A FIGHT AND A FINISH
In his shrewd guess at Margaret's reason for dealing so summarily with
Arkwright, Craig was mistaken, as the acutest of us usually are in
attributing motives. He had slowly awakened to the fact that she was not
a mere surface, but had also the third dimension--depth, which
distinguishes persons from people. Whenever he tried to get at what she
meant by studying what she did, he fell into the common error of judging
her by himself, and of making no allowance for the sweeter and brighter
side of human nature, which was so strong in her that, in happier
circumstances, the other side would have been mere rudiment.
Her real reason for breaking with Grant was a desire to be wholly
honorable with Craig. She resolved to burn her bridges toward Arkwright,
to put him entirely out of her mind--as she had not done theretofore;
for whenever she had grown weary of Craig's harping on her being the
aggressor in the engagement and not himself, or whenever she had become
irritated against him through his rasping mannerisms she had straightway
begun to revolve Arkwright as a possible alternative. Craig's
personality had such a strong effect on her, caused so many moods and
reactions, that she was absolutely unable to tell what she really
thought of him. Also, when she was so harassed by doubt as to whether
the engagement would end in marriage or in a humiliation of jilting,
when her whole mind was busy with the problem of angling him within the
swoop of the matrimonial net, how was she to find leisure to examine her
heart? Whether she wanted him or simply wanted a husband she could not
have said.
She felt that his eccentric way of treating the engagement would justify
her in keeping Arkwright in reserve. But she was finding that there were
limits to her ability to endure her own self-contempt, and she
sacrificed Grant to her outraged self-respect. Possibly she might have
been less conscientious had she not come to look on Grant as an
exceedingly pale and shadowy personality, a mere vague expression of
well-bred amiability, male because trousered, identifiable chiefly by
the dollar mark.
Her reward seemed immediate. There came a day when Craig was all
devotion, was talking incessantly of their future, was never once
doubtful or even low-spirited. It was simply a question of when they
would marry--whether as soon as Stillwater fixed his date for retiring,
or after Craig was installed. She had to listen patiently to hours on
hours of discussion as to which would be the better time. She had to
seem interested, though from the viewpoint of her private purposes
nothing could have been less important. She had no intention of
permitting him to waste his life and hers in the poverty and uncertainty
of public office, struggling for the applause of mobs one despised as
individuals and would not permit to cross one's threshold. But she had
to let him talk on and on, and yet on. In due season, when she was ready
to speak and he to hear, she would disclose to him the future she had
mapped out for him, not before. He discoursed; she listened. At
intervals he made love in his violent, terrifying way; she endured, now
half-liking it, now half-hating it and him, but always enduring,
passive, as became a modest, inexperienced maiden, and with never a
suggestion of her real thoughts upon her surface.
It was the morning after one of these outbursts of his, one of unusual
intensity, one that had so worn upon her nerves that, all but revolted
by the sense of sick satiety, she had come perilously near to indulging
herself in the too costly luxury of telling him precisely what she
thought of him and his conduct. She was in bed, with the blinds just up,
and the fair, early-summer world visioning itself to her sick heart like
Paradise to the excluded Peri at its barred gate. "And if he had given
me half a chance I'd have loved him," she was thinking. "I do believe in
him, and admire his strength and his way of never accepting defeat. But
how can I--how CAN I--when he makes me the victim of these ruffian moods
of his? I almost think the Frenchman was right who said that every man
ought to have two wives.... Not that at times he doesn't attract me that
way. But because one likes champagne one does not wish it by the cask. A
glass now and then, or a bottle--perhaps--" Aloud: "What is it, Selina?"
"A note for you, ma'am, from HIM. It's marked important and immediate.
You told me not to disturb you with those marked important, nor with
those marked immediate. But you didn't say what to do about those marked
both."
"The same," said Margaret, stretching herself out at full length, and
snuggling her head into the softness of her perfumed hair. "But now that
you've brought it thus far, let me have it."
Selina laid it on the silk and swansdown quilt and departed. Margaret
forgot that it was there in thinking about a new dress she was planning,
an adaptation of a French model. As she turned herself it fell to the
floor. She reached down, picked it up, opened it, read:
"It's no use. Fate's against us. I find the President is making my
marriage the excuse for not appointing me. How lucky we did not announce
the engagement. This is a final good-by. I shall keep out of your way.
It's useless for you to protest. I am doing what is best for us both.
Thank me, and forget me."
She leaped from the bed with one bound, and, bare of foot and in her
nightgown only, rushed to the telephone. She called up the Arkwrights,
asked for Grant. "Wake him," she said. "If he is still in bed tell him
Miss Severence wishes to speak to him at once."
Within a moment Grant's agitated voice was coming over the wire: "Is
that you, Rita? What is the matter?"
"Come out here as soon as you can. How long will it be?"
"An hour. I really must shave."
"In an hour, then. Good-by."
Before the end of the hour she was pacing her favorite walk in the
garden, impatiently watching the point where he would appear. At sight
of her face he almost broke into a run. "What is it, Margaret?" he
cried.
"What have you been saying to Josh Craig?" she demanded.
"Nothing, I swear. I've been keeping out of his way. He came to see me
this morning--called me a dozen times on the telephone, too. But I
refused him."
She reflected. "I want you to go and bring him here," she said
presently. "No matter what he says, bring him."
"When?"
"Right away."
"If I have to use force." And Grant hastened away.
Hardly had he gone when Williams appeared, carrying a huge basket of
orchids. "They just came, ma'am. I thought you'd like to see them."
