CHAPTER IV
"HE ISN'T LIKE US"
Margaret continued to sit there, her elbows on the dressing-table, herknuckles pressing into her cheeks, the hazel eyes gazing at theirreflection 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 manygirls who are no better looking than I?" And she made an inventory ofher charms that was creditably free from vanity. "And men certainly liketo 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 andpretend innocence and talk tommy rot--and listen to it as if I wereeating honey."
This explanation was not altogether satisfactory, however. She feltthat, 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 andfigure that in other women, in far less degree, had set men, many men,quite beside themselves. Her lip curled, and her eyes laughedsatirically as she thought of the follies of those men--how they had letwomen lead them up and down in public places, drooling and sighing andseeming to enjoy their own pitiful plight. If that expression of satirehad not disappeared so quickly, she might have got at the secret of her"miserable failure." For, it was her habit of facing men with onlylightly veiled amusement, or often frank ridicule, in her eyes, in thecurve of her lips, that frightened them off, that gave them the uneasysense that their assumptions of superiority to the female were beingjudged and derided.
But time was flying. It was after three; the headache was still poundingin her temples, and her eyes did look almost as haggard and her skinalmost as sallow as her grandmother had said. She took an anti-pyrenepowder 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 doorinto the hall, and went into her bedroom, closed the door between. Sheput the powder in water, drank it, dropped down upon a lounge at thefoot 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 somberthoughts 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 thedrug, she felt so safe, so shut-in against all intrusion. In a few hoursthe struggle, the bitterness would begin again; but at least here wasthis interval of repose, of freedom. Only when she was thus alone didshe ever get that most voluptuous of all sensations--freedom. Freedomand luxury! "I'm afraid I can't eat my cake and have it, too," she museddrowsily. "Well--whether or not I can have freedom, at least I MUST haveluxury. 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 wereput to it. I'm sure he could. I'm sure he could do almost anything--butbe 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 noParis dresses."
Arkwright, entering Mrs. Severence's drawing-room with Craig athalf-past five, found a dozen people there. Most of them were of thatyoung married set which Margaret preferred, to the anger and disgust ofher grandmother and against the entreaties of her own common sense. "Thelast place in the world to look for a husband," Madam Bowker had saidagain and again, to both her daughter and her granddaughter. "Their talkis all in ridicule of marriage, and of every sacred thing. And if thereare any bachelors, they have come--well, certainly not in search ofhonorable wedlock."
The room was noisily gay; but Margaret, at the tea-table in a rathersomber brown dress with a big brown hat, whose great plumes shadowed herpale, somewhat haggard face, was evidently not in one of her sparklingmoods. The headache powder and the nap had not been successful. Shegreeted Arkwright with a slight, absent smile, seemed hardly to noteCraig, 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 neverpermitting others to be natural.
"And tell her all about yourself," continued Grant.
"My friend Josh, here," he explained to Margaret, "is one of thoseserious, absorbed men who concentrate entirely upon themselves. It isn'tegotism; it's genius."
Craig was ruffled and showed it. He did not like persiflage; it seemedan assault upon dignity, and in those early days in Washington he wasfull 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'swhiskey over on that other table. A cigarette? No? I'm afraid I can'task 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 ironicseriousness.
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 meanto offend."
"No," replied Craig. "You simply meant to amuse yourself with me. Andbecause I don't know what to do with my hands and because my coat fitsbadly, you thought I wouldn't realize what you were doing. You are verynarrow--you fashionable people. You don't even know that everybody oughtto be judged on his own ground. To size up a race-horse, you don't takehim into a drawing room. And it wouldn't be quite fair, would it, for meto judge these drawing-room dolls by what they could do out among realmen and women? You--for instance. How would you show up, if you had toface life with no husband and no money and five small children, as mymother did? Well, SHE won out."
Miss Severence was not attracted; but she was interested. She saw beyondthe ill-fitting frock-coat, and the absurd manner, thoroughly ill atease, trying to assume easy, nonchalant man-of-the-world airs. "I'dnever 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, andwaving an energetic forefinger almost in her face. "And as soon as I candecently get away, I'll go. I told Arkwright I had no business to comehere."
Miss Severance colored, drew her arm away, froze. She detested all formsof familiarity; physical familiarity she abhorred. "You have known GrantArkwright long?" she said, icily.
"NOW, what have I done?" demanded Joshua.
She eyed him with a lady's insolent tranquillity. "Nothing," repliedshe. "We are all so glad Grant has come back."
