MAGGIE AND JOSH
Wrath is a baseless flame in the intelligent aged; also, Margaret's
grandmother was something more than a mere expert in social craft, would
have been woman of the world had not circumstances compressed her to its
petty department of fashionable society. Before Craig had cleared the
front door she was respecting him, even as she raged against him.
Insolent, impudent, coarsely insulting--yes, all these. But very much a
man, a masculine force; with weaknesses, it was true, and his full
measure of the low-sprung's obsequious snobbishness; but, for all that,
strong, persistent, concentrated, one who knew the master-art of making
his weaknesses serve as pitfalls into which his enemies were lured, to
fall victim to his strength.
"Yes, he will arrive," reflected Madam Bowker. "Branch will yet have to
serve him. Poor Branch! What a misery for a man to be born with a
master's mind but with the lack of will and courage that keeps a man a
servant. Yes, Craig will arrive!... What a pity he has no money."
But, on second thought, that seemed less a disadvantage. If she should
let him marry Margaret they would be dependent upon her; she could
control them--him--through holding the purse strings. And when that
remote time came at which it would please God to call her from her
earthly labors to their eternal reward, she could transfer the control
to Margaret. "Men of his origin are always weak on the social side," she
reflected. "And it wouldn't be in nature for a person as grasping of
power as he is not to be eager about money also."
With the advent of plutocratic fashion respect for official position had
dwindled at Washington. In Rome in the days when the imperators became
mere creatures of the army, the seat of fashion and of power was
transferred to the old and rich families aloof from the government and
buying peace and privilege from it. So Washington's fashionable society
has come to realize, even more clearly than does the rest of the
country, that, despite spasmodic struggles and apparent spurts of
reaction, power has passed to the plutocracy, and that officialdom is,
as a rule, servant verging toward slave. Still, form is a delusion of
tenacious hold upon the human mind. The old lady's discoveries of
Craig's political prospects did not warm her toward him as would news
that he was in the way of being vastly rich; but she retained enough of
the fading respect for high-titled office to feel that he was not the
quite impossibility she had fancied, but was fit to be an aspirant for
an aristocratic alliance.
"If Margaret doesn't fall in love with him after she marries him,"
reflected she, "all may be well. Of course, if she does she'll probably
ruin him and herself, too. But I think she'll have enough sense of her
position, of how to maintain it for herself, and for him and her
children, not to be a fool."
Meanwhile Craig was also cooling down. He had meant every word he
said--while he was saying it. Only one self-convinced could have been so
effective. But, sobering off from his rhetorical debauch in the quiet
streets of that majestic quarter, he began to feel that he had gone
farther, much farther, than he intended.
"I don't see how, in self-respect, I could have said less," thought he.
"And surely the old woman isn't so lost to decency that she can't
appreciate and admire self-respect."
Still he might have spoken less harshly; might have been a little
considerate of the fact that he was not making a stump speech, but was
in the drawing-room of a high-born, high-bred lady. "And gad, she IS a
patrician!"
His eyes were surveying the splendid mansions round about--the beautiful
window-gardens--the curtains at the windows, which he had learned were
real lace, whatever that might be, and most expensive. Very fine, that
way of living! Very comfortable, to have servants at beck and call, and
most satisfactory to the craving for power--trifles, it is true, but
still the substantial and tangible evidence of power. "And it impresses
the people, too. We're all snobs at bottom. We're not yet developed
enough to appreciate such a lofty abstraction as democracy."
True, Margaret was not rich; but the old grandmother was. Doubtless, if
he managed her right, she would see to it that he and Margaret had some
such luxury as these grandly-housed people--"but not too much, for that
would interfere with my political program." He did not protest this
positively; the program seemed, for the moment, rather vague and not
very attractive. The main point seemed to be money and the right sort of
position among the right sort of people. He shook himself, scowled,
muttered: "I am a damn fool! What do _I_ amount to except as I rise in
politics and stay risen? I must be mighty careful or I'll lose my point
of view and become a wretched hanger-on at the skirts of these fakers.
For they are fakers--frauds of the first water! Take their accidental
money away from them and they'd sink to be day laborers, most of
them--and not of much account there."
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 passionately.
"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 passes 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 nobody 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 ass 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 blustered. "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.
"What's the matter?" asked she, though she knew.
"I can't get used to this carriage business," said he. "I don't like it.
Where the private carriage begins just there democracy ends. It is the
parting of the ways. People who are driving have to look down; people
who aren't have to look up."
"Nonsense!" said Margaret, though it seemed to her to be the truth.
"Nonsense, of course," retorted Craig. "But nonsense rules the world."
He caught her roughly by the arm. "I warn you now, when we--"
"Run along, Josh," cried she, extricating herself and laughing, and with
a wave of the hand she vanished into the shrubbery. As soon as she was
beyond the danger of having to continue that curious conversation she
walked less rapidly. "I wonder what he really thinks," she said to
herself. "I wonder what I really think. I suspect we'd both be amazed at
ourselves and at each other if we knew."
Arrived at her grandmother's she had one more and huger cause for
wonder. There were a dozen people in the big salon, the old lady
presiding at the tea-table in high good humor. "Ah--here you are,
Margaret," cried she. "Why didn't you bring your young man?"
"He's too busy for frivolity," replied Margaret.
"I saw him this afternoon," continued Madam Bowker, talking aside to her
alone when the ripples from the new stone in the pond had died away.
"He's what they call a pretty rough customer. But he has his good
points."
"You liked him better?" said the astonished Margaret.
"I disliked him less," corrected the old lady. "He's not a man any
one"--this with emphasis and a sharp glance at her
granddaughter--"likes. He neither likes nor is liked. He's too much of
an ambition for such petty things. People of purpose divide their
fellows into two classes, the useful and the useless. They seek allies
among the useful, they avoid the useless."
Margaret laughed.
"Why do you laugh, child? Because you don't believe it?"
Margaret sighed. "No, because I don't want to believe it."