"From Mr. Arkwright?"
"No, ma'am; Mr. Craig."
"Craig?" ejaculated Margaret.
"Yes, Miss Rita."
"Craig," repeated Margaret, but in a very different tone--a tone of
immense satisfaction and relief. She waved her hand with a smile of
amused disdain. "Take them into the house, but not to my room. Put them
in Miss Lucia's sitting-room."
Williams had just gone when into the walk rushed Grant and Craig. Their
faces were so flurried, so full of tragic anxiety that Margaret,
stopping short, laughed out loud. "You two look as if you had come to
view the corpse."
"I passed Craig on his way here," explained Grant, "and took him into my
machine."
"I was not on my way here," replied Josh loftily. "I was merely taking a
walk. He asked me to get in and brought me here in spite of my
protests."
"You were on the road that leads here," insisted Arkwright with much
heat.
"I repeat I was simply taking a walk," insisted Craig. He had not once
looked at Margaret.
"No matter," said Margaret in her calm, distant way. "You may take him
away, Grant. And"--here she suddenly looked at Craig, a cold, haughty
glance that seemed to tear open an abysmal gulf between them--"I do not
wish to see you again. I am done with you. I have been on the verge of
telling you so many times of late."
"Is THAT what you sent Grant after me to tell me?"
"No," answered she. "I sent him on an impulse to save the engagement.
But while he was gone it suddenly came over me that you were
right--entirely right. I accept your decision. You're afraid to marry me
because of your political future. I'm afraid to marry you because of my
stomach. You--nauseate me. I've been under some kind of hideous spell.
I'm free of it now. I see you as you are. I am ashamed of myself."
"I thought so! I knew it would come!" exclaimed Arkwright triumphantly.
Craig, who had been standing like a stock, suddenly sprang into action.
He seized Arkwright by the throat and bore him to the ground. "I've got
to kill something," he yelled. "Why not you?"
This unexpected and vulgar happening completely upset Margaret's pride
and demolished her dignified pose. She gazed in horror at the two men
struggling, brute-like, upon the grass. Her refined education had made
no provision for such an emergency. She rushed forward, seized Craig by
the shoulders. "Get up!" she cried contemptuously, and she dragged him
to his feet. She shook him fiercely. "Now get out of here; and don't you
dare come back!"
Craig laughed loudly. A shrewd onlooker might have suspected from his
expression that he had deliberately created a diversion of confusion,
and was congratulating himself upon its success. "Get out?" cried he.
"Not I. I go where I please and stay as long as I please."
Arkwright was seated upon the grass, readjusting his collar and tie.
"What a rotten coward you are!" he said to Craig, "to take me off guard
like that."
"It WAS a low trick," admitted Josh, looking down at him genially. "But
I'm so crazy I don't know what I'm doing."
"Oh, yes, you do; you wanted to show off," answered Grant.
But Craig had turned to Margaret again. "Read that," he commanded, and
thrust a newspaper clipping into her hand. It was from one of the
newspapers of his home town--a paper of his own party, but unfriendly to
him. It read:
"Josh Craig's many friends here will be glad to hear that he is catching
on down East. With his Government job as a stepping-stone he has sprung
into what he used to call plutocratic society in Washington, and is
about to marry a young lady who is in the very front of the push. He
will retire from politics, from head-hunting among the plutocrats, and
will soon be a plutocrat and a palace-dweller himself. Success to you,
Joshua. The 'pee-pul' have lost a friend--in the usual way. As for us,
we've got the right to say, 'I told you so,' but we'll be good and
refrain."
"The President handed me that last night," said Craig, when he saw that
her glance was on the last line. "And he told me he had decided to ask
Stillwater to stay on."
Margaret gave the clipping to Grant. "Give it to him," she said and
started toward the house.
Craig sprang before her. "Margaret," he cried, "can you blame me?"
"No," said she, and there was no pose in her manner now; it was
sincerely human. "I pity you." She waved him out of her path and, with
head bent, he obeyed her.
The two men gazed after her. Arkwright was first to speak: "Well, you've
got what you wanted."
Craig slowly lifted his circled, bloodshot eyes to Arkwright. "Yes,"
said he hoarsely, "I've got what I wanted."
"Not exactly in the way a gentleman would like to get it," pursued
Grant. "But YOU don't mind a trifle of that sort."
"No," said Craig, "I don't mind a trifle of that sort. 'Bounder
Josh'--that's what they call me, isn't it?"
"When they're frank they do."
Craig drew a long breath, shook himself like a man gathering himself
together after a stunning blow. He reflected a moment. "Come along,
Grant. I'm going back in your machine."
"The driver'll take you," replied Arkwright stiffly. "I prefer to walk."
"Then we'll walk back together."
"We will not!" said Arkwright violently. "And after this morning the
less you say to me the better pleased I'll be, and the less you'll
impose upon the obligation I'm under to you for having saved my life
once."
"You treacherous hound," said Craig pleasantly. "Where did you get the
nerve to put on airs with me? What would you have done to her in the
same circumstances? Why, you'd have sneaked and lied out of it. And you
dare to scorn me because I've been frank and direct! Come! I'll give you
another chance. Will you take me back to town in your machine?"
A pause, Craig's fierce gaze upon Grant, Grant's upon the ground. Then
Grant mumbled surlily: "Come on."
When they were passing the front windows of the house Craig assumed that
Margaret was hiding somewhere there, peering out at them. But he was
wrong. She was in her room, was face down upon her bed, sobbing as if
her first illusion had fallen, had dashed to pieces, crushing her heart
under it.