The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig: A Novel

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.

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!"

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 CAFÉ 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.

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.