that she had let down the bars and released feeling +she was in heart glad he was there with her, glad he was "such a MAN of +a man." + +The guides made a huge fire down by the shore, and left them alone. They +sat by it until nearly ten o'clock, he talking incessantly; her +overtures had roused in him the desire to please, and, instead of the +usual monologue of egotism and rant, he poured out poetry, eloquence, +sense and humorous shrewdness. Had he been far less the unusual, the +great man, she would still have listened with a sense of delight, for in +her mood that night his penetrating voice, which, in other moods, she +found as insupportable as a needle-pointed goad, harmonized with the +great, starry sky and the mysterious, eerie shadows of forest and +mountain and lake close round their huge, bright fire. As they rose to +go in, up came the moon. A broad, benevolent, encouraging face, the face +of a matchmaker. Craig put his arm round Margaret. She trembled and +thrilled. + +"Do you know what that moon's saying?" asked he. In his voice was that +exquisite tone that enabled him to make even commonplaces lift great +audiences to their feet to cheer him wildly. + +She lifted soft, shining eyes to his. "What?" she inquired under her +breath. She had forgotten her schemes, her resentments, her make-believe +of every kind. "What--Joshua?" she repeated. + +"It's saying: 'Hurry up, you silly children, down there! Don't you know +that life is a minute and youth a second?'" And now both his arms were +round her and one of her hands lay upon his shoulder. + +"Life a minute--youth a second," she murmured. + +"Do you think I'd scratch you horribly if I kissed you--Rita?" + +She lowered her eyes but not her face. "You might try--Josh." + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +"OUR HOUSE IS AFIRE" + + +Next morning she was up and in her dressing-room and had almost finished +her toilette before he awakened. For the first time in years--perhaps +the first time since the end of her happy girlhood and the beginning of +her first season in Washington society--she felt like singing. Was there +ever such a dawn? Did ever song of birds sound so like the voice of +eternal youth? Whence had come this air like the fumes from the +winepresses of the gods? And the light! What colors, what tints, upon +mountain and valley and halcyon lake! And the man asleep in the next +room--yes, there WAS a Joshua Craig whom she found extremely trying at +times; but that Joshua Craig had somehow resigned the tenancy of the +strong, straight form there, had resigned it to a man who was the living +expression of all that bewitched her in these wilds. + +She laughed softly at her own ecstasy of exaggeration. "The other Josh +will come back," she reminded herself, "and I must not forget to be +practical. THIS is episodic." These happy, superhuman episodes would +come, would pass, would recur at intervals; but the routine of her life +must be lived. And if these episodes were to recur the practical must +not be neglected. "It's by neglecting the practical that so many wives +come to grief," reflected she. And the first mandate of the practical +was that he must be rescued from that vulgar political game, which meant +poverty and low associations and tormenting uncertainties. He must be +got where his talents would have their due, their reward. But subtly +guiding him into the way that would be best for him was a far different +matter from what she had been planning up to last night's moonrise--was +as abysmally separated from its selfish hypocrisy as love from hate. She +would persist in her purpose, but how changed the motive! + +She heard him stirring in her--no, THEIR room. Her face lighted up, her +eyes sparkled. She ran to the mirror for a final primp before he should +see her. She was more than pleased with the image she saw reflected +there. "I never looked better in my life--never so well. I'm glad I kept +back this particular dress. He's sure to like it, and it certainly is +becoming to me--the best-fitting skirt I ever had--what good lines it +has about the hips." She startled at a knock upon the door. She rushed +away from the mirror. He had small physical vanity himself--she had +never known any one with so little. He had shown that he thought she had +no vanity of that kind, either, and he would doubtless misunderstand her +solicitude about her personal appearance. Anyhow, of all mornings this +would be the worst for him to catch her at the glass. + +"Yes?" she called. + +"Margaret," came in his voice. And, oh, the difference in it!