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 passers-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."
"And you'll be the person?" suggested Margaret with a smile of raillery.
"If I show I'm fit for the job," replied Craig soberly. It was the first
time she had ever heard him admit a doubt about himself. "The question
is," he went on, "have I got the strength of character and the
courage?... What do you think?"
"I don't know anything about it," said Margaret with polite
indifference. "There comes my car. I'll not trouble you to accompany
me." She put out her hand. "Goodby." She did not realize it, or intend
it, but she had appealed to one of his powerful instincts, a powerful
instinct in all predatory natures--the instinct to pursue whatever seems
to be flying.
He shook his head at the motorman, who was bringing the car to a halt;
the car went on. He stood in front of her. Her color was high, but she
could not resist the steady compulsion of his eyes. "I told you I wanted
to talk with you," said he. "Do you know why I was standing before that
statue?"
"I do not," Margaret answered coldly.
"I was trying to get the courage to ask you to be my wife."
She gave a queer laugh. "Well, you seem to have got what you sought,"
said she. He had, as usual, taken her wholly unawares.
"Not so fast," replied Craig. "I haven't asked you yet."
Margaret did not know whether she most wished to laugh or to burst out
in anger. "I'm sure I don't care anything about it, one way or the
other," said she.
"Why say those insincere things--to ME?" he urged. She had begun to
walk, and he was keeping pace with her. "Jackson," he proceeded, "was a
man of absolute courage. He took the woman he wanted--defied public
opinion to do it--and it only made him the more popular. I had always
intended to strengthen myself by marrying. If I married you I'd weaken
myself politically, while if I married some Western girl, some daughter
of the people, I'd make a great popular stroke."
"Well--do it, then," said Margaret. "By all means do it."
"Oh, but there's you," exclaimed Craig. "What'd I do about you?"
"That's true," said Margaret mockingly. "But what am I to stand between
a man and ambition?"
"I say that to myself," replied Craig. "But it's no use." His eyes
thrilled her, his voice seemed to melt her dislike, her resolve, as he
said: "There you are, and there you stay, Margaret. And you're not at
all fit to be my wife. You haven't been brought up right. You ought to
marry some man like Grant. He's just the man for you. Why did you ever
fall in love with me?"
She stopped short, stared at him in sheer amazement. "I!" exclaimed she.
"I--in love with YOU!"
He halted before her. "Margaret," he said tenderly, "can you deny it?"
She flushed; hung her head. The indignant denial died upon her lips.
He sighed. "You see, it is fate," said he. "But I'll manage it somehow.
I'll win out in spite of any, of every handicap."
She eyed him furtively. Yes, if she wished to make a marriage of
ambition she could not do better. All Washington was laughing at him;
but she felt she had penetrated beneath the surface that excited their
mirth--had seen qualities that would carry him wherever he wished to
go--wherever she, with her grandmother's own will, wished him to go.
"And," pursued he, "I'm far too rough and coarse for you--you, the
quintessence of aristocracy."
She flushed with double delight--delight at this flattery and the deeper
delight a woman feels when a man shows her the weakness in himself by
which she can reach and rule him.
"I'm always afraid of offending your delicacy," he went fatuously on.
"You're the only person I ever felt that way about. Absolutely the only
one. But you've got to expect that sort of thing in a man who prevails
in such a world as this. When men get too high-toned and aristocratic,
too fussy about manners and dress, along come real men to ride them down
and under. But I'll try to be everything you wish--to you. Not to the
others. That would defeat our object; for I'm going to take my wife
high--very high."
Yes, he would indeed take her high--very high. Now that what she wanted,
what she must have, was offering, how could she refuse? They were
crossing another square of green. He drew--almost dragged--her into one
of the by-paths, seized her in his arms, kissed her passionately. "I
can't resist you--I can't!" he cried.
"Don't--don't!" she murmured, violently agitated. "Some one might see!"
"Some one is seeing, no doubt," he said, his breath coming quickly, a
look that was primeval, ferocious almost, in his eyes as they devoured
her. And, despite her protests and struggles, she was again in those
savage arms of his, was again shrinking and burning and trembling under
his caresses. She flung herself away, sank upon a bench, burst out
crying.
"What is it, Margaret?" he begged, alarmed, yet still looking as if he
would seize her again.
"I don't know--I don't know," she replied.
Once more she tried to tell him that she did not love him, but the words
would not come. She felt that he would not believe her; indeed, she was
not sure of her own heart, of the meaning of those unprecedented
emotions that had risen under his caresses, and that stirred at the
memory of them. "Perhaps I am trying to love him," she said to herself.
"Anyhow, I must marry him. I can trifle with my future no longer. I must
be free of this slavery to grandmother. I must be free. He can free me,
and I can manage him, for he is afraid of me."
"Did I hurt you?" Craig was asking.
She nodded.
"I am so sorry," he exclaimed. "But when I touched you I
forgot--everything!"
She smiled gently at him. "I didn't dream you cared for me," she said.
He laughed with a boisterousness that irritated her. "I'd never have
dared tell you," replied he, "if I hadn't seen that you cared for me."
Her nerves winced, but she contrived to make her tone passable as she
inquired: "Why do you say that?"
"Oh--the day in the garden--the day I came pleading for Grant. I saw it
in your eyes--You remember."
Margaret could not imagine what he had misinterpreted so flatteringly to
himself. But what did it matter? How like ironic fate, to pierce him
with a chance shaft when all the shafts she had aimed had gone astray!
She was startled by his seizing her again. At his touch she flamed.
"Don't!" she cried imperiously. "I don't like it!"
He laughed, held her the more tightly, kissed her half a dozen times
squarely upon the lips. "Not that tone to me," said he. "I shall kiss
you when I please."
She was furiously angry; but again her nerves were trembling, were
responding to those caresses, and even as she hated him for violating
her lips, she longed for him to continue to violate them. She started
up. "Let us go," she cried.
He glanced at his watch. "I'll have to put you in a car," said he. "I
forgot all about my appointment." And he fumed with impatience while she
was adjusting her hat and veil pushed awry by his boisterous
love-making. "It's the same old story," he went on. "Woman weakens man.
You are a weakness with me--one that will cost me dear."
She burned with a sense of insult. She hated him, longed to pour out
denunciations, to tell him just what she thought of him. She felt a
contempt for herself deeper than her revulsion against him. In silence
she let him hurry her along to a car; she scarcely heard what he was
saying--his tactless, angry outburst against himself and her for his
tardiness at that important appointment. She dropped into the seat with
a gasp of relief. She felt she must--for form's sake--merely for form's
sake--glance out of the window for the farewell he would be certain to
expect; she must do her part, now that she had committed herself. She
glanced; he was rushing away, with never a backward look--or thought. It
was her crowning humiliation. "I'll make him pay for all this, some
day!" she said to herself, shaking with anger, her grandmother's own
temper raging cyclonically within her.