"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 a.s.s 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, "n.o.body 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."
"d.a.m.n 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 pa.s.sers-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."