--the note +of tenderness--no, it was not imagination, it was really there! Her eyes +filled and her bosom heaved. + +"Are you joining me at breakfast?" + +"Come in," cried she. + +When the door did not open she went and opened it. There stood HE! If he +had greeted her with a triumphant, proprietorial expression she would +have been--well, it would have given her a lowered opinion of his +sensibility. But his look was just right--dazzled, shy, happy. Nor did +he make one of his impetuous rushes. He almost timidly took her hand, +kissed it; and it was she who sought his shoulder--gladly, eagerly, with +a sudden, real shyness. "Margaret," he said. "Mine--aren't you?" + +Here was the Joshua she was to know thenceforth, she felt. This Joshua +would enable her to understand, or, rather, to disregard, so far as she +personally was concerned, the Josh, tempestuous, abrupt, often absurd, +whom the world knew. But--As soon as they went where the guides were, +the familiar Josh returned--boyish, boisterous, rather foolish in trying +to be frivolous and light. Still--what did it matter? As soon as they +should be alone again-- + +When they set out after breakfast her Joshua still did not return, as +she had confidently expected. The obstreperous one remained, the one +that was the shrewdly-developed cover for his everlasting scheming mind. +"What an unending ass I've been making of myself," he burst out, "with +my silly notions." He drew a paper from his pocket and handed it to her. +"And this infernal thing of Grant's has been encouraging me in idiocy." + +She read the Arkwright gentleman's gazette and complete guide to dress +and conduct in the society of a refined gentlewoman. Her impulse was to +laugh, an impulse hard indeed to restrain when she came to the last line +of the document and read in Grant's neat, careful-man's handwriting with +heavy underscorings: "Above all, never forget that you are a mighty +stiff dose for anybody, and could easily become an overdose for a +refined, sensitive lady." But prudent foresight made her keep her +countenance. "This is all very sensible," said she. + +"Sensible enough," assented he. "I've learned a lot from it.... Did you +read that last sentence?" + +She turned her face away. "Yes," she said. + +"That, taken with everything else, all but got me down," said he +somberly. "God, what I've been through! It came near preventing us from +discovering that you're not a grand lady but a human being." His mood +veered, and it was he that was gay and she glum; for he suddenly seized +her and subjected her to one of those tumultuous ordeals so disastrous +to toilette and to dignity and to her sense of personal rights. Not that +she altogether disliked; she never had altogether disliked, had found a +certain thrill in his rude riotousness. Still, she preferred the other +Joshua Craig, HER Joshua, who wished to receive as well as to give. And +she wished that Joshua, her Joshua, would return. She herself had +thought that, so far as she was concerned, those periods of tender and +gentle sentiment would be episodic; but it was another thing for him to +think so--and to show it frankly. "I feel as if I'd had an adventure +with a bear," said she, half-laughing, half-resentful. + +"So you did," declared he; "I'm a bear--and every other sort of +animal--except rabbit. There's no rabbit in me. Now, your men--the Grant +Arkwrights--are all rabbit." + +"At least," said she, "do refrain from tearing my hair down. A woman who +does her hair well hates to have it mussed." + +"I'll try to remember," was his careless answer. "As I was about to say, +our discovery that you are not a lady out of a story-book, but a human +being and a very sweet one--it came just in the nick of time. We're +leaving here to-night." + +Now she saw the reason for the persistence of the Craig of noise and +bluster--and craft. "To-night?" she exclaimed. "It's impossible." + +"Yes--we go at five o'clock. Tickets are bought--sleeper section +engaged--everything arranged." + +"But Uncle Dan doesn't expect us for four days yet." + +"I've sent him a telegram." + +"But I can't pack." + +"Selina can." + +"Impossible in such a little time." + +"Then I'll do it," said Craig jovially. "I can pack a trunk twice as +quick as any man you ever saw. I pack with my feet as well as with my +hands." + +"It's impossible," repeated she angrily. "I detest being hurried." + +"Hurried? Why, you've got nine hours to get used to the idea. Nine +hours' warning for anything isn't haste." + +"Why didn't you tell me this yesterday?" demanded she, coming to a full +stop and expecting thus to compel him to face her. But he marched on. + +"It has been my lifelong habit," declared he over his shoulder, "to +arrange everything before disclosing my plans. You'll find, as we get +on, that it will save you a lot of fretting and debating." + +Reluctantly and with the humiliating sense of helpless second fiddle she +followed