The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig Part 23

He was sorely perplexed; he did not know what to do--what he ought to do--even what he wanted to do. One thing seemed clear--that he had gone further than was necessary in antagonizing the old woman. Whether he wanted to marry the girl or not, he certainly did not wish, at this stage of the game, to make it impossible. The wise plan was to leave the situation open in every direction, so that he could freely advance or freely retreat as unfolding events might dictate. So he turned in the direction of the Severence house, walked at his usual tearing pace, arrived there somewhat wilted of collar and exceedingly dusty of shoe and trouser-leg.

Greater physical contrast could hardly have been than that between him and Margaret, descending to him in the cool garden where he was mopping himself and dusting his shoes, all with the same handkerchief. She was in a graceful walking costume of pale blue, scrupulously neat, perfect to the smallest detail. As she advanced she observed him with eyes that nothing escaped; and being in one of her exquisite moods, when the senses are equally quick to welcome the agreeable or to shrink from the disagreeable, she had a sense of physical repugnance. He saw her the instant she came out of the house. Her dress, its harmony with her delicateness of feature and coloring, the gliding motion of her form combined to throw him instantly into a state of intoxication. He rushed toward her; she halted, shivered, shrank. "Don't--look at me like that!"

she exclaimed half under her breath.

"And why not? Aren't you mine?" And he seized her, enwrapped her in his arms, pressed his lips firmly upon her hair, her cheek--upon her lips.

There he lingered; her eyes closed, her form, he felt, was yielding within his embrace as though she were about to faint.

"Don't--please," she murmured, when he let her catch her breath.

"I--I--can't bear it."

"Do you love me?" he cried pa.s.sionately.

"Let me go!" She struggled futilely in his plowman arms.

"Say you love me!"

"If you don't let me go I shall hate you!"

"I see I shall have to kiss you until you do love me."

"Yes--yes--whatever you wish me to say," she cried, suddenly freeing herself by dodging most undignifiedly out of his arms.

She stood a little way from him, panting, as was he. She frowned fiercely, then her eyes softened, became tender--just why she could not have explained. "What a dirty boy it is!" she said softly. "Go into the house and ask Williams to take you where you can make yourself presentable."

"Not I," said he, dropping into a seat. "Come, sit here beside me."

She laughed; obeyed. She even made several light pa.s.ses at his wet mop of hair. She wondered why it was that she liked to touch him, where a few minutes before she had shrunk from it.

"I've just been down telling that old grandmother of yours what I thought of her," said he.

She startled. "How did you happen to go there?" she exclaimed. She forgot herself so completely that she added imperiously: "I wanted you to keep away from her until I was ready for you to go."

"She sent for me," apologized he. "I went. We came together with a bang.

She told me I wanted to marry you; I told her YOU wanted to marry ME.

She told me I was low; I told her she was a fraud. She said I was insolent; I said good-afternoon. If I hadn't marched out rather quickly I guess she'd have had me thrown out."

Margaret was sitting stone-still, her hands limp in her lap.

"So you see it's all up," continued he, with a curious air of bravado, patently insincere. "And it's just as well. You oughtn't to marry me.

It's a crime for me to have permitted things to go this far."

"Perhaps you are right," replied she slowly and thoughtfully. "Perhaps you are right."

He made one of his exclamatory gestures, a swift jerk around of the head toward her. He had all he could do to restrain himself from protesting, without regard to his pretenses to himself and to her. "Do you mean that, Maggie?" he asked with more appeal in his voice than he was conscious of.

"Never call me that again!" she cried. "It's detestable--so common!"

He drew back as if she had struck him. "I beg your pardon," he said with gentle dignity. "I shall not do it again. Maggie was my mother's name--what she was always called at home."

She turned her eyes toward him with a kind of horror in them. "Oh, forgive me!" she begged, her clasped hands upon his arm. "I didn't mean it at all--not at all. It is I that am detestable and common. I spoke that way because I was irritated about something else." She laid one hand caressingly against his cheek. "You must always call me Maggie--when--when "--very softly--"you love me very, very much. I like you to have a name for me that n.o.body else has."

He seized her hands. "You DO care for me, don't you?" he cried.

She hesitated. "I don't quite know," said she. Then, less seriously: "Not at all, I'm sure, when you talk of breaking the engagement. I WISH you hadn't seen grandmother!"

"I wish so, too," confessed he. "I made an a.s.s of myself."

She glanced at him quickly. "Why do you say that?"

"I don't know," he stammered confusedly. How could he tell her?

"A moment ago you seemed well pleased with what you'd done."

"Well, I guess I went too far. I wasn't very polite."

"You never are."

"I'm going to try to do better.... No, I don't think it would be wise for me to go and apologize to her."

She was looking at him strangely. "Why are you so anxious to conciliate her?"

He saw what a break he had made, became all at once red and inarticulate.

"What is she to you?" persisted the girl.

"Nothing at all," he bl.u.s.tered. "I don't care--THAT"--he snapped his fingers--"for her opinion. I don't care if everybody in the world is against our marrying. I want just you--only you."

"Obviously," said she with a dry laugh that was highly disconcerting to him. "I certainly have no fortune--or hope of one, so far as I know."

This so astounded, so disconcerted him that he forgot to conceal it.

"Why, I thought--your grandmother--that is--" He was remembering, was stammering, was unable to finish.

"Go on," she urged, obviously enjoying his hot confusion.

He became suddenly angry. "Look here, Margaret," he cried, "you don't suspect me of--"

She put her fingers on his lips and laughed quietly at him. "You'd better run along now. I'm going to hurry away to grandmother, to try to repair the damage you did." She rose and called, "Lucia! Lucia!" The round, rosy, rather slovenly Miss Severence appeared in the little balcony--the only part of the house in view from where they sat.

"Telephone the stables for the small victoria," called Margaret.

"Mother's out in it," replied Lucia.

"Then the small brougham."

"I want that. Why don't you take the electric?"

"All right."

Lucia disappeared. Margaret turned upon the deeply-impressed Craig.