Craig bit his lip and his tawny, weather-beaten skin reddened. He staredwith angry envy at Arkwright, so evidently at ease and at home in themidst of a group on the other side of the room. In company, practicallyall human beings are acutely self-conscious. But self-consciousness isof two kinds. Arkwright, assured that his manners were correct andengaging, that his dress was all it should be, or could be, that hisposition was secure and admired, had the self-consciousness ofself-complacence. Joshua's consciousness of himself was the extreme ofthe 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 ownhouse 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 longago?" 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, thenrelated 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 ishimself. Miss Severence listened without comment; indeed, he was notsure 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 themegalomaniac ravings of a noisy, badly dressed, dirty young lieutenantnamed Buonaparte, had there been a vanity so candid, so voluble, soobstreperous. Nor did he talk of himself in a detached way, as if hewere relating the performances and predicting the glory of a human beingwho happened to have the same name as himself. No, he thrust upon her inevery sentence that he, he himself and none other, had said and done allthese splendid startling things, would do more, and more splendid. Shelistened, astounded; she wondered why she did not burst out laughing inhis very face, why, on the contrary, she seemed to accept to asurprising 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 heget time to DO anything, when he's so busy admiring himself? How does heever contrive to take his mind off himself long enough to think ofanything else?"
Nearly an hour later Arkwright came for him, cut him off in the middleof an enthusiastic description of how he had enchained and enthralled avast audience in the biggest hall in St. Paul. "We must go, thisinstant," 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 herbut at Arkwright. "You've interrupted us in a very interesting talk,Grant."
Grant and Margaret exchanged smiles, Margaret disengaged her hand, andthe 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. Apoor specimen, even of this poor fashionable society of yours. Anempty-head."
"Well--well--WELL!" exclaimed Arkwright in derision. "Yet you and sheseemed 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 avacant 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 musttake her. Of course, he's not the man for her. She couldn't care forhim, 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 importantwhom 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 Margaretwas on his left. "When does your Craig make his speech before theSupreme 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 afterhim, and would be more contemptuous than ever. "I shouldn't, if I wereyou."
"Why not?"
"Well, he's very vain, as you perhaps discovered. He mightmisunderstand."
"And why should that disturb me?" asked she, tranquilly. "I do as Iplease. I don't concern myself about what others think. Your friendinterests me. I've a curiosity to see whether he has improved in thelast 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 hehas talked me into a state of collapse, every word about himself and hiscareer, I think it all over, and wonder whether there's anything to theman or not. Sometimes I think there's a real person beneath that flow ofvanity. Then, again, I think not."
"Whether he's an accident or a plan," mused the young woman; but she sawthat Arkwright did not appreciate the cleverness and the penetration ofher remark. Indeed, she knew in advance that he would not, for she knewhis limitations. "Now," thought she, "Craig would have appreciatedit--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'sdifferent."
"He makes me feel an added contempt for myself, somehow. Doesn't heyou?"
"I can't say he does," replied Arkwright, irritated. "I appreciate hisgood qualities, but I can't help being offended and disturbed for him byhis crudities. He has an idea that to be polite and well-dressed is tobe 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 orless rude and crude, aren't they?" said she. "They are impatient of thetrifles we lay so much stress on."
"So, you think Josh is a great man?"
"I don't know," replied Margaret, with exasperating deliberateness. "Iwant 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'tdo. It'd be giving a piece of rare, delicate porcelain to a grizzly as aplaything."
He was surprised at himself. Now that he was face to face with apossibility of her adopting his own proposition, he disliked itintensely. He looked at her; never had she seemed so alluring, sorepresentative of what he called distinction. At the very idea of suchrefinement at the mercy of the coarse and boisterous Craig, his bloodboiled. "Josh is a fine, splendid chap, as a man among men," said he tohimself. "But to marry this dainty aristocrat to him--it'd be a damneddisgraceful outrage. He's not fit to marry among OUR women.... What apity such a stunning girl shouldn't have the accessories to make hereligible." And he hastily turned his longing eyes away, lest she shouldsee and attach too much importance to a mere longing--for, he felt itwould be a pitiful weakness, a betrayal of opportunity, for him tomarry, in a mood of passion that passes, a woman who was merely wellborn, 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 ofthe Craig sort would be--interesting."
"While being loved by one of your own sort would be dull?" suggestedArkwright 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-hiddensource of his enthusiasm was a belief that Josh Craig would make an assof himself.