him along the rough path. "I loathe surprises," she said. + +"Then adjust your mind to not being surprised at anything from me." + +He laughed noisily at his own humor. She was almost hating him again. He +seemed to have eyes in the back of his head; for as she shot a fiery +glance at him he whirled round, shook his forefinger maddeningly at her: +"Now listen to me, my dear," said he, in his very worst manner, most +aggressive, most dictatorial; "if you had wanted an ordinary sort of man +you should have married one and not me." + +"Don't you think common courtesy required you at least to consult me +about such a matter?" + +"I do not. If I had I should have done so. I found it was necessary that +we go. I went ahead and arranged it. If you saw the house on fire would +you wait till you had consulted me before putting it out?" + +"But this is entirely different." + +"Not at all. Entirely the same, on the contrary. The talk we had day +before yesterday convinced me that our house is afire. I'm going to put +it out." He shut his teeth together with a snap, compressed his lips, +gave her one of those quick, positive nods of his Viking head. Then he +caught her by the arm. "Now," said he jocosely, "let's go back to camp. +You want to do your packing. I've got to go over to the station and +telegraph some more." + +She wrenched her arm away pettishly and, with sullen face, accompanied +him to the camp. It was all she could do to hide her anger when, in full +sight of the guides, he swept her up into his arms and kissed her +several times. Possibly she would have been really angered, deeply +angered, had she realized that these cyclones were due, as a rule, not +so much to appreciation of her as to the necessity of a strong +counter-irritant to a sudden attack of awe of her as a fine lady and +doubt of his own ability to cope with her. "Good-by, Rita," cried he, +releasing her as suddenly as he had seized her and rushing toward the +landing. "If I don't get back till the last minute be sure you're ready. +Anything that isn't ready will be left behind--anything or anybody!" + +The idea of revolt, of refusing to go, appealed to her first anger +strongly. But, on consideration, she saw that merely asserting her +rights would not be enough--that she must train him to respect them. If +she refused to go he would simply leave her; yes, he was just the man, +the wild man, to do precisely that disgraceful thing. And she would be +horribly afraid to spend the night alone in those woods with only the +guides and Selina, not to speak of facing the morrow--for he might +refuse to take her back! Where would she turn in that case? What would +her grandmother say? Who would support her in making such a scandal and +giving up a husband for reasons that could not be made impressive in +words though they were the best of all reasons in terms of feeling? No, +if she gave him up she would be absolutely alone, condemned on every +hand, in the worst possible position. Then, too, the break was +unattractive for another reason. Though she despised herself for her +weakness, she did not wish to give up the man who had given her that +brief glimpse of happiness she had dreamed as one dreams an +impossibility. Did not wish? Could not--would not--give him up. "I +belong to him!" she thought with a thrill of ecstasy and of despair. + +"But he'd better be careful!" she grumbled. "If I should begin to +dislike him there'd be no going back." And then it recurred to her that +this would be as great a calamity of loss for her as for him--and she +went at her packing in a better humor. "I'll explain to him that I yield +this once, but--" There she stopped herself with a laugh. Of what use to +explain to him?--him who never listened to explanations, who did not +care a fig why people did as he wished, but was content that they did. +As for warning him about "next time"--how ridiculous! She could hear his +penetrating, rousing voice saying: "We'll deal with 'next time' when it +comes." + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +MRS. JOSHUA CRAIG + + +"We change at Albany," said he when they were on the train, after a last +hour of mad scramble, due in part to her tardiness, in the main to the +atmosphere of hysteric hustle and bustle he created as a precaution. + +"At Albany!" she exclaimed. "Why, when do we get there?" + +"At midnight." + +"At midnight!" It was the last drop in the cup of gall, she thought. +"Why, we'd get to Lenox, or to some place where we'd have to change +again, long before morning! Josh, you must be out of your senses. It's a +perfect outrage!" + +"Best I could do," said he, laughing uproariously and patting her on the +back. "Cheer up. You can sleep on my shoulder until we get to Albany." + +"We