The Fashionable Adventures of Joshua Craig Part 6

Craig was ruffled and showed it. He did not like persiflage; it seemed an a.s.sault 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 a.s.sume 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, a.s.sured 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 n.o.body--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."