"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 a.s.sist 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."