will go on to New York," said she stiffly, "and leave from there in +the morning." + +"Can't do it," said he. "Must change at Albany. You ought to learn to +control your temper over these little inconveniences of life. I've +brought a volume of Emerson's essays along and I'll read to you if you +don't want to sleep." + +"I hate to be read aloud to. Joshua, let's go on to New York. Such a +night of horror as you've planned will wear me out." + +"I tell you it's impossible. I've done the best thing in the +circumstances. You'll see." + +Suddenly she sprang up, looked wildly round. "Where's Selina?" she +gasped. + +"Coming to-morrow or next day," replied he. "I sent her to the camp for +some things I forgot." + +She sank back and said no more. Again she was tempted to revolt against +such imbecile tyranny; and again, as she debated the situation, the +wisdom, the necessity of submitting became apparent. How would it sound +to have to explain to her grandmother that she had left him because he +took an inconvenient train? "I'd like to see him try this sort of thing +if we'd been married six months instead of six weeks," she muttered. + +She refused to talk with him, answered him in cold monosyllables. And +after dinner, when he produced the volume of Emerson and began to read +aloud, she curtly asked him to be quiet. "I wish to sleep!" snapped she. + +"Do, dear," urged he. And he put his arm around her. + +"That's very uncomfortable," said she, trying to draw away. + +He drew her back, held her--and she knew she must either submit or make +a scene. There was small attraction to scene-making with such a master +of disgraceful and humiliating scenes as he. "He wouldn't care a rap," +she muttered. "He simply revels in scenes, knowing he's sure to win out +at them as a mongrel in a fight with a"--even in that trying moment her +sense of humor did not leave her--"with a lapdog." + +She found herself comfortable and amazingly content, leaning against his +shoulder; and presently she went to sleep, he holding the book in his +free hand and reading calmly. The next thing she knew he was shaking her +gently. "Albany," he said. "We've got to change here." + +She rose sleepily and followed him from the car, adjusting her hat as +she went. She had thought she would be wretched; instead, she felt fine +as the sharp, night air roused her nerves and freshened her skin. He led +the way into the empty waiting-room; the porter piled the bags on the +bench; she seated herself. "I must send a telegram," said he, and he +went over to the window marked "Telegraph Office." It was closed. He +knocked and rattled, and finally pounded on the glass with his umbrella +handle. + +Her nerves went all to pieces. "Can't you see," she called impatiently, +"that there's no one there?" + +"There will be some one!" he shouted in reply, and fell to pounding so +vigorously that she thought the glass would surely break. But it did +not; after a while the window flew up and an angry face just escaped a +blow from the vibrating umbrella handle. A violent altercation followed, +the operator raging, but Craig more uproarious than he and having the +further advantage of a more extensive and more picturesque vocabulary. +Finally the operator said: "I should think you'd be ashamed of yourself. +Don't you see there's a lady present?" + +"It's my wife," said Craig. "Now take this message and get it off at +once. You should thank me for not having you dismissed." + +The operator read the message. His face changed and he said in a surlily +apologetic manner: "I'll send it off right away, Mr. Craig. Anything +else?" + +"That's all, my friend," said Josh. He returned to his wife's side. She +was all confusion and doubt again. Here they were back in civilization, +and her man of the woods was straightway running amuck. What should she +do? What COULD she do? WHAT had she got herself into by marrying? + +But he was speaking. "My dear," he was saying in his sharp, insistent +voice, that at once aroused and enfeebled the nerves, "I must talk fast, +as the train comes in fifteen or twenty minutes--the train for +Chicago--for Minneapolis--for Wayne--for home--OUR home." + +She started up from the seat, pale, quivering, her hands clinched +against her bosom. + +"For home," he repeated, fixing her with his resolute, green-blue eyes. +"Please, sit down." + +She sank to the seat. "Do you mean--" she began, but her faltering voice +could not go on. + +"I've resigned from office," said he, swift and calm. "I've told the +President I'll not take the Attorney-Generalship. I've telegraphed your +people at Lenox that we're not coming. And I'm going home to run for +Governor. My telegrams assure me the nomination, and, with the hold I've +got on the people, that means election, sure pop. I make my first speech +day after to-morrow afternoon--with you on the platform beside me." + +"You are mistaken," she said in a cold, hard voice. "You--" + +"Now don't speak till you've thought, and don't think till I finish. As +you yourself said, Washington's no place for us--at present. Anyhow, the +way to get there right is to be sent there from the people--by the +people. You are the wife of a public man, but you've had no training." + +"I--" she began. + +"Hear me first," he said, between entreaty and command. "You think I'm +the one that's got it all to learn. Think again. The little +tiddledywinks business that I've got to learn--all the value there is in +the mass of balderdash about manners and dress--I can learn it in a few +lessons. You can teach it to me in no time. But what you've got to +learn--how to be a wife, how to live on a modest income, how to take +care of me, and help me in my career, how to be a woman instead of, +largely, a dressmaker's or a dancing-master's expression for +lady-likeness--to learn all that is going to take time. And we must +begin at once; for, as I told you, the house is afire." + +She opened her lips to speak. + +"No--not yet," said he. "One thing more. You've been thinking things +about me. Well, do you imagine this busy brain of mine hasn't been +thinking a few things about you? Why, Margaret, you need me even more +than I need you, though I need you more than I'd dare try to tell you. +You need just such a man as me to give you direction and purpose--REAL +backbone. Primping and preening in carriages and parlors--THAT isn't +life. It's the frosting on the cake. Now, you and I, we're going to have +the cake itself. Maybe with, maybe without the frosting. BUT NOT THE +FROSTING WITHOUT THE CAKE, MARGARET!" + +"So!" she exclaimed, drawing a long breath when he had ended. "So! THIS +is why you chose that five o'clock train and sent Selina back. You +thought to--" + +He laughed as if echoing delight from her; he patted her +enthusiastically on the knee. "You've guessed it! Go up head! I didn't +want you to have time to say and do foolish things." + +She bit her lip till the blood came. Ringing in her ears and defying her +efforts to silence them were those words of his about the cake and the +frosting--"the cake, maybe with, maybe without frosting; BUT NOT THE +FROSTING WITHOUT THE CAKE!" She started to speak; but it was no +interruption from him that checked her, for he sat silent, looking at +her with all his fiery strength of soul in his magnetic eyes. Again she +started to speak; and a third time; and each time checked herself. This +impossible man, this creator of impossible situations! She did not know +how to begin, or how to go on after she should have begun. She felt that +even if she had known what to say she would probably lack the courage to +say it--that final-test courage which only the trained in self-reliance +have. The door opened. A station attendant came in out of the frosty +night and shouted: + +"Chicago Express! Express for--Buffalo! Chicago! Minneapolis! St. +Paul!--the Northwest!--the Far West! All--a--BOARD!" + +Craig seized the handbags. "Come on, my dear!" he cried, getting into +rapid motion. + +She sat still. + +He was at the door. "Come on," he said. + +She looked appealingly, helplessly round that empty, lonely, strange +station, its lights dim, its suggestions all inhospitable. "He has me at +his mercy," she said to herself, between anger and despair. "How can I +refuse to go without becoming the laughing-stock of the whole world?" + +"Come on--Rita!" he cried. The voice was aggressive, but his face was +deathly pale and the look out of his eyes was the call of a great +loneliness. And she saw it and felt it. She braced herself against it; +but a sob surged up in her throat--the answer of her heart to his +heart's cry of loneliness and love. + +"Chicago Express!" came in the train-caller's warning roar from behind +her, as if the room were crowded instead of tenanted by those two only. +"All aboard!... Hurry up, lady, or you'll get left!" + +Get left!... Left!--the explosion of that hoarse, ominous voice seemed +to blow Mrs. Joshua Craig from the seat, to sweep her out through the +door her husband was holding open, and into the train for their home. + +THE END + + + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua +Craig, by David Graham Phillips + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE FASHIONABLE ADVENTURES *** + +***** This file should be named 4929.txt or 4929.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/4/9/2/4929/ + +Produced by Robert Rowe, Charles Franks and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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